Asylum (Asylum, #1)(24)

“I’m sorry we got caught and that you had to cry. . . . But you were amazing, really. We would’ve been in huge trouble without you.”

“It was nothing.” She shrugged. Then she said abruptly, “I’ll see you in the morning, Dan, okay?”

He nodded too fast, blowing whatever nonchalance he had hoped to project. “Yeah, of course. Sleep tight, Abby. Be a tree.”

They both laughed nervously and looked at their feet. Whatever had been between them earlier this evening—if there had been something between them—was gone. Of course, all things considered, how could it not be?

“Well, good night.”

Abby gave him a quick wave and went into her room. A dust bunny hung like a burr in her hair. He should’ve brushed it away.





Dan was dead tired. As he started to climb the stairs, he couldn’t believe it was only a little after ten. But his most pressing thought was not of sleep. With every step he felt his energy surge. He had a card on the Sculptor! And a leather folder to go through! The closer he got to his room, the more wired he felt.

Dan was relieved to find that Felix was still gone. He wanted to look at the stuff he’d taken in private. He pulled out the index card and the folder and put them on his desk. His fingers were repelled by them. The stench of the basement and his itch made him feel unclean. But he couldn’t stop.

He took a look at the index card first.

Heimline, Dennis. Alias: the Sculptor

Born: 1935

DOA: 5.15.1965

Reason for Admittance: Serial Killer

Homicidal: Y

Recovered: Y



Y?

Dan was shocked by that last line. A serial killer—recovered? How? How would they even know? Then something else caught his eye—on the bottom right corner of the card. Three hand-written numbers. 361.

Suddenly Dan was clawing at his shoulders, trying to stop the itch. The card sat on the desk, just as it was, but the 361 seemed to shimmer. Get a grip, Dan. He really had to calm down. Take a shower. But first he took the card and folder and hid them in the drawer. With the warden.

Dan stood in the shower for a long time. Jung had this way of talking about coincidences, one that Dan had always liked. Basically, he said that when people saw a meaningful connection between two moments—a coincidence—the connection wasn’t because one moment led to the other, it was because people’s brains were always making connections.

The Sculptor was patient 361. His discovery couldn’t be a coincidence. It was a connection.

Dan fumbled with the towel and his clothes in his haste to get back to his room.

He grabbed the folder and flipped through the sheets of paper inside. Invoices . . . employee evaluations . . . Dan gave everything a passing glance, but he didn’t stop on anything until he came to a slip of folded paper. The sheet was torn, as if it had been yanked out of a journal or notebook. Dense, cursive handwriting filled the page.

He sat on his bed and began to read.

very nature of his ailment continues to baffle me, and baffle us all. What is the source of this abnormality? Everywhere we observe plants, animals, systems with a core. Every flower has its seed. Every animal its heart. Every masterpiece its inspiration. Yet the answers I seek elude me. There is a root somewhere in his brain, a twisted root that sprouts madness and malice. I will find it. No matter the cost, no matter the difficulty, I will find it. I will live a truly great life. My colleagues will no doubt hang me metaphorically, but I say let them hang. Legality, morality, sympathy aside, I will pull madness out by its black root, and I will leave a legacy no man, however sanctimonious, can fault.

A truly great life. That is what humanity deserves. Not an average life, not even a normal one—a life in which genius is not an anomaly but an expectation.

But to achieve such things





And there the page ended. Dan flipped it over, perfectly aware that it was blank on the other side, but wanting to know more, much more. Without context, without a signature, the piece of paper wasn’t much to go by.

The writer of this page was clearly talking about curing someone who was insane. And he was talking about something unusual, some new treatment that he alone might discover. Dan’s mind began to race. These weren’t the musings of some random Brookline doctor—these had to be the ideas of its warden. And not just any warden, if he was to believe the conspiracy enthusiast Sal Weathers—the warden, the one who had changed Brookline’s history and rehabilitated a serial killer.

Rereading the journal page, Dan admired the warden’s grand vision. This man was willing to try something revolutionary to cure insanity. He dared to be different, to challenge the status quo. Even if he was rejected for it. Wasn’t that a little of what Dan was like—scorning the popular opinion, the popular crowd, and aspiring to something more?

But this note wasn’t just promoting intelligence, he thought. This was something a little more sinister. Genius is an expectation. Genius was nice and all but you couldn’t force it on people, could you? Besides, what kind of treatment could do something like that? What could put a Y next to Recovered?

He leaned back on his pillow, trying to put the pieces together in his head. The horrible photograph of the patient struggling. This piece of paper by the warden about a mad man. The emails about patient 361. The Sculptor. It all seemed to be adding up. But to what?