Five: Out of the Pit (Five #2) (30 page)

Her smile was so big I thought her face might crack. “You’re welcome. Thanks for meeting me here. I’m sorry you had to witness a patient’s death. That isn’t something that happens very often there. It was so totally bizarre. He’d been acting strange ever since waking up this morning, so I guess I’m really not too surprised.”

“Strange how?” I asked.

“Well, usually he talked to everyone. He didn’t always make sense, but he talked and said ‘hi’ to everyone, making the rounds. One of the aids said that today he stood in a corner and just watched everyone. He didn’t say a word. His eyes looked weird, too, she said. Disconnected like.”

“You must see a lot of disconnected looks there,” Alec remarked. “It is a mental facility.”

She laughed. “Well, yeah, I guess we do. But not George. His eyes were always focused even if his brain wasn’t.”

We ordered and sat down with our ice cream.

Johnathan asked, “Does Natalie freak out like that very often? I mean, are there certain patients there that set her off?”

I had to admit that was a good question I hadn’t thought of asking.

Heather looked at Alec, as if to seek his permission before answering.

“Yeah, who else sets her off?” Alec asked.

“Well, not any patients that I know of right now—other than George, but that was just today, before this evening she was fine around him. There have been some in the past that they’ve had to separate her from completely. The funny thing is, those patients have always, without fail, turned out to be trouble in one way or another. They’ve all either been moved to a different, higher security, facility, or, they’ve been relegated to seclusion indefinitely. She has a sense for trouble that’s for sure. We’ve talked about it before in staff meetings.”

“You said no
patients
set her off right now…” I prompted.

“Yeah. No patients. But, there are a couple of staff members who can’t go anywhere near her. They’ve had to be reassigned to another ward, even.”

“Hmm. Doesn’t that set off some red flags?” said Johnathan. “I mean, you just said she has the ability to pick out the ‘bad’ patients, the ones who cause trouble. What about the staff members?”

“I don’t know. I guess it should be a red flag. But I don’t really think anyone takes her too seriously. It’s more of a… a joke, I guess.”

“Maybe we should check out these staff members,” Johnathan said to Alec.

Heather looked at him with raised eyebrows. “Why would you want to check them out?”

Johnathan choked on his ice cream. “I… well… I don’t really mean
we
should. I just think maybe someone should, you know, because of Natalie’s track record.”

“Yeah… maybe,” Heather said uncertainly.

“Do you know them?” I asked, butting in to take the heat off Johnathan. “The staff members that set Natalie off? Do they still work there?”

She scrunched her eyebrows together and chewed on her bottom lip, turning to Alec for help. He turned on the charm, taking ahold of her hand on top of the table. The physical contact appeared to make his charm work even better. He smiled and said, “We’re just curious. You can tell us about them. It isn’t like we know who they are or will ever even see them. We aren’t even from here, you know.” I could feel the familiar push of his spell.

Heather smiled and proceeded to spill her guts. “Okay. You’re right, of course, Alec. There are only two that still work there. One of them is a housekeeper. His first day there, when Natalie saw him, she dropped the books she was carrying and backed up, crying. When her back touched the wall, she sat down and hid her head in her arms. The nurses had to practically carry her back to her room and sedate her to get her to stop shaking and crying. It happened again the next day only this time she screamed when he came toward her. They moved him to another wing after that.”

“What does he look like?” I asked. “I’m just curious to see if there’s a resemblance between the people that set her off.”

“There doesn’t seem to be. This guy, his name’s Carl. He’s huge, like six foot ten or so. He has to duck to get through some of the doorways. He’s… well… quite unattractive. His skin is pitted, he has a big nose, deep set eyes and a long, bushy beard. They moved him over to the medium security wing, but he’s still in our building. I see him sometimes when I’m clocking out and he’s clocking in.”

“Does he scare you?” I asked.

“No. Well, maybe a little. I think it’s just because he’s so dang big. And he has a speech impediment. It’s hard to understand him when he speaks.”

“Who’s the other one?” Alec asked, still holding her hand.

She smiled, eyes partially glazed over. I don’t think she was even aware she was spilling her guts. “Oh, Tiffany. She isn’t scary at all, though. She’s a social worker who was assigned to Natalie’s team. The story is that the first time she walked into a session with her, Natalie screamed, ‘Demon! Get it away from me!’”

“What was this social worker’s reaction?” Johnathan leaned forward in his chair.

Heather laughed. “Jason said she had a look of shock on her face first and then she smiled. He said it was kind of weird, not the reaction he expected at all, because then she leaned toward Natalie and whispered something. Jason was holding onto Natalie’s arm at this point and he swears Tiffany said, ‘how did you know?’”

“Seriously?” Alec asked. “What did my mom do?”

“She jerked her arm away from the other nurse and scratched the crap out of Tiffany’s face. Jason swears Tiffany didn’t even flinch. She just nodded and walked out of the room with a strange smile on her face.”

“And, this Tiffany still works there, you say?” Alec asked.

