10

 

“Do you think Gorse had anything to do with what went on here?” Judith asked. “Maybe the shot fired that day was meant for him. Maybe some woman forced to give up her baby years ago is out for revenge—or perhaps the child of one of the mothers who gave birth here.”

“I don’t know, but that’s an intriguing possibility,” Allan admitted. “But aren’t you jumping to conclusions? We don’t actually know what went on here,” he pointed out.

“You’ve only spoken with one witness—and much of what she said could be dismissed as hearsay.” Certainly, something was going on now. Allan hoped it wasn’t someone armed with a rifle. He hated putting Wren at risk again. Judith was at risk, too, and didn’t seem to realize it. He’d considered the possibility that Judith had been playing tricks, but it couldn’t have been the reporter. She’d come from the opposite direction when he’d pulled Wren to safety. So, who else was in the annex with them? It seemed natural that an abandoned building would become a place of refuge for homeless people or illegal drug users. But why would they wish to cause intruders any serious harm? Had he or Wren actually fallen through the floor and been seriously injured, Judith would have been forced to call 911 and the building would now be crawling with paramedics and cops. Surely vagrants and druggies wouldn’t want that?

“Wren, do you hear something? See anything?” he asked.

She stood with an alert expression at the entrance of the office peering into the dark corridor. She shook her head.

Miscellaneous papers were scattered on the floor and in the files. Judith had unzipped her thick canvas tote bag and shoved the blank certificates and other things into it.

“Judith,” Allan said. “Should you be taking anything from here?”

“The building is condemned and abandoned,” she answered, still jamming papers in her bag. “No one wants this stuff, and it’ll be destroyed. Besides, we’re already trespassing on private property.”

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.”

“You’re having a crisis of conscience, now?” the woman asked as she sneered at him.

If he called the comptroller, Allan would have to admit that they had trespassed. Wren, too. As his assistant, he was responsible for her. She had a little girl to take care of. He couldn’t allow her to be thrown in jail, even for a day.

If the staff had wanted anything remaining in the annex, they’d have come back for it. Right? Surely, anyone participating in illegal activities would have covered their trail by destroying any incriminating evidence. And the annex building was to be demolished along with the asylum facility. So the contents really didn’t matter.

Allan knew he was rationalizing his behavior as he followed Judith into the smaller office. He touched Wren on the shoulder as he stepped around her, giving her a quick, reassuring smile as he did so.

She still looked a little spooked.

And now they were lingering in a dark building with some stranger creeping through the hallways. Allan toyed with the idea of calling Torres or Reed for reinforcements, but if he did, he could be arrested for trespassing, along with Judith and Wren. The possibility of another accident—one with deadly consequences this time—made him feel uncomfortable. It was time to go.

“Judith, I think we should leave.”

“Go if you want to,” the reporter said with disdain. “I thought you’d be excited to see what I’d found in the annex. I’m not done rummaging around. There could be a Pulitzer in this for me, and I won’t be rushed.”

“Look, I think we all agree, there’s someone else in the building,” Wren insisted, from the doorway. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“Why should it?” the other woman asked. “Dope smokers probably, or vagrants, who are bunking down in here at night. They won’t bother me if I don’t bother them.”

“I agree with Allan. I think we should go,” Wren said.

Allan could hear the unease in her voice and see it in her rigid posture. A discomforting urgency to leave washed over him. However, if he kept looking, if he poked around just a while longer, he might find something useful for his book.

He flicked his flashlight beam into the corners of the small office to take one last look around before leaving. “Look at all this junk.” He kicked at a stack of old newspapers in the corner. “Why wasn’t all of this burned when they evacuated? There’s a huge incinerator in the food tunnel underneath the kitchen in the old building. I noticed it when we were down there last week.”

“Somebody got careless or lazy,” Judith suggested. She tugged open each drawer in a battered metal desk. They were empty, except for one, which contained a small black file box. Judith flicked open the box and focused her light on its contents. “Might be some patients’ names in this,” she said, retrieving a few index cards from the rusty file box.

“Please, Allan, let’s go,” Wren urged.

Allan glanced at his watch, using his flashlight to take note of the time. “Another fifteen minutes, then we’ll go. I promise.”

Judith gave them both a disapproving glare. “Just keep your eyes peeled, Mrs. B. We’ll be fine.”

Allan picked up some of the index cards that Judith had tossed onto the top of the desk. Fanning them out, he could see by the beam of his flashlight that the ink was faded. The handwritten notes appeared to be written in some code or shorthand. Patients’ names and identification numbers had been typed at the top of each card. His heart jolted when he picked up one that had the name LEAH PARTNER at the top.

 

~*~

 

Wren wanted to leave—now. She felt certain someone had been roaming the corridors, quietly listening to their conversations, watching them through the gloom. Every strange scuttling noise or unexplained rustle caused her heart to beat a little faster. Maybe it was mice or rats. Maybe even a raccoon or an opossum. But she wasn’t really buying it. Someone else was in the building.

