The Other: (A Psychological Thriller) Read online

  The client jerked her head up, looking for the voice, her eyes wide behind oversized glasses. “What’s this setup about? Why can’t I see you?”

  “I’m protecting both of us. If I take your case, and things go wrong with the extraction, you won’t be able to identify me.”

  “Oh, I see.” Shay stepped cautiously toward the padded chair. The only other furniture was a table with a large monitor. Rox was visible to her clients on the screen, but with her face pixelated.

  “I’m sorry for the strangeness but it’s necessary.” Rox gave her a moment to get settled, then said, “Tell me more about your arrangement with Logan’s mother. How did you end up taking care of him?”

  Shay nodded, as though expecting the question. “My sister couldn’t handle Logan, even as a child. He was too blunt, too odd, and too energetic. She kept leaving him with me for longer and longer periods of time. But as happy as he was with me, he felt abandoned by his mother and would act out whenever she visited him. Which just made their relationship worse.” The woman tensed, and in that moment, seemed vaguely familiar. Rox wondered if she’d seen her artwork or public profile.

  Probably not. She wasn’t good with faces and a lot of people seemed familiar to her. Another one of her brain quirks. “Everything you say here is confidential.” She tried to sound reassuring, but like the boy in question, she tended to be blunt and odd too.

  “A couple years ago, Logan and his mother had a physical altercation during one of her rare visits.” Shay closed her eyes and grimaced. “It was mostly harmless and both of their faults, but my sister overreacted and took Logan to an evaluation center—where he was promptly labeled a danger to others and committed.” A pause. “I’m sure Cat pressured them.”

  “But why?”

  “She’s ashamed of Logan and wants him locked away where he can’t embarrass her and she doesn’t have to think about him. She pays for his support, of course, but she even insisted that I homeschool him to keep him out of sight.” Shay pressed her lips together. “But she can’t erase herself from his mind. Logan still loves her and wants her to be a mother to him.”

  Heartbreaking! What kind of woman would do that to her child? Rox wanted to rescue the boy already. Yet she had to be realistic. “If he’s fifteen, why not just wait a few years? Can’t Logan leave the facility when he’s a legal adult?”

  Shay let out a bitter laugh. “You’re not very familiar with the mental health system, or my sister. Once you’re labeled and locked up, getting out is challenging. Legally, they can keep him until he’s twenty-five. Especially since the institution wants Cat’s money, and she wants her son to stay out of sight.”

  How many people—who didn’t belong—were trapped inside a mental hospital? Rox had never given the issue much thought, but now it troubled her deeply. Still, she had to be sure this case wouldn’t be a pointless risk. “If I were to get Logan out, what’s to keep his mother from sending him back?”

  Shay stared, a blank look on her face. But she quickly snapped out of it. “I’ll go into hiding with him until he’s eighteen. I’m mostly a recluse anyway.”

  “What’s your actual plan? It’s not as easy as you might think.” Rox knew from her experience as a private investigator that people could be found.

  “I’ll leave the state and go stay with an old friend in Wyoming. He lives on a ranch that’s not easy to get to.” Shay cleared her throat. “Not that it’s any of your business what I do. I mean, after you extract him.”

  Rox liked her sudden spunk. But a young person’s mental health was at stake. “I rescue people because I want to help them. So I try not to leave them worse off.”

  “Of course. I don’t know how to prove that I love Logan and want what’s best for him, but I’m willing to spend everything I have to get him out of that place. Some of the staff are horrible to him, and I worry he’ll become suicidal.” Shay rubbed her arms as if she were cold. “Sometimes, I think that’s what my sister is pushing for.”

  Rox’s gut tightened. “What do you mean by horrible?”

  “One attendant makes fun of him and pinches him. Plus, they’ve given him shock treatments. I think they use them as a punishment.”

  Damn! There was no way to walk away from this one, but she still needed more information. “Tell me about Logan’s mother. What’s her name and what does she do?”

