The Other Lady Vanishes

  “Gill and Paxton obviously had a different outcome in mind,” Adelaide said.

  “One thing seems certain,” Raina said. “If we’re right about all of this, Paxton is the last member of the drug ring who is still alive. How do we go about proving he is not only a killer but also in possession of a dangerous new hallucinogen?”

  Jake put down his coffee mug and got to his feet. “We need more answers and there’s only one place left to look for them.”

  “Where?” Adelaide asked.

  “Back where it all started, the Rushbrook Sanitarium.” He glanced at the wall clock. “If I leave now, I can be in Rushbrook by dawn. Luther, look after Adelaide until you hear from me, all right?”

  “Of course,” Luther said. “She can stay in a guest room at my place. There’s plenty of security around the Paradise.”

  “No,” Adelaide said. She got to her feet and looked at Jake. “I’m coming with you.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Jake said.

  “You’ll need me. You don’t know your way around Rushbrook. I know every inch of it. I know where the keys are kept. I also know some of the patients and the staff. You’ll be able to search the place much more efficiently if I’m with you.”

  “She’s right,” Raina said.

  Luther nodded. “I agree with Raina. It would be helpful to have someone with you who knows her way around the sanitarium. Raina and I can keep an eye on Paxton while you’re gone.”

  Jake hesitated and then surrendered to the logic.

  “All right,” he said.

  “You’ll need a good, fast, reliable car,” Luther said to Jake. “I wouldn’t trust that secondhand Oldsmobile you picked up when you tracked down Thelma Leggett. Adelaide’s Ford isn’t in great shape, either. You can take my car.”

  “Thanks,” Jake said.

  Adelaide headed for the stairs. “I’ll get my gun.”

  Jake groaned. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  Chapter 47

  The Rushbrook Sanitarium loomed in the dawn fog, a monstrous gargoyle frozen in stone. Adelaide had spent the past three hours trying to fortify her nerves, but when she saw the asylum, she knew that nothing could have prepared her for the cold shock. The Duchess’s words rang in her ears. You should not return to this place. You don’t belong here.

  Jake brought the car to a halt near the front gate and shut down the engine. He sat quietly for a moment, his hands resting on the steering wheel, and contemplated the sanitarium.

  “Looks like a movie set for a horror film,” he said.

  “According to the Duchess, the house has a very odd history,” Adelaide said, trying to distract herself with facts. “It was built by a man who made a fortune in oil. He set out to construct a Gothic castle that he thought would please his East Coast bride. The story is that when she saw it for the first time on her honeymoon, she was horrified. She announced that she would never live in such an ugly place. There was a quarrel. The husband went mad and pushed his bride out one of the tower room windows. She was killed, of course.”

  “Just like Ormsby,” Jake said.

  Adelaide looked at him. “Yes, just like Ormsby.”

  “I can see someone inside the guardhouse at the front gate.”

  “That will be Oscar,” Adelaide said. “He works the night shift. The day man, Pete, won’t arrive until seven.”

  “Not a lot of security for a secret drug manufacturing facility.”

  “I don’t think there was much need for security, at least not until recently. Most people aren’t even aware that Rushbrook exists. There are two orderlies on every floor and they are all hired for their muscle. But I’m quite sure they aren’t involved in the drug ring.”

  “What makes you so certain?”

  “For the simple reason that none of them is getting rich,” Adelaide said. “They grumble constantly about the low pay. The only real security is on ward five, where the most insane patients are housed. That ward is locked twenty-four hours a day. The entrance to the tower room lab is on that floor.”

  “You said you know where the keys are kept.”

  “Yes. They are in Gill’s office on the second floor.”

  “But you think the files we want are kept upstairs in the lab.”

  “That’s where they were when I was—” She broke off because she refused to label herself a patient. “When I was here.”

  “You mean when you were involuntarily in residence?” Jake asked with a wry smile.

