Night Film(30)

Nora rolled her eyes and took off. The corridor walls were bright, painted half white, half kitten-nose pink, but the place felt clinical and claustrophobic, like a train compartment. The Disoriented Express headed toward Crazytown. All aboard.

Patients started to flood out of classrooms. They wore jeans and baggy cotton shirts—no belts or shoelaces, I noticed—a surprisingly wide range of ages. One guy with spiky gray hair staggered out of an art room—he looked about eighty. Most avoided eye contact as they walked past me. Various eggheads and shrinks milled about, too, conferring, nodding, looking constructive. They were easy to spot because they were all dressed in L.L.Bean fleeces and barn jackets, wool sweaters in earth tones—probably so patients would mistake the place for Vail.

Poole was fussing with the barrette in Sweetie’s hair.

“I’ve heard very good things about Dr. Annika Angley,” I said.

She stood up, holding the dog in her arms.

Annika Angley was the psychologist who’d completed Ashley’s new-patient assessment, which had been included in the NYPD file.

“A friend of mine recommended her,” I went on. “She’s apparently very good with young women who have depressive disorders. Is there any way I could speak to her?”

“Her office is on the third floor. That area isn’t open to visitors. And discussion of Dr. Angley or any physician at this stage is premature. If Lisa comes, she’ll be assigned a team of health professionals that suits her needs. Which reminds me. I’m going to go check on her.”

She put Sweetie down, smiling at me, the implication of which was Don’t you dare move, and marched down the hall, her black orthopedic shoes squishing on the linoleum.

When she appeared a minute later, her face was beet red.

“She’s not in there,” she announced.

I blankly stared back.

“Lisa is missing. Did you see her?”

“No.”

Poole spun on her heel and stomped down the hallway.

“She must have exited the other end.”

Sweetie and I—mutually stunned by this recent development—took off after her, though as I passed the ladies’ room I couldn’t help but open the door and call out: “Lisa? Honey?”

Poole shot me a look over her shoulder. “She’s not there. Really.”

She barged past patients, thrusting open the door at the end and storming into the stairwell. I followed close behind. She paused, squinting up at the next flight—sectioned off by a metal gate and a sign that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY—then turned, stomping down the stairs. We blasted out onto the ground floor, jostling a man carrying a stack of folders, Sweetie’s paws skidding on the slick wood floors as she rounded the sharp turn. We followed Poole into an office marked DRUG AND ALCOHOL EXTENSION PROGRAM.

“Beth, did you see a five-forty-six wandering around? Skinny blonde? Micro-mini? Hair in Heidi braids?” She eyed me icily. “Feathers?”

“No, Liz.”

Poole, muttering to herself, marched back down the hall.

“What’s a five-forty-six?” I asked.

“A prospective. I’ll have to review the security monitors. She likes to run away, does she? Any idea where she might go?”

“If she makes it to the main road she might try to hitchhike.”

“Unless she has wings and can fly over a thirty-foot electrified fence, that girl’s not going anywhere.”

“I’m terribly sorry about this.”

We exited through the glass doors. Outside, across the lawn, patients—quite a few escorted by nurses—streamed down the sidewalks, heading to lunch. There was no sign of Nora anywhere. With the getup she was wearing, she’d be easy to spot. I had no idea where she was; this wasn’t part of the orders I’d given her. She’d gone rogue.

A minute later, Poole deposited me on the floral couch in her office.

“You wait here,” she said. “I’ll be right back with your daughter.”

“Thank you.”

She only glared at me and slammed the door behind her.





16


I was alone with Sweetie. The dog had gone over to her pillow bed by the potted plants and returned with a squeaking hotdog.

The chime dinged over the loudspeakers for the second time.

I studied the ceiling. No visible camera.

I stood up and moved over to Poole’s desk.

There was a screensaver on her computer monitor. Unsurprisingly, it featured floating shots of Sweetie, though every now and then there was the presence in the background of a thin bald man who looked baffled. Mr. Poole.

I tapped the keyboard and was prompted for a password.

I tried Sweetie. It didn’t work.

On the corner of the desk were stacks of papers in IN and OUT trays. I flipped through them: thank-you notes, admission applications, a signed confidentiality statement, an email from Dr. Robert Paul announcing his retirement. Surely, there had to be some kind of internal administrative memo about Ashley Cordova. It’d be written by some hospital head, filled with phrases like This is a very delicate matter and It’s critical to the reputation of this hospital—and so on.

I opened the desk drawers.

They were filled with office supplies, a Pottery Barn catalog, and strewn with wrapped hard mint candies. I moved to the row of filing cabinets along the back wall. They were all locked and no sign anywhere of the keys.