The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller (12 page)

“I’m on it.”

I clicked the phone off and looked out my window. The rain was coming down harder now. I glanced at my watch: five ‘til seven. I got out of the car, moved beneath an overhang fifteen feet from the employee exit.

And waited.

About ten minutes later, a slew of employees began filing out the door, umbrellas raised, making it difficult to see if Penfield was among them. I narrowed my focus as they moved past, searching faces while trying to appear inconspicuous. One woman glanced over at me. I smiled. She smiled back. No sign of Aurora Penfield.

I waited another fifteen minutes, in vain.

Where the hell is she?

I knew she’d been working this shift—I’d spoken to her last night. I also knew there was only one door employees were allowed to use as an exit. Had she gone home early? Stayed to work a double? I didn’t have time to wait through another eight hours but desperately needed to speak with her.

I made my way back toward the parking lot, rain stinging my cheeks like tiny pebbles. When I got to my car, I heard two people talking. I looked up toward the employee door.

And there she was, speaking with another person as she made her way out.

Then she rushed toward the parking lot, long, shapely legs moving quickly beneath an umbrella. I jockeyed my position to move into her path. At about ten feet away, she spotted me, and her expression suddenly changed. So did her direction. She did an about-face and hurried back toward the building.

Fat chance.

I quickened my pace and chased after her. She was no match for a desperate reporter wearing sneakers. Moving beside her now, I said, “I have to talk to you.”

She kept walking, steady in her gait, eyes focused straight ahead. “I told you I’ve got nothing to say.”

“It’s important.”

“I don’t care,” she said, increasing her pace, still refusing to look at me. “Get away from me or I’ll call security.”

I stopped moving and stood. “What the hell’s your problem? You give me the damn records, then you want nothing to do with me?”

She stopped too and turned back toward me, her lips tight around her words. “There are security cameras all over this parking lot. I risked my job giving you those records. Do you want me to get fired? I can’t be seen with you. Now go…
away
!”

She skirted me and headed back toward the parking lot. I followed, raising my voice over the pouring rain. “Then you shouldn’t have given them to me in the first place!”

“Don’t make me sorry I did.” She closed the umbrella, got into her car.

“But you did. So I’m not going anywhere, until you—”

Slam.

Right in my face.

She started the ignition.

She wasn’t getting away—not if I could help it. I began pounding on the window. “Aurora! Open up! Tell me why you’re so sure Jean was murdered. Aurora!”

She looked past me, and panic washed across her face. I swung around and spotted a security guard moving in my direction with angry eyes on me. I turned back to the window just in time to find Penfield reaching for the lever, preparing to shift into reverse. In an act of desperation, I pulled the newspaper photo of Nathan Kingsley and the St. Christopher medal from my pocket, held them against the glass.

Her eyes opened wide in astonishment, then slowly, she moved her gaze up and met mine.

With rain dripping down my face and desperation in my heart, I mouthed the word:
Please
.

Penfield slammed the car into park, hit the unlock button, then closed her eyes and leaned her head back. I rushed around to the passenger door and got inside.

Chapter Nineteen

She pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road traveling north. Neither of us spoke. After a few miles, she drove into a rest area and parked.

With hands gripping the wheel, elbows locked, she turned to me and said, “This isn’t just about a magazine story.”

I shook my head.

“Want to tell me what you’re doing with his necklace?”

“I can’t.”

She stared at me. I went on, “But please trust me when I say I’m one of the good guys, and I need you to tell me what happened to Jean Kingsley that night.”

She gazed at me for a moment as if measuring my words, then looked straight ahead, bit her bottom lip. “She was murdered.”

“Give me something to back it up.”

She looked back at me quickly. “You read the records, right?”

“I did. But there’s nothing that points to a murder.”

“But it points to a suspect.”

“You mean Michael Samuels,” I said, “Sam I Am.”

She raised her eyebrows, nodded.

“Who was he?”

“Claimed to be her nephew.”

I looked out my window at nothing, scratched my head. “You know, being afraid of someone is one thing. Getting killed by them is completely another. If that’s all you’ve got—”

“There’s more.” She dug into her purse and pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a greedy drag, then opened the window a crack as she exhaled. “Her nightgown.”

“What about it?”

“Supposedly, she hung herself from the door with it.”

“Okay…”

“That wasn’t the gown she went to bed in that night.

“How do you know?”

“She was agitated that evening. Spilled food all over herself. I should have changed her into a clean one, but I was dog-tired, so I just sponged it. That’s why I remember, because I was breaking a rule. And it left a stain.”

“But why would someone switch her gown?”

“Because hers got torn. Kind of hard to make it look like she hung herself with it that way.”

I waited.

