Page 54 of I Know She Was There

CHAPTER29

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

Iwant to leave this place. I need to get out of here.

I looked at the words I’d written in my journal and frowned. Someone had violated my home as I sat, institutionalized. I didn’t even know if Mary had alerted the police. She hadn’t answered her phone last night; hadn’t accepted even one of my countless calls. Wasn’t it just like her to call me in a panicked state, get me all worked up, then never answer her phone? A thought occurred to me: what if she was unable to? What if she took it upon herself to go to my place and snoop around, only to get herself beat up or... I couldn’t think about it. I chewed on a thumbnail. This was going from serious to bizarre. I needed to get home; figure out what the hell was going on in my life. I crossed out the negative sentence and wrote,I am looking forward to going home, to being in my own space, with my own things around me.

I hoped that the latest entry—combined with the others I’d made since the day before—was positive enough to persuade Dr. Ellison to release me from the hospital this afternoon when he’d promised to swing by my room. After Mary called last night, my stomach twisted tighter with each passing hour, reminding me of an overworked rubber band on the brink of snapping. And even though I’d felt a spark of relief that the woman I’d seen at 21 Pine Hill must be real—because why would anyone be breaking into my house if not for what had happened over there?—the implication was frightening. I was still in danger.

But what could an intruder be looking for? The nail fragment had been my only evidence that a woman had been harmed on Pine Hill Road. With that gone, there was nothing tying me to the incident. I knew that, but did the intruder? Only if he or she had been the one to take it. Could there be more than one person snooping around my place?

I shivered. Why hadn’t Mary called me back after she’d phoned the police? I recalled again how I’d tried her number a dozen times and got no answer. I glanced at the basic hospital-issue clock on the bare wall over the nurses’ station just beyond the doorway of my room. It was just past eleven thirty in the morning. Maybe Dr. Ellison would visit me just after noon. If I could convince him to release me, I could be back home as early as midday. Meanwhile, what the hell was I supposed to do with myself until then? I decided to walk around the floor to release some pent-up energy.

I stood up and pulled one of the flimsy white woven blankets around my shoulders in lieu of a bathrobe, which I didn’t have. It was too cold on the floor to be wandering around in the threadbare nightgown the hospital staff had supplied me with. I had no slippers, but the bright green socks I’d been issued by the same staff had puffy nonskid markings on the bottom, which I assumed operated on the same principle as slipper treads.

I cycled around the floor, dragging my IV with me, glancing in rooms with half-dead-looking folks hooked up to monitors and breathing machines as harried nurses buzzed around me like bees in a hive. I spotted what looked like a waiting room off to the side of one section and stepped into the only space on the entire floor devoid of people. Scanning the row of metal seats with garish neon-blue vinyl plastic seat cushions and backs, I plopped onto one and perused the reading material on a battered coffee table plunked in front of the chairs. Passing up magazines about parenting, health, or fashion, I opted for a local newspaper with today’s date.

Flipping the pages, I scanned features about inflated food prices, impending recession, and an opinion piece on the inaction of Congress. I rolled my eyes and turned the page, my gaze settling on the story of a house fire. I frowned. One person hadn’t been able to escape the flames and was pronounced dead at the scene. Underneath the photo of a smoking pile of embers, a headline proclaimed a local woman missing, her prominent family searching for the interior designer named Ava Hansen. She’d not been seen for a number of weeks. Such a pretty name, I thought. Too pretty to be touched by such ugliness. Police had questioned her husband, who claimed to have no idea where she might have gone. I tossed the paper on the table, disgusted. When a woman turned up missing, it was usually her husband behind the disappearance.

But my gaze lingered on the paper. Staring at a portion of the headline’s block letters, I turned the lovely name over in my mind. It touched off an odd sensation in me, something akin to déjà vu. Had I heard it on the radio or in a TV news story? I had no time to ponder. Footsteps in the hall signaled Dr. Ellison’s arrival on the floor. As he walked past me, a folder in one hand, I jumped up and joined him.

“Good afternoon, Caroline. I was just on my way to your room. How are you today?”

I had to convince him to let me go. “I’m okay. Just stretching my legs.”

“Good idea,” he said. “Did you place an entry in your journal today?”

I nodded as he gestured for me to enter my room first. I heard his footsteps behind me. I snatched the notebook from my bedside table and held it out to him.

He circled around the bed and settled in the small chair beside it, reading. He stared at the page before saying, “I see introspection here, Caroline.” He closed the book, placed it on his lap, and looked at me, now sitting on my bed. “Is this a difficult task?”

“No,” I said quickly. Too quickly. I pressed my lips together and took a deep breath, adding, “Sometimes.”

He nodded but didn’t say anything for a few seconds. It seemed like a few minutes. I looked away from his probing gaze. Finally, he said, “I think it’s time to move on.”

I looked back at him, raised my brows. “No more journal?”

“Oh, I think you should incorporate journaling regularly into your life, just like you have these past two days, but there’s more to do now.”

I looked down at my hands, noticed how they bunched into fists. It was suddenly hard to get enough air into my lungs. “I thought I was doing everything I had to.”

“You were,” he said. “But now there’s more.” He handed me the journal. “I notice you wrote about your mother in these pages. Tell me again about her—about both of your parents.”

I scraped my teeth over my lower lip. His words sparked a battle in my chest, my lungs releasing with the relief of not having to talk about Emmy, but my heart suddenly raged upward, beating too hard, too fast for my chest cavity. I took a deep breath. I had to get out of here, so I might as well play along. “What would you like to know?”

“You told me back at the institute that your father was a salesman and your mother a nurse.”

“Yes. An RN.” If I talked readily, he may be more likely to release me. I had to get to Mary.

“Right.” Dr. Ellison tapped his temple as though tucking the information into his head.

“I told you what I could remember.” I nodded, hoping he’d get to the point quickly.

“Yes, and you mentioned family activities when you were young, but you always resisted talking about the day your dad died. Why do you think that is?”

Something sharp and unbidden twisted in my chest. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s tied up in that pattern you all tell me I have.”

A half smile crossed his lips. “Are you willing to talk about that day now?”

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