  Her client’s face tightened. “Cat Skylar. And she doesn’t do much. She inherited most of our parents’ money.”

  A good reason to be bitter. “Spelled with a C or K? Is it short for something?”

  “No, just Cat with a C.”

  Weird. But not the worst name she’d heard. Her own mother had been named after a song, so Georgia had named both of her daughters after popular songs too. Rox hated her full name as well as the lyrics, but no one called her Roxanne. She didn’t allow it. She googled Cat Skylar but nothing came up. At least she knew the sister had never been involved in any major crimes or public scandals.

  Rox had to help this boy. “I’ve decided to take your case, and I’ll need a two-thousand-dollar retainer to cover my expenses.” It was only ten percent of her usual fee, but she couldn’t work completely pro bono, especially if Marty refused to help. She might have to hire someone for technical or logistical assistance.

  “I’ll have to take it out of savings, but thank you.” Her new client nodded.

  “Please bring cash today if possible. I want to get started right away.” The boy’s situation sounded dire. Plus, she’d recently finished a snoop-and-photograph divorce case and wanted to get the trashy scenario out of her mind. That reminded her that she had to be able to identify the target of the extraction. “Let me see his picture.”

  Shay pulled a paperback book from her purse, slipped a six-by-eight photo out, and held it up. Her nephew looked like a young model for white nationalists. Intense sky-blue eyes, pale-blond hair, and delicate features. His only flaw was a scar on his chin.

  Rox chose not to comment on his good looks. They had no bearing on the case. “Please leave the photo on the desk.”

  The woman set the image down. “Should I go get the money now?”

  “I have a few more questions first. Such as, what do you know about Logan’s schedule? Is he ever outside?”

  “He gets to go on supervised walks sometimes, but they seem unpredictable.”

  “Who supervises?”

  “One of the orderlies. It’s usually a guy named Bruno. Logan says he’s the worst about making fun of his quirks.”

  Extracting the boy while he was outside the building would be easiest, but only if she could be there at the right time. “I may need to spend several weeks doing reconnaissance and research, then another week or so planning, so be patient.”

  Shay sat up straight, looking alarmed. “We don’t have that kind of time.”

  “Why not?”

  Her client blinked rapidly. “Cat plans to move him to another facility when the state hospital shuts down.

  The closure was news to her, but she tended to only read national headlines. Local politics bored her. “Where would she move him?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but most likely out of state to a private facility. She hates the constant reminder of his presence.”

  Rox took a deep breath, not ready for this kind of pressure again. Her last extraction had almost gotten her and Marty killed. But at least this boy didn’t seem to be in immediate danger, except possibly from himself. “Can I get in to see Logan?”

  Shay looked taken aback. “I doubt it. You’d have to fill out an application, and both the administration and Logan would have to approve it.” The woman shook her head. “I’m not sure Logan will want to see you. He has social anxiety, and being locked up with crazy people is only making him worse. Plus, it’s an extensive process to apply. If they find out you’re a private investigator, it’s unlikely they’ll let you in.”

  That sounded a lot like a prison. Maybe she could talk Marty into vis
iting Logan, posing as a good-hearted retired guy, looking to mentor a troubled young person. Rox smiled. Marty was a good-hearted old guy who worked with kids in the Big Brother program.

  “What are you thinking?” Shay leaned forward, eyes narrowed.

  “Maybe I’ll send in my partner to see him.” She mulled over the timetable, worried about getting the extraction done on a tight deadline. Then it hit her. Grabbing Logan during the move could be a best-case scenario. “Can you find out more from your sister about the details of the transfer?”

  Shay shook her head. “I’ll try, but Cat and I are not on good terms.”

  Rox gave it more thought. If Logan was scheduled to be transported, the institute would have some kind of documentation about when and where. Maybe she could hire a hacker to get into their database. A teenage girl she’d rescued was a possibility. But it might be better and easier to just try a little bullshit on the phone—if she could pull it off. “What else can you tell me about Logan or the institution? I need all the details I can get.”

