by Steven James
You follow the line of blood with your gaze and see your father lying on the floor.
There’s a knife in his side.
A kitchen knife.
Blood is pulsing from the wound. You rush over and kneel beside him to help him, but now you can’t tell if this is really happening—maybe it did—or maybe it’s going to?
A dream? A memory? Some sort of premonition?
You’re not sure if you should remove the knife—if that would make it easier to stop the bleeding, or if it would just make it worse.
What have you done to your dad?
Voices in your head tell you to pull out the blade, to call 911, but you don’t remember if you do or not.
The images fade into the cloudy, uncertain realm between unconsciousness and wakefulness as you reach for the handle of the knife.
Daniel opened his eyes.
He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, but they’d taken off the restraints and he sat up, somewhat groggy, then swung his feet out of bed.
Feeling a little nauseous, he hastily made his way to the tiny bathroom that was attached to his hospital room, then knelt in front of the toilet and emptied his stomach.
Maybe throwing up is a good thing since you might actually be getting rid of the drugs they gave you. Just get them out of your system, then you won’t be so drowsy.
He rinsed the taste of vomit out of his mouth. As he did, he wondered what the staff might have given him and how long he’d been out since they’d drugged him.
The side of his head hurt. It felt like someone had smacked him with a two-by-four. When he rubbed the area he found a large tender welt.
He returned to the room to get his bearings.
First, he opened the shades.
Outside, a wooded park led to a shoreline. The far shore was out of sight so he assumed this would be Lake Superior since it was the closest body of water that large.
Based on the sun’s location so low in the sky it was apparently either sunset or sunrise. By its orientation to the lake, he guessed it was almost dusk rather than dawn.
But what day?
Sunday?
The last thing he remembered clearly was leaving Nicole’s house on Saturday evening and driving home.
You were supposed to go to the lighthouse on Sunday. Did you go and you just don’t remember?
Could more days really have gone by?
There was no latch on the window, no way to open it. Four steel bars made it impossible to climb out, even if the glass hadn’t been there.
Studying the room, he found no sign of his cell phone, car keys, or any personal belongings beyond the clothes he was wearing.
He went to the door that led to the hallway. A small slot at the bottom would allow someone to slide things into the room—maybe a meal tray, or a book, but nothing much larger than that.
A thick window with wire mesh running through it was located in the middle of the door to let doctors check on their patients from the hall.
No, this was not a normal hospital.
Daniel had never been in a psych ward before, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out he was in one now.
An overweight cop sat in a chair on the other side of the hallway reading something on his phone.
You need to find out what happened to your dad.
Daniel tried the doorknob.
Locked.
No surprise there.
“Excuse me, sir,” he called through the door. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
The man just looked up at him through the glass, rose stiffly, confirmed that Daniel’s door was secure, then ambled down the hallway without answering him.
Daniel recalled that earlier a detective was in his room demanding that he tell him what he’d done with his father.
This guy’s going to get the detective.
Daniel wracked his brain trying to remember what’d led him here, but could only bring to mind fragmentary images of the last couple days. It was as if he was sorting through a tabletop full of puzzle pieces, trying to slide them together, trying to solve a puzzle while having no clue what the final picture was supposed to look like.
Why? Is it the drugs they gave you? Why can’t you remember what happened?
Here was a memory of breakfast with his dad.
There, one of him going to the barn with his friends.
One of the basketball game.
One of finding the DVD taped to his locker.
Nothing felt like it was in order.
Think, Daniel! What happened?
A party.
Calling his mom.
Seeing Ty Bell.
The blur of the girl.
Then leaning over his dad.
A knife was sticking out of his side.
This isn’t right. You never would have hurt him. Never!
But the other night you did wake up standing beside his bed holding a hunting knife. What were you going to do with that if you weren’t planning on using it?
He went to the window and tried to think things through, but was interrupted by the sound of someone at the door, unlocking it.
Turning around, he saw a hulking orderly standing there, blocking the doorway.
Okay, that guy spends some time in the weight room.
“There’s someone here to see you, Daniel,” he said gruffly.
“Who?”
Rather than answer, he just told him to follow him.
“What happened to my dad?”
The man was silent.
“Do you know?”
“No one does,” he replied at last. “Except for you.”
No, I don’t. Not at all.
As they walked down the hallway Daniel tried to take everything in.
Yes, he was in a mental hospital.
He was just glad he wasn’t in jail.
But what did it mean—being here instead? That they thought he was innocent? That they just didn’t have enough evidence to arrest him yet?
It might mean they think you’re crazy and you belong here rather than a prison cell.
