Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

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СКАЧАТЬ had contact with Hague, too. Who is he? Could he have known who we were, even then?”

      “Not following,” Auggie said.

      She pressed her hands to her head, dragging at memories long buried, ones she’d hidden from herself maybe. “The man in the photo,” she said to herself with conviction. Then, “The doctor in the photo. Maybe . . .”

      She tried to force herself to think back to Hathaway House, when she’d lived there, but the memories scorched her and she shied away from them. Was he the man in the photo? The one stalking angrily toward the camera? Was he the visiting doctor at Hathaway House? Was he?

      And does this have anything to do with the murders at Zuma?

      “Any chance this revelation is going to send you to the authorities?” he asked.

      She looked back at him, blinking several times. “No. Not yet.”

      “Not yet,” he repeated. “Progress.”

      “I need—to be alone. To sort some things out.” Seeing him unfettered, she asked lamely, “Would you mind just going to bed?”

      “I can help you,” he said.

      She couldn’t stand it. She needed to think. And having him right there wasn’t helping.

      The gun was under the couch where she’d tucked it. Momentarily she thought of pulling it out, but she was past threatening him with it.

      “Tomorrow,” she said.

      He seemed to want to argue. He stood there for a long, long time.

      “Please,” she rasped.

      She had no idea what he was thinking, but in the end he made a sound of frustration, headed for the bathroom, and then back to his bedroom. If he changed his mind and decided to walk out the door in the middle of the night there wasn’t anything she would do about it.

      She made a trip to the bathroom herself, then lay back down on the couch, certain she would never fall asleep, and then promptly did.

      The medical examiner’s office was located in a squat brick building on the grounds that held the Winslow County Sheriff’s Department and other government offices. J.J. was a busy man at the best of times, and today was closer to the worst. He was brusque and had tired lines around his eyes and Jo Cardwick’s histrionics were starting to get on his nerves.

      Upon having the drape pulled from Trask Martin’s bloodless face, Jo had collapsed into keening wails and swaying motion. September had pulled her away upon seeing Journey’s tightened lips and obvious displeasure. Now they were in an anteroom just outside, and Jo was collapsed in an orange plastic chair, her head between her knees, sobbing and shaking.

      September walked to the water cooler, grabbed a small paper cup and poured Jo a drink. The girl could really use a stiff one, she thought, but plying alcohol was not accepted protocol. “Here,” she said kindly, holding out the cup.

      Jo tried to stem the flow. She truly did. She lifted her head and looked at September through glazed eyes. “He’s dead. He’s really dead.” She took the cup but didn’t drink from it, just held it out straight as if it were poison.

      September nodded. “I’d like to ask you a question or two, if you’re up for it.”

      “She killed him. She must’ve.” Jo hiccupped, looked at the paper cup as if seeing it for the first time, then brought it to her lips. She drank it all.

      “Do you mean Olivia Dugan, in apartment 20?”

      She nodded, gulping.

      “Why do you think that?”

      “’Cuz she’s the only thing different. Everybody loves Trask. Everybody. And she was always so shut down. And then he was over there and saw some pictures and she was kinda crazy about them, he said.”

      “Crazy about the pictures?”

      “That’s what he said.”

      “What were the pictures of?” September pressed.

      “I don’t know. Old pictures of people, I think.” She suddenly looked angry. “She had a few drinks with us, but she was cold. Really cold.”

      “When was this?”

      A pause. Fresh tears welled. “Last night!” she cried, as if she’d just remembered.

      “And that’s when Trask saw the pictures?”

      She shook her head. “Sometime before. I told you. He saw ’em at her place. And I don’t care anyway!” Then, “Are you going to arrest her? Throw her ass in jail! DO SOMETHING?”

      “Yes. I’m going to do something,” September assured her.

      She was going to get through to her brother if it was the last thing she did.

      Chapter 10

      Liv watched dawn creep across the horizon. She was at the living room window, peering out through a gap in the curtains. Pink streaks ran across the sky and a golden arc was forming to the east.

      Her thoughts had turned to Hathaway House. She’d been there less than a year. The dreams had started before that; “repressed memories,” Dr. Yancy told her later, but her father and Lorinda just wanted her “fixed.” They didn’t care whether Hathaway House was the right choice. They just sent her there and she could envision Lorinda dusting her hands of Albert’s crazy adopted daughter. Somehow Lorinda had then convinced Albert that Hague was as messed up as Liv and away he’d gone to Grandview Hospital, which actually had a reputation for treating more serious mental patients. Should she feel grateful that they hadn’t assumed her problems were as bad as Hague’s, and that’s why they’d sent her to Hathaway House instead? Or, was it a money issue: Hathaway House was mostly funded by donations whereas Grandview was a private mental hospital. Maybe it was just simply that Hague, being Albert’s own flesh and blood, was more a son to him than she was a daughter—an idea undoubtedly fostered by Lorinda’s disinterest in both of them.

      Whatever the case, when she was a girl the dreams of her mother’s hanging form . . . mixed in with some kind of bogeyman chasing her down . . . and sometimes dead bodies rising from graves outside, from the fields, and stalking toward her house, zombie-like . . . intensified over the years until finally Liv had woken up screaming nearly every night. That’s when she was sent to Hathaway House and assigned to a room with three other female patients, all of them teenagers.

      She was regimented from the start and there were household chores. Before breakfast: room cleaning. Breakfast. Group therapy. Lunch. Rest time. One-on-one with Dr. Yancy. Dinner. Quiet time in your room or in the main hall with its soothing blue chairs and empty shelves, save for books. Lights out at nine.

      Dr. Yancy . . . She was in her fifties with gray hair and deep brown eyes and a quiet way about her that was the first thing Liv always noticed. They had sessions four days out of five. On Thursday, Liv was given the option of an hour of television in one of the rooms upstairs, where an employee (guard) watched over her and the other inmates, or she could take a walk around the fenced СКАЧАТЬ