  Shay stroked her hair with a shaky hand. “He’s been there more than two years, and he seems to be getting worse. Or at least more despondent. They give him too much medication and not enough actual therapy.” A strange look passed over her face. Guilt? Shay added, “There are treatments for autism, you know.”

  True, but only if they started very young, before the tics and quirks became habit. After a certain age, it was simply a matter of management. Or if you had good health insurance—and the courage—you could do the magnetic treatments like she’d done and hope for the best. Rox kept all that to herself. “Tell me about Logan’s daily schedule.”

  “All I know is that he eats in the dining room at eight, twelve-thirty, and five-thirty. And on Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has art therapy in the afternoons. Other than that, Logan spends a lot of time playing chess or reading. Mostly fantasy.” Her client smiled for the first time. “He writes stories too, but doesn’t let anyone read them.”

  Rox took notes as the woman talked, thinking the aunt wasn’t as emotionally involved with the boy as she claimed to be. Or maybe Logan just didn’t share much about his institutional life. “Does he ever leave the facility? For field trips? Or doctor visits?”

  “Not really. They have physicians on staff to handle most medical stuff, but they did take him to a dentist once.”

  “What about school?”

  “They have teachers too, and Logan finished their program already. He’s pretty smart.”

  An idea started churning. If Logan had a medical emergency, wouldn’t they have to take him to the ER? What if she could help him fake something physical, then intercept him along the way? Extracting him while he was outside the building would be the easiest, and she might not get the information she needed about his transfer. Was there a law against aiding a mental patient’s escape? Scenes from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest flashed in her mind. She’d watched it several times in her younger days, and the story had left a dark perception of mental institutions. Knowing the story had been filmed in a facility in Oregon made the reality of it hard to shake.

  Her client cut into her thoughts, sounding anxious. “Do you have a contract? Or should I just go get the cash?”

  Rox didn’t create paperwork for extractions. Too risky. “We don’t need to sign anything.” It was time to get going and free the abused boy before he crossed over into a full mental-health breakdown. But there was one more thing she needed to know. “If I succeed in getting Logan out, how is his mother going to react?” Rox was mostly worried about a police response.

  Shay bit her lip. “I don’t know. My sister is totally unpredictable.”

  Chapter 4

  Wednesday, October 10, 10:30 a.m., Mt. Angel Psychiatric Hospital

  Lexa Robbins drove toward the concrete building with its row of narrow windows and shivered. Each of those glass panes represented a small room where a mental patient lived day in and day out, seeing only a narrow glimpse of the world. The area between the back wall and the high barrier fence was less than a hundred feet. Even prisons had bigger yards for the inmates to enjoy for a few minutes a day. She couldn’t imagine being trapped inside this psychiatric facility. Yet she was about to walk in there to interview the director for the news story she was writing.

  The governor’s decision to close the facility because of a budget shortfall was a political hot mess. Taxpayers were outraged because they’d recently approved bond measures to keep it open, and families with loved ones inside felt betrayed. She desperately wanted to talk to Jill Palmer, but so far, she had refused.

  Lexa parked up front next to a Visitors sign. No cars were in the designated space, but the rest of the lot was full of employee vehicles. The front entrance was noticeable only because the lobby stuck out from the building and the concrete walls were interrupted by a wide glass door. As she hurried toward it, she realized the facility had two sections, connected by what looked like a narrow interior walkway. The second building was likely the secure part of the facility for dangerous patients.

  A camera mounted above the entrance caught her approach, and a moment later, the door slid open. She walked into a foyer about the size of a medical clinic’s front office. The resemblance ended there. The concrete walls screamed prison, even though they’d been painted beige decades ago. Along the back, a counter separated the two-person reception staff from the lobby. Metal doors on either side had been painted to blend with the walls, but the finish was chipping off, and they stood out. The lack of plexiglass surprised her, but the facility was ancient, and the upgrade voters had approved wasn’t likely to happen now. She stepped over to the counter and waited, but the young woman didn’t seem to notice her. The staff probably all had short-timers attitude, knowing they would be laid off soon. Lexa made a mental note for her story and said, “Hello!”

