Smoke on the Water

by Lori Handeland

  Though the wind seemed to be picking up, and mist hit him in the face, the clouds did not move. Just like the last storm. Though the phenomenon seemed odd to him, apparently it was the way storms behaved around here. Even stranger, as he got closer, he could see that the weather system was twirling right above the Northern Wisconsin Mental Health Facility.

  He’d definitely never seen anything like that before.

  The sky appeared clear in every other direction. If Mary had truly escaped, and Sebastian still didn’t think she had, she wouldn’t be getting rained on. Though maybe if she were, she’d run toward the facility instead of farther away.

  None of the police officers Sebastian had spoken with had seen her, or had any reports of the same. Which made Sebastian all the more certain she was messing with them.

  He strode into the facility. “Find her yet?”

  The guard on the door buzzed him through. “No, sir.”

  Sebastian tightened his lips to keep the curse from slipping out. He had maybe half an hour before he had to inform his boss. He didn’t have time to curse.

  Deux waited on the other side. He shook his head without Sebastian even asking.

  Sebastian figured the kid had played football—around here, who didn’t?—perhaps a running back since he was low to the ground and wide, with thighs that pushed against the seams of his uniform and biceps that did the same. While he didn’t seem like he was the brightest crayon in the box, Deux knew his job and he did it well enough that staff and patient alike looked up to him. He had small, dark eyes set in a large, flat face and dirt-colored hair cropped so close to his head, his milky pale scalp shone through.

  “You wanna see the security tapes?” Deux asked.

  “In a minute.” Sebastian headed for Willow’s room.

  All the patient doors were open, left that way to show that the room had been searched and the occupant tallied. As he passed each one, he glanced inside. Some of the patients were awake, others had gone back to sleep, or perhaps stayed asleep the entire time, depending on their meds.

  Willow’s lights were off. He stopped his headlong rush just outside her door. She was asleep or pretending really well. She probably didn’t know any more than he did, but he still had to ask. Maybe he could do so from right here. He could try.

  “Willow?”

  She stirred, turning away from the door, from him, and toward the wall. Sebastian’s hope of keeping his distance fled. He crossed the room.

  “Willow,” he said more loudly.

  She pulled the pillow over her head.

  Now what?

  He glanced toward the hall. Should he call a nurse just to wake her up? What kind of doctor was he if he couldn’t do that much for himself?

  Sebastian shook Willow’s shoulder. Beneath his palm she seemed so frail—her bones fine, her skin soft but so warm. He should have removed his hand. Instead he rubbed his thumb along the curve of her neck.

  Outside, thunder boomed. Inside, he could have sworn lightning crackled.

  She removed the pillow from her face and turned toward him. For an instant the two of them stared at each other. He had no idea what to say.

  He should probably lead with sorry, or forgive me, perhaps don’t scream, or please don’t sue me.

  She lifted her hand to where his still rested against her. He started to draw away; she caught his fingers and held on. The thunder that had been rumbling above stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Beyond his being in her room, in the night, and being unable to keep himself from stroking her skin? Not much.

  “Found her yet?” Sebastian glanced over his shoulder, but whoever had asked the question was not asking him.

  “Not a trace,” someone answered.

  Sebastian straightened, stepping back, and taking his hand with him. “We seem to have misplaced Mary. Have you seen her?”

  Willow sat up and the covers fell down. She wore her usual T-shirt and scrubs, thank goodness. What if she’d slept in the nude?

  “No,” she said.

  No was right. What was he thinking?

  Sebastian took another step back, his gaze lifting to hers. She didn’t appear afraid, disgusted, horrified. He wished he could say the same about himself.

  “Where could she be?” she asked.

  Mary. She was saying she hadn’t seen Mary. Which was what he’d asked. Sebastian resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead.

  “Has she mentioned, or perhaps shown you, a special place she likes to be alone?”

