You Don't Want To Know (33 page)

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Authors: Lisa Jackson

BOOK: You Don't Want To Know
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It was all wrapped in delusions and dreams, a fog created by her own despondency and the pills she'd taken before stepping into the warm, soothing water, enough to make her relax.
As it was, she'd barely escaped with her life, had passed out in the rescue boat, hadn't awoken until days later.
Now she swallowed hard, the memory causing goose bumps to rise on her flesh as she mentally returned to the nearly empty restaurant and her best friend. “I lied,” she said, and cleared her throat. “I do remember. Just not all of it.”
“You didn't try to kill yourself, did you?”
“No,” she said, now more certain than ever.
“So who did?”
“That I still don't know,” she admitted, the possibilities running through her mind, “but I intend to find out.”
“Be careful, Ava,” Tanya advised, looking scared. “Be real careful.”
CHAPTER 32
D
ern felt the first drops of rain as he tied his horse to a sagging limb of a pine tree near the old asylum. Sea Cliff was showing its age. The cracked concrete, rusting pipes, and moss growing over old gardens were evidence enough of its disuse and emptiness, and the wind sweeping in, smelling of salt water, couldn't quite hide the odor of abandonment.
From one of the rooftops a crow cawed, ruffling his feathers as he looked down at the empty yard, and above the roar of the sea, a chain rattled against one of the unused flagpoles.
All in all, it was a lonely, eerie place that probably should be torn down, Dern thought as he made his way inside. He knew his way around, had learned it by trial and error, having visited the empty mental hospital three times previously. Each time he'd visited, he'd explored a section of the asylum for an hour or so before returning to his studio over the stable and hoping no one had seen him leave, usually by horseback, with an excuse ready should anyone ask of his whereabouts. He'd already mentioned riding the fence line, and today his excuse would be he thought he'd seen someone up in the woods and he wanted to check out if someone was camping on the property or needed assistance. He could use these simple lies to avoid too many lifted eyebrows or clouds of suspicion to gather.
So far, no one had noticed him missing, so he hadn't been forced to lie.
For the time being, he needed to keep his fascination with the institution a secret, and so far, he thought he'd accomplished that much.
Now, at one of the rusted side gates of the complex, he retrieved a pick from his set of slim jims, worked the old lock, and let himself inside. A gravel path choked with weeds wound through what had once been the gardens that separated several buildings on the premises. He passed a section of row houses that had been accommodations for some of the staff. Two of the houses had been remodeled, the common wall between them taken down to allow for one larger home; the rest looked as if they hadn't been touched since Eisenhower was in office. Across a dying hedgerow, he skirted the long clinic building that had been used for outpatient appointments.
Though the entire enclosure was fenced and gated, there were interior security walls as well, and the primary facility, the hospital itself and center of the complex, had its own set of locks, gates, and surrounding fences.
Aside from the fact that there were no towers at the corners of the fences, and no razor wire glinting over the tops of the concrete walls, this area resembled a prison.
“All very civilized,” he said under his breath, then picked the lock of the main gate and slipped inside the heart of Sea Cliff. A portico with a sagging roof stretched over the entrance, where a bank of windows and wide double doors greeted visitors.
This lock was a little more stubborn, but eventually it unlatched as well. He pushed some cobwebs aside as he stepped inside, to a place where time and humanity had seemed to have been forgotten. He walked into what had been the reception area of the hospital.
It was empty aside from a broken desk resting against one wall, collecting dust. Through the reception area, he entered into a large office, that of the hospital administrator, the last of whom had been Crispin Church, Ava's uncle. The file cabinets were empty, of course, and the credenza with a broken leg covered what had once been the heat ducts.
He'd been in here before and found nothing on this floor. Nor had he discovered anything of significance in the row houses or clinic buildings that he'd searched. That left the upper floors of the main hospital with its mazes of hallways, nurses' stations, abandoned group rooms, and empty wards.
