Текст книги "Illusion"

Автор книги: Фрэнк Перетти

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“Okay.” Shirley headed through the kitchen for the side door and called out, “I told her you’re a gentleman so there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

And out the door she went.

So they’d had a little talk, the two of them. He looked at Eloise. “A meeting?”

Her eyes implored him through the drugs. “It’d be nice.”

Well, this was a nice little checkmate, so perfect she had to have planned it. It was awkward. It was even scary.

But he had questions of his own. “All right.”

chapter

21

Dane noticed his body language: he was towering over her and he wanted answers so badly his expression probably seemed unpleasant. He made himself relax, slid his chair back a few feet, and sat down.

And then they stared at each other. Her eyes fell away a few times, perhaps to deal with a thought, perhaps because she was still half asleep, but they always returned and met his gaze again. He was trying to read her; she was probably trying to read him.

“So what did you tell her?” he asked, nodding in the direction of Shirley’s exit.

“That I came out here to see you, but then I had a problem with some drugs.”

“What drugs?”

“I don’t know. I made it up.”

“You made it up? You lied.”

“Well, I didn’t know what to say.”

“So what did happen?”

She laughed an apology. “It sure could have gone better.”

“Tell me what happened.”

He could see she was thinking, coming up with something, her eyes shifting to the left as she worked on it. “I guess I don’t remember most of it.”

“Do you remember ingesting or injecting any drugs?”

“You sound like a doctor.”

“I’m not. Do you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Are you a drug user?”

“No. I don’t do drugs.”

“Do you remember running across my field?”

“Really? I mean, I did?”

“That’s where I found you. You fell down in my field.”

Those little tidbits helped her. “Oh! I think I hit my head! I was fixing a flat tire just a little ways up the road and I bumped my head with the lug wrench. I guess I wandered back here trying to get some help and finally conked out in your field.” She looked at him with a dull, spacey rapture. “And you rescued me, right?”

“I guess you could say that.”

“That is just so cool!”

“So who was that guy chasing you?”

Oh. Now she looked caught. “What guy?”

He cocked his head at her and raised an eyebrow.

She dug a little deeper. “You mean … who did you see?”

“I saw a man chasing you. Who was he?”

“Chasing me?”

“You were running from him.”

“I was?”

He held his forefinger and thumb a tiny gap apart. “You’re that far from getting thrown out of here, wet clothes or not.”

She searched through her brain another moment but gave up. “I don’t know—I mean, what did he look like?”

“Blond. Young, agile. Rough face. He looked like he’d been in a fight.”

“And he was chasing me?”

He leaned into this one. “Who was he?”

She shied back and replied, “Clarence.”

“Clarence. From the other night at McCaffee’s?”

She brightened and leaned toward him, managing a horse’s nod. “Yes! Remember him? He was my volunteer for the coffee mug trick.”

“His face is memorable.”

“He’s been there a couple times. He was there for my very first performance!”

“So?”

Now she didn’t know where to go. “So … what?”

“Why was he chasing you?”

“Um … are you sure he was chasing me?”

“You ran into my pasture, he was running after you, you were passing out, his face had blood on it and some really nice bruises, and he didn’t turn around until I threatened him.”

Her eyes got that wide, spacey look again, like she was looking at Superman … or Prince Charming. It made him cringe. “You threatened him?”

He held up a hand. “I’m lucky he bought it. I was waving that sword over there.”

She marveled at the sight of his stage sword, now resting on the floor against the wall. “You rescued me with a sword?”

“It’s a prop for a magic act.”

She brightened. “You used to stab your pretty assistant with it while she was curled up in a box!”

“My wife.”

“Far out. I always wondered how that trick worked. Is it a depth perception thing?”

Trying to change the subject? Nice try.“You say I rescued you. Did Clarence mean you harm?”

She looked away, rubbed her fingers, scratched her ear.

“Did he mean you harm?”