The annex seemed airless and the darkness ominous. Because most of the windows on this floor had been boarded up, the corridors were shadowy and threatening. She silently thanked God again for preventing her from falling all the way through the damaged floorboards. There was no way she’d tell Deb about the incident.

Shuddering, she glanced over her shoulder at Allan. He had gone very still as he’d sorted through some old index cards. Wren took a few shuffling steps. A little cloud of dust rose, tickling her nose. She suppressed a sneeze. Surely this expedition was more to Judith’s advantage than his? He wasn’t writing about illegal baby selling.

“Allan, let’s go,” she pleaded, touching him on the arm.

“Wren.” He whispered her name. A slight frown marred his handsome features as he handed her one of the index cards.

“What is it?”

“Read it.”

Her eyes snapped wide when she recognized the name. Even though the light was dim, his face appeared to be a mask of mixed emotions: confusion, anxiety, even horror.

“Does it mean your mother was a patient here in the annex?” Wren whispered, leaning closer to him. Had Mrs. Partner had a baby here? If so, what had happened to the child? The implications were mindboggling. Wren glanced at Judith and then back at Allan. Her boss would not want his personal affairs to come to light in front of the reporter.

Allan lifted a shoulder and shook his head. Then he slipped the card into his pocket.

Judith turned. “Let’s go back down the corridor where you fell through the floor, Mrs. B.”

“No!” Wren and Allan replied at the same time.

“But I haven’t been down that way yet,” the reporter protested. “I want to see what’s there.”

“It’s not safe,” Allan insisted. “You saw that gaping hole in the floor. Be reasonable.”

Judith’s eyes turned hard as stone. “I intend to go by myself if I have to.” She brushed past Allan and Wren.

“We can’t let her go alone,” he said.

“She’s not my responsibility or yours,” Wren insisted.

That woman was as tenacious as the Jack Russell terrier her grandmother once owned. When Tipsy got something between her teeth, she wouldn’t let it go without a fight. Just like Judith.

“I want to leave now, Allan. Something isn’t right.”

“All right,” he said, reluctance in his voice. “But I’m going after her to tell her we’re leaving, that she’ll be on her own. Do you want to stay here?”

“No.” Wren tingled with fear. “I want the three of us to leave now—together. Don’t go after her. It’s not safe for you to go down that way either. Call her back.”

Allan gave Wren’s hand a squeeze, and a tingle of a different sort shot through her. The sensation took her by surprise.

He let go of her hand and took a step in the direction Judith had gone. “Judith, we’re going. Did you hear me? Judith!” When there was no response, he strode off after her.

Before Wren could protest, Allan’s tall frame was nearly swallowed by the gloom. She could see nothing but a shadowy figure and the bobbing circle of light to indicate his presence. Strong foreboding filled her being. The murky corridor reminded her of the food tunnel. She didn’t want Allan to make any more gruesome discoveries. The index card with his mother’s name typed on it, what could it mean?

A floorboard creaked from somewhere behind her and Wren shivered, her shoulders becoming rigid with fear. She spun around, raising her flashlight to illuminate the dark corridor. There was no doubt about it. Someone else was trespassing in the annex building—security personnel or cops would have made their presence known.

Wren tried to squelch her rising panic. She could hear raised voices in the opposite direction: Allan and Judith were arguing. She should join them. What a coward she was! Deb considered her to be like those gutsy heroines in the suspense novels she enjoyed reading. But that was hardly the truth. Wren was just plain scared.

The floor creaked again, but this time it was as though the intruder had stopped in mid-stride.

Wren froze. She strained to listen, to see. The hair on her arms prickled. Someone was standing there in the darkness watching her. She felt certain of it. In the bravest voice she could muster, Wren called out, “I know you’re there.”

There wasn’t a sound or movement in the dark.

She waited, forcing herself to breath normally. She was far too skittish for her own good. A whiff of an unmistakable odor wafted in the air. Her heart began to pound. A crackle, a pop. The annex was on fire!

~*~

Allan smelled smoke.

“Fire! We’ve got to get out! The annex is on fire.” Wren’s voice was frantic.

Judith, intent on poking her head into every closet, office, and ward on the third floor, spun around and hit him square in the face with the bright beam of her flashlight.

Her face appeared flushed and her eyes wide in the glow of his own flashlight. “I smell it. Do you?” she gasped. “The building is on fire! There should be a staircase this way.”

“No, I’m going back for Wren.” Beads of nervous perspiration broke out on his forehead and in the hairs of his moustache.

“But it will be quicker if we go this way,” Judith said, shining her flashlight in the opposite direction.