The elevators didn't work, so he took the stairs, his boots ringing against the concrete steps. The stairwell was dark, the wire glass windows opaque to begin with and now covered in grime. The asylum bordered on creepy, but Dern wasn't one to be easily freaked. If so, he would have lost it when digging up the tiny coffin. Now,
that
had been unnerving. It was a wonder Ava was holding on to her sanity.
The second floor's layout was nearly identical to the first, the only difference being that the reception area below had been relegated to a kitchen and dining area on this floor. There was slightly more furniture in the rooms. A bed with a stained mattress stood in the middle of one patient room, and the frames of two others littered another, larger room nearby. A chair, circa 1972, had been pushed up against a window, forgotten, its stuffing exploding out of scratched faux leather, a frothy cascade of batting.
Nothing of interest.
He climbed the stairs to the third and top floor of the building. It appeared much the same as the others except for the water stains seeping in from the ceiling. Again, here was the common area and nurses' station, but this time he felt a prickle of apprehension as he made his way down one hallway and stopped at the corner room, only distinguishable from the others because of its two windows.
Was the dust in this room disturbed slightly? For a moment he thought he saw the print of a shoe, but it was just a trick of light.
The space was empty, its famous inhabitant leaving not a trace of himself behind.
“Where the hell are you, Reece?” Dern asked, his question echoing off the crackled walls and scratched tile floors. The man was a ghost, haunting this island and the town of Anchorville, leaving behind him an almost tangible legacy. As much of a monster as Lester Reece had been while alive and visible, since the mystery of his whereabouts had never been solved, he'd become a legend, part of the mystique of this part of the world. The old coots in the bar hadn't been mistaken. Like D. B. Cooper, who'd jumped out of a hijacked plane in the sixties with two hundred thousand dollars and two parachutes, Lester Reece had his share of admirers, those fascinated by criminals who had escaped justice and couldn't be proven to be dead or alive. People liked to believe myths and think that someone could get away with murder or money. Lester Reece had gotten away with both. The money he'd stolen had never turned up, nor had his body, but his myth lived on.
And Dern was out to prove the bastard dead, or nail his pathetic hide to the wall once and for all.
Standing at one window, he looked through the murky glass streaked with dirt, the outer sill covered in bird droppings, the interior walls showing black spots where someone had put out a cigarette or two . . . or three. Recently?
He felt a niggle of anticipation, and if he tried hard, he thought he could smell the faint scent of cigarette smoke . . . but that was probably just his imagination working overtime.
He couldn't tell if the black marks were from recent smokes or from cigarettes that had been extinguished years before. “Hell,” he muttered, and peered out the dirty window. From this vantage point, he observed a span of restless water that stretched to the far, rocky, tree-lined shore of the mainland. Reece's escape route, or so it was presumed by those who believed him alive.
Maybe.
Maybe not.
A glint of light caught his attention, and he moved his gaze to the north, along the edge of the island. There, through the trees, barely visible, was a patch of illumination. “What the devil?” he whispered, and craned his neck to take a second look. Sure enough, through a chasm in the hillside, a space where the trees were particularly thin, he caught a glimpse of the backside of Ava Garrison's home.
Not that it meant anything.
And yet he had the uneasy feeling that he'd just stumbled upon something important, a connection between Lester Reece and Ava Garrison's huge house, or more precisely someone who lived there.
Slow down. You're leaping to conclusions.
From here, he was able to see portions of the widow's walk. Cut into the roofline were windows on the third floor, probably to the servants' quarters, which, to his knowledge, were unused. The illuminated window was one floor lower and faintly visible. It was obviously the back of the house, and even in the gray daylight, a lamp was burning.
How many times, Dern wondered, had Lester Reece stood in this very spot and looked out the window to the back of Neptune's Gate?
Maybe never.
Or, more likely, he thought, his mind darkening with the revelation, every damned day.