Another drag, a quick exhale, then she tossed the half-smoked cigarette through the crack in her window. “When I went outside for my break, I saw Samuels in the shadows of the parking lot. He stuffed something into a trashcan and walked away really fast. So I went over and looked, found a nightgown all bunched up and torn. With the stain.”

“Okay. So this Samuels guy. Did you see where he went after that?”

“No. The alarm went off, and everything went to hell real fast. I had to rush inside. That’s when they found Mrs. Kingsley hanging in her room.”

“And that’s when you put two and two together.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Did you tell anyone?”

A scornful smile. “I tried to. Told the sheriff and Faraday about it. I even took them outside to show them the gown, but when we got there, it was gone.”

“What do you think happened to it?”

She threw her hands up and shook her head. “He came back to get it? I don’t know. But I saw it, and then it was gone.”

“So nobody believed you.”

“Nope. With no gown, there wasn’t any physical evidence, just my word. I didn’t even have a clear description except that he was wearing a cowboy hat, and that’s every guy in Texas.”

“And the guest log for that night was missing from the files you gave me. So no proof he was even there.”

“You got it. Sheriff ruled it a suicide. And I looked like an idiot.”

“Do you remember anything else about Samuels?”

She looked out through the front windshield, shook her head. “Just like every other yahoo you see around here.”

“Can you get a little more specific for me?”

“Faded blue jeans, flannel shirt. The hat was pulled down low, I never saw his face very well.”

“Age?”

“If I had to guess, maybe in his twenties.”

“Anything else?”

She thought for a moment. “I smelled cigarette smoke when I walked up to the trash can.”

I paused, contemplated. “You said you were risking your job by giving me the records. So why did you?”

She looked down at her purse, began running her fingers along the outer edges as she spoke. “Faraday didn’t want trouble on his watch. He didn’t believe me, and he was not happy with me at all for making a fuss.”

“So you felt uncomfortable.”

“To put it mildly. And it only got worse from there. A few days later, he comes over to me, starts talking about how a psychiatric nurse seeing things that aren’t really there is the kind of thing that could get someone fired, and maybe that particular person would be best-served not to stir the pot.”

“Subtle.”

“As a brick.”

“So you shut up.”

“I was a single mom with a leukemic child and medical bills piling up. You bet your ass I did.”

I thought about the photo on her desk.

“Guess it didn’t matter anyway.” She looked down at her hands, started rubbing them together. “I lost him in eighty-three.”

“I’m so sorry…”

“But I would have died for that kid. I would have. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose my job and my chance to fight like hell for his life. That’s what mothers do.”

I said nothing.

She looked back up at me, tears in her eyes. “You don’t know how many times I prayed for God to take me instead. I was angry as hell that He didn’t.” She brought both hands up to wipe her cheeks, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

“Don’t be.” I waited while she found a tissue in her purse, blew her nose. Then I said, “But why now? Why me?”

“It’s complicated…most of the people who work at Glenview don’t let themselves have feelings for the patients. They can’t, and pretty much, neither do I. But Mrs. Kingsley was different.”

“Different how?”

“I felt horrible for her. She lost her son, and I had one fighting for his life. I felt a connection. You know?”

I nodded.

“Then, what do I go and do? In order to keep mine alive, I kept a secret, one that that did her a horrible injustice.” Her eyes began welling with tears again. “I did her wrong.
I
was wrong.”

“You did what you had to. What any mother would do.”

She closed her eyes. “It’s been eating at me for years, this whole thing…the guilt. Then you come along, and you’re right, you
are
one of the good guys, you know? Sometimes you can just tell. I knew it when I overheard you talking to Faraday.” She shrugged. “I don’t know…maybe something changed in me. Maybe I’ve come to realize that some risks are worth taking, that this was my only chance to make things right.”

I gave her a sad smile.

She laughed a little. “Pretty stupid of me to think I could just give you the records and walk away. But I was scared, you know?”

“You did the right thing. I’ll make sure everything stays confidential between us. I promise.”

“But can you get to the bottom of this? Do you think you can find out what happened? I want you to—I really do.”

“I’m sure going to try,” I said. “I promise you that.”

Chapter Twenty

The skies were closing in as I drove away from Glenview, the rain picking up momentum once more, churning into a storm that was growing angrier by the minute.

Along with a story that was growing more tragic.

I struggled to readjust my perspective. Jean Kingsley, a murder victim. What she and her family endured; what Dennis must have endured.

Dennis. I needed to talk to him. I dialed his number.

“Did Mrs. Kingsley have a nephew?”

A brief pause. “No. She had a niece... Why?”

I tried to minimize the concern. “Just researching your family’s history. I thought I’d heard someone say she had a nephew, is all. Thanks for clearing it up.”

I hung up, dialed Sully’s number.

“You’re taking too long,” I said as soon he answered.