Music in the Night (Logan 4)

Olivia approached the gurney. Doctor Scanlon moved quickly to get beside her.

"Let me see her," Olivia demanded.

He lowered the sheet to her neck and Olivia gazed for a long moment.

Now, now that she was here and they were around her, she would make demands.

"How did this happen?"

Doctor Scanlon was prepared.

"Another patient with whom she had developed something of a relationship snuck up to our special floor and helped her escape down a stairway used by the employees. He knew of the one door we don't keep alarmed and showed her the way out of the building. He claimed she wanted to go home."

Olivia turned with interest.

"Home? Then how did she end up in the ocean?"

"You have to understand," Doctor Scanlon said, "that this other patient is a seriously disturbed young man himself. It's taken an enormous effort to get him to be lucid enough to give us any sensible details. This entire event has put him into a regression that--"

"I'm not here to discuss him," Olivia said sharply. Doctor Scanlon nodded.

"Apparently, from what I've been able to garner, she heard voices."

"Voices? What voices?"

"Mainly the voice of her young man, the one who drowned. Lawrence--that's this other patient's name-- said she kept calling for Robert. He said as soon as he showed her the way out, she turned toward the sea and ran. He tried to stop her, but she was determined."

"She went down to the ocean and deliberately drowned herself?" Olivia asked incredulously.

"That's not uncommon, suicidal tendencies in cases such as hers, Mrs. Logan."

"Then why wasn't she guarded, day and night?" Olivia snapped at him.

"I . . well, she was on our most secure floor."

"Secure floor? And yet this other patient was able to get to her and take her away?"

"No one expected . ." He looked to Mrs. Roundchild, who stepped forward.

"She was strapped in, medicated. We had just looked in on her. He must have been hiding in the doorway, watching," she explained.

"Send them away," Olivia commanded with a wave of her hand.

Doctor Scanlon nodded at the nurses and they all backed out of the room. As soon as they had, Olivia turned on him.

"You know I could sue this clinic and you for every penny you are worth. Word of this sort of negligence would destroy you," she said, her eyes small, but full of fire. Doctor Scanlon could barely swallow. He nodded. Olivia held her hateful glare on him like a spotlight, hot and intense. Finally, she turned back to Laura.

"It's your good fortune, however, that I don't want word of this to leave these premises."

"What? But in any death, there's an inquest, reports . ."

"It's your problem," she said. "I don't want this in any newspaper. We're going to give her a proper burial and that will be all. This could devastate my family," she added and turned, "and I won't permit it."

"I understand. I'll do the best I can."

"No, you'll do what I ask, not the best you can." She looked at Laura again. "We see the results of the best you can do. I want more than that."

He nodded, sweat trickling down his brow.