the circular drive. I hurried past manicured hedges through the arched double doors. Inside, they’d decorated since last week. A massive blue spruce towered overhead, heavily laden with tinsel and metallic balls of green, red, and silver, an open-winged angel precariously perched at the top. The tree was colossal; even so, it struggled to bring cheer and festivity into the Institute’s somber halls. A huge brass and crystal chandelier dangled above it in the domed foyer, glittering like a huge tiara. The floor was marble laid with Orientals; the walls were inlaid with mosaic cherubs and figures depicting biblical tales. The one nearest the door showed the Garden of Eden. Eve and the serpent engaged in eternal conversation while chubby-winged infants peeked disappointedly at them from the skies. Across the foyer, the receptionist’s desk sat alone where three wide corridors met, each holding echoes of lost voices, forlorn whispers that would never be heard.

Agnes and I knew each other, but neither was particularly happy about it. Agnes used her position to shield staff and patients from any and all visitors, and she considered herself, with her thirty-odd years on the job, superior to relative newcomers like me. With only three years at the Institute, I was in her view still an outsider, possibly more suspect even than visitors. I’d learned that I would never win her approval; it was better to avoid her when I could.

I rushed past her desk across the expansive foyer toward the wing where I worked; Agnes flashed a professional smile, exposing a polished overbite.

“Oh, Ms. Hayes. You have a message.” She held up a yellow piece of paper. Agnes color-coded her messages. Yellow meant that the message had originated “out of house.” When I reached the desk and took the paper, she flashed her teeth again and turned away.

“Nick Stiles” was scrawled at the top of the paper. Nick Stiles? It took a second to place the name; he was that police detective who’d come about the finger. The one with those piercing eyes. Why had he called? And why here? Why not at home? Agnes had checked the box marked “please call.” Beneath that, she’d written his number and “at your convenience.”

At my convenience. Then it wasn’t an emergency. My curiosity would have to wait until after the morning session. I shoved the note into my coat pocket and rushed to the art therapy room. The room, formerly an employee lounge, was where I had my small office. With only two small windows, greenish fluorescent lights, and tan linoleum floors, it wasn’t the optimal setting for an art studio, but here the art itself was secondary to the artists’ creative expression. Their easels and worktables clustered around a wooden riser beneath the windows; I headed for the storage closet to lay out supplies.

Art therapy hadn’t been my dream. My dream had been to be the next Georgia O’Keeffe. But as my marriage had soured and my need for an income had grown, I’d recognized the need for a plan B, so I’d gone back to school and prepared for a career that, unlike painting, could actually pay some bills. My studio had become an office, and the art I worked with was no longer my own. For now, at least, being Georgia O’Keeffe was on hold.

The session that day began well. patients seemed energized and ready to work. One by one, I greeted them and led them to their easels. As usual, I planned to spend a few minutes with each of them, hearing whatever they wanted to tell me, directing their energy to their artwork. Before I could, though, Kimberly Gilbert, plump, thirty-one years old, and schizophrenic, began to wander, splashing asymmetrical shapes onto the walls, furniture, even other patients—any surface except the one provided for her. I gave chase and repositioned her at her canvas, but as soon as my back was turned, she floated away again.

Then Sal Stephano and Hank Dennis began bickering. Hank, sleekly handsome and forty, suffered a compulsive disorder and insisted that his every brushstroke be perfect. In a typical session, he’d begin and destroy a picture twenty times; nothing was exact enough for him. Given his fixation on perfection and order, he became unsettled when Kimberly applied paint where it didn’t belong—especially on his own shirtsleeve. Hank became flustered and furious, cursing, then verbally swiping at Kim-berly. I separated them, reassuring him that the paint would wash out of his sleeve, directing his attention back to his