  For some reason the grim attempt at humor buoyed her spirits.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “But you escaped,” he said. “Don’t ever forget that. You saved yourself.”

  She took a breath. “Right. I escaped. So, how do we do this?”

  “The easy way. We walk through the front door.”

  They got out of the car. Jake paused to put on his coat and collect an official-looking briefcase from the trunk of the car.

  They went toward the guardhouse. A stocky man with thinning red hair peered out at them. He glanced briefly at Adelaide, started to switch his attention to Jake, hesitated, and then looked back at Adelaide. His eyes widened in astonishment.

  “Adelaide? Mrs. Massey? Is that you?”

  “Hello, Oscar.”

  “I was afraid Dr. Gill would find you,” Oscar said. He glared at Jake. “Are you the hired gun Gill sent to track down Mrs. Massey? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. She doesn’t belong in this place.”

  “I agree. I’m Jake Truett. You could call me a hired gun but I’m working for Adelaide, not Gill. And by the way, she isn’t Mrs. Massey. Her last name is Blake.”

  Oscar looked skeptical. He turned to Adelaide. “That true?”

  “Yes, it is,” Adelaide said. “I was never married.”

  “Dr. Gill said—”

  “Dr. Gill lied,” Adelaide said. “The only reason I’m here now is because I left something behind. I came back to get it. Mr. Truett accompanied me to make sure I don’t have any problems with Gill.”

  Oscar grunted. “No need to worry about running into Gill. He’s off on a fishing trip. He’s not due back until the end of the week.”

  “So you haven’t seen Gill recently?” Jake asked.

  “Not since he took off in his old Ford. Heard he left his sharp new Lincoln behind. It’s in the garage at his house. He told someone he didn’t want to get it muddy on the back roads in the mountains.”

  “Who did Gill put in charge of the sanitarium while he’s out of town?” Adelaide asked.

  “That’s the weird thing—he didn’t leave anyone in charge. He just took off real sudden like. Nurse Conner is looking after things.” Oscar glanced at his watch. “But it’s just going on five thirty. She won’t arrive until eight o’clock.”

  “That means we’ll be dealing with the orderlies,” Adelaide said. She gave Oscar a bright smile. “I don’t think Mr. Truett will have any problem handling them.”

  Oscar eyed Jake with a considering look. “Not sure what’s going on here, but if you’re a friend of Adelaide’s, I can give you some advice that might save you a whole lot of trouble.”

  “I’m always open to good advice,” Jake said.

  “If any of the orderlies tries to make trouble for you, just slip him ten or twenty bucks. That will make him look the other way.”

  “Thanks for the tip,” Jake said. He took out his wallet and removed some bills. “Sound advice is worth a lot to me.”

  Oscar raised his bushy brows and palmed the money. “Not necessary. Happy to help out Mrs. Massey—I mean, Adelaide. But thanks. I can buy that new radio Nancy’s been wanting. We get a real chuckle out of that Fibber McGee and Molly show and we never miss The Shadow.”

  “How is you wife’s insomnia these days?” Adelaide asked.
>
  Oscar smiled. “Much better, thanks to you. She brews up some of those herbs and flowers you told me about and drinks a cup or two before she goes to bed. Sleeps real good. I’ve started drinking some of the stuff myself.”

  “It was one of my mother’s recipes. I’m glad it worked for your wife. Take care, Oscar. And thanks for your kindness to me when I was here.”

  “You were in real bad shape the night Dr. Gill brought you here. He said you’d had a nervous breakdown and that he and Ormsby were going to give you some special medicine that would help you. But as far as the staff could tell, it made things worse, just like it did the first patient they treated with it. Except you survived. After you disappeared, a lot of folks here, including me, said you were better off away from this place.”

  “You and the others were right,” Adelaide said. “I’ve been doing great since I left the Rushbrook Sanitarium.”

  “Glad to hear it. Run along now and fetch your things. Reckon one of the orderlies can show you where they stored your belongings.”

