Asylum (Asylum, #1)(52)

“Now Mr. and Mrs. Harold, I can’t help noticing that Dan doesn’t share your last name. Why is that?”

His parents exchanged another look. Dan wanted to sink into the floor and die.

“Well, Crawford is the name he came to us with,” his father said.

“We gave him the choice, just like our social worker said we could,” his mother said defensively. “Dan had already lived with so many families by that point. I think he just wanted to keep one thing the same—one piece of himself.”

“Hm,” Teague said. He turned to address Dan directly. “Are you aware that you have the exact same name as the last warden of Brookline asylum?”

Dan nodded. “I read about him recently, yeah.”

His parents, bless their hearts, said nothing. He had asked them about it on the phone, but now they kept silent, perhaps sensing, as Dan did, that Teague saw the strange connection as some sort of proof of his guilt.

“It’s not that unusual of a last name,” his father said. “And lord knows Daniel is common enough.”

“But what about Dan’s birth parents?” Teague asked, finally looking away from Dan. “There must be a quick way to check if there’s any relation.”

“I’m afraid it’s anything but quick,” his mother admitted. “We don’t get to see that kind of information at all, and you’d need a court order to get it yourselves. But I can’t see why it’s so important. So what if Danny was related to this warden? What does that prove?”

“You don’t think it’s a rather alarming coincidence?”

“I think a coincidence is exactly what it is, and that’s my whole point,” his mother said testily.

Dan hated to see his parents get angry, even if it was helping his case.

“Did the . . .” His mouth had suddenly gone so dry it was hard to speak. “Did the guy who killed Joe ever confess?”

Teague stared, taken aback. “Actually, no, he didn’t. He insists it was a wrong place, wrong time sort of thing. Still, he had the victim’s possessions and a murder weapon on him and he can’t explain that.” Teague snorted, giving Dan a look that said, “Lucky you.” The officer leaned an elbow on the desk between them. His brow lowered and Dan knew he should have kept his mouth shut. “Why do you ask?”

“Just . . . curious.” Dan hoped he could keep it together for a few more minutes. He felt like if he didn’t get to the bottom of this mystery now, it would plague him for the rest of his life.

It was Thursday. There were now ten days till the end of the program. “I want to finish out the program,” he said calmly.

“We’re not done questioning you yet,” Teague replied, tugging his mustache. “How you answer those questions will determine whether you get to stay or not.”

“Fair enough,” Dan said.

His father looked ready to argue, but his mother nodded. “We’ll stay in town, Danny. Just in case.”

Dan couldn’t fully explain why he wanted, needed, to finish this program, when there were so many reasons why he should run far, far away, as fast as he could.

Dan ending up at Brookline this summer wasn’t a coincidence, it was a connection. And he was going to leave Brookline cured if it killed him.





Thankfully, although Teague grilled him for three more hours, nobody else seemed to think Dan was guilty. He had no motive to hurt Felix, no history of violence, and when the cops searched his dorm room, they found nothing of interest. Most importantly, Felix had woken up in the hospital and sworn that he didn’t think Dan was behind this.

Dan was totally drained by the time he was allowed to go. He walked his parents to their car and declined their invitation to eat dinner with them in town. He just wanted to be back in his room already.

Dan hadn’t gone two steps on the path toward Brookline when he saw Professor Reyes pacing next to an ash bin. She waved, cigarette in hand, beckoning him over.

“Not in cuffs, I see,” she said by way of greeting. Her brown eyes twinkled behind the thin veil of smoke that drifted up from her lips. “That’s a good sign. Looked like your parents were pretty worried about you.”

“Oh, they’re fine, it was just a little tense in there.”

Her necklace was made of opals today, as fine and white as bone. “I don’t know the particulars, but you seem like a good kid.” She shook her head, pursing her lips to blow a jet of smoke up and away from them. “Brookline just has a way of taking a hold on people—always has. It’s the self-fulfilling prophecy of madness. If someone tells you you’re crazy enough times, eventually it becomes true. It’s that old psychiatrist’s joke: insanity’s all in your head.”

Dan looked at his shoes, tempted to tell her that no, some conditions were in fact very real. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”

“All I’m saying is, people in town don’t want Brookline gone just because of what happened there fifty years ago.” Professor Reyes dropped her cigarette and stamped it out. The wind picked up her short dark hair, tossing it in front of her eyes. “Good luck, Dan. I hope you don’t need it.”

Abby and Jordan waited outside his door for him. They had even snuck out a pie from the cafeteria, hiding it under a Windbreaker. Rhubarb with extra whipped cream. His favorite.