At the end of the hall, they turned right into another corridor, this one wider and with fewer doors. It looked exactly like the main hallway in House Six. For a second, she felt light-headed, overcome by the powerful sensation that she was about to fall to the floor. Half convinced that she’d just been jarred awake from a long dream to find herself still locked inside Willowbrook, she reminded herself to breathe and stayed close to Detective Nolan. At least there were no moaning residents in wheelchairs and carts lining the hall.
When they passed the turnoff leading to the seclusion ward, she half expected Wayne to be standing there with a shit-eating grin on his face, ready to throw her into a straitjacket and drag her into the tunnels to slit her throat.
But Wayne was dead. So who would be waiting there instead?
At the far end of the hall, they came to a set of riveted double doors below a sign that read: ADULT WARD D. BURNED OUT CHRONIC.
“I thought Willowbrook was for children?” Detective Nolan said.
“It is, mostly,” Dr. Baldwin, unlocking the doors. “But children grow up.”
He pushed open one side of the double doors and held it, and the familiar stench of feces and Pine-Sol immediately wafted over them, along with the nightmarish sounds of muttering and wailing and screaming. Nausea stirred in Sage’s stomach. It was all she could do not to turn around and run.
After she and Nolan went through, Baldwin locked the door again and led them down a wide corridor, past more doors with square windows covered with metal bars. A woman screamed behind one door. A man pushed his face up to a window and barked at them. Another man let out of string of profanities.
Sage walked in the center of the corridor with her hands over her ears, the floor and walls reeling in front of her. Detective Nolan looked left and right, sometimes hesitating, sometimes walking fast. While he tried to maintain a professional detachment, the horror in his eyes betrayed him.
After they passed a nurses’ station and took a left, Dr. Baldwin stopped at a door with a sign that read: CONSULTATION ROOM.
“You can wait in here,” he said, unlocking the door and letting them through.
Inside, a pockmarked table surrounded by four wooden chairs sat in the center of what looked like a small waiting room, with three more chairs against one wall, beneath a painting of a pond surrounded by wildflowers. Detective Nolan took a seat at the table, turning the chair sideways to face the door. At first Sage couldn’t decide whether to pace or sit. Then she got dizzy, so she sat in one of the chairs lining the wall, her hands tightly clasped in her lap, her knuckles turning white. A thousand thoughts and questions ran through her head, jumbling together so fast she couldn’t think straight. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to stop trembling.
Within minutes, Dr. Baldwin returned, followed by an attendant gripping the arm of a young man. The young man shuffled into the room with his eyes down, his face devoid of emotion. When Sage saw who it was, she felt something shift inside her head, as if Dr. Baldwin had reached into her brain with his ice pick and altered reality. She couldn’t breathe.
“Eddie?” she managed. “What are you doing here?”
When Eddie looked up, he stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide.
She gaped at Dr. Baldwin. “What’s going on? Why did you lock him up? He’s not crazy. He was only trying to help me!”
“Sit down over there, Eddie,” Dr. Baldwin said, pointing at the chair opposite the detective.
Eddie dropped his eyes but stayed put. The attendant yanked him forward and forced him into the chair, then stood behind him.
“It’s all right,” Dr. Baldwin said, nodding at the attendant. “I can handle this. Wait outside in the hall and shut the door behind you.” After the attendant left, Baldwin stood in the middle of the room, halfway between Eddie and Detective Nolan.
Sage could only stare at Eddie, the roar of her blood growing louder and louder in her ears. She felt light-headed. Confused and sick. “Will someone please tell me what is going on?”
“Just a moment, Miss Winters,” Dr. Baldwin said. “I think Detective Nolan might have a few questions first.” Then he addressed Eddie. “I expect you to cooperate.”
Eddie shrugged. “I did yesterday, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but things have changed since then,” Dr. Baldwin said. “We just came from—”
Nolan held up a hand to stop Dr. Baldwin from saying anything more, then regarded Eddie. “He’s right, things have changed,” he said. “And I appreciated your cooperation yesterday evening, but due to recent developments, I have some more questions. Sage says you paid her a visit last night. What do you have to say about that?”
“What do you want me to say about it?”
“Just answer the question,” Dr. Baldwin said. “Did you go to Sage’s apartment or not?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Eddie, please,” Sage said. “Tell them the truth. They can’t fire you for something you did on your free time!”
Nolan held up a hand to silence her, keeping his eyes on Eddie. “She said you went to her apartment after she was released and stayed overnight on the couch.”
Eddie shrugged again. “Okay.”
“What the hell is going on?” Sage glared at Dr. Baldwin. “Did you drug him? Is that why he’s acting so strange?”
Dr. Baldwin shook his head.
“Yeah, right. What did you give him?”
The doctor ignored her.
She began pleading with Eddie. “Why aren’t you telling them what happened? You showed up in front of my house when I left to go to the grocery store a little after one in the morning. We went to the Top Hat to get something to eat, then you slept on my couch because I was scared, remember? And then this morning . . . this morning I found Alan dead under his bed!”
Finally, Eddie acknowledged her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “I really am.” His voice was emotionless and cold, nothing like the Eddie she thought she knew. And he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
Panic and anger rose like bile in her throat. She wanted to grab him by the neck and shake him until he told the truth. What was he trying to pull? Did he want Dr. Baldwin to think she was crazy?
Eddie looked at Detective Nolan. “Was it Wayne? Did you catch him yet?”
“Yes, we found him,” Nolan said.
“Wow, that was quick. Did he confess?”
“No, he didn’t confess. He’s dead. They found him in the morgue this morning.”
Eddie’s mouth fell open. Then a smirk played around his lips and he eyed Dr. Baldwin. “Did you put him there?”
“Enough of the bullshit, Eddie,” Dr. Baldwin said. “I warned you to cooperate.”
“How am I not cooperating?” Eddie raised his hands in the air. “It’s a legitimate question.”
Dr. Baldwin shook his head, like a teacher dealing with a disobedient student.
“Sage said you were driving a red Mustang,” Detective Nolan said.
“Cool,” Eddie said. “Except I don’t know how to drive.”
A miserable clutch of fear twisted in her stomach. “What are you doing, Eddie?” she said. “Why are you lying?”
Dr. Baldwin looked at Detective Nolan. “Do you want to tell her, or do you want me to do it?”