 
“This is never going to work!” Tanya squinted through the windshield, her hands holding the wheel of her Chevy TrailBlazer in a death grip. It wasn't quite six, the night had settled in, and a thick mist forced Tanya to turn on the windshield wipers. Leaves fell, dancing and swirling, caught in the headlight's glare as the SUV's tires hummed over the two-lane road that cut through the forests and gloom.
Truth be told, Ava, too, was feeling nervous, as it was more than possible that she could get caught with spy cameras and the like. But she had to try.
All the way home, the closer they'd gotten to Anchorville, the more worried and quiet Tanya had become. What had seemed a lark earlier in the day had become a worrisome reality as, in her beat-up Chevy, the two women had ferried across Puget Sound, then driven through the port towns and north coast of the Olympic Peninsula, heading ever closer to Anchorville.
As a Seattle station played a mix of soft and hard rock, Tanya slid a glance into the backseat at the large bags they'd brought with them. Ava's cover was a girls' day out, which supposedly included a shopping spree in downtown Seattle, a massage at a local spa, and lunch on the waterfront. They had done all of those things, and she had the shopping bags to prove it, but tucked deep in a Nordstrom bag were the devices she'd picked up at a small electronics store not far from the University of Washington. She'd hidden all of the equipment in shoe boxes and a new purse she'd purchased and hoped to high heaven that she could make it inside the house without anyone wanting to see what she'd bought or asking too many questions.
An accomplished liar she wasn't.
But she was learning.
“Seriously, what're you going to do with all this stuff?” Tanya asked, motioning to the sacks in the backseat.
“Set it up.”
“Do you know how?”
“No, but it comes with directions, and the guy told us it was simple enough that a ten-year-old could handle it.” The “guy” was a geek at the high-tech store who looked like he could set up a computer system for NASA.
“I'm talking about
you
,” Tanya reminded.
“Your faith in me is underwhelming.”
Nervously, Tanya stretched her hands over the steering wheel and slowed for a turn. “All this bothers me. I don't like it,” she said.
“Me neither.”
“Oh, damn!” A raccoon waddled across the narrow, two-lane road, and she swerved slightly to avoid hitting it.
Anchorville was less than two miles away, and Ava could feel her anxiety ratcheting up.
Wyatt had called while she'd been shopping in Seattle; she'd seen his name on the phone's small screen but couldn't pick up in the electronics store.
Now she called him back, and he picked up before the second ring.
“Hey,” he said.
“I just noticed that you called earlier,” she lied. “Sorry.”
“I was just checking in.”
“Tanya kidnapped me,” she said, keeping her voice light. “Lunch, shopping, a spa treatment, you know, the works.”
“You had a good time?” he asked while Tanya fiddled with the knob of the car's defroster and pretended not to eavesdrop.
“A really good time.”
“So where are you?” he asked.
“A few miles out of Anchorville.”
“You know you missed the last ferry.”
“I can probably catch a ride with Butch or one of the other guys who ferry to the island. I should be home in less than an hour.”
“No. Just wait at the coffee shop. I'll pick you up.”
Her stomach sank at the thought of juggling packages and hiding what was inside them on the boat with Wyatt at the helm. “Thanks, but really, I'm sure someone will be available. If not, I'll call—”
“I'm on my way,” he cut in.
“Seriously, Wyatt, you don't have to . . .” She caught Tanya's worried glance.
“It's not a problem. I'll see you soon!” He hung up before she could protest any further.
“I knew it!” Tanya said, giving up on the heater. “He's suspicious!”
“He's
always
suspicious.” Ava dropped her phone into her purse and leaned back in the seat while trying to convince herself she could pull this off.
Twin beams from the headlights of an oncoming car washed over the interior, illuminating Tanya's concerned face for a split second. “You could always stay with me.”
“Thanks.” Ava touched her friend on the shoulder. “But that would just raise more suspicions. Don't worry. I'll be fine.”

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