“Yes, sir,” the baby-faced cop said, then turned on his heels and left.
Nolan looked at Sage. “I need to ask your friends when they talked to Alan. And you and I need to talk to Dr. Baldwin.”
She shook her head. No. Not Dr. Baldwin. She never wanted to see or talk to that man again. “Why? Eddie helping me again is none of his business. And why are you sending someone to ask Iris about us being at the diner? Don’t you believe me?”
Before he could reply, a cop yelled from an open office on the other side of the room. “Nolan! Call for you on line three.”
“Hold on,” he told her. “Don’t go anywhere.”
She rolled her eyes. Where would she go? Back home where Alan’s dead body was under the bed? Back to where Wayne could find and kill her? Except for stopping at the apartment to get a few things, living there was out of the question for a hundred different reasons, least of which that she had no way of paying the rent on her own.
He punched a button on the phone and picked up the receiver. “Detective Nolan,” he said, impatience edging his voice. He frowned as he listened then gave Sage a worried glance. “Are you sure?” He dropped his gaze to the floor, still listening.
She kept her eyes on his face. Obviously the call had something to do with her. And it wasn’t good.
“Where?” he said. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Yes, Dr. Baldwin, we’ll be right over.” He hung up the phone and stared at her, his expression a strange mix of shock and confusion.
“What is it?” she said.
“We need to get over to Willowbrook right away,” he said.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“I’ll know more when we get there.”
“No, I’m not going back there.”
“Well, you’re a minor. And I hate to be blunt, but your parents are dead. We can’t just let you out on the streets. Do you have family nearby who can come pick you up?”
She shook her head.
“Do you have any idea where your biological father is?”
She shook her head again. “No, but I can stay with one of my friends.”
“Sorry, I can’t let that happen. You need to remain under my custody or I’ll have to call Social Services before I leave so they can find you a temporary place to stay until we sort this out. More than likely they’ll put you in the children’s home, so you might as well come with me.”
* * *
Slouched in the back seat of the unmarked Ford LTD behind Sergeant Clark, who was driving, and Detective Nolan, who rode in silence, Sage stared out through the snow-pelted windshield. The wipers slapped back and forth so fast they nearly made her dizzy. Despite the fact that it was midmorning, it looked like dusk outside, the winter sky filled with murky clouds so low they seemed to touch the ground. Wind and sleet clawed at the car, pushing it all over the road as if trying to get inside. A perfect day to return to the nightmare of Willowbrook. The only thing missing was thunder and lightning.
No. She wasn’t going to think like that. She’d made up her mind back at the police station to be brave. She wasn’t returning as a patient. She was free and sane and everyone knew it now. At least she thought they did.
Detective Nolan had said the phone call had something to do with Rosemary’s case, but he wanted to wait until he could check the evidence before he confirmed it. Deep down she worried it was a trick; that he and Dr. Baldwin had come up with a plan to lock her up again. What was one more soul lost in Willowbrook? Especially if Dr. Baldwin still thought she had something to do with the murders. Especially if he thought she was insane. Locking her up would be easier than going through a trial to prove she was guilty.
But that was ridiculous. Detective Nolan knew she was innocent. And she’d made the choice to return with him instead of being picked up by Social Services. She needed to stop being paranoid. Still, she couldn’t help wondering it if was too late to ask Sergeant Clark to turn around.
As they sped along the snowy, one-lane road, getting closer and closer to Willowbrook’s front gate, the more she wished she’d stayed at the station. Maybe she could have snuck out before anyone arrived to pick her up. Maybe she could have called Heather and convinced the other cops she was her sister so they’d let her go. She cracked her window open to get some fresh air, certain she was suffocating. Sleet flew in through the narrow opening, hitting her eyes and forehead like tiny wet bullets. She rolled the window back up.
“You okay back there?” Nolan asked over his shoulder.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
And she would be fine, as soon as they left Willowbrook again. As soon as they found Wayne and put him behind bars. Outside the windshield, the pillared gates to Willowbrook stood open, gaping, and hungry for their next victim, like the mouth of a hushed, breathing beast. Sergeant Clark slowed the car, stopped next to the guardhouse, and rolled down his window. The guard stepped out partway to wave them on, squinting against the snow.
Detective Nolan leaned across the seat to talk to him through the open window. “What’s the quickest way to the hospital?”
“After the administration building keep going straight,” the guard said. “It’s at the far end of the campus on the same road.”
“Thanks.” Nolan gave the man a quick wave.
Sergeant Clark rolled up the window and drove on. “They need to tighten security in this place,” he said.
“I agree,” Nolan said. “But like everything else funded by the state, it probably all comes down to money.”
Sage sat forward, growing more and more nervous. “Why are we going to the hospital?”
“That’s where Dr. Baldwin said to meet him,” Nolan said.
She sagged back in the seat, her anxiety building as they drove along another lonely length of road into a wooded area filled with snow-covered trees and low brush. When they came out on the other side and the first brick building came into view, she pressed her nails into her palms. Never in a million years would she have thought she’d be back on the Willowbrook campus, and certainly not so soon. Yet here she was.
Here and there in the low-slung houses, jittery, weak lights shone in the windows. Shadows moved behind the grimy glass—ashen silhouettes lurching back and forth, or side to side, up and down, slowly and methodically, fast and frenzied. The misery and pain of the people trapped behind those dark walls, weeping and misused and afraid, abused and desperate and dying, was palpable—a living, breathing thing. It put a boulder in her chest and a sour pit in her stomach.
Then the administration building appeared like a ship through the wind and snow, the massive structure dark, the windows black, the outside lights shining like a ghostly warning. It looked deserted.
When Detective Nolan spoke, she jumped. “From what I understand, this campus is over three hundred acres,” he said to Sergeant Clark. “So the hospital is probably quite a ways down this road.”
After the administration building, they passed more resident “houses” on both sides of the road—a thousand more dim windows and moving shadows, a thousand more miles of brick walls hiding squalor, abuse, neglect, misery, and death. She’d never been this deep inside the campus; seeing one resident house after another, along with side roads lined with even more houses, she was again reminded of a concentration camp, with row after row of identical barracks. Hearing the numbers was one thing, but seeing the houses firsthand was something else entirely. She had no idea there were so many.