“To fix this,” he replied. “Otherwise this place? … We’re all in trouble. Without results, the funding will be cut, and all these patients will be shipped elsewhere,” he muttered.

  *

  Gray walked into the hospital, showed his badge, and the woman just took one look at him and pointed. “She’s in her office.”

  He nodded and headed toward Dr. Cressy’s office, finding the door closed. He heard voices inside, animated, yet not in a good way. He knocked on the door, and a heavy silence came. Finally the door opened in front of him, and another doctor stepped out. He nodded at him, and mumbling a hello, quickly left.

  Gray walked in to find Dr. Cressy sitting there, with an expression that suggested she was almost ready to pack it in. He sat down in the vacant chair and waited for her, giving her a little bit of time to adjust to his being here and the other doctor leaving. They had obviously been in the midst of a heated discussion. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” he asked.

  She just slowly shook her head. “I, … I have to process some of this,” she whispered. “I don’t know what’s happened, but this whole place … has changed.”

  He titled his head, a grimace on his lips. “I gather you’ve just now heard about what happened right after you left.”

  She stared at him. “Can you get me the files on that case?” she asked, with an urgency that surprised him. “I need to see.” Her voice was muffled, as if coming from afar.

  He opened his mouth, snapped it shut, and thought about it. “I guess, but can you tell me why?”

  “Because I need to know what happened.” She looked everywhere but at him. She hesitated, as if to collect herself. “Look.” Then she got up, walked around him, and closed the door behind him. “What I do here, it’s kind of special.”

  He nodded. “I don’t know exactly what you do here, but believe me. I’ve certainly seen the effects of what places like Dr. Maddy’s can do in terms of helping people.”

  “Right. Dr. Maddy works mostly with physically sick people. I work with mentally ill people. In the past, I would have said that we all have areas where our expertise comes in handy, and Dr. Maddy is doing what she does because she’s very good at it.”

  Cressy was clearly drifting, and he needed to reel her in, but now was not the best time.

  “By the same token, I’m very good at what I do. But what happened since I left,” she said shakily, “I don’t understand it. I don’t like it, and I really don’t know what’s going on with this place.”

  “That I can understand. So, what do you need?”

  “I need to know of any staff changes that have happened here over the last six months, any doctors, orderlies, right down to the kitchen staff,” she explained but with a note of desperate urgency that had him sitting up and taking notice.

  “You think something, someone in here is on a rampage? That a criminal is in here?”

  She looked at him and shrugged. “Criminals blur that line for me,” she replied. “What I see as criminal and what you see as criminal can be very different,” she murmured, almost trying to grasp an explanation that he would understand. “When you say criminal, you’re also looking at something that’s prosecutable. I’m looking at criminal as not being something that I care to prosecute, but something I want to fix, one way or another, because it’s hurting people.”

  He stared at her. “So, are you doing something illegal?”

  At that, half a smile twitched her lips, and she took a moment to let him hear her and hear her well. “How can it even be illegal … when nobody can see, understand, or even comprehend what I do?”

  He winced. “Now we’re back to that Dr. Maddy kind of stuff.”

  She nodded. “And, if you trust her, please trust me as well.”

  “Okay. I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt,” he stated, taking a moment to emphasize his point, “but it’s still not that easy.”

  “Not only is it not that easy, it’s damn-near impossible, and, if you haven’t spent a lifetime doing this, the way I have, I wouldn’t expect you to understand it at all.”

  “Okay, so that’s not helpful either,” he said, staring at her. “How am I supposed to help you if I can’t see or understand?”

  She replied, “Do you see or understand everything that Drew or Grant shares with you on cases that fall in Dr. Maddy’s world?”

  He winced. “No, obviously not, but you’re asking me for information on patient files. Confidential patient files.”

  “I couldn’t care less about privacy laws,” she snapped, “not when it comes to this. I need to know what’s going on, what has happened, and how it’s happened.” She was not having any of his excuses. “If that is something you can’t get me, I’ll phone your boss and get it that way.”

  He stared at her. “What? Just like that? You’ll pick up the phone and call my boss because I’m asking questions?”

  She looked at him with aplomb. “I have to because this, whatever this is, needs to stop, but, in order to stop it, I need to know what started it. Therefore, … I need absolutely everything we can get about the history on this place for the last six months. Any incidents, any criminal activity, any phone calls from this place to the police, any investigations opened over this time. Absolutely everything.”

  “Okay,” he muttered. “Considering you’re one of the doctors and the fact that we do have an open and active investigation into this place, I’ll get that cleared.”

  “Please,” she whispered.

  “But that is completely separate from the boy I came to talk about.”

  “I haven’t even made it to his room yet.” She groaned, almost in disbelief.

  He watched in alarm as he saw tears form in the corner of her eyes. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “What is this?”

  “I would call it an emotional return and a horrific sense of guilt. If I had never left, none of this would have happened. So many of my patients wouldn’t have reverted to where I first met them.”

