The Lucky Ones(81)

As Allison made her way to the interstate, she reminded herself that lots of doctors had unintentionally harmed patients. It didn’t necessarily prove any kind of malice. It just happened. Surgeries were risky, and sometimes they had good outcomes, sometimes they had bad outcomes and sometimes there were lawsuits—that’s what malpractice insurance was for. Dr. Capello himself had spoken with deep feeling of the surgeon’s graveyard he carried within him, which contained every patient he’d ever tried to help and lost. Kendra’s medical problems were heartbreaking, devastating, but they might not have had anything at all to do with Allison’s fall or the phone call. Kendra was a very ill woman, but she didn’t seem violent or aggressive to Allison at all. When Roland said Kendra was incapable of hurting her, he’d meant it, and now Allison believed him.

But still...

Allison stopped for gas. Before driving away she sent McQueen a text message asking if he had an address or phone number for Antonio yet.

She’d made it fifty miles down the road before her phone buzzed with his reply. She glanced at the message and wished she’d been smart enough to pull off the road before she’d read it. The message nearly caused her to swerve onto the shoulder.

Russo’s been in a private mental hospital for fifteen years.

A private mental hospital?

This was getting worse and worse by the minute.

Allison saw a McDonald’s just ahead, so she pulled in and parked. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel and breathed. Her phone buzzed again, another message from McQueen.

I have the address if you want it.

Did she want the address? No, of course she didn’t want the address. She would rather eat glass than go to a mental hospital to see a man who’d been living there over half his life. There was no reason for her to go. Antonio had lived with the Capellos for such a short time, then he’d left long before Allison had arrived. It was absurd to think he’d had anything to do with her fall or the phone call. If she went to see him, that would mean she wasn’t investigating her accident anymore. It would mean she was investigating Dr. Capello. And why would she do that?

Because her former sister was on fourteen different drugs and almost never left her house, and no one deserved that. That’s why.

Allison texted McQueen back.

I want it.





Chapter 23

The hospital was in a suburb of Portland. Allison knew she could make it there and back to The Dragon before the end of the day. It would be very late when she got back, and it wouldn’t be easy accounting for her whereabouts, but she couldn’t worry about that now. She needed to see Antonio, and she might not get another chance like this.

Something had gone terribly wrong at The Dragon when she’d lived there, something much worse than one prank phone call and a fall that might not have been an accident. If she ever wanted to move past this, she’d have to learn the truth. She plugged the address into her phone’s map and headed east.

She survived the drive on coffee and determination. By late afternoon, Allison was nearing her destination. As soon as she took the exit off the interstate, she knew she was in money country. The houses were large and hidden behind high walls and old trees. The streets were clean, the sidewalks were in excellent repair and the children she saw getting out of school were being picked up by well-heeled parents and nannies who drove shiny SUVs. McQueen had said Antonio was in a private hospital. Those didn’t come cheap. She found her way to the road, which seemingly led straight into a forest. Once she passed through the outer perimeter of thick tall trees, she saw she was driving not through a forest but a park surrounded by forest. The signs that warned her not to drive more than eight miles per hour weren’t the ordinary black-and-white metal sorts on every city street in America, but elegant wooden signs, painted in cheerful colors.

The winding path went on so long, Allison wondered if she’d ever find the hospital. Then she saw it, the prettiest hospital she’d ever seen. It looked like an old English manor house. The exterior was gray stone with dark wood support beams here and there, possibly decorative. It was a three-story hospital, far wider than it was tall. She counted twenty windows in the top row, and that was just the front of the building. She could tell it stretched on far back into one or two other wings. The lawns were extensive and neatly manicured. People in regular clothes walked the paths in the park. The only signs that this was a mental hospital and not a posh private home were the abundance of people in wheelchairs and the dozen or so security guards keeping a close eye on the people taking their afternoon strolls.

Allison found the visitor parking section and went through the front doors to find the reception desk. Even inside, it looked like a luxurious private home. Everywhere she looked she saw comfy armchairs, cozy rugs, fireplaces and fine art on the walls. Soothing classical music played in the background. Was this a hospital or a boutique hotel?

Yet for all its surface beauty, nothing could completely disguise the building’s purpose. A woman in a white robe sat silent and still in a wheelchair that was parked near a window. With glazed eyes she gazed out at the park. From behind a heavy set of double doors Allison heard a low hopeless keening. A patient suffering? Or a heartbroken visitor?

Tucked away in the corner of the lobby was a grand U-shaped desk with a woman in a crisp white nurse’s uniform, a stack of files at her elbow.

“Welcome to Fairwood,” the nurse said from behind the desk. “How can I help you?”