“Yeah. She’s over with the non-forensic patients now, I guess. I never see her except in the parking lot sometimes. She’s usually just getting there as I’m leaving at night. She’s hard to miss with her bleached blonde, curly hair flying all over.”

I had a sudden thought. “How is Natalie at night? She’s locked in her room, right? So it would be hard for… someone to get to her?”

Heather cocked her head to the side, speaking slowly as if in thought. “Yesss. All the forensic patients’ doors are locked at night. I’ve heard that Natalie quite often has what they call ‘night terrors’ where she totally freaks out and they have to heavily sedate her. Last week, the night nurse said she found her door unlocked even though she and the security guard had checked it earlier.”

Alec and I looked at each other.

We finished our ice cream and talked about things other than Heather’s job. Alec escorted her to her car while we waited just outside the door.

As we walked toward our portalling spot, Johnathan leaned down between us. “It seems as if we may need to find a way for some of us to meet up with Carl and Tiffany.”

Alec and I nodded.

o, you think the hospital has more of them? More monsters?” Seth tried to open the container of muffins he’d bought while out with Joe and Halli. He struggled much harder than he should have had to for a plastic container that snapped together.

The crackling of the plastic disrupted my thoughts. “Umm… yeah, I’m almost sure of it. The way she picked out that Ghoul, the little bit of history she told us. Yeah, I’m sure. If she freaks out about someone… they aren’t a person.

“Why are you having such a hard time with that thing, Seth? Seriously.”

“I don’t know, it’s stuck or something.” He let out a frustrated growl and slammed the container down on the bed. “Hal, hand me my backpack, will ya?”

She threw it to him. I glanced at her new shadow. The Imp, Surpy, was glued to her side. And, he was turning red, watching Seth’s difficulties. Tears were pooling in his enormous eyes and his lips were stretched tightly closed as little sounds of grunting laughter escaped now and then.

I scrunched my eyebrows together and looked back at Seth. He’d removed his pocket knife from the backpack and sliced the obstinate container open. I turned my attention back to Surpy. No longer able to hold it in, he burst out in Impish laughter. The tears that had pooled in his eyes, now released to trail down his unattractive face.

“What’s so funny, Imp?” Seth took a huge bite of one of the illusive muffins as he glared daggers at the laughing Imp.

Surpy moved closer to Halli. “Nothing, Seff.” His face turned red again as he tried to stop the peals of laughter. His control lasted only a second before he grabbed his stomach and rolled on the floor, laughing louder than he had before.

Joe eyed the annoying creature. “I believe you’ve been pranked, Seth. Imps are famous little pranksters.”

The room was silent for a few heartbeats as Surpy looked up at Seth with wide eyes. The silence was broken by Alec’s laughter. Then we all joined in. Except Seth. He glared at the Imp before lifting the container to his face for a closer inspection.

“It looks like it was glued with something,” Seth looked over at Surpy, who slinked back to hide behind Halli’s legs. “What did you do to it?”

“Nothin’, Seff.”

Halli stooped down closer to him. “Surpy, we all know that’s a lie. You need to tell the truth if you’re going to stay with me.”

He looked at Halli with adoring eyes. “Okay, m’Halli. I stuck it shut.”

“With what?” Seth said. “Did you get into one of our backpacks, you little jerk?”

“No, no way. I promise! I have mine own stuffs. See?” He held up a small pouch that hung from the leather strap at his waist. “See? Mine own super sticky stuffs. In here.” He shook the pouch.

“This better be the last prank you pull on me, Imp.” Seth shoved the rest of the muffin in his mouth and gulped it down without even chewing.

From the mischievous half grin that broke out on his face, I doubted very much that Surpy planned on leaving Seth alone.

Still smiling and shaking my head, I looked at Johnathan. My smile faded at the frown on his face. “Johnathan. What is it?”

He looked down at his hands. “I’m not sure… I just have a strong feeling we should go back to Moab sooner rather than later. Like, tonight.”

Alec whipped his head up. “No, Johnathan. Not yet. I want to see my mom one more time before we go back. Plus, wasn’t it you that said we should do something about the janitor and social worker imposters?”

Johnathan’s forehead creased. “Yeah… yeah, I did. Maybe we should do something about it tonight…”

“Yes!” Seth pumped a fist in the air. “A covert operation.”

“I don’t know,” Alec said. “It isn’t easy to get in that place. I really don’t think they’d let all of us in
during
visiting hours, I know they won’t this late at night.”

“Duh, Alec.” Seth rolled his eyes. “Thus the
covert
part of the operation. We
sneak
in, get it?”

“I don’t know how we’d do that. The place is pretty much a prison. They have safeguards… I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Alec.” I raised an eyebrow. “We could do it, you know, sneak in. I doubt any of the patients are in that common room this time of night. They have strict rules for bedtime and stuff.”

“What exactly are you suggesting?” Johnathan asked.

I swallowed. “Well, we could portal in there. I could take Halli with me. Alec’s strong enough to portal you and Seth at the same time.”