by Jenna Ryan
One of the nurses, a fawnlike woman who reminded her of Betty White, stopped her on the second floor to say that Verity and Lally were in the garden conservatory and that Lally had looked to be “in a very bad state.” Nikita thanked her and hastened to join them.
“Niki.” Verity spotted her first. There was no mistaking the relief in her tone. To Lally, who was seated, knees updrawn in a rattan chair, she said kindly, “It’s Dr. N., Lally. Do you want me to leave?”
“I don’t care,” Lally replied in a monotone.
“Niki?”
“You can stay, Verity.” Nikita knelt and touched her other patient’s knee. “Lally?”
“She’s dead, Dr. N. I heard a—I saw her body.”
“She thinks Patti Warneckie’s been murdered,” Verity whispered. “I told her there’d been no report of a body, but she doesn’t believe me. Do you know what she’s talking about?”
Nikita saw no advantage in lying. Even minus a body, the proof of someone’s death had been discovered in her car’s trunk. And it had been Patti. Her eyes couldn’t have been that wrong.
She sighed. “Did you see Patti, Lally? Is that the her you meant?”
Lally nodded. “A voice—someone told me I should show you this.” She pulled a fine black, red and gold silk scarf from her pocket. “It was Patti’s. She wore it here last night I—I found it with my clothes this morning.”
Nikita’s spirits sank. Lally’s confession spoke of a guilt she was not prepared to believe. The police, on the other hand, would be only too willing to believe. Lally’s file would be opened up by the courts, and the D.A.’s office would have a field day. That they might be on the wrong track entirely wouldn’t enter their heads. Lally had visions. Lally had bouts of severe depression. She also had Talia, whose personality traits were far removed from her more timorous side.
Nikita considered then opted to trace the events of the previous evening. “You found Patti’s scarf,” she said slowly. “Was she wearing it last night? Did you see her before or after her appointment with Dr. Baines?”
“She was wearing it, yes. And I did—see her afterward, that is.”
“When?”
“I don’t remember. Before I went out walking.”
“Was her appointment at seven?”
“I think so, but she always hung around later.” Lally’s lips quivered. “She said it was because of me, but I know she really hoped to see Dr. D.’s husband.”
“Martin?” Nikita was a little surprised that Lally had known about he and Patti. Lally liked Martin, too. And so, apparently, did Talia. Prickles of unease rippled through her bloodstream. “What did you see in your vision, Lally?” she asked cautiously.
Lally hugged her knees tighter and began to rock on the thickly padded chair. “I’m not sure I saw anything. I might have heard it. She was dead and lying crumpled up somewhere. I think it was dark.”
“Do you see her now?” Nikita prompted. “Do you know where she is?”
“I—” Lally concentrated, frowned, then squinted as if trying to see. “It’s cold,” she revealed. “Very cold.”
Inside someone’s trunk? Nikita speculated.
“I can’t—” Lally’s face screwed up. “I can’t see anything else. Except for a bunch of blobby hanging things.” She blinked at her knees. “Dr. N., am I crazy?”
Such a soulful question.
Nikita took the hand she hesitantly offered. “No,” she said with conviction. “You’re troubled, but there’s no insanity in that. If there was, most of us would have been committed by now. Lally,” she said on a somber note, “I need to talk to Detective Vachon about you. I’ll respect our doctor-patient confidentiality, but he has to know about the scarf.”
Lally’s features turned stony. “He’ll think I did it. He’ll think I killed Patti because she got her life under control and that made me angry.”
“I won’t let him think that,” Nikita promised.
Lally appeared not to hear her. Her voice grew vacant. “Even if he doesn’t blame me, he’ll blame Talia. He’ll say Talia did it because Patti made a pass at your—at Dr. D.’s husband. He’ll say it, and he’ll believe it, because I’ve got the scarf, and Talia lives inside me.”
“Niki,” Verity cautioned, clearly uneasy.
But Nikita ignored the warning. Talia wasn’t going to disappear by magic. She wasn’t going to disappear at all without someone understanding what had caused her to be created in the first place.
