"Presumably." I looked out the window. "Any idea where we are?"
"You're the one with the GPS."
"Yes, but I haven't seen a landmark for almost ten minutes."
We were in the countryside. That much was obvious. On a dark, empty secondary highway. About a half hour outside Chicago, if I'd calculated the distance properly.
"There's a town ahead," Ricky said. "Big one, judging by that glow."
I checked my phone GPS. "Looks like we're going to turn off before we reach it. Take the next right. We're getting close."
Two more turns and we were there. Wherever "there" was. We passed a laneway leading into a golf course. It wasn't one I recognized. I'm not much of a golfer, but James is, and this didn't look like a course we would have played. It was meant for locals who wanted to knock a few balls around a half-dozen times a year. At three in the morning, it was pitch-black.
The GPS led us past it to a laneway with gates. Huge gates, adorned with Keep Out and Private Property and Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. Also, massive padlocks.
"Let me out here," I said.
Ricky did. I went up and checked the gates. Chains looped them shut, but the locks were unfastened. I peered through. The lane led to a group of dark buildings surrounded by empty fields. Hell of a place to drive into. Anyone watching would see us coming for a quarter mile.
I jangled the chains, then called back to Ricky, louder than necessary, "Seems to be locked tight."
He could see damn well that the chains weren't secured, but he said, "Think the call was a prank?"
"Maybe." I made a show of squinting through the gates again. "Let's drive around."
I climbed back into the car.
"It's too open," I said as he backed onto the road. "But if Macy's captor is listening, which I presume he is, I didn't want him to think we were taking off."
"You're pretty good at this stuff."
"It's in my genes," I said. "And I have Gabriel for a teacher."
"No shit, huh?"
As Macy had said, a cemetery bordered the property. Cemetery on one side, golf course on the other. Both dark and silent and empty. Two routes to choose from.
We parked at the golf course, looped around, and walked in through the cemetery. We'd dressed dark. Ricky wore a light T-shirt but had zipped his leather jacket over it. Remembering our game in the cabin woods, I let him take the lead. He walked silently, as if knowing where to step to avoid cracking twigs and crunching stones. As we moved, I could practically feel the low strum of energy vibrating from him, that dark and delicious mix of tension and adrenaline. When he'd glance back to check on me, his eyes glittered, as they had in the woods.
We reached the cemetery. It was a modern one, no weathered headstones and moss-laden mausoleums. Just row after row of death. We cut our way through as if the gravestones were merely obstacles. If there was anything frightening about a cemetery at night, it was lost on me. Always had been.
A strip of woods separated the cemetery and the abandoned buildings. Ricky stopped at the edge. He glanced back to make sure I had my gun out. He nodded, took something from his jacket, and palmed it. When I leaned in to see what it was, he opened his fist to show a metal cylinder. He pressed a button. A knife shot out.
"Switchblade," I said. "Nice. I could use one of those."
"That's not enough?" he whispered, pointing at my gun.
"It does the job, if the job is to kill. I need a backup that's not always so lethal."
"You could try getting yourself into fewer situations where you need a weapon."
"I suspect that's not happening anytime soon."
A short laugh and he nodded as we carried on.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
We reached the middle of the strip of forest, which was so thin we could see the fields on either side. When I heard an almost soundless whoosh-whoosh, I looked up to see an owl passing overhead. It was huge, like the ones I'd seen in Cainsville a month ago, a pair that had ripped apart a raven. I found myself looking for a second one. I knew this couldn't be the same owl, and I was sure they hunted alone. Yet when I looked, I saw another in a tree just ahead. The first lighted in the same one, and they sat there, watching us silently.
Oddly, seeing them seemed to calm me. Their unblinking gazes said to be alert and be safe. Stay watchful.
It took a moment for Ricky to notice them. When he did, he stopped.
"Now that's creepy," he said.
"Is it?"
He shivered. "Um, yeah."
