Deceptions (Cainsville 3)

He took another careful step forward.

Don't pretend you aren't thinking about it.

Gabriel tested the next board with his toe.

It's not safe. You should just stop. Stop and think about it. Imagine it. Ricky, dead. Olivia, yours.

He stopped. He imagined it. Ricky called for him, confused, but Gabriel stood there, lost in his thoughts.

Then he made his decision.

CHAPTER SIXTY

Gabriel never called back. I tried Ricky again but continued getting the "customer unavailable" message. In desperation, I dialed Gabriel's number forty minutes later, only to find that I had no reception.

Maybe he tried to call.

That wasn't it. I'd checked for messages every few minutes as I'd wandered the hospital, the endless halls and sequences of rooms that only ever brought me back to the cribs. My phone worked fine then.

When I realized he wasn't calling, I'd thought of dialing someone else. Anyone else. Hell, 911 if it would help.

Nine-one-one, what's your emergency?

I'm lost.

Where are you?

In an abandoned hospital. I can give you directions, but I don't think you could find me even if I did.

I had to get myself out of this. Only I couldn't. Walk in any direction and I ended up back with the cribs. I'd tried staying there, in case there was more for me to see, trapped in a performance where the exit doors wouldn't open until the final curtain call. But the same scenes had repeated over and over.

"Okay!" I finally shouted. "It was Pamela. Todd was the innocent one. I get it. And also, you'd like me to kill myself. I get that, too. Not happening!"

No one answered, of course. Ricky had long since stopped shouting for me, if it ever had been Ricky at all, and not just a phantom voice. If it hadn't been Ricky, where was he? Was he all right?

Those were just the kind of thoughts that sent my brain flapping madly, like a bird in a too-small cage. I'd told Gabriel that I felt as if I might go mad in here. I'd been trying to joke--hey, if it gets any worse, I'll belong here, permanently, heh-heh--but it was no joke. I kept thinking about Isolde and seeing those words, feeling the truth of them, along with the very possible truth that I wasn't in the hospital at all but had already gone mad, and that's why Ricky wouldn't answer and Gabriel wouldn't call back. I was trapped in the prison of my mind, and there was, indeed, no escape.

Finally, I did what I would have sworn I'd never do.

I gave up.

I stayed in that crib room as long as I could bear it, until I was certain there was no more to see. I walked in every direction, only to end up where I'd started. Then I walked into the hall and sat. Just sat, because for the first time in my life there was honestly nothing I could do, no action that would fix this, and that was, perhaps, the surest sign that I was, in fact, losing my mind.

My surrender didn't last for long. I'm not sure if that's a sign of sanity or sheer bullheaded insanity, banging my head against a brick wall and expecting it to crumble before I dashed out my brains. I redid the circuit, taking every possible route out of the crib room, only to end up back there. On my fourth return visit, I stepped inside to see a figure with his back to me.

I knew who it was. There was no disguising that back. God knows, I'd stood behind it often enough. The white shirt was rumpled. The shoes were brown . . . under black trousers. But there was still no denying who it was. Or who it was supposed to be.

Gabriel turned as my sneaker squeaked. When he saw me, his shoulders sagged, as if he'd been holding his breath. Then, "There you are," with a note of impatience, as if I'd waltzed off five minutes ago. Maybe that should have told me it was really him, but I'd been in this place too long, seen too much that wasn't there.

"What's the first Sherlock quote you said to me?"

"What?" His brow furrowed. Then, "You've been having visions, and you think I'm one of them."

No shit, I wanted to say, but I waited until he said, "The game's afoot." A twist of a smile. "Although, if I admit to it, that might seem proof it can't really be me."

"I'll take it. Okay, so you're here." I glanced around. "You know the way out, I hope."

From the look I got, this wasn't the reaction he expected. And what did he expect? That I'd break down sobbing in gratitude that he'd finally come looking for me? Maybe that's unfair. I was grateful, but I couldn't forget that he'd taken almost two hours to reply to my frantic call for help.