  “I wasn’t able to carry much with me the night I left,” Adelaide said. She turned to Jake. “Are you ready to see the place where I was involuntarily in residence for nearly two months?”

  Jake’s eyes got the cold, expressionless look that she was coming to know so well.

  “Yes,” he said.

  They walked through the deceptively serene gardens and went up the stone steps to the massive wooden door. Jake tried the handle. When he discovered it was locked, he leaned on the bell button.

  An attendant dressed in a white uniform opened the door. He looked rumpled and annoyed—a man at the end of a long night shift. Adelaide didn’t need the name tag on his shirt to identify him. Harold Baker liked the night shift because he could doze through most of it. He did not immediately recognize her.

  “Visiting hours are three to four in the afternoon,” he announced. “Dr. Gill is very strict about that. Upsets the patients if people come and go at any time of the day.”

  “We’re not here to visit any of the patients,” Jake said. He pulled a leather case out from under his jacket and flipped it open and closed very fast. “Special Agent Jake Truett, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dr. Gill has been doing some clandestine work for us. There’s been a breach of national security.”

  “Huh?”

  “I need to confiscate some files immediately.”

  Befuddled, Harold looked at Adelaide as if seeking clarification. Belated recognition sparked in his eyes.

  “Hey, aren’t you Patient B?” he demanded.

  “Good news, Harold. My mental health has vastly improved since I left the Rushbrook Sanitarium,” Adelaide said. “By the way, we’ll need the keys to ward five.”

  “I can’t give you those keys,” Harold said, alarmed. “Dr. Gill would be real upset.”

  “Unless you would like me to take you in for questioning concerning a serious breach of national security, you’ll give Miss Blake the keys,” Jake said.

  “Miss Blake? Her name’s Mrs. Massey.”

  “I’m not Mrs. Massey,” Adelaide said. “You had better give Special Agent Truett those keys before he arrests you.”

  “Damn it, I don’t get paid enough to take this kind of grief,” Harold growled. “The keys to the fifth floor are in Gill’s office. Help yourself.”

  Adelaide started toward the grand staircase. “Follow me, Special Agent Truett.”

  “Right behind you, Miss Blake,” Jake said. “I can assure you that the Bureau is very grateful for your cooperation in this vital matter.”

  Harold watched, mouth agape, as Adelaide and Jake went quickly up the stairs.

  When they reached the landing, Adelaide looked at Jake. “Is that a real FBI badge?”

  “Real enough,” Jake said.

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning it worked.”

  “I guess that makes it real enough,” Adelaide said.

  Gill’s office was locked.

  “We’ll have to make Harold give us the key,” she said.

  “Let me try my skeleton key,” Jake said.

  “You have a skeleton key?”

  “Technical term.”

  Jake took his gun out from under his jacket and used the handle to tap the glass pane in the door with judicious force. The glass shattered. He reached inside and turned the knob.

  “Right,” Adelaide said. “A skeleton key. Very handy piece of equipment.”

  “Yes, it is,” Jake said.

  The iron ring containing the key to the fifth-floor ward was on a hook on the wall. Adelaide grabbed it.

  No one tried to stop them until they reached the locked ward on the fifth floor. At that point they were confronted with another thick wooden door and an old-fashioned lock. Adelaide got the door open with the key.

  She thought she was braced for the return to the ghastly place where she had spent a two-month-long nightmare, but when she moved into ward five, a wave of panic hit her. She froze. She wanted to turn around and run for her life.

  She was vaguely aware that Jake had stopped beside her. He surveyed the ward with its sterile white walls, white tile floor, and twin rows of locked rooms.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’re never coming back to this place.”

  She pulled herself together. “But if I do end up back here, you’ll come and get me.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m all right now,” she said. “The staircase that leads to the lab is at the far end of this hall. Whatever you do, don’t look through the grills into any of the rooms. Don’t make eye contact with any of the patients.”

  “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.”