Absent Feeling, page 15
“So, help me to find the real killer,” Amber said.
She saw her frown. “And how, exactly, am I meant to do that?”
“First, I need a floor plan of this facility,” Amber said. She tried to sound as authoritative as she could, tried to make it sound as if she were already an agent, and it was obvious that they should help her.
“A floor plan, why?”
“Just get one, please,” Amber said. “It’s easier to show you than to explain it.”
She saw Ms. Dern frown, but she gestured for Amber to follow her. “Come with me, please.”
Lucy Dern started to lead the way through the facility, to what appeared to be a storeroom, but it was lined with shelf after shelf of box files. Such light as there was came from a single bulb hanging high above a central table, while a high window at one end contributed little or nothing. An aging computer terminal sat in one corner.
“If we have one, it will be in here,” the administrator said. “This is our records room, for the paper copies of the files on our patients. I’ve been trying to get it into some kind of order since I got here.”
“So, you still have the files from back before your computer crash wiped the electronic versions out?” Amber said.
Ms. Dern nodded. “Everything is in here somewhere. It’s just a question of finding it. We have a card index, but it’s so rare that we need anything from in here that it’s hard to say if it’s up to date.”
Amber hoped that it would be because she had a feeling that she knew why their previous searches hadn’t turned up the patient they were looking for: his stay at the Wellness Institute had begun before the loss of the files.
For now, though, Amber needed to focus on the pieces of information she already had.
“Where can we find that floor plan?” Amber asked.
“Over here, I think,” Ms. Dern said. She went to a box, taking out a dusty, old map of the building and its grounds, complete with a floor plan of the interior. She spread it out carefully on the table at the center of the room, weighing it down with boxes to hold it flat.
Amber called up one of the crime scene photographs, trying to orient herself.
“Why are you showing me that?” Ms. Dern asked, sounding a little disturbed by the sight of the bloodstained floor of Ysabel Jones’s house.
“Don’t you see it?” Amber countered. “It’s the same shape. Exactly the same shape. And the card was left … somewhere here, in this corner.”
She needed to be more exact. She had no doubt that the killer had been. The inkblot cards had been in the same place every time, down to the last inch. Amber was willing to bet that he’d measured out the spot.
Which meant that she could too. She enlarged the pictures as much as she could, trying to triangulate by drawing lines from the corners of the grounds. The place where they crossed …
Well, it depended what floor it was on, but the upper floors seemed to contain an office and a storage space, so Amber was willing to bet that this didn’t have anything to do with them. No, this was about the patient room that was there at one side of the place.
“Room 15,” Amber read from the map. “I need to know about the patients in room 15.”
“If any of them fit with the description that you gave us before,” Ms. Dern pointed out, “then we would already have identified them.”
“Do it anyway,” Amber said. “We need to work out who has been in there.”
Dern nodded and went to the computer terminal. “Room 15 is currently occupied by Ahir Singh.”
“I’m not interested in the current patient,” Amber said. “I’m looking for who was in there before.”
“Before him, well, there’s a list of patients over the last few months, but before that … interesting, all I have is a name, with no file attached.”
“Implying someone who was here so long that their file was lost in the computer crash?”
“Yes, but it shouldn’t be that simple. There should have been up to date patient records, notes, at the very least a record of his release.”
“What’s the patient’s name?” Amber asked.
“Gideon Adams.”
“Right, look for him in your system and tell me if you find anything,” Amber said. She was already heading over to the card index, trying to find anything that she could on Gideon.
The first job was trying to work out the filing system that had been used in the card index. It wasn’t purely alphabetical, but it also seemed to be organized according to patient category. It was like a code to which Amber didn’t have the key, but Amber was good at working out codes.
“I have a few partial files,” Ms. Dern said. “Notes of individual patient sessions, a record of his release three months ago. The reason that we couldn’t find him in the initial searches is that his main patient file is missing. I would guess that the doctors felt that updating his ongoing case notes was more important than going back to the start to recreate everything.”
So, he’d slipped through the cracks because someone here in the Guisborough Wellness Institute had been too lazy to start over with their record keeping? If they’d had that file, maybe they would have been able to find Gideon at the start of all of this.
As it was, it seemed to take forever for Amber to find his name in the index cards, and that was just the start because then she had to go looking for the file to which the card pointed. Amber paused, trying to orient herself, trying to get a sense of how the file boxes were laid out around the room.
“His release notes say that Gideon no longer posed a danger to others,” Ms. Dern said. “The doctor signing off his case was convinced that he’d been fully rehabilitated.”
“Which doctor?” Amber asked.
“Dr. Werdly.”
Linking him to at least one of the doctors who had been killed. Amber hurried over to the spot where she thought that Gideon’s file lay and pulled it out triumphantly, setting it down on the table so that she had a chance to read it.
It was a thick file, dating back at least twenty years. Amber guessed that this paper version had only ever been intended to provide a back up to the main computer file on him, but now, it was the best link that she had.