I guess we didn't agree on everything. As we continued, he kept sneaking glances up at the owls, as if expecting them to dive-bomb us. It was cute, really. He'd just walked through a graveyard at night, accompanying me into a potential death trap, but what freaked him out was a pair of owls.
As we passed, they watched us go. Then they took off, flying overhead in the same direction we were heading.
"Hey, they're leading the way," I said as I pointed.
"To our deaths probably," Ricky muttered. "They carry off children in the night, you know."
"Then I guess it's a good thing we aren't children. Where'd you hear that?"
"I used to read all that stuff when I was a kid. Every now and then it just pops up."
"For me it's omens. Someone stuffed them in my head, and they crop up at the most inconvenient times."
"Yeah? Nothing about owls, then?"
"Only if it's daytime. Although if you hear an owl hoot between houses, it means someone has lost her virginity. I think we're okay there, too. And if a pregnant woman hears an owl, her child will be blessed. Again, we should be fine. At least, I hope so."
"They didn't hoot."
"Excellent."
He grinned back at me, and I returned the smile. I hadn't planned to mention the omens, but as soon as the topic came up, I'd jumped on it, as if eager to unburden myself. When I'd confessed my mental library of superstitions to James, he'd thought it was adorable, in that slightly condescending way that made me wish I'd never opened my mouth. Ricky only said, "So I guess you won't think my stories are so weird, huh?"
"I won't."
He returned to cutting the trail. He definitely must have better night vision than me, because he brought us out behind a building, where we could safely exit under cover of shadow.
We were behind a brick structure maybe half the size of the Gallaghers' cabin. Tiny for a residence, but that's what it looked like, one of at least a dozen squatting along a narrow road. Sterile brick boxes with barred windows and heavy doors. Cells more than homes. When I touched a brick, I shuddered.
"Can we agree this place is creepy?" Ricky whispered.
I nodded and pulled my hand back. "Macy said it wasn't an army base, but that's what it looks like."
"Could be. We're heading to the biggest building, right?"
"Yep. In the middle."
He surveyed the landscape. Beyond the pillbox houses we could make out buildings a couple of stories tall. We stuck to shadows and silence as we made our way toward them.
I made notes of my surroundings, trying to arrange everything into a mental map. There'd been only one road leading in, but there were more here, laid out in a grid pattern. Like an army base or other "prepackaged" community. What else needed to be isolated like this? A prison? A commune? It seemed too open for the former and too industrial for the latter.
We were passing the last of the houselike buildings when I caught sight of words carved into the foundation. I touched Ricky's arm to stop him as I bent to read. Someone had painstakingly etched a sentence into the concrete blocks.
There is no freedom from the prison of the mind.
I looked around at the tiny houses with no glass in the barred windows. With doors that could be locked from the outside.
I fought chills as I rose. We continued on, me following in Ricky's tracks as we skirted a two-story building, circling until we could see around the front.
There was a car in the middle of the ma
in road. The interior light was on, the passenger door open. Across the street stood a building that looked like a high school. A long three-story rectangle, saved from architectural obscurity by a tower rising an extra twenty feet over the main doors. On top of the tower was a cross with a broken arm. To the left, an empty flagpole groaned in the wind. There was a balcony on the front tower, half the railing missing.
Over the main doors, I could make out a sign, with letters big enough to read in the moonlight. Part of the first word was obscured, but I could see the rest. State Hospital.
"Hospital?" Ricky whispered. "Way out here? With cabins for patients?"
"It's a mental hospital."
"An asylum?"
I gazed around. Those locked box cabins wouldn't exactly meet modern standards for mental care, but they weren't cages, either. I took in the architecture. Early twentieth century. The rise of modern psychiatry, if I remembered my college classes. Not anyplace I'd want to stay but past the era of treating patients like animals.
"An early psychiatric institution," I whispered. "Not Bedlam, but not up to today's code."
