Hide (Detective D.D. Warren, #2)(32)

The car slowed. I blinked rapidly ashamed to find my eyes filled with tears. As quickly as I could, I swiped at my face with the back of my hand.

Detective Dodge pulled over. I didn't recognize where we were. I saw a block of old triple-deckers, most in need of new paint and maybe some actual grass in their front yards. The neighborhood looked tired, poor. I didn't understand.

"Here's the deal," Dodge said from the driver's seat, turning toward me. "There are only two entrances onto the site. We, the police, have smartly cordoned them off in order to preserve the crime scene. Unfortunately, the media are camped outside both entrances, desperate for any comment or visual they can stick on the news. I'm guessing you don't want your face on the news."

The notion terrified me so much, I couldn't even speak.

"Yeah, okay, like I thought. So, this isn't exactly glamorous, but it will get the job done." He gestured to the backseat, where I now saw a folded-up blanket, roughly the same hue as the upholstered seats. "You lie down; I'll cover you with the blanket. With any luck, we'll pass through the vicious hordes so fast, no one will be any wiser. Once we're actually on the grounds, you can sit up. The FAA agreed to restrict the airspace, so nobody gets to play in their choppers anymore."

He popped open his door, stepping out. Moving on autopilot, I shifted to the backseat, lying down with my knees curled up, arms tucked tight against my chest. With a sharp snap, he unfolded the blanket, then settled it over me. A couple more tugs to cover my feet, obscure the top of my head.

"Okay?" Detective Dodge asked.

I nodded. The back door slammed. I heard him move around, settle back into the driver's seat, put the car in gear.

I couldn't see anymore. Just hear the sound of the asphalt rumbling beneath the tires. Just smell the nauseous mix of exhaust and air freshener.

I squeezed my eyes shut, and in that moment, I got it. I knew exactly how Dori had felt, thrown into an unknown vehicle, tucked away out of sight. I understood how she must have curled up tighter and tighter, closing her eyes, wishing her own body would disappear. I knew she had whispered the Lord's Prayer, because that's what we said at bedtime when I slept over. And I knew she had cried for her mother, who always smelled of lavender when she kissed us good night.

Underneath the blanket, I covered my face with my hands. I cried, never making a sound, for that's how you learn to cry when you spend your life on the run.

The car slowed again. The window came down, I heard Detective Dodge give his name, hand over his badge. Then the larger background rumble of gathered voices crying out for recognition, a question, a comment.

The window came up. The car started to drive again, engine downshifting as the vehicle ground its way up a hill.

"Ready or not," Detective Dodge said.

Beneath the blanket, I once again wiped my face.

For Dori, I told myself, for Dori.

But mostly I was thinking of my father and how much I hated him.


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DODGE HAD TO let me out of the backseat. Turns out, back doors in police sedans do have some differences from ordinary cars—they only open from the outside. His face was unreadable as he assisted me, hooded gray eyes peering at a spot just beyond my right shoulder. I followed his gaze to a second car, already parked beneath the skeletal umbrella of a massive oak tree. Sergeant Warren stood beside it, shoulders hunched within her caramel-colored leather jacket, expression as annoyed as I remembered.

"She's lead officer," Detective Dodge murmured low, for my ears only "Can't very well visit her crime scene without her permission. Don't worry, she's only pissed off at me. You're just an easy target."

Being labeled a target offended me. I straightened up, shoulders squaring, balance shifting. Dodge nodded approvingly, and immediately I wondered if that hadn't been his intention. The thought left me more off balance than Sergeant Warren's perpetually sour look.

Dodge headed over to the sergeant. I followed in his wake, arms hugging my body for warmth. The afternoon was gray and chilly. Leaf-peeping season, easily the most beautiful time to be living in New England, had peaked two weeks ago. Now the brilliant crimsons, bright oranges, and cheerful yellows had succumbed to muddy browns and dreary grays. The air smelled damp and moldy. I sniffed again, caught the faint odor of decay.

I had read about the Boston State Mental Hospital site online. I knew it started as the Boston Lunatic Hospital in 1839, before becoming the Boston State Hospital in 1908. Originally, the compound had housed a few hundred patients and operated more like a self-sustaining farm than a role model for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

By 1950, however, the patient population had ballooned to over three thousand patients, with the compound adding two maximum-security buildings and an enormous wrought-iron security fence. Not such a tranquil place anymore. When deinstitutionalization finally closed the hospital in 1980, the community was grateful.

I expected to feel an eerie chill as I entered the grounds, maybe goose bumps rippling down my arms as I sensed the presence of a lingering evil. I would gaze upon some spookily Gothic structure, like the abandoned Danvers mental hospital that still towers over I-95, spotting—just for an instant—a pale, haunted face peering from a shattered window

Actually, from this vantage point, I didn't see the two remaining buildings at all. Instead, I gazed upon a thicket of snarled bushes, capped by an enormous hundred-year-old oak tree. When Sergeant Warren followed a narrow trail through the shrubs, we entered a yawning expanse of drying marsh grass that winked gold and silver in the rippling wind. The view was lovely, more of a nature hike than an impending crime scene.