  “In here?” Willow’s voice was incredulous. “The only place we’re alone is in our rooms, if we don’t have a roommate. Even the bathrooms and showers are communal.”

  “There’s nowhere?”

  “In a place like this, Dr. Frasier, I don’t think there’s supposed to be.”

  “Sir?”

  Deux stood in the doorway. He stared at Willow as if he’d never seen her before. In the half-light, tousled and sleepy eyed, she appeared more ingénue than incarcerated.

  Sebastian stepped between them. “What is it?”

  “They found her.”

  Sebastian hadn’t realized how tense he’d been until the words caused his shoulders to relax and his lungs to at last draw a complete ration of air. Hallelujah! He hadn’t lost a patient on his watch. He’d just misplaced her.

  “Show me.” He started for the door.

  Deux didn’t move. “Sir?”

  “Where’s she hiding?”

  The guard glanced at Willow, then back at Sebastian. “We didn’t find her here. The police chief just called from Glacier Point.”

  “That’s twenty miles away,” Willow said.

  “How could she have gotten there in two hours?” Sebastian asked.

  “Maybe if she was a track star.” Deux twitched one hulking shoulder. “But she isn’t.”

  Willow shook her head like a child frantically trying to convince a parent that she hadn’t raided the cookie jar, despite the chocolate chip residue all over her face. An odd reaction, one that caused Sebastian to consider her more carefully. She froze, blinking like a rabbit caught in the beam of a headlight.

  “Someone had to have given her a lift,” the guard said.

  “Why?” Sebastian kept his gaze on Willow.

  “Because she definitely didn’t walk there.”

  Willow choked. Sebastian tilted his head. Had that been a laugh? A sob? Both? She really was behaving strangely. Then again, wasn’t that why she was here?

  “I meant”—he turned back to Tom II—“we have signs posted that warn against picking up hitchhikers.”

  “From what I’ve observed, people don’t like to read.”

  Sebastian had observed the same thing. Either they were lazy, stupid, or both. No matter. If they were driving, they could see. And anyone with eyes should know better than to pick up someone who looked as loony as Mary.

  “Let’s go get her.”

  “Well—uh—” Deux shifted his wide shoulders. “There might be a bit of a problem with that.”

  “What did she do?” Willow asked.

  “Tried to strangle a guy.”

  “Big bald guy?”

  Deux blinked. “How’d you know that?”

  “I—uh—” Willow glanced at Sebastian and shrugged. “Lucky guess.”

  *

  I sat in my room, wide awake, as the lights went out one by one in the hall and the noise level became less and less, finally fading to nothing just as the storm had.

  Not only had Mary disappeared from the library, but she’d reappeared in Glacier Point. No one in their right mind would have given her a ride. Even if they had, there was still the little matter of Mary being on the road at all.

  How had she done it? She’d say the spell had worked. I’d like to argue, but how could I? Mary had been here and then she hadn’t been. The only explanation I had for that was shazam, which wasn’t an explanation at all.

  I stared into
the dark until dawn threatened and the facility began to wake up. I took a shower, put on fresh scrubs—gray—a new T-shirt—orange. As I headed for the cafeteria and coffee, Dr. Frasier, Deux, and Mary returned. Mary was in handcuffs. She wasn’t happy about it.

  She shrieked and kicked and tried to get away. “He was a hunter! She showed me! He’ll kill a witch if we don’t stop him. I couldn’t find the bitch-whore. But I will. Let me go!”

  I winced at both the volume and the language. Taking into account the lack of a reaction from her companions, they’d heard it all the way back from Glacier Point.

  “If you don’t knock it off,” the guard said, “you’ll be in solitary longer.”

  “Solitary?”

  All three of them glanced in my direction with varying degrees of surprise.

  “Willow!” Mary tried to run to me. The guard yanked her back. She stomped on his foot. He grunted, but he didn’t let go. Dr. Frasier sighed and rubbed his eyes.

