same time that she had been completely, utterly sure that she would hear it.
Victoria Enright was committed to Dix mental hospital in April of 1965 and had resided there ever since.
______
There was no one in the upstairs hall, and Katrina’s bedroom door was closed, as Laurel took an outwardly leisurely walk back toward her room. Inside her thoughts were racing. Front stairs or back? How do I get out without drawing attention?
Brendan was likely still in the great room, obsessing over the pool in the living room, which made the back stairs a safer bet. Then Laurel’s stomach dropped as she realized: If he’s at the monitors, no matter which stairs I take he’ll be able to see me walking down the hall. He’ll know I’m leaving.
She stopped at her bedroom door and stepped into the room, found her purse on the writing desk, and reached into it for her wallet and keys. Then she put the purse under the bed, slipped her wallet and keys and Tyler’s phone into her pant pockets, and pulled a sweater on over her head to conceal the bulges in her pockets.
She opened her door and shut it behind her, and walked down the hall toward the back, again affecting an idle stroll. She moved through the den, pausing to browse at the titles of books on the shelf, and selected one without actually registering the title. It was all to show Brendan that she was not going anywhere. And the feeling of being watched was overwhelming; she felt as if she were a rat in a maze in a lab.
She strolled out of the den with her book and walked down the short set of stairs to the last part of the hall. The door of Tyler’s room next to the kitchen was shut, as she had left it. She moved casually into the kitchen and took a minute there to rummage in the random snack food spread out on the table. She selected a green apple and bit into it, looking contemplative. Then she turned and walked down the stairs, again, with apple and book, pausing to look out the window at the landing, gazing out over the back garden …
Then she walked down the last stairs to the back door, bracing herself for Brendan to call her name—but not a word.
Fuck the house quarantine, she thought grimly. We’re getting some answers today. She eased the back door open, stepped out of the house, and hurried down the gravel drive toward her car.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Dorothea Dix was a large complex of buildings scattered over several hundred acres of gently rolling hills near downtown Raleigh. Laurel drove past a lush vineyard and a small cemetery as she wound the Volvo up the hill. The Romanesque buildings of the central compound looked more like a private university than a mental institution—until she got a glimpse of the spiral razor-ribbon wire layered on top of the abnormally tall fences.
Laurel had lucked out with her first phone call, but the formidable nurse at the reception desk—her name badge read “Delphine”—saw through her instantly.
“You’re not Miz Enright’s doctor and you’re no relative. What business you think you got with her?”
Laurel opted for the truth. “She was involved in a study at the university in 1965 that I believe might have something to do with her condition.” She held her breath, hoping against hope.
Delphine looked at her in disbelief. “What kind of study you figure would bring on catatonic schizophrenia?”
So it’s schizophrenia. Like Paul Folger. Laurel didn’t like the parallel one bit.
“I don’t know,” she said aloud. “That’s what I was hoping to find out from her.”
The nurse shook her head. “You’re not going to be getting anything out of her,” she informed Laurel. “She hasn’t talked in all the time I’ve been here.”
“Can I see her?” Laurel asked, without much hope. “Not talk to her,” she said quickly, as the massive nurse frowned. “I just want to see her.” She could not have said why, except that Victoria was a living link to the past, even if that link was broken.
The nurse looked hard at Laurel, then to Laurel’s vast surprise, she turned silently and nodded her head toward the stairwell.
Laurel followed the nurse’s regally swaying bulk up two flights of institutionally green stairs. They came out on a ward with the familiar stench of urine and the faintly goatish smell of hebephrenic schizophrenia; Laurel had done a semester of field work in UCLA’s psych ward and the