“I don’t care!” Allan made his way back towards Wren. If the reporter didn’t follow, that was her problem. The smell of smoke grew stronger every second. Heart pounding, Allan realized the old annex would burn like kindling. He would call 911 after they got safely out.

With his back and one arm sliding slowly against the wall, Allan picked his way carefully around the damaged floorboards.

He suspected someone had started the fire on purpose. Did the culprit hope to burn them to death or merely scare them out of the building? Or was this some sort of last-ditch effort to destroy incriminating evidence?

“Allan!” Wren’s cry sounded like a shriek.

“I’m coming,” he called back.

Suddenly, she darted toward him, clasping his free hand as they met in the hallway.

“Where’s Judith?” she gasped.

“Right behind me, or she was,” he answered.

Judith regarded them for a moment, breathing heavily from exertion, excitement, or both. “Hadn’t expected to get burned out, I can tell you that.” Turning to Allan, she said, “You’ve got enemies, Professor.”

Who could hate him so much they’d want to kill him and his companions?

“Or maybe it’s your lady research assistant,” Judith went on. “Someone wants her dead, perhaps.”

“Shut up!” he warned. Constricting fear coiled around his insides.

“It’s getting hot,” Wren said, coughing. “And the smoke is getting thicker. We’ve got to get out—now! Which way did we come up?”

“This way,” Allan said. Even as he led the way to the stairs, he could see a flicker of flames along the floor below. The smoke grew thicker and the heat more intense.

They couldn’t get to the first floor without passing through the burning second floor.

“I told you we should have gone down the staircase at the other end,” Judith snapped.

Seething with anger, Allan ignored her. He should never have allowed Wren to accompany him. He’d done just what he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do—placed her at risk again. Despite the anger he felt toward Judith, his feelings of self-loathing at that moment were even stronger. He needed to lead Wren to safety first.

“Hold up a minute,” he told the two women. “I’m going down to see if we can get to the next staircase, then I’ll come back for you. Don’t move.”

Wren’s eyes were wide with fear.

“Do you understand?” he asked. “I don’t want to lose you in the dark.”

Wren gave a quick jerk of her head and leaned against the wall.

Allan didn’t bother glancing at Judith Uravich. If she didn’t heed his advice, she could look out for herself.

Allan dashed down the stairs. Smoke roiled from one of the wards. Flames licked at the far wall, but the way to the next stairway appeared clear enough—if they hurried. Dashing back up the stairs, he covered his nose with his forearm and said, “We can make it. Let’s go.”

Wren was leaning against the wall, her head back, her eyes closed, lips moving. Annoyed, Allan grabbed her arm. Her eyes snapped open, and he propelled her down the stairs in front of him. “Now is not the right time for praying,” he rasped.

“It’s always the right time for praying,” she replied with a cough.

Wren’s unshaken faith stirred his anger and his wonder too. Did she really think God was aware of or that he cared about their predicament? The building was on fire. If they didn’t get out, they’d burn to death—if they didn’t die from smoke inhalation first. God hadn’t listened to his childhood prayers for his mother. He doubted God would listen to his prayers now. Perhaps God would listen to Wren’s prayers. Allan hoped so, for her sake as well as his own.

Smoke, thick and dark, swirled across the floor like steam escaping from a vent in the nether regions. Wren balked, apparently uncertain of moving ahead without being able to see where she was stepping. “Don’t push,” she hissed over her shoulder at Judith, who was bringing up the rear.

“Go on then. Stay close to the wall and you’ll be fine, but keep walking forward.”

Wren seemed to move slowly like a wind-up toy with dying batteries.

“That a girl,” Allan encouraged her, pulling her forward. “Keep coming. You’re doing just fine.”

As she choked for breath, he noticed his own breathing had become more labored. His nose was running, his eyes stinging. He was also sweating profusely—from fear or the intense heat. The one thought that kept going through his mind was that the old building might explode like a tinderbox. They had to get out—and fast. “Did you hear that?” He paused briefly on the staircase, but neither woman answered him.

Sirens in the far distance. Had someone called the fire department?

They could be charged with trespassing and maybe even arson. But they’d face that bridge when they came to it. The important thing was to get out of the burning building.

He thought he’d reach the second landing, but the darkness and smoke disoriented him. He hesitated, trying to get his bearings.

Wren and Judith bumped up against him.

“What’s the matter?” Judith gasped, her voice loud and urgent.

“I can’t see,” he said, choking. His throat was dry from breathing smoke. Although his desire to flee was strong, they had to be careful. He took a tentative step forward. When the toe of his shoe caught something and sent it bouncing down the stairs, he held his breath.

Wren choked violently and then gagged.

He had to get her out. As Allan clasped her hand more tightly, a shadowy figure moved in the smoke. The figure loomed—tall and menacing.

Wren gave a hoarse scream, clutching tightly at his elbow with both hands.

Allan gripped the flashlight like a weapon.