“Go on,” she urged.
Lally’s head came up, features set “There isn’t any more,” she said coldly. “Patti was a whore, pure and simple. If she’s dead, so be it. Let the detectives detect, Nikita. We all have our function in life. Yours is to cure sick people, Lally’s is to be a mouse. And mine—” her eyes glittered a wicked shade of green “—mine is nobody’s damned business but my own.”
HE SHOULDN’T be eavesdropping, Vachon reflected from the shadows outside the conservatory door. It was unprofessional, and not a single thing he overheard would be usable as evidence. But this other side of Lally’s character fascinated him almost as much as Nikita did.
He’d never encountered a split personality before. His father had known a schizophrenic costumer once, but that man had only heard the voices of ancient warriors. He hadn’t actually become another person.
“Lally,” Verity said gently.
“Talia,” Lally’s other persona interrupted.
She sounded tough, with an edge of sarcasm that surprised Vachon. As far as he’d been able to determine, Lally Monk possessed no spark of wit.
“Why are you here, Talia?” Nikita asked. “For what purpose?”
“I take care of the mouse. I give her what she can’t give herself.”
“And what’s that?”
She leaned forward. “Excitement.”
It seemed to Vachon that he was looking at some weird reflection of Lally. Everything was the same, yet different. Her green eyes sparkled with life. Her skin had lost its sickly pallor. Even her hair appeared to have more luster. Illusions, he knew, but intriguing ones.
“Don’t you think,” Lally’s other persona challenged Nikita, “that even a mouse deserves a little fun?” The sparkle became a taunting glint. “Maybe even a little sex?”
“Talia, I don’t think…” Nikita began, then paused and gave her a circumspect look. “Sex with whom?”
Talia laughed, a rich, full-bodied sound. “What you mean is, have I slept with your brother?” She sat back, fingers steepled. “I’m not sure I want to answer that, although I must say, you’re the least offensive doctor I’ve ever met. At least you give Lally credit for her visions.”
Nikita studied the woman before her curiously. “Don’t you have visions, Talia?”
“Not a one, I’m afraid. Such is my lot in life, to be bold as brass and totally insensitive to what you and Lally and even Verity would call sympathetic vibes. They just don’t sink in. It’s like bat radar. They bounce right off my skull.” She pierced Nikita with a calculating stare. “Next question.”
Nikita regarded her thoughtfully. So did Vachon. Talia’s facial expression spoke volumes. It contained an undertone of malice that would have been difficult to miss even at a distance.
“Come on, Niki,” Talia invited. “Ask me about the bad stuff. You know, questions like, did I kill Laverne? Have I been stealing drugs from downstairs? Has Donny used me as a subject in his experiments?”
“I would guess he hasn’t,” Nikita returned. “He might be weird, but he isn’t stupid. Any use of patients as subjects would result in his immediate dismissal.”
Talia’s eyes hardened to green ice. “Did I push you down Cottage Hill?” she continued as if Nikita hadn’t spoken.
“Did you?” Nikita countered levelly.
“No, but if I’d wanted to I would have. I’m capable of a great number of nasty things, including murder if I felt so inclined. My actions are a measure of my incentive.” Her eyes flashed.
“One thing’s for sure, Laverne Fox deserved to die. No more midnight trysts with Martin now. As for Patti Warneckie—” she shrugged “—who knows?”
Had she killed them? Vachon wondered. Talia sounded more than capable. He leaned his back against the corridor wall and listened on.
Unfortunately, there was not much left to hear. Talia refused to get into specifics and soon lapsed into mutinous silence. When Vachon risked another look, he saw her sitting back in her chair, eyes closed, lips moving soundlessly while Verity kept watch.
His brows drew together in an uncomprehending frown. Where had Nikita gotten to? She’d been there a moment ago. He’d heard her voice—been entranced by her voice, truth to tell.
He heard it a second later, more constrained than it had been. “This had better not be what it looks like,” she said, controlling herself with an obvious effort. “Tell me you’re not eavesdropping, Vachon.”