She had nowhere else to go. She nodded, then spoke as if confessing. “I got a flat tire and I pulled over and got out to fix it, and then these two guys—Clarence and another guy, named Lemuel—drove up and acted like they were going to help me, and when I wasn’t looking they gave me some kind of a super-zap like they were electrocuting me or something, and then they gave me a shot”—she pointed to the mark on her neck—“right here, and the next thing I knew I was waking up here on the couch.”

Well, it all fit. “They tasered you?”

“What’s that?”

“Taser. It’s an electric shock device that immobilizes the victim.”

“Oh! Whoa, yeah, I hope to shout!”

“So what about the other guy, this, uh … ?”

“Lemuel.”

“Yeah. What’d he look like?”

“He was cool-looking, Hispanic or Arab or Greek or something. But you might’ve seen him with Clarence the other night at McCaffee’s. They were both there.”

“But you don’t know them?”

“No.”

“But they jumped you, tasered you, gave you a shot to knock you out, chased you into my pasture. I take it you struggled.”

“I don’t remember anything after the shot.”

“Clarence looked like you’d landed a few.”

She enjoyed the thought of that. “Maybe I did.”

“But you don’t want to call the police.”

That got a reaction. “Ohhh, no! Let’s not, I don’t wanna … No, no police!”

“Why not?”

“I don’t like them. They do stuff to you.”

“What stuff?”

“Anything they want, and they don’t even ask if it’s okay. Them and motherly doctors and cute, redhead ‘designated examiners.’”

He braced himself. “So there’s more to this.”

“I don’t know.”

He rose. “Your clothes ought to be dry by now.”

She reached out to him. “No, no, okay! Okay!”

He stopped, standing over her. “You are the one who called this meeting we’re supposedly having, and I take it it’s to discuss your career. Your career! You expect me to work with you in trust and confidence when all you do is lie to me? This is absurd!”

She wilted, gathering the robe around her.

He settled in his chair again and waited, just waited, hoping a good, steady glare would do the job.

Finally she muttered, barely audible, “They were from the hospital.” Still he said nothing. She tried to look at him but couldn’t. “I was in the hospital and I got away.”

“What hospital?”

“Spokane County Medical Center.”

“And why were you there?”

She had to gather some courage to finally let it out. “I was in Behavioral Health. I guess I’m sort of crazy.”

“Oh, now you’recrazy.” He waved off any follow-up to that. “How crazy is ‘sort of crazy’?”

Now she met his eyes. “Not real crazy. Just a little crazy, and not all the time, just sometimes.”

“Enough to be in the hospital.”

“Uh-uh. No way. I’ve never hurt anybody. I have a job, I have an apartment, I have my very own driver’s license …”

“But you’ve been on the lam all this time?”

“Almost two months.”

“So what kind of crazy are you?” She looked puzzled. “Are you … paranoid, or split personality, or manic-depressive, or what?”

She looked away, but then, with a new resolve, she faced him and answered, “I’m delusional. I think I’m somebody else.”

He was silent, and not because he chose to be. Did she really say what he heard?

“But I’ve learned to live with it and I’m doing fine and I just want to be left alone. If they find me they’ll lock me up and drug me and I may as well die because my life will be over. There’s no moving forward in that place. All you do is sit and get moldy.” She was much different when she was honest. She was strong, able to face him. Good.

“And since you asked and I’m telling, I’ll just let you know that I’m badly in need of some friends right now. I don’t need pills and shrinks. I just need a chance—if you’re interested.”

A soul at the mercy of other wills. He could see it so clearly. It chilled him to realize he could feel it within himself. “Who?”

His one-word question puzzled her.

“Who do you think you are?”

She wagged her head. “That would be going back. I’m Eloise Kramer, and that’s all.”

It was self-serving, he knew, but he asked, “May I ask when you were born?”

She had to think a moment. “Umm, January fifteenth, 1991.”

