She went over to the window and looked out. The full moon hung round and pale behind drifting gray clouds. Several floors below, Willowbrook’s snow-covered campus stretched out like an endless blanket, the white expanse broken up by an occasional streetlamp, dark clusters of bare trees, and the sinister hulk of two resident buildings. The city lights of Staten Island sparkled in the distance, cold and remote, white as ice, and as far out of reach as the stars in the sky.
She pressed her forehead against the window, slammed the side of her fist against the thick glass, and closed her flooding eyes. Why had she come back here? Why had she trusted Detective Nolan? One thing was for sure: When she saw Dr. Baldwin again, she’d lie and say she was wrong about Eddie. He had never come to her apartment, had never slept on the couch. Anything to get out of there. She’d say she took a sleeping pill and made a mistake. She’d say she was confused and scared and grieving. She’d say it was all just a dream.
If she saw Dr. Baldwin again.
Behind her, a key turned in the lock. She spun around. Thank God. Someone had heard her call for help. Someone was going to let her out. Maybe Detective Nolan had already talked to Iris and realized she was telling the truth. She started toward the door, then slowed. What if it was a nurse coming in with a syringe? What if it was Marla coming to take her back to House Six? The door opened partway and she froze, holding her breath. Then a familiar man quickly slipped inside and closed the door behind him. She took a step back.
It was Eddie.
“What are you doing here?” she said.
“I came to see you,” he said, sounding like the old Eddie again.
Her heart thumped faster. She didn’t trust him or anything he said. Not only had he been lying to everyone, including her, he’d made her look crazy and let Dr. Baldwin lock her up again. It was all she could do not to slap him across the face. At the same time, she needed to be careful. Who knew if he had a serious mental problem or was just playing games? And what else was he lying about? “How did you get in?”
He held out his hand to reveal a ring of keys. “The same way I get in and out of everywhere.”
She pressed her lips together, holding back her fury and the words she wanted to say. “Where did you get them?”
“A janitor needs keys.”
“But you’re not a real janitor,” she said. “You’re a—”
“A what? A resident? A retard? A piece of human garbage someone threw away?”
She shook her head. Despite sounding like the old Eddie, something in his eyes had changed. Either that, or she’d been so blinded by desperation when she was in House Six that she’d seen concern in his eyes instead of coldness, kindness instead of deceit. “That’s not what I was going to say,” she said. “But why have you been lying to me?”
“Would you have trusted me if I’d told you the truth?”
“I don’t know. You were nice to me and you were trying to help. That was all that mattered to me. And you were nice to my sister too. At least I think you were.”
“I was,” he said. “But now you know who I really am. Now you know I’m a long-term resident of Willowbrook State School. Except I’ve got these.” He held up the keys and shook them. “And that makes all the difference.”
“Is that how you got out and came to my house?”
He grinned. “Maybe.”
“And the Mustang?”
“I stole it.”
“What about the money you used to pay for breakfast?”
“Found it in the glove box of the Mustang.”
“But if you’ve had those keys this whole time, why didn’t you just let me out of here?”
“I could have, but I wanted to make it look like you escaped on your own.”
“Why?”
He looked at her like she was crazy. “Why? Do you know what they’d do to me if they found out I set you free? They’d pump me full of Thorazine and Prolixin and lock me up in the state security hospital. Then I’d be done for.”
“So you were protecting yourself.”
“Damn right I was. I don’t have a choice.”
“And now you’re protecting yourself again, by letting them think I’m sick like Rosemary,” she said, suddenly incapable of hiding her anger. “By letting them think I imagined the whole thing . . . you coming to the apartment and taking me to the Top Hat. You sleeping on the couch. You let them lock me up again instead of telling them what really happened.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, tilting his head like he was sad. “But you didn’t really expect me to give up my freedom for you, did you?”
“What are you talking about? You’re not free. You’ve been in Willowbrook since you were nine years old.”
“That’s true, I have,” he said. He held up the keys again. “But freedom looks different to everyone.”
She furrowed her brow. It was her turn to look at him like he was crazy. “There’s nothing about being locked up here or anywhere else that means you’re free, keys or no keys. What I don’t understand is, why don’t you leave? Why would you stay here when you can get out so easily?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Maybe, impossibly, he hadn’t thought about leaving and now that she’d suggested it, he would. Not that he deserved to stay locked up in Willowbrook—no one did—but what if he wanted to leave with her? What if he thought he could be part of her life?
He shook his head, suddenly serious. “I can’t leave.”
She breathed a silent sigh of relief. But his answer made no sense. Who, in any capacity of their right mind, would want to stay? Maybe he really did have a psychological problem. “Why not?” she said.
“Because I can’t abandon them.”
“Abandon who?”
“Everyone. The staff. The residents. They all need me.”
She started to say he was being ridiculous, that everyone would get along fine without him, but stopped herself. Not only did she want to avoid encouraging him, but suddenly she was frightened by the way he stood so terrible and still. He was dead serious. Delusional. And who knew what else.
“What do you mean they need you?”
He groaned, long and loud, as if it took too much effort to explain. “Because I help them. I help the staff by working. And I help the residents when they’ve had enough of this place.”
“What do you mean you help the residents? How?”
“I help them escape.”
Her eyes widened. “Through the tunnels?”
“No, not like that. Taking you through the tunnels so you could escape was different. You’d be all right out there in the real world. But the other poor sons-a-bitches in this place? They’d never survive out there, and they know it. That’s why they come to me when they’re ready to be set free.”
She shook her head, confused. What was he talking about? Did he get them more drugs? Move them to the experimental wards where there were drapes on the windows and silverware in a dining hall? “I don’t understand.”
He rolled his eyes. “How long were you locked up here, a couple of weeks? Imagine living in this place for years. Decades. Your entire life. Imagine coming here as a child. Then the day comes when you’re no longer cute. You’re big and smelly and even more broken from years of abuse and daily drugs. It’s different for someone like me, I’m perfectly sane and I don’t have any mental or physical handicaps. I understand what the staff wants. I know how to stay out of trouble. But the others? They have some real problems for sure, but it’s this heartless institution that makes them act the way they do. They want love and compassion and kindness just like everyone does. Sure, they get angry and confused and upset, but it’s the way they’re treated that makes them crazy. Hell, animals get treated better than the residents do in this place. I give them a way out of this nightmare.”