What could he say? “Unofficially,” he replied, turning. His expression bland, he inquired, “Did I make a noise?”
“Nothing so simple. I felt—” she wavered, then finished firmly. “I felt you watching. You have a very potent gaze, in case you’re not aware of it.”
He was, but it flattered him to hear her say it. With his head, he motioned to the conservatory. “Is she Lally or Talia?”
“Lally.” Pulling a hand from the pocket of her lab coat, she poked his chest. “You never heard this conversation, Vachon. Right?”
He shrugged. “I couldn’t use it if I wanted to. Do you think Talia’s capable of murder?”
“What I think and what is are two entirely different things. Anyway, you know I can’t venture an opinion to you.” She gave her French braid a toss, then paused and focused her gaze down the hall. “I wonder,” she mused.
“Yes?”
She shook herself. “Nothing. Have you found Patti’s body yet?”
“No, but all the cars and trunks are clean in the staff lot.”
Wariness crept into her eyes like a San Francisco fog. “Where was Manny while this search was being conducted? I noticed he didn’t arrive with you.”
Vachon banked a sigh. “You’re really stuck on that idea, aren’t you? Or is it simply preferable to the alternative?”
Her muscles went rigid. He wished he could alleviate her tension but knew she would only bat his hands away.
“Martin didn’t do it,” she declared, so fervently that he was tempted to believe her.
“According to you, Nikita, no one around here did it. Your only suspect is Manny Beldon.”
“He has the best motive.”
“Gain’s no better a motive than jealousy or fear. Some people kill for the sheer thrill of it.”
“That’s sick.”
“This is a mental hospital, Nikita, full of sick people. Manny’s a good cop, whatever else you might think.”
“I think,” she retorted as they faced off in the shadowfilled corridor “that he is as viable a suspect as Martin or Deana or Donald or Tal—or anyone else.”
Vachon found himself thoroughly enjoying this verbal spar. If anything, Nikita was more beautiful when her temper was aroused. Her eyes flashed sapphire blue, her posture was erect and determined, her head raised in that gesture of unstinting pride. Maybe her bloodline descended through the former Russian Czars. It would explain her royal bearing whenever she glared at him.
Reluctantly, he decided to forfeit the point rather than risk a heated debate. “Let’s see what tomorrow night brings,” he suggested, keeping his veiled eyes on her face. “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Nikita glanced at her waiting patients. “Maybe we will,” she said with the barest hint of a tremor. “But I doubt if Laverne Fox or Patti Warneckie would agree.”
THE PHONE BUZZED.
“Nikita? It’s Donald. Could you, uh, come down to my lab for a few minutes? I need to talk to someone, and I’d rather it was you.”
Thirty minutes had passed since Nikita’s meeting with Talia and her encounter with Vachon. She felt calmer, if not quite as composed as usual.
“Could it wait for a few hours?” she asked, checking her watch. “I want to talk to Deana about—something.” Specifically Talia, but Donald didn’t need to know that.
He sounded uneasy. “I’d rather do it now and get it over with. It won’t take long,” he hastened to add.
“Oh, all right,” she relented. “I’ll be down in five minutes.” And then she’d go straight upstairs and get her head examined, because Donald was a notorious flimflammer.
“He probably wants me to be his next guinea pig,” she muttered—although that being the case, he must have reassembled his scorched lab in record time.
It was three o’clock and uncommonly quiet throughout the hospital. Patients were either taking naps, playing games or participating in group therapy sessions in the Berkshire lounge. Lally would not be among the participants. She’d been visibly withdrawn and nervous after Talia’s lightningfast emergence and retreat She’d wanted to be alone in her room. She hadn’t wanted company, even Verity’s.
Nikita had decided to let her go, though whether that was wise or not she couldn’t be sure. Vachon had rattled her with both his eavesdropping and the way he’d looked at her when she’d caught him in the act. He’d reminded her of a child with his hand in the cookie jar. Guiltily appealing—and too damned sexy by half. She’d wanted to kick him, then say to hell with his impropriety and kiss him. He couldn’t use what he’d heard anyway, and what possible harm could one more kiss do?