An experiment, it seemed, in a more humane way to treat the mentally ill. Still locking them up and keeping them away from normal folks, but giving them some sense of a community. Yet I remembered those words carved in stone, and a chill ran through me, as it hadn't in the cemetery. That was death. Final and unavoidable. This . . . ?
There is no freedom from the prison of the mind.
I shook it off. Knowing the function of the compound helped, if only to keep my brain from whirring to solve the puzzle. Ricky motioned he was going to slip from the shelter of the building and take a look down the road. I stayed where I was and watched him as he crept along the wall. He moved three careful steps from it, staying in its shadow as he peered down the lane.
He scanned the collection of buildings. Then he gestured for me to wait as he set out, flush with the wall then crossing the gap to the next building with a few fluid steps, never pausing to check where he put his feet down, as if knowing they'd land silently. When he did pause, his gaze swept the road, his head moving slowly, deliberately.
He looks like he's hunting.
Desire and fascination mingled unbidden as I watched him. Wind blustered past, and his blond hair whipped against his face, but he didn't even seem to notice, just kept looking along the buildings. Then he returned to me.
"Someone's down there," he said. "Watching for us."
"Third building across the road, right? I noticed a faint light."
He shook his head. "Too obvious. That's a decoy. Same as the building beside this one where the door's cracked open. Both are staged. He's in the one to the right of it. Second story. Left front corner room."
"What's the giveaway?"
"I drew him out, standing in the road like that. He knows you're not alone now, which should put him on notice. If the girl's over there"--he pointed at the three-story building--"he can't get to her without us seeing. You can go look for her while I keep an eye on him."
"Thank you."
Keeping an eye on our mystery man didn't mean staying where we were. There was no need, now that he'd spotted Ricky. So we darted to the car, using that for cover, before dashing to the three-story building across the road.
The open front door was plastered with more No Trespassing and Private Property signs, along with warnings that the building was in unsafe condition and trespassing could result in serious injury or death. Judging by the number of jimmy marks in the frame, the warnings hadn't stopped urban explorers intent on taking a look.
The door opened into a reception room. It seemed tiny, given the size of the building. I guess they hadn't expected many visitors. A counter extended across the room, with mail cubbies behind it. Bits of crumbled concrete and blown-in leaves littered the floor. My footsteps crunched across the debris as we walked.
I took out my phone, for both the flashlight and the directions I'd jotted down from Macy's instructions.
"I need to go that way," I said, pointing. There were doorways at either end of the reception area, the doors long gone.
"And I'll go that way." Ricky pointed opposite. "Upstairs, where I have a better vantage point. Can you stand watch while I do that? I'll text when I'm in place."
I nodded.
"Be careful in here," he whispered. "Just because I know where the girl's kidnapper is doesn't mean he's alone."
"I know."
It took Ricky a few minutes to get upstairs. Then he texted to say he could still see the guy, and I set out.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
The open doorway led to a hall. The exit I wanted was on my left, with its door hanging by the top hinge. I walked through it into another hall, this one so short I wondered why they bothered making it a hall at all. It was really more of an entranceway, leading into a cavernous room. I stepped inside.
Huge windows let in enough moonlight for me to look around. The room took up two stories, with rows of pipes hanging from the ceiling. Were they pipes? Or had they once held lighting? I couldn't tell from down here. As for what the room had been used for, there was little doubt of that. There were still a few metal bed frames, bolted to the floor.
As I moved through the ward, movement flickered above. Rotting rafters showed through chunks of missing ceiling. A black shape took form on one of the suspended pipes. I lifted my flashlight to see a perched raven watching me.
"Ewch i ffwrdd, bran," I muttered.
The raven lifted its wings, ruffling its feathers as if offended. Then it settled back into silent watching. At another flash of motion, I noticed a hole in the roof. Moonlight streamed through it. Then the moon vanished as an owl glided past.
Ravens and owls. That's no coincidence. They're here for a reason.