  I came closer and hugged her, ignoring both the guard’s “bad idea” and Dr. Frasier’s “I don’t think—”

  “Shh,” I whispered in her ear.

  Her answer was a smile and a pat on my cheek. The handcuffs rattled, the metal cool against my skin.

  “Does she really have to be in solitary?” I asked.

  “Until she tells us how she got out of here, yeah.” Deux led her away, leaving Dr. Frasier and me alone.

  Or as alone as we got in the hallway of a psychiatric facility, which wasn’t very alone at all. Nurses, guards, attendants, cafeteria workers all scurried past.

  “I’m kind of surprised they let you take her,” I said. “Considering the assault.”

  “The guy she attacked disappeared.”

  I’m sure he meant the guy had driven off and not that he’d morphed into nothingness, but who knew? As it wasn’t something I could ask, I didn’t.

  “No one to press charges,” Dr. Frasier continued.

  “Convenient.”

  “For Mary.”

  For the guy too if he’d had something to hide. If he were the man I’d seen in my vision—the man Mary had seen too—he did. Or he soon would. He certainly didn’t want his name in a complaint, or the hassle of too many questions and a trial.

  “I was able to bring her here since this is basically—”

  “A prison.”

  Dr. Frasier shrugged, but he didn’t argue and I liked him all the more for it. What was, was, and with the locks on the doors, the bars on the windows, it certainly wasn’t an all-inclusive resort.

  “I asked her how she escaped.”

  “What did she say?”

  “What she said just now is what she said all the way back. Not a word about how she got out, just jibber-jabber about the guy and what he’d do if she didn’t stop him. You know anything about that?”

  I shook my head, hoped he couldn’t see or smell the lie, but I thought he kind of did.

  “What did you say to her that made her stop ranting?” he asked.

  “Shh.”

  “That’s it?”

  “She likes me.”

  “You want to tell me how you knew she’d attacked a big, bald guy before anyone else did?”

  I’d been thinking about this all night. The answer was simple. “She told me.”

  “Told you,” he repeated. “When?”

  “Mary has a lot of delusions. Voices that tell her things.”

  “And one of them is a big, bald guy?”

  I shrugged.

  “She hears voices,” he said. “She doesn’t see the owners of them. Or at least she never did before.”

  “First time for everything.”

  “Why did the first time a patient escaped have to be on my watch?”

  I figured that was rhetorical.

  “You think she’ll tell you how she got out?” he asked.

  I blinked. “Me?”

  “She appears to adore you. You could ask.”

  “You want me to snitch?”

  “You want her in solitary forever?”

  What I wanted was to talk to Mary, find out what had happened. Solitary meant I shouldn’t be able to get near her at all, but I was being given a free pass.

  Well, not exactly “free.” Dr. Frasier wanted me to extract a confidence from someone who trusted me, then blab it to him.

  That didn’t mean I had to.

  Chapter 7

  “All right.” Willow smiled at Sebastian so sweetly he forgot what he’d asked her.

  He’d had very little sleep, a lot of stress, and no coffee. He was lucky he remembered his own name.

  “When can I talk to her?”

  Mary. Right. Willow had agreed to speak with Mary about how she’d escaped a secure mental health facility.

  “Later,” he said. “She’s being sedated.”

  He probably should have waited on that—he needed answers sooner rather than later—but she’d been off-the-charts cuckoo all the way home. He doubted even Willow would have been able to get sense out of her at this point.

  The problem was he needed to call Dr. Tronsted. But he’d prefer to do so with an explanation as to how Mary had gotten out. Calling his superior about an escape with no explanation for it other than not a clue wouldn’t look good. Certainly the information that Mary was back in custody and no one was hurt, including her, would help, but an answer for every question thrown his way would help even more.

  “I’ll make sure you’re allowed in to see her as soon as she’s awake and more herself,” he continued. “Probably this afternoon or maybe this evening.”

  “She was herself when you brought her in here.”