Mandy’s birthday except for the year. He tried and failed to hide how that caught his attention. “January fifteenth?”

She nodded and reemphasized, “1991.”

“Where?”

She made a face as if she didn’t get the point of the question. “Spokane.”

“Are your parents still around?”

“No. They’ve both passed away.”

Something told him he was being silly. Maybe he was. “What were their names?”

“Arthur and Eloise. I was named after my mother.”

That hit him in the stomach, and he knew it showed. “Arthur and Eloise?” He would have touched her had it been appropriate, just to be sure she was there. He shook his head ever so slightly before he realized it and stopped.

She saw his reaction, and her eyes filled with … it looked like hope. “Did you know them? Arthur and Eloise … Kramer?”

“I …” He actually chuckled at himself. “No,” he said. “I’m sure I never met them.”

She sank back.

The robe she was wearing. It was his blue robe, the one she—the woman he saw upstairs, the vision, the hallucination, whatever she was—was wearing.

She was looking at him, getting concerned.

“Just thinking,” he said.

As he watched, a smile formed, widened, and filled her entire face with a glow he remembered. “Bet you’ve never done an interview like this one.”

He laughed, and what a relief. He put his hands over his face, rubbed his eyes. “Oh, no, I sure haven’t.”

She laughed, too—and she didhave Mandy’s teeth.

He talked in order to wrestle every thought and word back onto the rails of reality. “But since we’re being honest, you need to know I’m not in a good place right now—and I’m becoming more and more aware of it.”

The words still stuck in his mouth, difficult to force out. “I’ve just lost my wife …” Well, Dane? Are you going to tell her what an emotional wreck you are? That you can’t trust your feelings, or even your perceptions? That you have trouble looking at her and seeing only Eloise Kramer, born in Spokane in 1991?

He spoke the next safe thought he could find. “My wife and I were professional magicians; we were a team. We designed and wrote our own show. We could read each other, anticipate every move, every gag. We did shows in the States, in Europe, in Japan, Australia, New Zealand. We were together for forty years. Fortyyears. And for us, thatwas the magic. That was what it was all about.

“But now she’s gone. She’s really gone, and I’m having to deal with that.” Looking at the girl’s quiet attentiveness, he realized afresh that she was only nineteen. He could try to explain how it felt, but she still wouldn’t know, not really. “It’s been an unbearable surprise, like our life was an epic movie and right in the middle the film broke and I’m thinking ‘Now what?’ and … and I don’t know, and what really drives me crazy is, I’ll neverknow. I’ll never know how the story could have turned out.”

He jerked his head in the direction of the barn. “Our unfinished story’s out there in the barn: all our shows, all our inventions and memories, all the skill we put into it, all the years and dreams and concepts, they’re all out there, boxed up in crates under tarps, and I’m running on memories. What’s coming up, I don’t know. How the rest of my life is going to turn out, I don’t know.

“So anyway, whoever you are, or whoever you think you are, I’m not the mentor you’re looking for. You need a guide who isn’t lost. You need someone whose head isn’t … well, ‘scrambled’ isn’t a bad word.

“I have no doubt you’ll do well—uh, the hobo thing, if you ask me that’s like the Gypsy thing, you keep slipping into characters who aren’t you, I don’t know why unless it’s part of your being crazy—but you”—he sighted down his finger as he wiggled it at her—“you have it in your selfto be truly delightful and I really mean that. You just have to find out who you are, and once you do, you’ll be unstoppable. You don’t need me.”

He thought it was a pretty good speech, hopefully enough to establish truth so the mirage would go away. He was honest with her, and most important, honest with himself despite himself. It felt like dragging a sharp rake sideways through his guts, but it was honest.

Without a moment to contemplate she said, “You can’t stop now.”

Oh, right.He chuckled. Youth.How little she knew! “Young lady, things can look a lot different from this end of your life.”

