“Abs!” Dutch said with a bit of excitement in his voice even though it was well after midnight. “Let me ask you something.”
“Go for it,” I said, trying to fumble one-handed with the seat belt while holding the tray of coffee and snacks on my lap. Candice held out her hand for my phone and I hit the speaker button before giving it to her to hold while I got settled.
“Do you remember your description of where you thought Leslie and Michael were located?” Dutch asked, his voice filling the cab of the car.
“Yes,” I said, wondering why he was asking me about it.
“Do you think that, given all the clues you were getting, it could be an abandoned mental hospital?”
“A what?”
“Hear me out,” he said, and the excitement in his voice ratcheted up another notch. “I was doing some research into the senator’s background and I discovered something rather strange. There was an article in one of the smaller papers in Joliet that reported that Matthew Derby had influenced the closing of a state asylum near the Indiana border. The paper suggested the state mental institution sat on some valuable property that a lobbyist for a local construction company had talked to Derby about. It appears there’s a lot of development in and around that area, and the construction company badly wanted the land the hospital sat on, but the state wouldn’t sell it because the institution had been in operation for over seventy years and it was filled to capacity with patients.”
My brow furrowed. “I still don’t see the connection,” I said. “I mean, yeah, I guess some of that fits the physical description, but not the section about the stadium-style seating or the theater atmosphere,” I said.
“But it does,” Dutch insisted. “The asylum was actually a teaching hospital with a large auditorium in the basement of the facility where psychology students could watch through a window as the hospital experimented with things like shock therapy, lobotomies, and various other treatments.”
“Whoa,” I said as my radar started to ding a loud Eureka! in my head.
“There’s more,” Dutch said. “For sixty years the state hospital was home to the most difficult cases of mental instability along with some of Illinois’ most notorious criminally insane. And, Abs, here’s where I think you nailed it: The paper said that the senator had managed to get the place closed by arguing that the facility was a hefty liability because the hospital was so understaffed. No one stayed there long and it was rumored by lots of people who went through those doors to be haunted. The paper found scores of ex-employees who swore the place abounded with poltergeist activity and no one liked working there, especially at night.”
Candice, who was still holding the phone, beamed at me. “You rock!” she said.
“Where is this place?” I asked.
“South of Chicago,” Dutch said. “Near Joliet.”
Candice glanced at me, her eyes lit with excitement, and I knew I didn’t like that look. “What’re you going to do?” I asked Dutch, and took the phone that Candice seemed to be in a rush to let go of all of a sudden.
He sighed into the phone. “Call Gaston and see if I can get clearance to organize a team to go down there and check it out. As far as I can tell, the hospital has been vacant for the past year while the legal red tape gets hammered out for the sale. I just wanted to call and bounce what I’d found off your radar.”
I clicked the phone off speaker and put it to my ear. “It all fits, sweetheart,” I said, feeling very proud of him. “Way to work those investigative skills!”
“Thanks. I’ll call you later and let you know what we find, okay?”
“Sounds good,” I told him as I yawned.
“Who’s driving?” he asked me, probably sensing my fatigue.
“Me. But I’m fine,” I reassured him.
“You’re not too tired?” he asked, and I was touched by his concern.
“No,” I said. “It’s all good. We’re all wide-awake, so no worries. You go back to getting clearance and organizing your team.”
We said our good-byes and I clicked off, noticing for the first time that Candice and Harrison were engaged in a very quiet conversation. “ . . . it’d take us less than an hour,” Candice was saying to him as she pointed to the small screen on her iPhone.
Harrison nodded. “You armed?”
Candice reached under her seat and came up with a massive-looking gun and an even bigger grin. “I never leave home without it. You?”
Harrison whipped out his own gun and I was surprised to see it matched Candice’s almost exactly. “Nice choice,” she said to him. “Can you shoot with that thing?” she added, pointing to his cast.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, flexing his fingers. “I’ll manage.”
“What’s going on?” I interrupted, knowing I wasn’t going to like the answer, especially when everyone was flashing a gun.
“We’re feeling up for a ghost tour,” Candice explained.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I gasped, looking at both of them in shock.
“It makes sense,” Harrison said reasonably. “We’re a lot closer than the task force and it’s going to take Agent Rivers at least a couple of hours to get a team together and get down here. If we can save him a couple of hours by getting there first, then it’s time well spent.”
My mouth fell open. “Are you two crazy?” I squealed.
“Abby,” Candice said soberly. “If you and Dutch are right and Michael is being held in that place, then we don’t have a minute to waste. Imagine if something happened to him during the time Dutch was trying to get a team to the location. Remember how you thought we had more time to find Leslie?”
I winced. “Ouch,” I said.
Candice’s face softened. “I’m sorry, honey,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bring that up, but we are a lot closer and we can be in and out of there quick if we need to be. If Michael’s in residence and we can get there in time to save him, I say we’ve got to try.”
I sighed heavily. When she put it like that, what choice did we really have? “Fine,” I groaned. “But I’m staying in the car.”