  The receptionist looked up. “Yes?”

  “I’m Lexa Robbins with the Emerald State News. I have an appointment with Roger Strada, the director.”

  “Show me your ID.” The receptionist didn’t crack a smile.

  Lexa pulled out her driver’s license and handed it over.

  The woman gave it a cursory glance and said, “Let me check with Mr. Strada. Have a seat.” She grabbed a desk phone, turned her back, and made a call.

  Please don’t let him change his mind. Lexa pleaded with the universe on a regular basis, but it rarely cooperated. The director had only agreed to the interview because she’d promised to let him see the quotes she planned to use in the story. She rarely did that, but Strada claimed he just wanted to check for grammar. She wished more people cared about how they sounded when their speech was transcribed into print. The word like was now sprinkled into everyday speech so heavily that as-is quotes made everyone sound like Valley Girls. Her mother, a writer and editor, had trained her not to use the expression from an early age. But her millennial peers had spread the habit the way of an infectious disease.

  Lexa glanced toward the waiting area. A dozen plastic chairs were placed in a partial circle, like a group therapy session. Weird! She sat down, the only visitor, and looked around. Landscape paintings hung on the front wall, but otherwise the room was unadorned. When the hospital had been built, the designers hadn’t cared what guests thought of the decor.

  Although behind the reception desk, the staff area had fresh yellow paint and bright recessed lights. In addition to the young blonde woman, a middle-aged man with thinning hair occupied a desk near the other end of the counter. Their back wall featured a mural of people singing, drawing, and practicing yoga. It screamed empowerment. Lexa wondered if the staff had paid for it themselves. She pulled out her yellow tablet and scribbled a note. Her peers often used tablets and voice recorders, but she liked to take notes the old-fashioned way. Once she wrote it down, the information stuck in her brain.

  The man at the end of the counter caught her attention, smiled, and said the director would be with her in a mome
nt. Lexa nodded and read through her list of questions again. Her phone beeped, indicating a text. She opened the message, and it was from Kiona: You left the stove on again!

  Oops. She had to buy a new toaster and quit making her breakfast in the oven. Or just quit using the kitchen altogether. It would give her hothead boyfriend one less thing to complain about. Unemployment was making him so grumpy. She texted back Sorry, then silenced her phone for the interview.

  Ten minutes later, Director Roger Strada came out the door, left of the reception counter, and crossed over to her. Lexa recognized him from a publicity picture she’d found online while prepping for the interview. He was older now than in the photo, with completely white hair, but was still lean and ramrod straight.

  She stood and smiled. “Lexa Robbins.”

  He introduced himself but didn’t smile back. “I don’t have much time. Can we do this in the courtyard? It’s more accessible than my office.”

  Crapola. She’d wanted to see some of the interior. “Sure.”

  He turned and strode back toward the door. She hurried after him, surprised that he hadn’t seemed to notice she was young, sort-of-blonde, and reasonably attractive. Most men looked her over right away. Sometimes it worked in her favor, and sometimes it didn’t. The door slammed shut behind her, and Lexa tried not to cringe. Was she locked inside now?

  They walked down a wide corridor, eventually passing an empty cafeteria, then stopped in front of an exit with an elaborate electronic alarm. The director used his ID card to open the door. Outside, a cool breeze reminded her that despite the weak sunshine, summer was over and winter was coming. In the meantime, she would enjoy every minute of the fall, with its vibrant colors and positive-ion air.

  Her mood dipped as she took in the twelve-foot wire fence surrounding the narrow outdoor space. The barrier angled inward at the top, making it impossible to climb over. Except for the fenced garden at the other end, this was not a nice place to relax outside. A gaunt female inmate, about her age and wearing pink pajamas, paced the fence line, muttering to herself. Lexa expressed silent gratitude for her own mental health. She’d drawn a lucky genetic card… so far.