Because she didn’t want to consider the complex answer to that question, she concentrated on Donald and the fact that he’d lied to Vachon last night. Who had been strapped into his subject chair when the power had surged? Had it been Patti Warneckie? Had the power surge brought her close to death? Or had Donald, for reasons only he understood, stabbed her and later broken her finger and tied a lock of hair around it?
She took the rear staircase to his basement laboratory. Her mind kept conjuring up disturbing images of Vachon. Surely he’d left the hospital by now. Had he gone in search of Martin or perhaps his own partner?
She was passing the central medical stores, heading for the labs, when a movement caught her eye. It might have come from inside the connecting rooms, or it might have been a reflection in the smoked glass walls, in which case the movement might have originated from Donald’s domain.
Nikita glanced uncertainly at the labs. No door creaked, but she could smell smoke quite strongly from here. That made sense, she supposed.
Unbidden, a picture of Patti Warneckie’s face floated through her head. Lifeless blue eyes, like marbles, had stared at her from inside the trunk. She’d glimpsed shock in those eyes, as if Patti had been unable to believe what was happening.
Chilled by the prospect of Patti—or anyone—suffering, Nikita slowed her footsteps. Did she really want to see Donald?
A whisper of sound from behind startled her. She stopped dead and listened, unnerved in spite of her determination not to be intimidated on familiar ground. Only a fool wouldn’t be frightened in a dark, soulless cellar with a murderer lurking God knew where, with God knew what on his or her mind.
Don’t be ridiculous, she chided herself. Donald would never deliberately set out to kill another living creature.
A breath of air wafted across her cheek. From the medical supply stores? No, that room was dark.
Strains of music caught her attention. She listened and finally identified the song. Blondie. “Call Me.” Theme from American Gigolo.
Banking the worst of her fear, she made her feet carry her forward. It was only Donald, wishing he had Richard Gere’s panache and flagrant sex appeal.
Cellars had never been Nikita’s favorite places. She’d gotten locked in her grandmother’s basement once in St. Petersburg back when it was Leningrad and voicing personal opinions had been frowned upon in all levels of society. She’d thought when the door had clanged shut behind her that she was being
punished by the Soviet government for telling her grandmother that New England fish tasted better than the Russian variety. Even realizing later that the government had had nothing whatever to do with the faulty door latch hadn’t lessened her fear of underground places. There was no natural light in basements, and the air always smelled recirculated.
Shadows closed in on her as she walked. Fifteen feet to Donald’s lab. This had better be important.
Tremors like the strokes of cold feathers chased themselves up and down her spine. Her heart was beating double time. And there, she heard it again! That tiny scrape of someone’s heel on the marbled tiles.
She twisted her head, still walking. The corridors ran in a dozen different directions. No labyrinth could have been more confusing. Was someone there? An orderly perhaps?
She forced herself not to overreact “Donald?” she called, still looking back. “It’s Nikit—”
The final vowel lodged in her throat Bringing her head around, she found herself confronting not Donald’s laboratory door, but a rushing blur of motion that had neither color nor shape, only sheer brute strength, and a sensation of speed that left her reeling.
In that frantic rush of movement, a hand landed hard in the crook of her neck.
Every nerve in her upper body reacted to the blow. Even her knees felt wobbly. Darkness poured in from all sides, mammoth black shadows without pain. A numbing haze filled her head. It smelled like bad perfume. Her eyes rolled back in her skull. Her spine hit the wall with a dull thud.
She felt herself sliding downward. Who’d hit her? Through bleary eyes she saw the person dart into the shelter of a narrow passageway. Funny, she thought fuzzily, that a brick wall should be so agile.
Then her eyes closed completely, and she landed in an unconscious heap on the cellar floor.
Chapter Eleven
“Nikita?”
She swam back to reality from a nightmare of running feet, karate chops and the underlying scent of marsh flowers.
Gentle fingers stroked strands of hair from her cheeks and forehead. She felt floaty and warm. Safe.