Aren’t you supposed to get a phone call or a chance to meet with a lawyer if you’re suspected of a crime?
That’s only if you’re arrested. You’re not under arrest here, Daniel. You’re committed.
But who put you here? How did you get here, anyway?
Earlier, probably this morning—if it really was Sunday afternoon—his wrists and ankles had been strapped down. The hospital staff had given him some sort of drug to make him sleep.
But why would they do that if they wanted you to answer their questions about your dad?
Nothing made sense, and the more he tried to reason out the puzzle pieces, the more confusing and indecipherable the shape of the puzzle became.
Now, as they went down the hallway, Daniel could see that, just like the door to his room, the doors to the other patients’ rooms also had reinforced glass windows and, as a result, he was able to get a look at some of the other people here.
And it was not encouraging.
One man was standing in the corner of his room smacking his head against the wall over and over. In his case, the wall was padded and it didn’t look like he was hurting himself, but the sound of his head hitting that padding echoed dully, even into the hall.
The next room: A girl who looked a little older than Daniel sat on her bed with a long stream of drool oozing from her mouth. She was mumbling something to herself, although he couldn’t hear what she was saying.
She must have noticed movement outside her door because she looked at him and smiled in a way that unsettled him, in a way that reminded him of the one the girl in his dream had offered him after she was consumed by the fire that started at the bottom of her nightgo
wn and burned her to death.
Or the smile of that demon right before it flew toward you.
As they continued toward wherever they were going, an old man who was being led by a female orderly approached Daniel, stared directly at him and, as he was about to pass by, thrust himself forward and clutched Daniel’s arm.
“You’re the one!” the man cried.
His grip was tight and clawlike. The two orderlies struggled to pull him back and finally managed to get him separated from Daniel. But the old man didn’t give up and kept trying to get to him. “You shouldn’t have done that to your father!”
“What do you know about my father?”
Then the woman was leading him away, but he continued to call back to Daniel, accusing him of hurting his dad, and Daniel was shouting after him, “Tell me what you know about my dad!”
But there was no reply as they disappeared around the corner. Then Daniel’s orderly was shuffling him past a maintenance closet farther down the hall.
Daniel had no idea who that old man was or how on earth he would’ve known anything about him or his dad.
This doesn’t make any sense.
The orderly took Daniel into a visiting area near the main entrance.
Two male patients sat in the corner of the room across from each other at a checkers board, although only one of them was moving the checkers, as if he were playing against himself. The other man made indecipherable signs with his hands, doing his own private sign language to an invisible someone standing beside them.
Near the window, an old boxy television attached securely to the wall was playing cartoons with the sound muted. A woman who looked like she was in her fifties and wore a tattered, fuzzy housecoat was staring intently at the screen. Every so often she would laugh to herself, but her laughter didn’t seem to have anything to do with what was happening on the television.
Why would they bring you here, to a place like this?
Then he saw who’d come to visit him.
No, it wasn’t the detective as he’d suspected.
It was Nicole.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
She passed through a security checkpoint and was buzzed in to the room.
Daniel took a seat across from her at a hefty metal table that’d been bolted to the floor.
The orderly who’d led him here stepped a few feet away but Daniel imagined that he would still be able to hear his conversation with Nicole.
She reached across the table to take his hand but the man cleared his throat and shook his head to stop her.
After hesitating for a moment, she drew her hand back. “How are you?” she asked Daniel softly.
“I’m alright. Where are we?”
“Duluth.”
“Duluth?” It was over an hour’s drive from Beldon. He let that sink in. “Is it Sunday?”
“Yeah. Sunday afternoon.”
“They said something happened to—”
“Yes. Something happened to Dad.”
“To Dad?”
“Uh-huh.” She tilted her head slightly so the orderly couldn’t see her eyes, and then winked at Daniel, who caught on.
Maybe they only let family members visit.
But wouldn’t they have checked her driver’s license to verify who she was?
Maybe—but at least for now play this out like she’s your sister.
“You really don’t remember, do you?” she asked.
“He’s missing.”
Nicole was quiet.
“Tell me what’s going on here.”
She looked past him, then said, “They found you in the kitchen with a lot of blood all over everything. And he’s gone.”
“How could he just be gone?”
“I don’t know. No one does. His car was still there. The blood on your hands, they had it tested. It was his. There was a knife on the floor. People are saying your fingerprints are on it.”
“Who’s saying that?”
“I don’t know. It’s just what I’ve heard.”
“What kind of knife was it?”
“A kitchen knife.”
“Not a hunting knife?”
“No. You don’t remember any of this?”