This time she digested his words for a moment, her head tilted, her eyes narrowed.

“Once you’ve paid your dues, you’ll—”

“Excuse me?” Was she bristling at him? “ ‘Young lady’? ‘Paid my dues’? For your information, I’ve lost everyoneI’ve loved! I’ve got a whole life behind me that may not have happened. I don’t know who I am now, and– aww!” With a burst of anger she clapped her hands to the sides of her head—punishing herself? Giving herself a make-believe shock treatment? “You’ve got medoing it! No. No, no, no!” She shot to her feet, fumbling with the robe, pacing in her bare feet. “I’m notgoing there.” She pointed right in his face. “And you can’t make me! Nobody can, not anymore!”

He knew what she was going to say next. He just knew it.

And she said it. She found a slightlykinder voice somewhere and she said it. “Mr. Collins, I respect your pain and your grief, but you can’t just sit around feeling sorry for yourself, it’ll give you a case of leadbutt, just sinking into the bottom of your chair in this big, empty house making nothing happen and going nowhere, whining about the good old days like some, some old man.”

If this was a delusion, it was stunningly accurate. He never liked it when Mandy got like this, and yet—

“Sure, grieve, but … May I sit down?”

He gestured to the couch and she perched on its edge.

“You think your wife would want that, after all that traveling and magic and adventure, you just chucking the whole thing and turning into an old raisin? I know what she’d say: buy some testosterone, get a motorcycle, do whatever it takes to get living again, but don’t waste the years God still has for you. You believe in God?”

“Yes.”

“Well, so do I, and I think you should give Him some credit. He mightknow what He’s doing.” Then, as if realizing her mouth had run off without her, she rolled her eyes heavenward in amazement and horror at herself. The deer-in-the-headlights look that fell over her face was so comical it amazed him. “Oh-oh. Big oops.”

And yet, when Mandy got like this, she was always right. As long as he had ever known her, and in some of the darkest times, even through tears, Mandy could find this jarring, “Get real” way to be right.

Eloise didn’t just have Mandy’s teeth.

She cringed, ashamed, and withdrew into her robe like a tortoise into its shell. “Guess I’m waking up now.”

All he could do was sit there, trying for the life of him to fathom what just happened.

She got up from the couch. “Like you said, my clothes must be dry.”

He wanted to laugh, and she made him feel that way. She was almost to the hall. “Could you let me think about it?”

She stopped. “Think about what?”

“The … whatever it was you wanted?”

She studied him, raised one eyebrow slightly, tilted her head, and then … there was that smile again.

chapter

22

Mortimer was driving the SUV. Stone sat in the passenger seat, bandage in front of his right ear, bruises darkening. They were heading for Vegas, driving straight through.

“We heard back from Kessler,” said the voice on the speakerphone. “She was ready to wring our necks—and I’m ready to wring yours. The subject is in the house, all right, no doubt talking with Collins, so instead of preventing any contact you’ve done exactly the opposite.”

Stone winced, in enough pain already. Mortimer tried to counter, “Sir, no one briefed us on what we were dealing with.”

“There was no need because you weren’t to have any physical contact with her.”

“But how else could we prevent them from contacting each other? She was at his gate.”

“And he turned her away.”

“Yeah, this time.”

“Watch your tone!”

“Sorry.”

“If you two had checked in before acting on your own you would have saved yourselves a beating. Orientation to the Machine is intuitive, and she’s figured things out. You weren’t up against her, you were up against tens, possibly hundreds of her, as many as she needed.”

Stone and Mortimer exchanged rueful glances.

“So tell me about the tire.” The tone of the voice was derisive. “Tell me no one’s going to find that bullet hole.”

“We have the tire,” Stone answered.

“You don’t think she’s going to miss it?”

“In any case, it won’t tell them anything,” said Mortimer.

“Fingerprints on the tire iron?”

“Wiped clean,” said Mortimer. He didn’t mention Stone’s blood on the tire iron being the initial reason they wiped it down.

