We reach the clinic, and Diana’s waiting on the front porch. She takes Jay into the storage closet. That’s where we’ve put Sophie. It’s big enough for a bed, though I always feel guilty when someone needs to sleep in it. The clinic doesn’t have a room for overnight stays, and right now, there are three corpses in the main examination area.
I head into the exam room, where April is jotting notes. There’s a body on the table. The other two are stacked, still in their rudimentary shrouds. Yes, they’re on a tarp, but it still feels a whole lot like stacking bodies in the corner.
“Ever get the feeling Rockton needs a proper morgue?” I say to Anders as I enter.
“Only since you got here.”
April doesn’t look up from her note-taking. “If you are suggesting there are more murders since Casey arrived in Rockton, that is logistically impossible. She would need to be creating them herself, and I doubt she is.”
“‘Doubt,’” I murmur. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, sis.”
She looks up then, frowning. “Since I am not a mind reader, I cannot exonerate you completely. However, I do not believe you murdered these people. Isn’t that proper sisterly support?”
I shake my head and walk to the exam table. The body on it belongs to the son. The boy, his beard patchy with youth.
A beard that will never get the chance to grow in properly.
I hesitate. Anders reaches to pull up the sheet, but I wave him off as April says, “Casey does not require that. She is simply pausing in reflection. You knew this young man?”
I shake my head. “I know the girl he was seeing. That just makes it … more real.”
“Shit,” Anders murmurs. “Felicity?”
“No, one of Cherise’s sisters.” I cover the last step to the table. “So what do we have?”
He walks to the counter and lifts a small jar. When he shakes it, a bullet clinks against the glass.
“Hunting accident?” I say. “A bullet from an old wound?”
“It was lodged in his aorta.”
“Aorta? You mean…” I turn toward the body. “He was killed by a bullet?”
A crash sounds from the next room. Everyone turns, and April starts toward it, saying, “If they have knocked over the IV, we do not have a backup—”
Diana screams, and I charge into the room. She’s alone with Jay and an unconscious woman, leaving no doubt as to which one is making her scream.
I throw open the door and—
The bed is empty. That’s the first thing I see. An empty bed with the restraint straps dangling. Diana stands at the foot of the bed, hands to her mouth. There’s no one else in the room.
How the hell can there be no one else—?
I follow her wide eyes. She’s looking down at the other side of the bed. There’s a strangled cry, and I race around to see Jay and Sophie on the floor.
Sometimes, the brain jumps ahead of the eyes and fills in a false picture. It’s a phenomenon I know well from witness interviews. They see what they expect, and that image can leave an impression even when the truth contradicts it.
I heard a crash. I see Diana frozen in horror. I spot Sophie and Jay on the floor, and I think that Jay has …
Well, I have no idea what he’s done, but clearly he’s the aggressor here when the other person involved is the semi-sedated victim of a murder attempt.
Yet that is not what I’m seeing. Jay is facedown on the floor, and Sophie is on top of him with her hands wrapped in his hair, her face twisted in rage.
She jerks his head back as if she’s going to slam it into the floor, I shout at her to stop, and she has the mental awareness to look up and see the gun pointed at her.
She snarls something in Danish, and I know, beyond doubt, that she wasn’t fighting off Jay. She’s tried to attack us before. She’s not in her right mind. Yet I somehow still imagined Jay instigated the attack, because that’s the usual narrative.
Jay’s face is pure terror, his eyes rolling, blood streaming from his nose. More blood on the floor, where she’s already bashed his face.