Page 58 of Into the Dark

“She trusted you!” Dr. Lawson’s voice cracked. “We trusted you. You pushed and you pushed, and we trusted you so we went too far, ignored our own boundaries. And when Robin died, youtried to fix the problem by throwing money at me. As if that would heal a broken heart.”

Ms. Montague dropped her gaze. “I didn’t know what else to do,” she said quietly.

“You could have talked to me.”

“I tried! You were too angry!”

“Whatever.” Dr. Lawson turned away, then back. “All these years, and you haven’t learned a damned thing. You’re still pushing people, still trying to use your riches as a replacement for responsibility, or empathy, or whatever other emotion you find inconvenient. I’m leaving, and I’m taking these poor kids with me. You can stay here and rot for all I care.”

She shoved past Oscar, and the rest parted to let her through. Oscar cast a glance at Ms. Montague, uncertain if he should say anything. She’d always been so calm, so in control, but now she slumped in her chair, one hand on her silver-headed cane.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” he said, then went after Dr. Lawson.

Dr. Lawson stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at nothing. The sun was heading westward, flirting with the mountain peaks and sending warm yellow light across the tops of the trees. It caught the clocktower atop the asylum, now almost denuded of paint.

Which made no sense…but that wasn’t Oscar’s problem right now.

“So what do we do, boss?” Chris asked.

This was his only chance to set things right here, to do what he was certain his mamaw would have wanted…but maybe it was time to face the facts. He just wasn’t up to the task. With more time, perhaps, but after Ms. Montague’s actions, setting foot back inside the asylum would be wildly dangerous.

If it was just himself…but it wasn’t. “We leave,” he said, turning to face them. Chris looked relieved at the pronouncement, Tina uncertain, and Nigel…

“Where’s Nigel?” he asked.

Zeek looked around, as if Nigel might suddenly pop up. “Maybe he went into the command center to get some more meds?”

He wasn’t in there. He wasn’t in their other tent, either. Oscar tried to think back to the last time he’d actually seen his boyfriend. It had been in the old superintendent’s quarters, after they’d found the Van de Graaf generator. After that, all his attention had been on Dr. Lawson.

“When was the last time anyone remembers seeing Nigel?” Oscar asked urgently. “He came out of the asylum with the rest of us, right?”

Zeek took his cap off and scratched his head. “I thought he was behind us, but I don’t think I actually saw him come out?”

Dr. Lawson went pale. “He must still be inside.”

Oscar strode toward the asylum, and Chris and Zeek jogged after him. Damn it, why hadn’t he paid more attention? He knew Nigel was sick. What if he’d passed out?

What if the ghosts had found him alone and?—

“Nigel!” Oscar bellowed as he climbed the stairs and entered the asylum. “Nigel, can you hear me?”

“Doc!” Chris yelled. “Are you in here?”

Zeek pointed to the end of the hall. “What’s that?”

A yellowed folder lay near the elevator, documents spilled out of it. Oscar picked it up and read the label. “This is Dr. Wilkes’s file—the one Nigel was carrying. He must have dropped it.”

Dropped it right here, near the entrance…then never come out.

Panic clawed at his throat. “Nigel!”

“I’ll check upstairs, in case he lost it on the way up,” Zeek said, and ran to the staircase.

They shouldn’t split up—but Nigel was missing. “Let’s check the wards,” Oscar said to Chris. “Or maybe he went back to the storage area to look for more files.”

They yelled until their voices were hoarse, opened every closed door, but neither they nor Zeek found a trace. Oscar even went around the back of the building, searching for the elusive cellar doors or coal chute into the basement. All he found were piles of broken planks and chunks of concrete from what had been the old kitchen and cafeteria building, now long collapsed. The rubble washed up against the base of the main building like flotsam left behind by a tide, burying any doors or hatches beneath it.

Nigel hadn’t come this way. But he didn’t seem to be inside any of the floors they could access, either.

---