After She's Gone (West Coast #3)

“Maybe the SUV had some identifying marks on it. Like a broken headlight, or damaged window, or some dents?” Cassie suggested, leaning over Trent. When Rinko didn’t respond, she added, “Maybe a bumper sticker?”

“Kill Your Television.”

“That was on the Hyundai?” Trent asked.

Rinko’s eyebrows drew together in concentration. Rain dripped from the tip of his nose. “A map of Oregon with a green heart in the middle of it.”

Cassie had seen that one, a white background, the black outline of the state’s shape surrounding a forest-green heart. Trent glanced at Cassie. “That should narrow it down,” he said.

Cassie asked, “Has the nurse, the one with the car, been back?”

He shook his head. “She only came to see you.”

“You’re sure?”

He didn’t bother to answer. Of course. When Steven Rinko said anything, it was a fact. At least in his mind.

She and Trent asked a few more questions, but Rinko had no more information to share, and the poor kid was obviously freezing. She couldn’t keep him a second more. “Thanks,” she said. “Now, go inside, and get warm. Dry off and make an aide bring you cocoa.”

He smiled a bit. “With marshmallows.”

“Definitely. Oh, and Steven, how did you get Doctor Sherling’s phone?”

“I have keys to all the rooms. All the lockers. All the doors. All the cupboards.”

“How?”

He hesitated. “Sometimes Elmo’s not so careful.”

Elmo was in charge of maintenance. Cassie had seen him play chess with Rinko. Once in a while, he even won.

Then again, maybe he never had. Maybe Rinko had lost on purpose. Cassie wouldn’t put it past the kid.

Before she put the car into gear, Cassie finally asked Rinko one last question. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

He stared at her and said, “Because you didn’t ask.”

Then he took off, keeping near the shrubbery, sprinting through the wet grass and up the steps to the side of the building where he disappeared and, presumably, crept inside the same way he’d exited minutes before.

“How did you know he’d be out here?” Cassie asked.

“I saw him peeking through the same door he’d come through before, around the corner from the receptionist, not visible in any mirrors or cameras, I’m guessing. Maybe he’s fixed it so that he can use it at will. He didn’t even poke his head through, just stared at me through the crack when it was ajar and pointed toward the front door. I figured he’d find us if we went outside. He’s clever and seems to be able to get where he wants to without being seen.”

“A ghost,” she said, backing out of the parking spot and driving away from the hospital.

“Why’s he in here?”

“He slips in and out of reality and gets violent, I guess. No one really knows. His family has a lot of money. I think a wing of the hospital is named after his grandfather, but whatever happened to him, it had to have been really bad.” She looked in her rearview mirror and caught a glimpse of the hospital, white bricks and pillared porch visible in the gloom of the dark day.

For a second she thought she saw someone standing off to the side of the porch, a dark figure half-hidden in the thick rhododendrons and staring down the drive, watching her leave.

She blinked and the figure was gone. Uneasy, she convinced herself she’d been mistaken, had only seen a shadow in the thick foliage flanking the hospital. There had been nothing sinister lurking in the wet umbra, just her mind playing tricks on her.

Even with Trent sitting close enough to touch, she couldn’t wait to pass through the gates guarding the grounds and drive away from Mercy Hospital. Whether in her imagination or not, she believed evil lurked within its hallowed walls.

“Shane Carter wants to see me?” Nash asked into her cell phone as she threw her keys onto the desk in her den. She checked the time. Eight thirty-seven PM. The house was empty. Cold. More of a mausoleum than a home. And it was all hers. Every last slab of Carrera marble, every glossy plank of Brazilian hardwood, every glass tile in the pool and every one of five—count ’em, five—sports cars parked in the six bays of the garage. All hers. The final bay was proud home to the car she drove, her beloved Ford Focus. Everything else had, until recently, been owned by her stepmother, the ultimate collector of things. Now, thank you very much, Edwina Maria Phillips Rolland Nash, they all belonged to Rhonda.