  “If you had never left,” he retorted, “there’s a darn-good chance that you wouldn’t be in any shape to function at all. … You have to remember. Not just the patients are at risk here. If you hadn’t left, chances are that you, yourself, would not be able to function, assuming you’d even survived. You cannot help anyone, if you’re not at full strength.”

  She took a deep breath, slowly let it out, and nodded. “Thank you for that reminder.”

  Yet he could see it still wasn’t enough. Whatever had happened or was happening would slam her with guilt until she found a way forward. “Can you fix this?” he asked, as he texted for the information that she needed.

  She stared at him somberly. “I hope so, but in order to do that …”

  “Right, I get it,” he said. “You need to know how it started. You haven’t even told me what is going on.”

  She frowned and looked at the building around her. “I’m not sure I have an answer that will make any sense to you.”

  He frowned at her. “Seriously? Try me.”

  She nodded. “I don’t know how you feel about things like ghosts, possessions, people on the other side who should have stayed there but didn’t.”

  The hairs on the back of his neck rose. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, very serious,” she stated flatly. “I think we’ve got a dark spirit here, but I don’t know whose, and I don’t know how, and you can bet that, once he got his hooks into this place, he won’t let it go easily.”

  “And this dark spirit, we’re back to the fact that nobody can see it, nobody can hear it.”

  “Oh, lots of people can see it, and lots of people can hear it,” she corrected, “but there’s a good chance you can’t, and there’s even a good chance that I might not be able to.”

  “Then how can you stop it?”

  She gave him a hard glare. “There are times when I can do things that I really don’t like to do, but I have to in order to save those around me.”

  It was cryptic, and it was even difficult to hear. He wanted to ask a million more questions, but just then his phone rang. He glanced down at his phone. “It’s my boss.”

  “Tell him that I need this information or else,” she snapped.

  He looked at her curiously. “Or else what?”

  “Or else that was just the start, and there’ll be a whole string of deaths coming that you will not have any idea how to stop. The killer is here somewhere,” she declared, as she again looked around the room. “The investigation has to start with those files.”

  *

  Oh, look at that, the fancy little doctor was back. Everywhere she went, people gave her well-wishes and big smiles. He chuckled inside.

  If she only knew.

  She was here under the illusion of having some power, but there was no power to be had. None and done. He’d snagged it all. Nobody knew or cared because they didn’t want their perfect little lives to be impacted by anything around here.

  The parents came by, made their dutiful little visits, smiled at Junior, then carried on with their lives outside of these walls. That’s how they liked it; that’s how they wanted it. They paid the bills, and everybody stayed quiet about Junior’s problems relating to the world. It wasn’t just Junior One or Junior Two. It was all of the Juniors in here. There were brothers, sisters, parents, … all locked up, and all with family at home, happy to have them locked away, so they didn’t have to deal with them.

  It was one of those facts of life that everybody came to some sort of raw conclusion about and ended up guiltily signing paperwork, Then, as soon as they stepped out of the building, they sighed with relief because that ordeal was over with.

  He was here to make sure that wasn’t true. The ordeal wasn’t over with. The people here deserved to suffer, although some people here didn’t. So they would suffer because he could make them.

  If he couldn’t live the life he wanted because of what somebody had done to him, then he would damn-sure confirm other people didn’t get to live the life they wanted either. Not that most of them here cared. If he could find a way to get out into that big wide world, get out those front doors, that would be a huge boon for him.

  Once again, he watched as the fancy little doctor walked rapidly down the hallway, her mind obviously occupied on something else, and he knew what that was. He knew the something else would be that boy. There had been a lot of attention on that boy.

  He snorted at that.

  He was sure that the kid was hiding, and, if he found a way to get in there, he would make sure that kid stayed in hiding forever. It’s not that he wanted to torment kids, but he could only handle so much, and, knowing that the good little doctor would be focused on the kid the whole time, that was something he planned on changing. She needed to focus on him. He was pretty sure he could use her gift, … her talent, her ability, whatever that was, to his advantage. He wasn’t sure about it, but she was definitely special.

  She hadn’t been here for six months, and he’d been here himself for a large part of that. Funny how he didn’t remember his initial days here. Probably had had him all drugged up. Regardless, all that he’d heard about her had really tweaked his interest. Now that she was here, he sensed a shift in the power in the place, and that disturbed him. Not very much, yet she was someone to be wary of. It was as if, instead of the fear that walked the hallways, now there were these bursts of sunshine. It drove him batty. He wanted to shut it all down, make people suffer, and live in the dark, as he was forced to.

  He would wait, give her time to see if these sunshine changes were her doing. And, if they were, well, he’d put a stop to it pretty fast. He would have to see how she would react to what he was doing. If she had any way to combat it, then that was easy to handle. He would shut her down too.

  Chapter 5

  Cressy walked into the restricted area for the patients who needed constant care and found Adam’s room. She scanned the brightly colored room, with a TV and cards and games and a bookcase. Everything here in this section appeared to be the same as when she’d left it. The energy was off, but then the energy in the entire place was off. She hadn’t had a chance to figure out what made the light go out, or how to fix it yet, but everything felt wrong. She hated to even use that word, but that’s how it felt, and that’s what she would stick with using.

