All the Missing Girls(49)

“Ms. Farrell.” There was a hand on my shoulder but the voice sounded farther away. “Ms. Farrell.” A woman’s voice, more forceful now, and then the hand moved to my wrist, restraining my own movement. “It’s for his safety. And ours.”

I looked at the hand on my wrist, at the long fingers and cracked knuckles leading to the knobby wrist and the slender arm. Daniel.

It was then that I got a good look at everyone in the room. A nurse looked shaken, half her hair pulled free from a bun. There were two men in the room who didn’t appear to be doctors or nurses, and were watching Dad carefully. And the woman who’d spoken my name, dressed in business attire and standing near the doorway.

“He’s sedated now,” the woman said. “But we don’t know what shape he’ll be in when he wakes up.”

The air was stale and cold and seemed so impersonal. No scents of home. Medicine, cleansers, bleach. It couldn’t be good for his memory. He needed to smell the wood floors and the forest behind our house. He needed the exhaust from his crappy car and the grease from Kelly’s Pub. “Well, when he wakes up to find himself physically restrained, I can tell you right now it won’t be good,” I said.

She pressed her lips together and stuck her hand out in my direction, not giving me any choice but to take it. “I’m Karen Addelson, the director here. I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting you yet, Ms. Farrell. Come, please, to my office, both of you.” She didn’t let go of my hand, instead taking hold of my elbow with her other hand. “He’ll be fine. Someone will stay with him.” Her hand on my elbow moved to my lower back, and she led me out of the room, Daniel at my side.

Karen Addelson was dressed smart, like how I modeled myself in Philadelphia. Pencil skirt, black trendy flats, blouse cut to look both professional and feminine. She dropped her hand as we walked in a straight line against the right side of the hall, making room for wheelchairs and service carts. Smiling tightly, she checked over her shoulder to make sure we were following. Her blouse was sheer with a camisole underneath, and it was so at odds with her makeup-free face and hair pulled into a severe bun that I couldn’t get a grasp on her.

We followed her into an outer office with potted plants on either side of bay windows and a desk with a secretary who smiled absently in our direction. “Hold my calls,” Karen said as she strode past into her office. Three cushioned chairs and a couch on one side, her desk on the other. She gestured toward the couch. Daniel sank into the cushions, but I remained standing. Everett would never sit there—You’ll lose the upper hand, Nicolette, I could imagine him whispering into my ear. Everett was like that: always teaching me how to handle myself in situations, as if he could mold me into his equal. I imagined his father doing the same for him, teaching him that line to walk, and a miniature Everett nodding, learning, copying, becoming.

Karen sat on the chair across from the couch, and I stood beside the couch, close to Daniel.

“I’m concerned,” she said. “Your father had an episode this morning.”

“What does that even mean?” Daniel said. “An episode?”

“He became extremely agitated—”

“It’s because there’s nothing here to help him remember,” I said. “I’d be agitated if I woke up in a place I didn’t know.”

“That may be true, Ms. Farrell, I don’t deny his right to those feelings. But his outburst went beyond disorientation. I’m afraid I’d have to call it paranoia. And it makes me question whether this is the right facility for him. Perhaps he would be better suited to a place that can care for those specific needs.”

“Paranoia?” Daniel asked.

“Yes. He was yelling that someone was after his daughter, and he refused to remain here. He was unmanageable. He became violent, insisting that he had to get out, get to you. Help you.” She stared at me, and I looked away, imagining him yelling for his daughter—for me. My spine tingled, paranoia or not.

“It took two men to restrain him so a doctor could sedate him. But all he kept saying was ‘My daughter’s not safe.’”

I felt Daniel staring at my face. The chill moved up my spine, hollowing out the room and my stomach and my lungs.

“If this was an event in the past, I could understand,” she continued. “That would be more in line with what we know of his condition. Was it? Were you once in danger, Ms. Farrell?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what’s happening to him.” His words echoing over and over, as if I’d heard them myself.

“Well, as I said, the paranoid delusions make me question if he’s in the right facility,” she said, driving home the point of our meeting.

“It’s my fault,” Daniel said.

“Excuse me?” Karen said. We were both staring at him; his cheeks were burning as if he’d been working in the sun too long.

“Our neighbor went missing. Annaleise Carter? Maybe you’ve seen it on the news? I told him. I realize in hindsight that was a mistake. It just slipped out. She disappeared in the woods behind our house, where my sister is staying. I wanted him to hear it from me and not the news. I shouldn’t have told him. I’m sorry. It’s not paranoia, though. It’s confusion. It’s a mistake.”

Karen tilted her head to the side, assessing my brother’s words. She finally nodded. “That’s understandable. Upsetting, to say the least. We will need to continue to monitor him, however. If this becomes a pattern . . .”