Laurel gaped at her in disbelief. “Why would Rose McGowan be wandering around the Tucson farmers’ market in November?”
“Well, obviously, she wasn’t,” snapped Emma. Her throat ached and she felt as if she was choking—it took her a minute to realize she was fighting back a sob. She took her purse back from Laurel. “Come on, we’d better get back.”
She turned on her heel and strode back to the plaza without another word. Laurel chased after her.
“I think you’re cracking up,” Laurel muttered.
Emma was starting to agree with her. She put her hand in her purse and felt the outline of the hospital key card. Nightmare or no, she had to act. If she sat around waiting any longer to see what Becky might do, she’d end up going crazy herself.
She had to keep it together. Her life depended on it—and any hope I had for justice depended on it, too.
25
FILE M FOR MURDER
Emma stepped off the elevator into the psych wing that afternoon for the third time. This time, though, she had a plan. She’d stopped on the basement level first, using Nisha’s passkey to get into the laundry so she could borrow a volunteer’s uniform. The only one she could find was a size too small, so it looked more like a naughty nurse costume, the red-and-white fabric clinging to her curves. She’d tied her hair back in a tight bun and wiped away all her makeup in the hope that the nurses wouldn’t recognize her as the girl who’d caused so much trouble earlier that week. Last but not least, she put on a pair of black-framed reading glasses she’d found on Mr. Mercer’s bedside table. If it worked for Clark Kent, it’d work for her.
None of the nurses reacted as she passed the station, barely even glancing up from their filing and typing. The ward was as quiet as ever, a silence heavy with drugged sleep and barely suppressed panic. Emma heard a voice in one of the bedrooms chanting a children’s rhyme. “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies. Ashes, ashes …” The person trailed off into garbled laughter, or maybe it was sobs. Emma couldn’t tell. She forced herself not to walk too quickly away from the sound. She was supposed to look like she belonged here.
The now familiar pulse of the ward’s emotions thudded dully around me. It felt like quicksand, pulling me down. I hovered close to my sister, clinging to her thoughts and feelings, trying to stay afloat.
As she passed the common room, she saw the same blank faces angled toward the television set, the same dark-haired woman rocking herself violently in the corner. Mr. Silva sat in the armchair he’d occupied two nights earlier. His eyes met hers and narrowed suspiciously. She held her breath, half expecting him to get out of his chair, to come toward her sniffing like a dog.
But after a moment, he turned back to the television set, his black eyes losing focus. She wiped the sweat off her forehead and kept moving.
Around a few more corners she found it: a wooden door labeled RECORDS. She swiped her card against the reader and heard the lock click. Glancing up the hallway to make sure no one had noticed, she slid in and shut the door behind her.
The light fluttered on, revealing a narrow closet filled with dusty metal cabinets reaching from floor to ceiling. Carefully typed alphabetic labels were affixed to the front of each drawer. Emma took a moment to listen to the room’s deep silence, her blood pounding in her ears. For better or worse, she was moments from finding out the truth about her mother.
She traced her fingers over the letters on the cabinets until she found a drawer labeled L–N. She gave the drawer a firm tug. It didn’t budge.
Then she noticed the LED screen blinking on the top of the cabinet. PLEASE ENTER CODE, read the message. She stared blankly at it. What was it Nisha had said? My mother’s birthday is September seventh. Emma reached a trembling finger up to type 0907 on the keypad. The drawer slid smoothly open.
Inside, it bulged with files, each one packed with documents, forms, and even photos. Emma scanned the labels quickly, trying to get her bearings in the dense forest of alphabetized folder tags. Her eyes darted over a particularly fat file. Then she did a double take. Her gaze shot back to the file. “Landry,” she whispered.
She thought of Ethan’s mother shuffling past the living room window, wearing a threadbare robe. She’d had cancer … but did she also have psychological issues? Before Emma could stop herself, her fingers reached for the file and pulled it out. Her breath caught in her throat when she saw the patient’s first name printed precisely on the cover. It wasn’t Mrs. Landry’s file at all. It was Ethan’s.
Emma’s fingers tightened around the edge of the manila folder. Maybe it was a different Ethan Landry. It had to be a common name. There had to be an explanation.