“And what about the Hansons?”

“They’ll be back after they finish their week in Mexico. The house is back the way it was, like we were never there.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Stone.

“You guys better get out of the loop,” said the voice. “We’ll find something else for you to do—something less important.”

Thanksgiving Day. Twenty-eight degrees, four inches of snow on the ground, and light snow falling. The trees were white and drooping. The pastures lay under an undisturbed mantle, and the usual flitting, breezy, lowing sounds of the valley were muffled to a wintry quiet that made Dane stop and listen.

He got a fire going in the fireplace, put on some classical guitar music, and set the dining room table with a white cloth, formal silverware, and place setting, and a dinner wrought by his own hand: a small turkey that would provide plenty of sandwiches afterward; dressing, gravy on mashed potatoes, French-style green beans, a lavish salad he chopped, tore, diced, sliced, and anointed with his own homemade vinaigrette; two thick slabs of cranberry sauce, two wheat and sesame dinner rolls (they came from a bag), sparkling cranberry apple cider, and a glass of Pinot Noir. He would follow all that up with a dessert of pumpkin pie (store-bought) and fresh coffee he roasted and ground himself.

Mandy always served up Thanksgiving dinner at three in the afternoon, and he took his seat at the table right on time, spreading the cloth napkin across his lap. With Christmas card scenery outside the windows and a cheerful fire burning, he bowed his head and gave thanks.

The meal was so good it was emotional. He was tasting again, enjoying again, savoring the work of God and his own hands. What a concept. It wasn’t testosterone or a motorcycle, but it was working. He took it slow, imagining how a meal like this would taste in heaven, especially with Mandy sitting in that other chair. Twice he raised his glass to her picture on the wall: “Here’s to you, babe.”

Eloise was right. Mandy would have wanted it this way.

“Cadillac, purple, zebra,” Eloise said. “See? I still remember.”

Seamus smiled but still needed more explanation.

“Mr. Collins and I only found the spare tire. The flat tire was gone. Clarence and Lemuel or somebody else took it, I don’t know, but Mr. Collins was looking at me like I had a bad memory, so I just told him the three words Bernadette gave me.”

“Cadillac, zebra …”

“Purple.”

“Purple. Right. Was he impressed?”

“I think he believed me after that.”

“So then what happened?”

“He helped me put the spare on and then he followed me in his truck all the way to my apartment.” His silence and raised eyebrow made her add, “And then he saw me to my door and left and drove home.”

“But you showed him where you live.”

Well. He was Seamus. He was bred to look after her. “Well …”

“I’m just teasing you a little. For your own good.”

“He’s not that much of a stranger.”

“But how much do you know about him?”

He meant well, didn’t he? She didn’t want to get defensive. “He saved me from ‘Clarence’ and ‘Lemuel.’ When I was out on the street he gave me his hat and his sweater and he took the time to coach me with a card trick. He’s been a professional magician for more than forty years.”

“ Andhe’s a widower,” Seamus reminded her, “and he told you himself how he was going through some emotional issues.”

“Which was very honest of him, don’t you think?”

“Fair enough. But I’d be careful. As long as it’s business, fine, but I’d stay away from any personal conversations until you know him better.”

She sighed, if only to breathe out some tension. “Actually, I’d say he reminds me of my father, if anything.”

“So he’s a father figure.”

“Sure. Is that so bad?”

“No. No, that’s all right. But you’ve told him everything you’ve told me?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, I wouldn’t tell him any more. He does deserve our gratitude, absolutely, but we need to keep your life private and you safe and secure.”

“But that’s just the thing. Am I? I’m not so sure yet.”

“I’ve been looking into it.”

She locked eyes with him, awaiting more, but he smiled like somebody hiding a secret and spread his arms toward the table. “Let’s eat before it gets cold.”