  She smiled at the boy in front of her. “Hi, Adam,” she greeted him cheerfully.

  He just stared at the floor, his thin arms wrapped around him, as he rocked in place.

  “Nice to meet you. I used to be here all the time,” she shared, trying to get him to come out and say something. “Then I went away.”

  She kept speaking in a gentle voice, as she assessed his energy, his movements, his lack of eye contact. She recognized the symptoms easily. He had regressed. Somebody who had just decided life was too difficult, too complex, and it was much easier to go inside and to stay there. Not only had he pulled away from life, he had regressed in his psychological age too. While he may have been chronologically twelve years old, his mind was that of an eight-year-old, and that’s where this boy was at.

  Adam would eat when given food. Adam would drink when the need for water came up. Adam would sit in front of TV for hours and never request that the channel be changed. In many ways, these were the easiest of all patients, but they were definitely just hiding from life. And those were the ones whose minds she was skipping through, trying to help as much as she could. Definitely help was required for the others, but, if she could isolate the ones doing what this boy was doing, then she would maximize care for all of them.

  Maybe that way she could reduce the number that they had to keep incarcerated. She sat down beside him, reached for a piece of paper, and drew a picture of Bugs Bunny. “Do you know who this is?” she asked in a conversational tone.

  He didn’t say anything, didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge her presence in any way. That was also normal. A part of him was assessing how much she would make him do and whether he could just ignore her. She wouldn’t let him ignore her at all, but she wouldn’t push it either. She knew that Gray was on the outside of the glass, listening, as was Dr. Mendelsohn. Somebody was always listening on these initial visits, as they tried to sort out what was going on inside the mind of their patient.

  Having read Adam’s patient file and what he’d been through, she understood his need, his fear. But what she didn’t know exactly was whether Adam had given up, which was a very different state, or he was waiting for help. Oftentimes they got this idea because of the 9-1-1 calls that would go out in the world, and everybody knew about 9-1-1. So they were waiting for the police to come and rescue them. But this boy had gone inside so deep, so far, that nobody could rescue him. Except for possibly her.

  She smiled, drew a couple more figures and asked, “What about this one?”

  At no time did he acknowledge her in any way. She nodded, opened his file, and silently read a couple more paragraphs. He had an uncle apparently. An aunt and grandmother who loved him and had come to try and see him several times. Each time they came, Adam had thrown quite a fit.

  “I see your uncle came to see you.” She studied him for a reaction.

  The rocking stopped and then slowly started again.

  “He was hoping that you wanted to see him, but I can understand if it’s too painful,” she noted. “We can stop his visits if you want.”

  At that, the rocking stopped, and he looked at her—well, not quite at her, but the closest to actually looking at her as was possible without quite doing it.

  Here was his reaction. She was glad to have Adam interacting with her.

  Then in a voice that really surprised her, he gritted out, “Stop.”

  She turned toward Adam, then pried, “Stop the visit, or stop talking?”

  He looked at her, blinked, and then collapsed in on himself, as if that was too much, as if he’d already said more than he could handle.

  “Because I can do either,” she told Adam. “Just tell me which one you want.”

  He frowned, but he spoke. “Visits.” His voice was rusty as hell. He was barely audible.

  “Good,” she replied. “That’s an easy one. We can stop the visits. We’ll talk later about why you want to stop those visits, but, for the moment, we absolutely do not want to stress you out any more than what you’ve already been through. I’m glad that you’re settling in here.”

  In fact, he’d been here four months, and settling in the way he had was not what she would like to see. He had no contact with any of the other patients, ignored everybody as much as he could, and only dealt with anyone out of necessity. But Adam had answered her, so he was interested in finding out what was going on and how safe life was out of his cocoon.

  She got up and asked, “Can I get you anything? Do you want any toys? Do you want anything to make you happy? Is there anything from home you would like to have that I could bring to you here?”

  He stopped rocking again and then slowly shook his head.

  Now that he was engaging with her, the restricted area was not the way to go with Adam. He would be placed in the main area, with more patient interactions. “Good enough,” she replied in that same cheerful voice. “Do you want to stay here, or do you want me to take you back to your original room?”

  At that, he got up, but whether it was because she had stood first or because he actually wanted to go back to his room, she didn’t know. She watched as he headed toward the door. She opened the door and followed him. He went straight back down to where his first room assignment was, all on his own.

  She noted, “You do that really well. Do you know how to get to the kitchen to get your lunch and how to go to the playroom?”

  He immediately turned and headed toward the playroom.

  “That’s very good,” she said. “What about your meals?”

  He immediately turned and headed back to his room. “Do you eat your meals in here too?” she asked.

  Socializing was important, so unless he was actually classed as a danger to other people, there was no reason for him to stay in his room. He didn’t say anything to that, but she had worded it in such a way that he could respond without having to speak.