“Duh,” Candice said, and she and Harrison laughed like there’d never been any question about where I was going to be while they investigated the building.
Forty minutes later we were in the middle of nowhere on an old road that was in bad need of repair. Candice’s SUV jostled and bumped and gyrated, but as I sat uncomfortably in the passenger seat, I was the only one who seemed to notice. Both Candice and Harrison craned their necks forward as they peered through the windshield with focused determination. The SUV’s navigation system had lost the satellite signal as soon as we turned onto the road, which I thought was really weird, but no one else seemed to want to comment on it. Candice was too intent on keeping the car on the road, and Harrison was also staring straight ahead through the windshield watching for the first sign of the hospital. They were both doubly challenged because of the darkness of the night and the fact that there were no streetlights for miles around, which made it impossible to see more than about thirty yards ahead.
The road dipped and turned sharply and on either side were thick woods, giving a decidedly creepy air to the quest. Goose bumps lined my arms, and the hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up on end. It no longer gave me any comfort to think about staying in the car. I could sense something dark and awful up ahead, like a giant black hole in the ether that I knew I didn’t want to be in close proximity to. But I had no choice. We’d committed to the course we were on and my thoughts kept going back to poor Michael.
Finally the headlights lit on a small building to the side of the road and we realized that it was a guardhouse. As we approached, we could see that the gates to the grounds were wide open, giving credence to the thought that maybe it was currently in use. We drove past the guardhouse and through the tall gates, and wound up a long drive to the top of a hill where a three-story building of no architectural interest stood in haunting pos
e.
“Jesus,” Candice whispered as her SUV came to a stop, and she cut the engine but left the lights on. “That is one creepy building!”
I was now shaking all over and in a moment of weakness I reached over and grabbed her arm. “Don’t go in there!” I gasped.
Candice looked at me in shock. “Honey,” she soothed. “It’s okay.”
“I don’t like this, Candice!” I insisted. “Really, I think we should wait for Dutch’s team!”
“Okay,” she said, calmly. “Why don’t you call him, tell him we’re on-site, and ask him how far away he is?”
I breathed a sigh of relief and fumbled for my phone. But when I tried to make the call, I had no reception. “Damn it!” I swore.
“I’ve got no bars,” said Harrison, and I looked up to see him eyeing his phone skeptically.
“Me either,” said Candice. “We’re in a dead zone.”
I gulped. My radar said that Candice was right on that count. “I’m serious, you guys,” I said shakily. “I don’t think you should go in there.”
Candice eyed Harrison and I could tell they were both nervous, especially given the eerie image of the hospital in our headlights. And I knew I had almost convinced them to turn back when the night was split by the most bloodcurdling scream I’ve ever heard. It sounded like some poor soul was being subjected to the worst possible torture, and in an instant Harrison and Candice had their guns out and were reaching for the door handles. “Wait!” I begged them, but it was too late—another horrendous scream urged them out of the car.
Candice turned back to me briefly and yelled, “Stay put. I’ll be back in exactly fifteen minutes. If I’m not back by then, turn this car around and get the hell out of here!” With that, she slammed the door and hurried through the dark with Harrison and the two disappeared into the shadows.
I sat in the cab of the car shaking for several minutes before I realized that I hadn’t looked at the clock on the dash to mark the time when Candice and Harrison had left me. Glancing there now only caused more alarm as I realized that the car was turned off, and when I reached over to turn on the ignition, I was horrified to discover that Candice had inadvertently taken the keys with her. “Oh, sweet Jesus!” I squeaked as my eyes peered into the eerie stillness for any sign of Candice’s return.
I pulled up the sleeve of my jacket and squinted in the dim light at my watch. I could just make out that it was ten minutes to two. In my head I estimated that Harrison and Candice had been gone at least five minutes—probably longer—so I would give her until two a.m. before I gave in to a full-blown panic.
Time crept by with a slowness that increased my anxiety while I huddled in my seat and swiveled my head to and fro. “Come on, Candice!” I whispered into the stillness of the interior. “Come back!”
At five past two there was still no sign of her or Agent Harrison, and I’d heard nothing coming from the building to indicate that anything was either resolved or amiss. I decided to give it five more minutes . . .
. . . that turned into ten.
And then fifteen.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I swore, shivering in fear. I knew my partner and how punctual she was, and that when she made a promise, she kept it. Something had happened to prevent her from coming back, and I had a really bad feeling about it. My choices looked bleak. I could stay in the cab and hope that Dutch showed up sometime in the next few hours, or I could wait until daylight and run back along the road, hoping to stop someone for help. Or—and least appealing of all three choices—I could go into the building and try to find Candice.
What pushed me toward the third alternative was that I had a strong gut feeling that she was in very serious trouble, and that I didn’t have the luxury of waiting around for the cavalry to come or for me to go find help.
My mind made up, I took a few deep breaths and with trembling hands I opened the car door. A cold wind whipped my hair around and made the trembling worse. I shivered and tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry as the desert.
I was just closing the car door when three gunshots cut through the night like cannon fire. I dropped to the ground and covered my head, barely resisting the urge to pee in my pants.