Watching me.
I kept going with one eye on the raven. It didn't move. I passed through the left doorway at the end of the ward and came out into . . .
A bathroom.
Not a restroom, but an actual room of baths. Four deep tubs, built right into the floor of the narrow room. For hydrotherapy, I presumed. Writing covered the walls. Not the "AJ was here!"-style graffiti I'd seen elsewhere, but lines like "a clean body is not a clean mind" and "out, damned spot" and "water cannot wash away the sins of the soul."
A squeak sounded from the farthest tub. When I walked over, I could see it was filled with water. Bits of paper floated on top.
No, not paper. Petals. Red poppy petals.
I looked back at the doorway, but there was no sign of the raven or the owls. Just me, alone in this room, seeing poppies. I forced myself forward. Filthy water reached almost to the brim. The petals floated on it.
With the gun in my right hand, I reached out my left and touched the water. As I scooped petals, my fingers brushed something under the surface. I stumbled back, but fingers grabbed my wrist. A shape shot up from the filthy water. The bloated corpse of a dark-haired woman. Her mouth opened, a horrible, twisted, swollen mouth, skin sloughing off, teeth hanging loose.
"Your fault," she said. "All yours."
I wrenched away and my hand came free, her skin still clinging to it, as if I'd yanked the bloated flesh from her bones. I fell back, hitting the floor, a scream clogged in my throat, looking up to see--
I was alone in an empty room.
I stuffed my gun in my pocket, and without thinking I pulled out something else. The boar's tusk. I gripped it tight and pushed to my feet and looked into the tub. It was empty. I reached down to see if the sides were wet. As I did, I realized I was still clutching something in my left hand. I opened it and a trio of damp poppy petals fell into the dry tub. I stared at them. Then I picked them up, fingers rubbing the petals to reassure myself they were real. I put them into my pocket and continued on.
The next room was a lavatory, with a row of toilets along one wall. Only low walls divided them, and if there had ever been doors, I couldn't see any remnants of them.
I
checked each stall as I moved through the room. Only when I reached the last did I notice writing on the opposite wall. Three words. Written in foot-high block letters.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
I swallowed and rubbed my arms. I tried to pull my gaze away, but it kept returning to those words, somehow more haunting than any that had come before.
I DON'T UNDERSTAND.
I didn't understand. Not any of it. Not the ravens, not the owls, not the hallucinations and the poppies, not even what the hell I was doing here, walking through an abandoned psychiatric hospital, clutching a gun and a boar's tusk. Part of me wanted to just stop and scream, "I don't understand!" and demand that the universe reply. That it give me answers. It wouldn't. Those were up to me.
As I pulled my gaze from the words, a shadow darted past the next doorway. I dashed to it just in time to see a figure run into yet another room in this labyrinth of decay.
I raced in to find the next room empty, with no sign of what it had been used for. According to the directions, the door to Macy was on my left. The figure had darted through the door to my right. I went right. I told myself I chose that because it might have been Macy, but I knew it wasn't. Someone else was here.
I jogged through that doorway and through another, following the dark figure. Then I stopped short. I was in an empty room with only one entrance. The door slapped shut behind me.
I swung my gun on the figure standing by the now-closed door. It was the guy I'd caught trying to break into Ricky's apartment.
"Oh." He looked at the gun, a faint smile on his lips. "Does that mean you'd like to leave?" He opened the door. "By all means. Go rescue the girl. We don't really need to talk."
I stayed where I was, my gun trained on him.
He laughed. "That's what I thought. Poor Macy. You aren't here for her at all, are you? You're here to find out why Ciara Conway died. Why her body turned up in your car. Why I would use Macy to lure you in. Those answers are far, far more important than Macy herself, aren't they?"
"If I shoot, will you get to the point faster?"
"Hmm, no, sadly. It will be mildly inconvenient, but it won't hurt me. I think you know that."
"How would I?"