He shook his head. “When I was asleep earlier, I dreamt about it—but I didn’t think it was real—ou know how dreams can be. Some of it was . . . Well, some of it couldn’t have happened.”
“What couldn’t have happened?”
“I dreamt that I stuck my hand down the garbage disposal and that it got chewed up, that my fingers got torn off.”
“Ew.” She squinched up her face.
“Yeah.” Though it probably wasn’t necessary, he laid both hands on the table to prove that it’d only been a dream.
But if that part was just a dream, what about the part where you found your dad?
He thought about asking her how she’d heard where he was, but realized that if he did, it might give away that she wasn’t his sister.
“Is there any word from Mom?” he asked. “They took my cell phone. There’s no phone in my room. I don’t have any way of contacting her.”
“She’s trying to get a flight out of Anchorage, but with the ice storm up there, it’s not looking good—at least not for another day or two. But she knows what’s going on.”
He wasn’t sure Nicole would have actually spoken with his mother, but it made sense that her mom would’ve been in touch.
“This is messed up,” he said.
“Yes.”
Daniel lowered his voice, hoping that the orderly who was still standing nearby wouldn’t hear him. “Do we know any more about the lighthouse?”
She shook her head. “Kyle didn’t go.”
He leaned forward and whispered, “I need to get out of here.”
“No kidding, but I’m just not sure how to—”
The man locked eyes on Nicole, then stepped toward them. “Sorry, visiting hours are over.”
“I just got here,” she objected.
“And now you’re going to leave.”
Daniel debated going toe-to-toe with this guy but couldn’t see how, in the long run, that would work in his favor.
He stood and said to Nicole, “Tell Mom I’m fine. That I’ll see her soon.”
“I will.”
He wanted to hug her, to reassure her, but when he took a step in her direction the orderly wedged himself between them.
Daniel felt the wolves fighting inside him, but decided the best way to see Nicole again soon was to let things be.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said.
“Yeah.”
They said goodbye to each other and as Nicole left, he saw her touch away a tear.
On their way back to the room, Daniel took careful note of the location of the doors, where the security cameras were, the number of rooms in the hall, and the approximate distance between them, calculating, letting the math part of his brain take over, trying to create a mental picture of the building.
He had to find out where his dad was and that wasn’t going to happen while he was locked up in a psychiatric hospital.
Yeah, he needed to get out of here and get back to Beldon as soon as possible.
But how he was going to accomplish that without a car was beyond him—even if he did manage to find a way out of the hospital.
The orderly led him to his room and, without a word, locked him inside.
Outside the window, the last few remnants of daylight were fading away, leaving only a black square in the middle of the wall, dotted with a scattering of lights from street lamps near the park.
They’ll be looking for you in Beldon. The text from Madeline referred to meeting up with you. Somehow that lighthouse is at the center of all this.
&nb
sp; You need to find out what’s on that island.
While Daniel was considering that, he heard someone unlock the door to the hallway.
Turning to see who it was, he immediately recognized the man who stepped in and locked the door behind him.
Dr. Fromke.
His psychiatrist.
Well, good. Finally, someone who could give him some answers.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
“Is there any news on my dad?” Daniel asked urgently.
“Not yet. No.”
“Dr. Fromke, you need to get me out of here.”
“I’m working on that, Daniel. But first, we need to talk. You left your friend’s house at just after eight last night. What were you doing there?”
“We were finding out whatever we could about the lighthouse.”
“The lighthouse?”
“Yeah, where my great-great-uncle worked. The Lost Cove Lighthouse. He . . . Well, he killed himself and we were trying to figure out—look it doesn’t matter. Right now we need to find my dad.”
“Yes.” He was still standing near the door as if he were guarding it from someone else coming in. “So, do you remember what happened at your house?”
Daniel had just been through all this with Nicole and he didn’t really want to cover it again. However, he quickly filled in his doctor about what’d happened—at least as much as he could remember. He ended by telling him about the knife stuck in his dad’s side, but explained that he’d only dreamt that part.
“So, he’d been stabbed, where? The ribcage?”
“Well, in my dream he was.”
“Yes. Of course. Which side?”
“His right side—but none of that matters. We have to find him, not worry about where I dreamt he was stabbed.”
“Indeed. And what’s the next thing you remember?”
“Waking up here.”
“And before you were there beside your father—do you recall what you were doing then?”
Daniel was getting irritated. “Just that I came back from Nicole’s house. Before that we’d gone out to the barn on County N where I used to play when I was a kid. A blur led me there.” He almost brought up the dead girl, but held back. “When do you think I’ll be able to get out of here?”