My ears waited to hear something else, but the night returned to its creepy stillness and I began to cry. Staying low to the ground, I huddled next to the SUV and peered in earnest for some sign to indicate that the good guys were okay. But nothing moved and no other sounds were heard. I waited another ten minutes just to be sure, and then when the cold wind made me so uncomfortable that I couldn’t stand it anymore, I stood partially up and thought about what to do.
I gazed longingly at the cab of the SUV, but something told me that if I stayed there, I’d be a sitting duck for whoever had either fired those shots or done something terrible to my two companions. “Son of a bitch!” I muttered, feeling out of choices and very much like there was no right move to make.
Forcing myself to breathe evenly, I tried to formulate a plan. “Think, Abby, think!” I told myself. I had no idea who had fired those rounds, but I knew I couldn’t go into that building without some kind of a weapon. Quickly I crawled back into the SUV and rummaged around in the back, pulling out Candice’s duffel. “Please have a spare gun!” I whined. But I was out of luck. The only thing I did find was the small flashlight she’d given me to use when we broke into the Derby residence and a can of pepper spray. “Beggars can’t be choosers,” I mumbled, and pocketed the spray and the light.
Moving out of the car, I crouched low and made it over to the side of the building, where I hugged the cold brick and took a few more deep breaths. Moving slowly around the side of the building while looking for a way in, I was almost relieved when I found a window with the pane partially smashed. As quietly as I could, I knocked out the remaining glass with the flashlight, then pulled the sleeves of my sweatshirt over my hands to protect them from any shards and heaved myself carefully through the window.
Landing with a crunching sound on the parquet floor, I ducked low and held still for a long moment, listening for any type of noise or disturbance. Nothing came to my ears, so I stood up and surveyed the room I was in.
It was too dark to see much, so I risked turning on the flashlight, aiming the beam around to get my bearings. The room was small, probably only ten by twelve, and there was an old desk set up against the right wall. Some boxes cluttered the corner, but other than those items, the room was empty.
I moved toward the door and clicked off the light. Pressing my ear to the wood, I held my breath and listened. Nothing sounded out beyond the door, so I grabbed the handle and began to turn the knob when just outside I heard the clomp, clomp, clomp of footsteps approaching. I gasped and held still again, waiting. The footsteps came closer at an even pace, growing louder until they seemed right outside my door. And then instead of continuing on, they suddenly stopped. I pulled my head away from the wood where I’d been listening intently and stared at the handle as my heart hammered in my chest. I was so scared I don’t think I took a single breath for the next thirty seconds as I waited to see if the owner of the footfalls would open the door to discover me. But then, as if that person had made his or her point in scaring me nearly to death, the footsteps began to clomp on down the rest of the hallway until they faded away.
My heart continued to thunder in my chest and I rested my head against the door, taking deep breaths. My hand was now shaking so violently that I had to let go of the door handle and I counted to ten, then to twenty, then to a hundred, hoping that would help calm me down. It did and after gathering my courage, I carefully turned the knob and cracked the door open a tiny bit.
Pressing my ear to the crack in the door, I listened. All was quiet. “Please let there be no one out there!” I whispered in the dark, and shivering in earnest again, I pulled the door open just a bit farther.
The door creaked and I winced, then held perfectly still, listening for a moment before I tried short little tugs on the door t
o keep the creaking to a minimum. When I finally had a space wide enough to allow me out into the hall, I slid sideways through the opening and pressed myself to the wall in the corridor.
It was pitch-black in here and I blinked several times, hoping my eyes would adjust enough so that I didn’t have to switch on the flashlight, but it was no use. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of my face.
Gripping the flashlight, I turned it on, but kept my finger on the switch in case I needed to turn it off quickly. The hallway was long and there were many doors with empty nameplates. I realized that I must be in the part of the building assigned to the offices of the various psychiatrists who had once worked here.
Taking slow deliberate steps while I hugged the wall of the corridor, I made my way down the hallway back toward the front of the building. Nearing the corner, I noticed a window and that section of the hallway wasn’t as dark as the middle section where I’d entered, so I clicked off the flashlight, gave myself a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, and crept toward the corner.
I had gone maybe five feet closer to the window when a large, dark shadow passed right in front of the pane and moved out of view. I clamped my hand over my mouth, barely holding in a scream.
I started to feel dizzy and realized that my breathing was so intense I was on the verge of hyperventi lating. I eased myself down to a crouch position and concentrated on holding on to the little bit of air that I could get into my lungs. After a minute or two the panic lessened and I looked back to the window. No sound came to me and no further movement caught my searching eye.
“You can do this, Abby,” I said in a tiny whisper. “Come on, girl. Get it together.” Using every ounce of courage I had left, I rose to my feet again and made some progress down the rest of the hallway.
When I got to the window, I paused long enough to take a deep breath before allowing myself a small peek around the corner. There was a short hallway in front of me that opened up to what looked like the lobby. The front doors, with their large panes of glass, were allowing enough light from the headlights still on from Candice’s SUV that I could make out the eerie shapes quite well.