He grins again, but this time there’s nothing innocent about it. The mask is off. I’m at last seeing the real Donny Ray Smith—the demon—but only because he’s chosen to let me, and only because he knows this is the exact moment it will levy the greatest damage. As I’ve learned, every word he speaks, every facial expression, is a carefully calculated move designed to control and deceive. To do harm.
Donny Ray walks to the door. Peering through the window at Evan, he says, “We have to get out of here.”
My pulse erratically changes because he’s just said the same thing Stanley did before his disappearance.
I labor to hold my voice steady. “Donny Ray, what are you talking about?”
“You know.” Keeping his back to me, he bobs his head up and down.
“I really don’t.”
“Nicholas and Stanley are already gone. Melinda and Gerald, also.”
“Yes, that’s more than obvious. And your point?”
“You let them go. We should go, too.”
“I didn’t let anyone go, and it was never my goal to get you out of here. I was here to help find the truth. Remember that? The truth? That thing you seemed so passionate about?”
“Yes, I know it well.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “But I don’t think the truth is what you want.”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
He leans in closer toward the window then waves to Evan, and I let out a small laugh, marveling at the arrogance that allows him the luxury of taunting a uniformed police officer.
Donny Ray finally turns around and gives me his attention. “You know exactly what I mean.” He cocks a brow. “The truth has been right in front of you all this time. You’re avoiding it.”
“Stop talking nonsense and get to the point.”
“Stop talking nonsense and get to the point.”
All this time, he’s been carefully handpicking which of my statements to parrot back as a method to throw me further off-balance, but I’m not playing along anymore.
“And quit mimicking me,” I say, at last drawing the line. “It’s disruptive.”
“I’m just trying to help you.”
“Let’s make one thing perfectly clear, Donny Ray. I’m the doctor, and you’re the patient. The only help you can offer is to dispense with the mind games.”
“I’m the doctor and you’re the patient. The only help you can offer is to dispense with the mind games,” he answers back. “Speaking of the truth, have you figured out yet what’s happened to all the people around here?”
I supply no answer. He wouldn’t have asked if he really wanted to know. Direct isn’t exactly his style.
“Who do you think is making them all disappear?”
The look on his face and tone of voice are ambiguous enough to indicate he’s posing an innocent question, but I can read the subtext. Donny Ray wants me to think he’s making the people of Loveland vanish.
I can’t wait him out any longer. Things are moving too quickly all around me, the body count dropping, my mind crumbling. It’s time to force the issue.
“You can also dispense with all the mundane weaving and skirting,” I tell him. “I’m not at all impressed, and it only makes you appear more tragic and sad.”
“You’re looking into a mirror, Christopher,” he says and takes a firm step toward me, expression suddenly stern. Dangerous.
“You smack of impotence and desperation, Donny Ray—actually you stink of it. So here’s an idea. Instead of putting all your weaknesses on parade, how about if we just cut bait and get to the point. You can start by telling me why you came into my life.”
He moves closer toward me. His smile is tight and angry. “I came into your life to tear it down, and I’m not going to stop until I break it. That sweet, beautiful little boy of yours is the last thing holding it up. But not for long.”
I stand straight up, every part of my being wanting to reach for his neck and rip out his windpipe. Rancor like I’ve never before known collects in my throat, and from it comes a low gnarling sound I barely recognize as my own.
“I will take you out, first.”
“That’s just not going to happen,” he snarls back.
“You’re full of it, Donny Ray. You’ve got no power inside this institution.”
“I have all the power.”
“Yeah? Prove it.”
His biting expression melds into a knowing smirk. “Your proof is waiting just outside the door.”
The window is empty. I rush forward, then stare at the vacant spot where Evan once stood. I glance up and down the hallway, and it feels like a brick has just dropped into the pit of my stomach because there’s no sign of him anywhere.
Evan has become one of the missings.
“Christopher?”
I reel around.
“You never asked what I did with the bodies,” Donny Ray Smith tells me.
He’s not talking about the missing girls.
71
Donny Ray has been emptying out Loveland.
But how?
You already know.
“Know what?”
I told you. It’s an inside job. He’s got an underground army at Loveland. They’ve been helping him yank all those people out, and they’re going to keep helping him. You have to do something, fast.
I have to do something fast, have to figure out a plan. I’ve got to stop him.
I begin weighing options. My first priority is to keep Devon safe. I can do that, so long as I keep Donny Ray locked inside these walls.
Wrong.
“What?”
You can’t keep him inside Loveland. You never could.
“Why not?”
Because you built these walls in your mind. He can penetrate them whenever he wants. Do you honestly believe he can’t walk right out of here himself?
“That’s nonsense. He would have already left.”
He hasn’t left because he doesn’t want to, yet.
“Why not?”
I’ve already told you that, too, and he just confirmed it. Donny Ray didn’t come here for the evaluation—he came here to destroy you. The Big Plan. Now that the job’s almost done, he can split whenever he wants.
“Oh, God. You’re right.”
Donny Ray has the power to leave now and go after Devon. I have to regroup, figure out a strategy to stop him. I sprint down the hallway, fear and urgency chasing after me like a pack of wild dogs with the taste of fresh blood.