“I understand. The patients deserve some privacy.”
“Of course, but it’s not just a matter of privacy. Only the most troubled are housed on this floor. Some of them can become quite violent. If they weren’t paranoid before they were committed to this place, they became paranoid soon after they were locked up here. I did.”
“You had good reason to become paranoid.”
A face appeared at one of the grills. Adelaide was careful not to look at the patient but she could not ignore the moaning cry.
“It’s the ghost,” he rasped in anguished tones. “She’s back.”
Another face appeared at the grilled opening in the door across the hall.
“You shouldn’t be here,” a woman keened. “Go away. Run. They’ll kill you again.”
“She’s back,” someone shouted. “The ghost is back.”
There was a face at every grill now. One of the patients uttered an anguished howl. The rest took up the cry.
“It’s the ghost . . .”
“The ghost is back . . .”
The glass-paned door of the nurses’ station opened. A large, heavily muscled man with straggly hair emerged from the small room. Adelaide recognized him immediately. His name was Buddy. He ignored her and fixed his attention on Jake.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Buddy snarled. “This is a locked ward. No visitors allowed.”
“Government business,” Jake said. He flipped open the leather case and snapped it shut in one smooth motion. In the process he made sure that the holstered gun under his jacket was briefly visible. “There’s been a breach of security concerning the research that is being conducted here at the Rushbrook Sanitarium. I have been sent to collect any and all files pertinent to that research.”
A second orderly charged out of the room. He was as big as Buddy and he was almost completely bald, but there was more intelligence in his eyes.
“Dr. Gill didn’t say anything about letting someone take the files,” he growled.
“Hello, Victor,” Adelaide said. “Remember me?”
Victor stared at her. “Say, you’re that crazy Patient B—I mean, Mrs. Massey. What’s going on?”
“Guess what,” Adelaide said. “I’m no longer Patient B, I’m not Mrs. Massey, and best of all, I’m not crazy. I’m Adelaide Blake. Don’t bother to offer tea or coffee. We won’t be staying long.”
“Where did you get the key to this floor?” Victor demanded.
“As Mr. Truett was just explaining to Buddy, we’re here on government business,” Adelaide said.
Jake looked at her. “You said the lab is at the end of the hall?”
“That’s right.”
Adelaide started forward. But Victor stepped in her path.
“Hang on, Mrs. Massey, or Patient B, or whoever you are. Only authorized personnel are allowed in that lab.”
Jake opened the edge of his coat just enough to reveal the gun again. “We have authorization from the appropriate authorities.” He let the coat fall closed.
“Oh,” Victor said. His jaw hardened. “I should probably call someone to confirm it.”
“You’ll have to call long-distance, Washington, D.C.,” Jake said. “Meanwhile, we’ll be in the lab.”
He fell into step beside Adelaide. Together they went briskly along the hall to the glass-paned door marked Laboratory: Authorized Personnel Only.
The keys shivered on the iron ring as Adelaide tried one after another.
“None of them work,” she announced. “Looks like we’ll need your skeleton key again.”
Jake took out his gun and tapped the glass pane with just enough force to shatter it. Holstering the gun, he reached through the opening and turned the knob.
Adelaide moved into the stairwell and flipped a switch on the wall. The sconces came on, illuminating the twisted stone steps. She tried without much success to repress a shudder.
“I hate this place,” she said.
She didn’t realize she had spoken aloud until Jake answered.
“After we leave here today, you’ll never have to come back again,” he said.
She put one foot on the first step. “The lab is at the top.”
She went up the stairs. Her shoes echoed on the stone. Jake was right behind her. The mad cries and moans of the patients on ward five followed them, echoing in the stairwell.
“You were right,” Jake said. “I did need you to guide me around this place. Whoever designed this mansion must have been as crazy as any of the patients.”
“You can understand why the owner’s bride was not thrilled with her new castle,” Adelaide said.
She came to a halt at the top of the stairs. The early morning light streaming through the tall, arched windows that lined one wall did little to alleviate the invisible miasma that seethed in the space.
The panic welled up out of nowhere again. This time it threatened to choke her.
“Are you all right?” Jake asked.
“Yes,” she managed. “Yes, I’m all right.”
She made herself take a detached look at the laboratory. The arched window that Ormsby had shattered when he leaped to his death had been boarded up, but aside from that it was all horribly familiar. She would never be able to forget it, she thought. The workbenches were littered with laboratory glassware of all shapes and sizes. Gauges, Bunsen burners, weighing machines, and various kinds of instruments lined the shelves.
The wooden upright chair where the orderlies had restrained her while Gill and Ormsby forced her to drink the Daydream drug sat in one corner. It looked so very ordinary now.
This time is different, she thought. This time you’re in charge. This time you’re not alone.
“I thought of it as the electric chair,” she whispered.
She was speaking to herself but Jake heard her. He came up behind her and touched her shoulder.
“It’s over,” he said. “You fought them and in the end you escaped. You beat the bastards. Gill and Ormsby are both dead. Conrad Massey is facing bankruptcy and prison. We’re going to find a way to make sure Paxton ends up behind bars. If you ever decide that’s not enough justice and you want him dead, too, that can be arranged.”
She touched Jake’s hand on her shoulder. “There’s been enough death.”
“Just be sure to let me know if you ever change your mind.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that. We’d better get busy. I wouldn’t be surprised if Victor is on the phone now, telephoning the local police. I’m not sure he bought your FBI agent act.”
“And here I thought I played the part so well,” Jake said. He angled his chin toward the office at the back of the lab. “I assume the files are kept in there?”
“Yes. I just hope Gill or Paxton didn’t move them for some reason.”
“Why would they do that? They would have considered this the safest possible place for the files because they assumed they had complete control over the Rushbrook Sanitarium.”
Jake went down the aisle formed by two workbenches and once again used the handle of his gun to shatter the glass pane set into the door. He turned the knob and went into the room.
Adelaide hurried after him. They both looked at the wooden file cabinets arranged against one wall.
“The files relating to the Daydream experiments are in the last cabinet,” Adelaide said, “the one that’s locked. Ormsby used to keep the key in his desk drawer, but I couldn’t find it the night that I escaped so I had to leave my file behind.”
“No problem,” Jake said. “It’s just a small, standard-issue drawer lock.”
He took a firm grip on the drawer handle and yanked hard. Adelaide heard something metallic snap inside the cabinet. The drawer popped open.
Together they looked down at the neatly arranged row of folders.
She searched quickly for her own file. The one in front was marked Patient B. She seized it and opened it.
“This is it,” she said. “This is my proof that they were running experiments on me.”
“Is there a folder for Patient A?”
Adelaide closed her own file and riffled quickly through the remaining folders. She shook her head.