The priest, who looked strangely familiar.
The Latin words that she remembered from a different time.
Brett shrugged.
“It wasn’t in the file, and the director didn’t tell me anything about the wife other than the fact that she suffered from extreme psychotic and schizoid breaks.”
It was the short man with the tattoos who spoke up next.
“No one has been in to see her in at least a month,” he offered.
And that answers that.
As Kendra put her hand on the door and gently eased it open, she knew that regardless of the emotional impact of this case, it would be best if she kept her emotions in check. After all, there were innocent girls that needed to be rescued.
She would have to keep it in check at least while she was here. Afterward… well, she would deal with that later.
She would deal with Brett, with the director, with Father John.
With mater est, matrem omnium.
With sis, why don’t you come join us?
This last thought drove icy fingers up her spine. Kendra swallowed hard and entered Jenna McGuire’s room.
Chapter 22
Kendra wasn’t sure what to expect before stepping into room 156, but whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t this.
There was a woman on the bed, a pale woman with gaunt cheekbones and short black hair that looked as if it had been cut with garden shears. Her eyes were closed, but Kendra could see darting movements through her lids as she stepped into the room.
Her lips, an odd shade of pink that bordered on white, were moving slightly as if she were humming. But despite all of these oddities, it was the heavy leather straps, like worn belts, that were wrapped around her wrists and ankles that kept her tight to the gurney upon which she lay, that made Kendra hesitate.
Psychotic break is right…
Kendra took several steps forward to allow enough room for Brett and the other men to enter behind her. When her partner caught sight of the woman on the bed, he audibly sucked in a lungful of air.
She raised a finger to silence him.
As Kendra made her way further into the room, one of the orderlies behind her spoke.
“I’m not sure what you think you can get out of her, but—”
“Shh!”
Like Brett, this man also quieted.
Kendra moved toward the gurney and perked her ears. Not only were Mrs. McGuire’s lips moving, she realized, but it also appeared that she was saying something. But from a few feet away, the woman’s voice was so soft that Kendra couldn’t make out the words. She moved closer still, to the head of the gurney, when she felt Brett’s hand brush against her shoulder.
Kendra shrugged him off—the woman was bound, after all—and leaned in even closer.
“…the walls, the walls are sweating… stinking bucket… cold, dark…”
She could only make out half of the woman’s words, so she leaned all the way over the bed, moving her ear to within a few inches of the woman’s lips.
Jenna McGuire’s words were like tiny, wet whispers, but they appeared, at least from the outset, to be coherent.
“…in the dark I hear the moans, the horrible sounds coming from the cell next to me… Stacey is going to have her baby soon, going to have her real soon… Mother says so… I still have a few months… Peter is going to be so happy… he’s going to be so happy when I come home with a baby… he doesn’t know that it’s going to be a girl… Mother says so… I don’t know how she knows, but she said so…”
There was a pause, and Kendra lifted her head and turned to face Brett.
Of course, he had that stupid, incredulous look—
“You can’t have her! Mater est, matrem omnium!”
The sound erupted right next to her ear, so loud and unexpected that Kendra was temporarily disoriented. She spun away from the noise, but in the process her loafers slipped on the tiled floor and she fell on top of Jenna.
This slip probably saved her ear.
Instead of gnashing down on her ear, Jenna McGuire’s teeth rammed into the back of her skull, her slimy lips and open mouth wetting Kendra’s hair that was pulled up in tight a bun. Kendra snapped to when the woman’s teeth cracked against her head and she pulled up straight, immediately backpedaling from the gurney.
“Fuck!” she swore, turning toward the woman strapped to the bed when she had moved out of range.
It was a grotesque sight. Mrs. McGuire’s neck was stretched to its limits, her pale blue eyes wide, her teeth violently gnashing together. Spittle flew from her lips as she thrashed back and forth against her restraints, an inhuman growl erupting from somewhere deep in her throat.
The orderly with the tattoos ran forward and slapped the palm of his hand on Mrs. McGuire’s forehead, careful to come from above so that she couldn’t bite his fingers.
Kendra felt Brett come up close behind her.
“Jesus,” he whispered, guiding her back another foot. “You okay?”
Kendra brought a hand to the back of her head and probed the tacky area. It was sore, and when she brought her fingers in front of her face, they were wet with blood. Not enough blood, she surmised, to warrant stitches. A tetanus shot, maybe, but not stitches.
Which was of minor relief.
“Fine,” she grumbled.
As the orderlies struggled to force Jenna’s head back down against her straining neck muscles, the taller turned to face her.
“Told you, you ain’t gettin’ nothin’ from her.”
Kendra shook her head, scolding herself for being so stupid, for getting so close.
…it’s going to be a girl… Mother says so… you can’t have her.
She cleared her throat.
Mater est, matrem omnium—at least we know where she got that from now…
“Do you guys keep records here?” she asked, her fingers moving back to the base of her skull. She could feel what she thought were individual teeth marks.
The taller orderly had already turned back to Jenna and didn’t appear to catch her question.
