Asylum (Asylum, #1)(45)

“Yeah, I saw your text,” she answered quickly. “I still think we should say something.”

“Sure, yeah. Let’s just . . . approach with caution, you know? I don’t feel like getting my head bitten off again right now.”

They waited their turn to grab a shake for Jordan. Dan overheard the kids in front of them discussing their plans to leave. His heart sank. Did this mean the program was over for good? He suspected the only reason things hadn’t shut down after Joe’s murder was because they’d apprehended a suspect so quickly, but another incident . . . Well, it was easy to see why people were drawing a connection.

Milk shakes in hand, Abby and Dan approached Jordan. His notepads and pen were nowhere in sight. He’d gone back to carrying his many-sided die, turning it in his palm as if he were trying to polish down the corners. He stared out the windows into the quad, still wearing his blue bathrobe and a pair of brown suede slippers.

When Jordan saw them, he said defiantly, “I don’t want it. I don’t need your pity party.”

“Then we’ll go. We’ll leave you alone,” Abby replied. She put the milk shake on the table next to him. “But we wanted you to know we’re here if you need us.” She turned to leave, nodding for Dan to follow her.

“Hang on a second.” Jordan took the milk shake, cradling it in both hands. There were big circles under his eyes; his hair was unkempt. The lights from the police cars outside reflected off his face, tinting him red, then blue, then ghostly pale.

For a moment, Jordan kept his eyes on the cup in his hands. Then he slowly lifted his head to look at them. “Thanks. For the milk shake and . . . thanks.”

“So how are you holding up?” Dan asked.

Jordan sighed. “It doesn’t feel real. I mean, maybe he fell, but did you see all those cops? There’s no way he just fell.” He took a long slurp on the milk shake. “What did Yi do? He’s a good guy, a little talkative, but good.”

The program director arrived, informing them in a quavering voice that the dorm had been thoroughly checked and they could now return to their rooms. Nobody seemed eager to leave the dining hall.

“Come on,” Abby said. She put her hand on Jordan’s arm. “Let’s head back to your room.”

“I can walk there myself.”

Here we go again. . . . Dan braced himself for the blowup.

But Abby ignored the tone. “I know you can, stupid, you’ve got legs. But let’s go together anyway. Nobody should be alone tonight.”





The walk back was silent, and it was with heavy steps that all three reentered Brookline. The dorm has never looked so ugly before, Dan thought, so hulking and dilapidated. Now it was the scene of a murder and a possible attack, to say nothing of the grisly experiments it had once hidden away.

Jordan led them down the hall to his room. As he dug for the key in his pocket, Dan wondered what Abby would say when she saw the room papered in Jordan’s mathematical scrawl.

But when Abby stepped into the room behind Jordan, there was no surprised gasp, no cry of horror. The room was clean. Not one piece of yellow paper was in sight, the desk and bed were bare, and there were even a couple of posters on the wall. There was also no sign of the mutilated photographs.

Dan looked at Jordan, but Jordan had slumped on the bed and was staring down at his feet. For a moment, Dan doubted his memory. Could he have just imagined the way the room had been? The photographs? Surely it was strange that Yi hadn’t mentioned anything about the paper explosion to Dan and Abby when he told them about how worried he was about Jordan. Or maybe Jordan had cleaned up to freak Dan out deliberately. There were those two photographs he’d defaced, after all. Now that Dan thought about it, maybe Jordan was the one hiding the scratched-out picture of the warden.

But could Jordan really be behind all the shit that was happening to him? It was the second time that night Dan found himself asking this question.

Abby put a kettle on Jordan’s hot plate, then joined Jordan on the bed.

“Okay, so I know we’re all feeling a little freaked out and distraught right now, but there’s something I need to tell you guys,” she said. She pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear, easing into her next words with that delicate earnestness that Dan found so endearing. “My aunt Lucy is still alive.”

A grown-up Lucy? So she hadn’t died after the operation?

“But how did you . . .” Jordan trailed off.

“Find out?” Abby finished.

Dan wanted to know, too. Abby had clearly been doing her share of snooping, and she’d managed to keep it incredibly well hidden. They had that in common, then.

“You know that tiny little church on the way to Camford?” Abby said. “Dan and I passed it when we went to dinner that night, and I thought, well, maybe they’d have a record of Lucy. I mean, supposing she had been here as a little girl, I figured she couldn’t have gone far when Brookline closed.”

“Okay . . . ?” Dan said, marveling at her calm rationality.

“I went yesterday afternoon. The pastor there was in his office—he’s this nice old man, even shorter than I am—and he was very helpful. I told him I was looking for information on my lost aunt who lived in Camford in the late 1960s. He got out the old baptism registry, and we just started going through the names.”