Fury

by Steven James

  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 nightgown 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.

  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?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “I did.”

  “Why can’t I remember what happened last night?”

  “You had a nasty bump on your head. A little memory loss isn’t uncommon for someone who gets a concussion. What do you know about the wolf being shot?”

  “What?”

  “A wolf was shot on Saturday. It was the last thing your father looked into before he went home. There was a picture of it on his phone along with a couple of messages from you about it.”

  “My girlfriend and I were out in the woods when someone shot it. What does this have to do with finding my dad? And how do you know about that, anyway?”

  “We’re just following up on everything we can.”

  “We? You’re working with the cops?”

  “I mean ‘we’ in general—all of us. We just want to find your dad and help him. You don’t have any other information about where he might be?”

  “No. How are you working on it?”

  “Working on it?”

  “On getting me out of here.”

  “I’m making the necessary arrangements. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

  Based on how this little chat was going that didn’t exactly reassure him.

  Daniel said, “One of the patients here grabbed my arm when I was on my way to see Nicole in the visitors’ room earlier. He said something about how I shouldn’t have done that to my dad. How did he know anything about what happened?”

  “I’m afraid word has gotten around.”

  They spoke for a few more minutes and then Dr. Fromke said he needed to get going.

  “One more question,” Daniel said.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re in Duluth. You drove over here just to see me?”

  “You are my patient, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, but I don’t understand why you would come all this way on a Sunday afternoon.”

  “I thought it would be in your best interests if I did. I’m here to do what I can.”

  “I didn’t do anything to my dad.”

  “Okay.”

  “Get me out of here, Dr. Fromke.”

  “I’m working on it.”

  After he left, Daniel ran through the conversation again in his head.

  Weird.

  And not very encouraging.

  How did you end up in a psych ward sixty miles from home?

  If they were suspicious that he might have been responsible for his dad’s disappearance, why wasn’t he in jail? Why did he wake up restrained in a mental hospital instead of handcuffed in a detention cell?

  Then a thought came to him, and when it did, it seemed obvious, like something he should have realized right away: As his psychiatrist, Dr. Fromke could have had him committed. Besides his mom or dad, he was probably the only one who could have.

  Maybe Dr. Fromke wasn’t the one trying to get him out of this place.

  Maybe he was the one trying to keep him in it.

  For supper, rather than take Daniel to the cafeteria, the orderly who’d led him to the meeting room earlier slid a tray of food through the slot at the bottom of the door: cold soup, a turkey sandwich, a carton of skim milk and a stale oatmeal raisin cookie—nothing that you would need to use a fork or a knife to eat.

  They didn’t even give him a spoon for the soup. He had to drink it from the bowl.

  No, it probably wouldn’t be too smart to give crazy people in a mental ward knives and forks while they’re locked up by themselves in their rooms. But no spoons. Seriously?

  Without a clock, Daniel wasn’t able to gauge time very well, but later, when he was getting ready for bed, he looked out the door’s window and saw a cop sitting there.

  It wasn’t the guy who’d been there in the afternoon when Daniel first got out of bed; it was the man who’d b
een waiting for him after the game, the one who’d been leading the prisoner into the facility that supposedly did fish management studies, the man who’d driven into the snowbank.

  He gave Daniel a look of recognition, then lifted a single finger to his lips as if to indicate to him not to make a sound.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  “Wake up, Daniel.”

  The voice sounded rushed, close to his ear.

  At first he assumed he was hearing things or that it was just part of his dream.

  He rolled to the side but heard it again, this time even more pressing: “Daniel. Wake up.”

  Eyes open now, he turned, but with only faint light from distant streetlights seeping through the window, the room was too black for him to see anyone. “Who’s there?”

  Someone gripped his arm and Daniel instinctively pulled away and tried to focus. The room was wrapped in shadows and he was still groggy.

  The longer he had his eyes open, however, the more they started to become used to the darkness and now in the faint light he finally saw a man beside his bed.

  “Ask questions later,” he said, and finally Daniel realized he knew that voice: the cop—or at least the guy dressed as a cop—who’d been stationed outside his door. “Right now, we need to get moving.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are.”

  “My name’s Malcolm Zacharias.” He put his hand on Daniel’s arm again. “Come on. Let’s move. I came to get you out of here. And believe me, right now that’s what you want.”

  “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because I need you to help me.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  Daniel pulled his arm away. “Explain now.”

  “We have to go,” Mr. Zacharias said emphatically. “You either come with me and find the answers you’re looking for or you can stay here—and if you do, you won’t be leaving any time soon.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of what happened last night.”

  “With my father?”

  “That’s right, now—”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “No, but I might know how to find him. Listen to me, the security guard on this floor is doing rounds on the other end of the wing but he’s going to be coming this way any minute. After that it’ll be too late.”