“Give her a shot of B52… 3 ccs.”
The shorter orderly pulled a small leather wallet-looking thing out of the pocket of his scrubs and struggled to unfold it with one hand.
Jenna was straining so hard against her restraints that she burst several blood vessels in her eyes, which had quickly turned red. Kendra’s gaze darted to the thick belts on the woman’s wrists, and although they were holding fast, Jenna was struggling so fervently that they had cut into her soft white skin, drawing blood.
It took both men to hold her down, despite the restraints.
“A little help here?” the orderly asked.
Brett stepped to move, but Kendra pushed by him, making her way around the side of the gurney and taking the black case from the man’s hand.
“Hand me a syringe,” he said.
The woman on the bed responded by shouting again and redoubling her thrashing efforts. The orderly with the tattoos was practically straddling her now.
“You can’t have her! Matrem omnium! You can’t have her!”
Kendra flipped open the case and stared at the messy tangle of needles. There were at least fifteen of them, all filled with what appeared to be the same clear fluid. They all looked identical, so she grabbed the one on top and put it in the man’s hand that was open and stretched behind his back. And then, for some reason, she took two more of the syringes and casually slid them into the pocket of her slacks before closing the case and putting it on the small table beside the gurney.
Her eyes shot up, and she looked at Brett, breathing a sigh of relief when she realized that he was focused on Mrs. McGuire rather than on her.
The orderly pulled the cap off the syringe with his teeth, then jabbed it into the woman’s shoulder that had become exposed from all her thrashing. She cried out in pain, but a second later her eyelids started to flutter, opening and closing at different rates, and her body relaxed slightl
y. Less than a minute later, her head fell back against her pillow with a damp, sweaty schlop and the orderlies finally eased their pressure on her head and chest.
The tattooed man got off her and both men cautiously stepped away from the bed.
Kendra’s heart was racing as she made her way back toward Brett. She had been in more dangerous situations, surely, but rarely had she been so taken by surprise.
And it wasn’t just Jenna’s reaction that was so alarming, but her own, as well.
Fuck is wrong with me? Why the hell did I take the syringes?
Trying to answer any of these internal queries now would send her into a spiral of thought, doubt, and self-reflection, so she decided to shelve them for later. Instead, she asked the same question she had moments ago.
“You keep records here?”
Brett shot her a look.
“She gonna be okay?” he asked, indicating Jenna with his chin. She appeared to be sleeping now.
The man with the tattoos answered.
“She’ll be fine… and yeah, we got records, sure. What kind?”
Kendra took a small step forward.
“Logs? Journals? Is there a doctor, a psychiatrist, maybe, that has some notes about things Mrs. McGuire might have said?”
The man seemed to mull this over for a minute. Clearly he hadn’t been hired for his intellect.
“Dr. Rahaaji,” he said at last. “She has some notes. I could call and ask, but you know, with the confidential stuff, you’re gonna need a warrant or something.”
Kendra nodded.
“Just put me in touch with… what is it, Mister Rahaaji?”
The man looked at her like she had two heads.
“Dr. Rahaaji, and he is a she.”
Kendra shrugged.
“Whatever, just—”
But Kendra jumped when the door behind her swung open.
Chapter 23
For a split second, Kendra thought that it was Director Ames coming through the door, and she nearly lost it. Her heart, barely slowed from being bitten, took off like an Olympic runner.
But it wasn’t him. It was just a man holding a tray of food. He strode into Mrs. McGuire’s room, a confused look on his face.
“Oh, I’m sorry… just here to deliver Mrs. McGuire’s lunch. I can come back or…”
The two orderlies stepped even further away from Jenna, who was now breathing deeply, her eyes closed. The taller of the two eyed him suspiciously.
“Where’s Rob?”
The man with the shock of gray, almost white hair—strange for someone in his mid-forties, Kendra noted—replied immediately.
“He had a family emergency. Do you want me to come back?”
The orderly shook his head.
“It’s fine, she’s sedated now. Just leave the tray on her table. We’ll feed her when she wakes up.”
At the mention of the table, the tattooed orderly turned and grabbed the leather case from where Kendra had left it. It looked like the man would open it, but thankfully he didn’t; he just slipped it back into his pocket without a second thought.
It didn’t matter anyway; Kendra thought that with the mess inside, he couldn’t possibly notice that two syringes were missing. Despite this realization, she instinctively dropped a hand in front her pant pocket, shielding their outline.
Why did I take them?
For almost a full minute, no one said a word. Then Brett broke the silence.
“What’d she say?” he asked in a voice slightly louder than a whisper.
Kendra lifted her chin, letting him know to hold his questions until after the man delivering the food left the room. Besides, he had to have heard her shouts, didn’t he?
You can’t have her! Mater est, matrem omnium!
The man with the gray hair laid the tray down gently and then, head bowed, made his way toward the door. A split second before he left, however, he raised his eyes and looked directly at Kendra.
For some reason, this look caused a chill to run up her spine, but before she could make anything of it, he was gone.