“It says here that Gideon Adams was brought to the Guisborough Wellness Institute after killing his sister with a knife,” Amber said. “He was assessed by Dr. David Banks, who used a Rorschach test to determine that he was suffering from a personality disorder.”
According to everything Amber had seen and heard, that wasn’t an approach that was favored anymore, with the Rorschach test used for a much narrower range of conditions.
“The notes say that during the test, every image made him think about his sister’s blood, and that he spoke at length about the people he believed were out to hurt him and how they had to pay. Dr. Banks seems to have added schizophrenia to the diagnosis at a later date.”
It was countersigned by Dr. Werdly, as if the two had diagnosed him together. There was another report in the file, about an attack on a nurse, an attack on Ysabel Jones. Amber cursed to herself. All the information she and Simon had needed to catch a killer had been waiting for them in the Guisborough Wellness Institute; it had simply been hidden away, half-lost after the place’s computer system had crashed.
Amber picked up the file. “I’m going to need to take this with me.”
Ms. Dern looked doubtful about that. “Strictly speaking, that file should really remain on hospital grounds.”
“Until five minutes ago, you didn’t even know that you had this file,” Amber shot back. “I need to show this to my partner, and there’s no time to copy it because Gideon could already be out there trying to kill his next victim.”
If they hadn’t gotten the warrant before, Amber was sure it wouldn’t have worked, but as it was, Mr. Dern nodded slowly. “I … all right, but please return it safely.”
Amber called Simon, feeling the sudden urgency of all of this. They’d used so much time running after false leads, and now, the killer could be out there somewhere, already stalking someone else.
“Amber, have you found something?” Simon asked as he picked up.
“The card points to a specific patient’s room,” Amber said. “For years, it was occupied by Gideon Adams, who stabbed his sister to death.”
“Why would he point to his own identity like that?” Simon asked.
“Maybe he feels wronged by having been locked up?” Amber suggested. “Maybe he sees that room as the source of all that’s wrong in his life. Either way, we need to find an address for him.”
“Checking it now,” Simon said. There was the sound of typing in the background. “215 Eastward Street is the address the DMV has for him.”
“Then that’s where we need to go,” Amber said.
She tried not to think about how many other medical staff and others might have been to that room, how many he might already be stalking. They had to get to him before that.
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
Gideon was back outside Dr. Eamon Sutton’s house, waiting in the hiding spot he’d picked out, watching as the street grew darker. Night was falling, and soon, it would be time for him to act.
Gideon had to hold himself back from doing it now, from rushing in there and killing Dr. Sutton straight away. He had to control himself, but he’d had years of practice controlling himself, not letting people see the anger that lay inside him.
That had been what finally got him out of the Guisborough Wellness Institute, in spite of the best efforts of the doctors to hold him there forever. They had lied and hurt him, done everything they could to pretend that he was some kind of danger.
Right from the start of it all, they’d made him look mad. Dr. Banks had been the one to administer the Rorschach test to him, and of course, Gideon had reacted to that because it had been so similar to his sister’s blood, spilling over the floor, over his hands. Anyone would have been disturbed by it.
His sister had been trying to hurt him, lying about him, plotting to kill him. He’d tried to explain it to them, tried to explain that it was all her fault that he’d been forced to stab her, but they hadn’t believed him. They’d called him mad.
They’d locked him away.
Gideon felt his hand tighten on the handle of the knife he’d brought with him at the thought of being turned into a prisoner at the whim of a doctor. He’d wanted to kill Dr. Banks for that. He’d been so angry that the doctor had died before Gideon was even released that when he’d gone to the man’s home, he’d been left confronting his wife instead. Gideon had known, though, that she was at least as responsible as Banks was. He’d understood then that Constance Banks had been whispering in her husband’s ear, that she was at least as responsible as he was for what had happened to Gideon. She’d deserved to die too.
Gideon watched the house now. Dr. Sutton was in there, moving around, the lights starting to show where he was in the house as he made dinner and ate it in front of the TV. It was possible, of course, that he would leave the house to go see friends or just to go get groceries. If he did that, would Gideon wait?
No, Gideon decided, he wouldn’t. He would meet Dr. Sutton at the door, push him back inside the house and give him the justice that he deserved.
No one deserved to die more than Eamon Sutton did. The man had been the cruelest of all his doctors. He had prescribed drugs that Gideon didn’t need, turning him into a kind of zombie. He had made up infractions against the institution’s rules, so that Gideon was punished. He had struck Gideon when he thought no one was watching, confident that there would never be an answer to the cruelty.
Tonight, there would be.
Gideon had suffered for almost twenty years in the room they’d stuck him in in the Wellness Institute. He’d been stuck in it, and even when they released him, he found that he couldn’t let go of it. He got the feeling that they’d only released him because no one could really remember why he was even in there anymore.