  Sadly, she was right.

  “Mary had a big night. She needs some rest.”

  Willow laid a hand on his arm. “You look like you could use some too.”

  Sebastian stilled, fighting the urge to set his palm atop hers. What was it about Willow that called to him? Certainly he was lonely. Had been for a long, long time. Raising a kid sister while going to college meant his social life had been nil. Later, he just didn’t care. He’d devoted his life to his work and his patients. Only recently had he started to want more. But he certainly shouldn’t be yearning for it with Willow. He needed to stop or he’d be on a fast track to not only losing this job but his license.

  He stepped back, and her hand slid away, hovered in the air for a minute before she curled her fingers inward as if holding on to the sensation of that touch.

  God, he was tired.

  “Let’s get some coffee.”

  Had he said that? Must have, because she headed for the cafeteria. He shouldn’t have followed, but he did.

  The early-riser patients had filled Styrofoam cups of coffee, tea, and juice, and sat either in small groups or alone. A few glanced Sebastian’s way; one of his patients waved.

  He stood behind Willow while she filled her cup, then moved to the side and dumped in milk and sugar. She smelled like institutional soap and shampoo, which shouldn’t be appealing but was. Everything about her appealed to him.

  Except the reason she was here. He had to remember that.

  Compared to Sebastian, Willow seemed so tiny, so frail. In reality, she was tall for a woman—at least five seven in bare feet—though she was too thin. He was tempted to dump more milk and sugar into her coffee himself. He managed not to by pouring coffee of his own.

  “Let’s take these outside,” he said. She could use some sun, and he could use some air.

  “Outside?” she repeated, as if he’d spoken in Dutch.

  “There’s a garden. I’ve been meaning to sit there.” He always meant to sit in gardens, never did get around to it. Not only did he not have the time, he had no one to sit there with. He shouldn’t sit in one with her. He knew it, but he did it anyway.

  He led Willow to the door that opened onto the walled inner courtyard at the center of the facility. He had to use a key to get inside—entry was a privilege accorded a certain few.

>   A picnic table sat in the center of the open area. Above loomed the sky. Around them, wildflowers, a few bees, even some birds.

  In the old days, patients had been required to work on the acres that surrounded the facility. Farming, gardening, lawn care had been part of their therapy. Sebastian thought they might have been onto something with that plan. Not only did sunshine work wonders healthwise, but being busy rather than bored didn’t hurt either.

  Of course now that many of their patients were criminally insane, allowing them outside to plant posies was no longer an option. To be certain they wouldn’t escape, they’d have to wear chains on their ankles like a chain gang and that was inhumane. But locking them up behind stone walls and tossing away the key was a-okay. However, he didn’t make the rules, he just followed them.

  Kind of.

  “Have you been out here before?” Sebastian took a seat across from her at the table.

  “No.”

  “Never?” If Willow wasn’t one of the “certain few,” who was? Certainly not Mary.

  “Dr. Eversleigh was old school.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We didn’t have sessions outside.”

  And he’d been thinking “outside” was old school. All a matter of perspective, but what wasn’t?

  “Is this a session?” He took a sip of coffee.

  “Do you want it to be?”

  “You sound like me.”

  She sipped her own coffee and smiled.

  Since Sebastian wanted to taste that smile, he looked away, and the stone walls captured his attention. He disentangled himself from the picnic table—not an easy task for a man as big as he was—then walked over to one, lifted his arm, curled his fingers over the top. He could probably pull himself up. It wouldn’t be easy, but he could do it. Could Mary?

  First she would have had to get into the garden. Had someone let her out here and now didn’t want to mention it, considering? Or perhaps a key had been lost, misplaced, even stolen—also not something that the loser might want to admit at this point.

  Sebastian reached farther and encountered what he thought was a pebble, but when he drew it back down discovered it was a piece of broken glass. He stood there frowning at it so long Willow came over to see it too.