“Kendra, what did she say?” Brett asked again, drawing her back.
Kendra cleared her throat.
“Something about Mother, about a woman named Stacey and having a girl. Something about…” She thought back to a few moments ago. “…about how happy Peter was going to be.”
Brett raised an eyebrow, expecting more, but Kendra simply shrugged.
“That’s it.”
If he hadn’t heard the shouts, then he was either deaf or they had been inside her head again. Either way, Kendra saw no reason to tell Brett.
No good could come of it.
“Well this sucks,” one of the orderlies said from behind her. “Now we gotta wait another hour or two until we can feed her lunch. Means I’ll be working late again.”
“Overtime?”
“Naw, used it all up already this month.”
Kendra turned back to the men who had since stepped away from the bed.
“One of you going to give me a number that I can reach Dr. Rahaaji?”
The taller one nodded and moved toward her, while the other turned his attention to the tray.
“Yeah, come with me. Her number is at the front desk.”
Kendra nodded and waited for the orderly to reach her, when the other one spoke up, this time his voice tinged with anger.
“What the fuck? Hey, Shep, this retard brought her a glass of milk—you think Robert forgot to tell him? I mean, he couldn’t have forgotten that, right?”
Milk.
Kendra tried to peer around the tattooed orderly that approached, but he was too broad to see the gurney or the bedside table.
“Move,” she said, pushing against his thick upper arm to get a better look.
“And what the fuck is this? The hot plate is empty.”
The man was holding up the lid to what looked like a tortilla warmer, his thick dark eyebrows traveling all the way up his bald head. But this wasn’t what drew Kendra’s attention.
It was the tall glass on the tray that she focused on.
When she realized that it was full of milk, her breath caught in her throat. Then she was off, taking two large strides toward the door. Before she knew it she was in the hallway, ignoring Brett’s shouts that followed her out of the room.
Chapter 24
Kendra burst into the hallway, her eyes narrowing, desperate to find the man who had delivered the milk.
Her heart sank; there was no one there.
Where’d he go?
Room 156 was in the center of a long hallway, halfway between a door with an exit sign above it—the stairs—and the other direction ending at an intersection and a nurse’s station. Kendra’s first instinct was to head toward the stairs, thinking it was the most logical place to go for someone who wanted to escape quickly. But before she took a step in that direction, a shout drew her attention back the other way.
By stride three, Kendra was in a full sprint, any lasting effects of her hangover that morning usurped by the adrenaline surging in her blood. Not even bothering to check if Brett was following, she ran down the hallway, thankful that she had worn flats again today. When she reached the intersection, a nurse, a female, although she was nearly the same size as the orderlies that had helped her in Mrs. McGuire’s room, stepped out from behind the desk and directly into her path.
There was no way for Kendra to avoid her. Instead, she swiveled toward the desk, hoping that the woman would look up in time to avoid impact.
No chance.
They collided with such force that Kendra was literally sent airborne, her feet pinwheeling as they tried to grab traction out of air. A split second later, her back smashed hard into the nurse’s station, forcing the breath from her lungs. Only her curled spine prevented her head from cracking into the solid desk.
Kendra instinctively twisted into a ball, making horrible errp errp errp sounds as she tried desperately to convince her paralyzed
diaphragm to contract.
Fuck! Where the fuck is Brett? We need to catch the man who delivered the milk!
Still trying to inhale, Kendra struggled to unfold herself. She blinked hard, and when she opened her eyes her lungs finally expanded.
It was as if she had just been given an electric shock. Kendra went from fetal position to crawling position in only a second, and a second later she was back to her feet. As she stood, she scanned the hallway; from her vantage point, Kendra could see all the way down all three hallways.
But there was no man. The nurse who had crashed into her was lying in a heap on the ground near the center of the hallway, her thick fingers holding her head and face.
She was moaning.
Kendra ignored her. Standing up straight, wincing at the pain in her back, she shouted loud enough for everyone in the building to hear.
“Where are you?”
And then something drilled her between the shoulder blades, once again sending her careening through the air. This time she missed the nurse’s station by two feet, and slid on her stomach down the linoleum hallway. Her blouse pulled up, and her bare skin squeaked on the floor, her scars stretching and tearing.
Realizing that the person that had hit her was still on top of her, sliding with her, Kendra pushed her palms into the floor and bucked with her back and hips before coming to a complete stop.
She felt the weight on her lift—the man, it’s the man—and the pressure on her bruised back relinquish. A grunt escaped her lips, and she tried to shift her body, to make sure that the person on top of her flew all the way over. And at first, she thought that was exactly what was going to happen. In her mind, she pictured herself scrambling to her feet and pouncing on the man, who would still be dazed after flipping over her.
But this didn’t happen.
Instead, at the last second, the man reached back and instead of flying completely over her, his hand hooked beneath her chin. Kendra felt her neck stretch, and for a second she thought that her head might literally be pulled off. But then the man dug his heels in and his forward momentum stopped.
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