Eloise took her place at one end of the table, blown away by the care Seamus had taken with every detail: the fine china, the silverware—a soup spoon anda dinner spoon, a salad fork anda dinner fork, a butter knife anda dinner knife!—the autumn leaves and colors centerpiece, the lit candles, the napkins—no, the serviettes—in silver napkin rings. His dining room was like the rest of his quaint bungalow near the lake: warm, embracing, with dark wood beams and leaded windows, a setting fit for a Jane Austen novel. She’d dressed in the best blouse and slacks she owned; she should have been wearing an empire-waisted dress.

“Lovely,” she said. “Lovely, lovely!”

Seamus smiled at her over the centerpiece. He looked great. The candlelight shimmered in his eyes, and the warm glow from the wall sconces highlighted his hair. “I think I’ll return thanks.” They bowed together and he prayed, “Dear God, for all we have received and for all we will be mindful to share, we give you thanks. Amen.”

The meal was like a fireworks display for the mouth, just one ooohand aahhhafter another except she had to hum the sounds to be polite. The whole mood changed for the better, even as she brought up the same old business. “Anyway … what can I do? What if Mr. Collins doesn’t want to hassle with somebody who might be a mental case? What if Roger and Abby find out?”

He took some time to chew a bite, leaving her in suspense, then said, “I spoke with the hospital.”

She almost dropped her fork and peered at him over the centerpiece. “You didn’t! Can you even do that?”

He loved to draw things out. He stabbed another bite of turkey.

“Don’t you dare!”

He laughed and set his fork down. “I don’t worry that much about ‘can’ or ‘cannot.’ There’s always a way once you find the right people, preferably the ones who are nervous. They tried to tell me that all patient records were strictly confidential and that they had nothing more to say, but when I told them I was your attorney and confronted them with what I knew, we fell right into a discussion about what they couldn’t talk about and what they hoped I and my client wouldn’t talk about either, and from there, lo and behold, they brought up how they might make amends for any pain they may have caused you in exchange for your not pressing matters any further.”

Her mouth was hanging open. Luckily she’d swallowed just before that. “You were going to sue them?”

He smiled and shook his head. “It never came up. They wanted this whole thing kept quiet, and all I had to do was wait, just look at them until they were ready to talk about a settlement.” Now he made her wait, maybe to show how it felt. It felt terrible. She was about to break the silence when he wiggled a pointed finger. “Take a peek under your plate.”

She scrunched down and lifted the edge.

“Here’s a little piece of my magic,” he said.

There was an envelope tucked under there. She pulled it out. It had her name on it, Eloise Kramer, written in Seamus’s hand.

“Go ahead, take a look.”

She used her butter knife to slit the envelope open, feeling like a volunteer in a magic act. Her reaction was the kind every magician hopes for: wide-eyed astonishment.

The envelope contained a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, while Christmas shoppers were going nuts at the malls, Dane drove to a Starbucks in Liberty Lake, halfway between Spokane and Coeur d’Alene, to meet a lady for coffee. He spotted her the moment he stepped through the front door. She was the one sitting at a small, round table in the corner, a bulging computer bag at her feet, a twenty-ounce coffee cup on the table between her hands, and red waves and curls covering her shoulders like lush vines in autumn. She met his eyes as he approached.

“Bernadette Nolan?” he asked.

She extended her hand and he greeted her.

They’d reached a unique agreement. She told him over the phone that she could not tell him anything because of confidentiality laws; she couldn’t even let him know whether he had found the right person. Nevertheless, once he described a particular individual they both might know—he did not name her—as an up-and-coming magician who could do card tricks and recall the words “Cadillac,” “purple,” and “zebra,” she agreed to visit with him. It seemed they both realized between the lines that even though she could not talk about the individual, he could, and given that, she was interested.

He ordered a venti café mocha, nonfat but with whipped cream—his way of splitting the difference—joined her at the table, and they began circling each other verbally. Who was he, who was she, what did he do for a living, what did she do, how long?