Gideon took out the Rorschach card he’d made for tonight, turning it over in his hands. It was identical to the others, encapsulating the wrong that had been done to him beginning with one Rorschach test, showing the place where he’d been trapped for all those years, demanding justice. It echoed his sister’s blood, asking why Gideon had been locked away for that when he’d had no choice.
He'd had no choice, just as he had no choice tonight. Dr. Eamon Sutton had to pay for what he’d done, for the monster that he’d been for all those years. No one would cry for him when he was gone. Any of his patients who heard about his death would rejoice. Gideon certainly would.
Gideon looked up at the sky, willing it to get darker faster. He wanted to do this so much now that he could barely bring himself to wait. Only the fact that he’d planned this out step by step held him in place, hiding among the trees a little way from the house. He could wait; he could be patient. Soon, it would be fully dark.
And then Eamon Sutton would pay for everything he’d done.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Amber raced through the traffic of Guisborough, weaving in and out, trying desperately to get to Gideon Adams’s house before he had a chance to hurt anyone else. It felt as though she was racing against the growing darkness, trying to get to the house before it was dark enough to allow Gideon to kill with impunity.
The driving was both terrifying and exhilarating, trying to move fast enough to get there before Gideon could kill anyone else, while also all too aware of the potential to crash if Amber got even the slightest thing wrong. She’d passed the driving requirements of her course at Quantico, but there was a big difference between passing a test and putting it all into practice. Amber could see the lights of the cars coming towards her and tried to time each move she made, avoiding the other cars on the road without ever slowing down.
The street where Gideon Adams lived was just ahead. Amber took the turn into it, then forced herself to slow. If he was still at home, then she couldn’t risk alarming him by skidding to a halt right outside his place. She found a spot to park instead, leaving the car behind, and continuing forward on foot as she checked the addresses on either side.
Finally, Amber found the house that she was looking for. It looked rundown, as if it had barely been touched for more than a decade and had only recently begun to have repairs made on it. Amber realized with a start that this house must have sat empty for all the time that Gideon Adams had been incarcerated, and that this was the same house in which he had stabbed his sister all those years before.
That thought made Amber hesitate because it was a reminder of just how dangerous this man that she might be approaching was. This was a man who hadn’t hesitated to kill his own sister and who had killed at least three other people since his release. Amber wasn’t even armed.
Even so, she kept as close to the house as she dared, watching it for any sign of movement. It seemed quiet, but it was impossible to say for sure whether Gideon was in there. Amber started to creep closer, trying to get a better view.
Even as she did it, she saw Simon pull up. He came out of the car with a hand already on his gun, ready for any potential danger. Amber waved him over, and he approached, looking as if he was expecting Gideon to come bursting out at any moment, a weapon in his hand.
“Any sign of him?” Simon asked.
Amber shook her head. “I can’t see any movement in the house.”
“We still need to be careful,” Simon said. “Here.”
He passed her his spare sidearm. Amber took it gingerly, but she’d trained for this. She checked it, making sure that it was ready to fire if needed. She knew what she was doing now.
She and Simon approached the front door together. They didn’t stand straight in front of it because that would have exposed them to the danger of shots coming from the inside. Simon hammered on the door while Amber covered him.
“Gideon Adams! This is the FBI! Open up!”
There was no response from inside, no sign that Gideon was about to come to the door to reply to them. There was no real sign that he was even there, but that didn’t seem to deter Simon.
“Gideon Adams! Open up! This is your last chance!”
There was still no answer. To Amber’s surprise, Simon took a step back and kicked the door, hard. Amber heard wood splintering as the lock gave way, the door swinging open to reveal the interior of a simple, suburban house, one that had been cleaned thoroughly but which still looked as though it had barely been touched beyond that in years. The whole place had a feeling that was almost like being in a museum, with the sense of something preserved from the past.
There were pictures on the walls of a family. Amber already knew Gideon’s face from the file she’d taken from the Guisborough Wellness Institute. He had a haunted expression, deep, almost hollow eyes, and dark hair that combined to make him look brooding in every photograph. He seemed taller than most of his family, wiry but still strong looking.
Amber tried to keep her focus on the house around her, looking out for any spot that Gideon might jump out from. She was here to back Simon up now, here to help take down a killer. Her training was kicking in, so that she moved smoothly in Simon’s wake, covering all the angles that he couldn’t.
They made their way through the ground floor, clearing it room by room. It appeared to be completely empty, but there was one spot in the living room that made Amber and Simon stop, staring at it.
There was a red stain on the carpet, one that initially horrified Amber, sure that it must be blood. Yet the shape there was far more regular than any blood spatter could have been. It was a shape Amber knew, a shape that she’d seen before in too many crime scene photographs now.
“He’s recreated the inkblot pattern here,” Amber said, barely able to believe it. “This is … what? The spot where he killed his sister? But he’s put in his map of the Wellness Institute.”
“That place must have really gotten into his head,” Simon said. “But we have our proof now that it’s him.”
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