Had to.
Thoughts of Nick vanished the moment Josie turned her car into the parking lot for Old St. Mary’s Hospital. A military facility housed in an old naval hospital outside Annapolis, it was a typical mid-Atlantic fa?ade of brick and white columns, with parallel wings stretching out from either side. Three stories of barred windows gazed out onto the parking lot, thin slits in the moldering brick walls that looked more like the ramparts of a castle than a hospital.
Josie could almost feel the despair radiating from the hospital. Aside from a half dozen cars in the parking lot and a new wheelchair ramp added to the stone steps at the entrance, the building looked abandoned. She’d pictured it as more of a bustling hospital, doctors and orderlies rushing around, an ambulance parked out front. Instead, the only movement was the rippling of leaves from the large elms that flanked the south side of the building.
As Josie stared at Old St. Mary’s, she tried to imagine her mom, confused and scared, staring out onto a strange world wondering if she’d ever see home again.
Nick had tried to warn Josie about what she might find when she got there. “Josie,” he had said in that straightforward way. “You need to be prepared for what you might find.”
Josie had looked up sharply. “Prepared?”
It was true. For six months she’d been locked away while doctors continually told her she was not in her right mind. Josie pictured Jo and Mr. Byrne visiting her. Her mom would have known right away that this wasn’t her family, which would only have strengthened the claims that she was nuts. Maybe after six months she was beginning to believe it?
Or worse. Maybe her ordeal had changed her. Permanently.
Josie pushed her fears out of her mind as she walked up the front steps of the hospital.
The first odd thing about Old St. Mary’s struck her the moment she walked through the door. Instead of a receptionist, two military guards greeted her. One sat at an enormous desk surrounded by security monitors. The other stood behind him, shouldering an automatic weapon. Neither of them looked at her.
“Do you have an appointment?” the seated guard asked. His eyes never left the monitors, and though Josie couldn’t see what they showed, she watched his eyes bounce furiously around from screen to screen.
“Josephine Byrne,” Josie said by way of an answer.
The guard clacked away at a keyboard hidden beneath the desk. Within a few seconds, a printer whirred into action. His eyes still fixed on the security monitors, he leaned back and whipped a preprinted ID badge out of the print tray, affixed an alligator clip, and handed it to Josie.
“Wear the badge at all times. Lieutenant Maynes will escort you back,” he said.
The armed guard nodded. “This way.”
The guard led Josie through a maze of corridors. He walked quickly, apparently uninterested in whether or not Josie managed to keep up. Josie felt like they’d walked in circles before they stopped abruptly at a glass security door. The guard placed his hand flat against a pad on the wall, and after a few seconds, a loud beep sounded from the door and it slid open.
A handprint security door in a hospital? That didn’t seem right.
The guard, however, didn’t enter through the open security door. Instead, he stood aside and flanked the doorway. She glanced at him but got nothing. He stared straight ahead of him at the wall.
“Am I supposed to go in?” she asked.
Silence.
Really? Not even a nod of his head? Sheesh, what was this place?
Josie took the hint and passed through the door. She found herself in a stark white room shaped like a giant semicircle, with eight or nine of the same glass security doors facing inward at her. No desk. No doctors. Just doors. She turned back to the guard, but the door immediately slid closed. Josie could see the guard outside, at attention. Not looking at her.
“Miss Byrne?” a voice said. Josie spun around and saw a woman in a white doctor’s jacket smiling at her broadly. She was young, maybe thirty, with a short, dark bob and narrow brown eyes that seemed to disappear beneath the weight of her smile.
“Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Cho,” she said, her voice light and airy, like the way grown-ups speak to toddlers. “I’ve been working with your mom for the last few months.”
“Oh.”
“She’s been remembering a little bit more as of late, so I’m glad you’ve decided to come back. Maybe it will help her reconnect to her old life.”
Josie smiled grimly. Dr. Cho’s words held more truth than she knew.