“Just how did you happen to call me?” she asked.

“Half shoe leather, half luck,” he replied. “I called the hospital and got nowhere; I called the Behavioral Health Unit and still got nowhere …”

“Confidentiality runs through the entire system.”

“So I discovered—and I admire that. I appreciate it. But I still had some key words: ‘Spokane County Medical Center,’ ‘designated examiner,’ and ‘cute redhead’—her words, not mine. And”—he indicated her hair—“I see you fit all three.” He reached into his shirt pocket. “Since I’m not under a confidentiality law I guess I can show this to you.”

“And of course I can’t comment on it.”

“Of course. But I suppose you can let me know if there’s any point in us talking.”

He unfolded a photo of Eloise Kramer as the Hobett, something he clipped from a poster Roger Calhoun gave him. She looked at it carefully.

“The makeup and the costume don’t help,” Dane admitted.

“No, they do obscure the likeness, if that’s what you’re trying to show me. And what’s your interest in this?”

“Management. Coaching. Producing. I’ve found a real talent here but I need to know who and what I’m dealing with.”

“So it appears she’s working.”

“Pretty steady. She has a regular gig at a coffee shop in Coeur d’Alene and then she’s booking private functions: you know, birthday parties, church youth groups, conferences. She has a trade show coming up.”

She was visibly pleased. “I am very, very glad to hear it. Really.” Beyond that, all she could do was slide the photo back across the table.

He returned the photo to his pocket. “So why don’t we talk about something outside the bounds of confidentiality?”

“Such as?”

“Such as the system you work in. The hospital, the laws, how patients are handled …”

“Okay.”

“How would a patient wind up in the Behavioral Health Unit in the first place?”

She looked down and traced little patterns on the table with her fingers. “A variety of ways. Some know they have a problem and admit themselves. A family might admit a loved one. The courts may do so.” Now she remained casual, her hands absentmindedly busy but her eyes meeting his. “Sometimes a person will appear to be in a state of mind where they could be a danger to themselves or to others, and if they’re, let’s say, homeless or wandering about and can’t identify themselves, the police can bring them in on a police hold and they can be held for twenty-four to seventy-two hours while they’re evaluated. The designated examiners are appointed by the state to examine the person and determine whether there is imminent risk, in which case the examiners—usually two—would recommend further evaluation. If the attending psychiatrist concurs, the matter would go to a judge who can extend the hold, release the individual, or have the individual sent to a state hospital.”

She took a sip from her coffee. The pause seemed to signal the turning of a page. “If, on the other hand, the DEs find the patient is no danger to herself or others and recommend release or outpatient treatment, and the attending psychiatrist concurs …” She smiled. “It’s not against the law to be crazy. Anyone can be crazy and still mix with the rest of society as long as they don’t pose a danger.” She leaned toward him slightly. “They can have jobs, they can get training, they can pursue careers.” She held her eyes on him to make her point, then settled back and had another sip of coffee.

“What if the patient escapes?”

She gave a knowing half chuckle, as if they’d shared an inside joke. “Oooooooh boy.”

Dane just waited. This was good.

She thought about that one, looking at her coffee, looking at him, looking out the window. Finally she drew an audible breath and said, “As far as anyone knows, no patient has ever escaped from the Behavioral Health Unit. Given the security measures, it would be next to impossible.” Then she let her eyes drop off sideways as she added, “And if it did happen, especially after the seventy-two hours had elapsed, it would be such an embarrassment to the unit and to the hospital that”—she thought another moment—“that they could decide to go with the recommendations of the designated examiners and chief psychiatrist, record the patient as officially released, and close the file.”

Not exactly the answer Dane was expecting. “ ‘Officially released’?”

“As a matter of record. She would have been released from the hospital anyway, so her leaving on her own at a time of her choosing would be a mere technicality that could be cleared up in the paperwork.”