Page 69 of Shattered Hearts

I don’t wait for him to round the hood and open my door. I jump into the snow and let Baby out who does the same.

Landscapers are still maintaining the grounds, and the parking lot is freshly plowed. Cameras are mounted above the loading bays and on every corner of the building. “Do you think they’re working?” I ask, pointing at them.

“Hard to say. Maybe. To keep the vandals away. Were you ever back here?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

There’s a plain beige door near one of the bays, and Gage trots up a small set of concrete stairs. He tries to turn the handle, but the door’s locked. Just as I suspected. I don’t know how he thinks he’s going to get us in there. The facility has been closed for a year and a half.

Baby sniffs at the ground, scampers away, and disappears around a corner.

Gage and I run to keep up, and we find her nosing at another door. A set of large footprints look...well, they aren’t fresh, but they aren’t covered in snow either. I’m not a PI like Gage, but I think they’re a couple of days old.

He notices them too, and says, “Pop told me they’re going to reopen this place soon.”

“They?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Rourke sold it. Guthrie didn’t care what happened to it after Rourke bought it, and he didn’t say anything to me and Zane about it reopening.”

“This place brought in millions. Rourke lost a lot of money when Zane shut it down.”

Gage tries the door, but this one is locked, too. Instead of giving up, he kneels in the snow and slides a slim black leather case out of his jacket pocket.

“What’s that?”

“My lockpick kit.”

“You know how to pick locks?” I always worry about Gage fitting into my world but picking locks and chasing after criminals definitely wasn’t something I considered I’d have to do to fit into his.

“Yeah. I could get into almost anywhere by the time I was ten. Pop taught me well.”

The keyhole looks like any simple, run-of-the-mill key would fit and open the door, and Gage doesn’t need long to release the lock. Unfortunately, the door only opens into a hallway that’s blocked off by another door, and this one is harder for Gage to crack.

I lean against the wall and wait, Baby lying on the tile, her tail swishing back and forth. She must be his accomplice on a lot of jobs. I can’t match her enthusiasm.

Finally, he’s able to open this door too, and a long dim hallway spits us into the rear of the facility.

It requires a lot of staff and behind-the-scenes work to keep a place of this size running efficiently, and the service area of the sanatorium looks almost as big as the patient common areas and our rooms.

The air smells the same, though the place hasn’t been open in a long time. The scent of cleaner, but not as industrial as a regular hospital, lingers in the air. Maybe a floral version of Mr.Clean. Easy on the nose, it creates the impression to potential clients who are thinking of placing family members in their care the sanatorium is less institutionalized and more like a home.

Baby sniffs at the floor and whines a little.

I know how she feels, but the minute I start to whine, Gage will want to leave. Now that I’m here, I want to see all of it, then I’ll never have to come back. If I chicken out now, I’ll regret it, and I don’t think I could dredge up the courage to do this again.

It’s dark in here but for a few security lights emitting a sickly orange glow.

We get lost, stumbling across the giant laundry room and the kitchen. It’s huge, but it doesn’t smell like a children’s school cafeteria. Quiet Meadows was classier than that. No, if the chefs were cooking now, the whole place would smell like a five-star restaurant. I don’t remember my mealtimes. I must have eaten because I didn’t starve to death, but my meals aren’t in my memories, even the vague ones that feel more like years-old dreams than reality.

Gage points out a wide hallway and we follow it out of the service area and into the administrative part of the building. There was never any reason I needed to be down these hallways, either, though I do remember Iona Belsely walking around, giving tours. She would lead families through the common areas and into the back where we would sit outside in the garden. I would always feel like an animal in the zoo, a creature on display. How was I being treated? Was I happy? Well cared for? And they would look at me in pity, a poor girl trapped at Quiet Meadows.Would she ever get better?

All the doors are shut, and I try a doorknob for the hell of it. It turns, and surprised, I step into the tiny office. There isn’t anything in it. The bookshelves are empty, just like at Black Enterprises. The desk is vacant of a computer and blotter.There’s no name plaque on the desk indicating whose office this belonged to or the kind of work they did here.

Gage followed me, and he stands silently by my side. Now that I’m here, he’ll let me do what I need to do. Even if that’s inspecting every inch of this place.

I back out and shut the door.

The admin hallway leads us to the lobby. The large oval receptionists’ desk is empty and four black chairs are pushed against the counter. Sunlight streams in through the glass doors. No one could enter the facility without an appointment. I wasn’t allowed visitors if they weren’t on the list Ash approved.

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