All I Want For Christmas Page 13

  She looked around, and was surprised at how much things had remained the same since she’d walked away six years ago. Walked away from her father and a legend she could never live up to, walked away from a life that made her feel inadequate and unfulfilled.

  “The parking lot looks pretty empty,” Jack said, as he unbuckled his seat belt and grabbed a cap from the back seat. “I’m glad I called ahead and told them we were coming or we might not have anyone to talk to but the skeleton crew and the inmates.”

  “The guests. They call them guests here, not inmates.”

  “Yeah, I forgot. This is the criminal version of Club Med.”

  “Always a cop,” she said. A gust of wind caught the door and nearly blew it closed before she could get out. She pulled her coat tight and kept her head down as she started toward the manned gate. If nothing else the weather should make the interview move swiftly.

  The roads were already slippery and treacherous. They’d get worse as darkness dragged the temperature well below the freezing mark. The staff would be anxious to give Jack the information he wanted and get home.

  “This is a pretty impressive place,” Jack commented, taking her elbow as they sloshed across the lot.

  “I guess it is. I practically grew up here, so I never really thought of it that way.”

  “A mental hospital seems a strange place to grow up.”

  “I didn’t actually live here, but my father was here more than he was home. I visited often.”

  The guard at the gate called for an escort to see them into the building. Another led them through the wide foyer and activity room and into the office of Dr. Malachi Caulder, the current administrative director. The man was short and wiry, with thinning hair, receding hairline and glasses that slid down his nose.

  Jack shook the bony hand he offered and wasted no time in getting down to business. “I have a list of questions, Dr. Caulder. I’ll need someone who knows the patients well enough to answer them. I’m not sure who that would be.”

  “I can assure you that I am familiar with all of our guests, Detective Carter, even though I’ve only been at the Center for seven months. I review every record on a regular basis and have seen each of the patients in individual sessions to determine their mental and emotional status for myself.”

  “You don’t have to sell me on your merits, doctor. I’m just here to get a few questions answered.”

  “I’ve heard wonderful things about you, Dr. Caulder,” Susan added. “And we really appreciate your waiting to talk with us.” She shook his hand and took the seat he held for her.

  “I consider it an honor to be able to assist the daughter of Dr. Kelsey McKnight.”

  “Thank you. Did you know my father?”

  “Not well. He died before I came here, but I met him on several occasions. He was a brilliant and dedicated man.”

  “Yes, he was,” she agreed.

  “He was an inspiration to all of us in the field. Now how can I be of service to you?”

  Jack jumped into the conversation. “We’re trying to find out what we can about a former inmate of yours. J. J. Darby.”

  “Mr. Darby was a guest of ours, but he’s no longer with us. He attacked a nurse approximately a year ago. The acting administrator at that time had no choice but to move him to a new location where maximum security could be provided.”

  “The acting administrator?”

  “Yes, it was not easy to replace Dr. McKnight after his death. The position was filled by an acting administrator until I was hired.”

  Susan listened while Jack persuaded the pompous administrator to open up and tell them the name and phone number of the nurse who’d been attacked. Jessie Bailes. Susan remembered her well. Friendly and efficient, and very good with the guests.

  Jack crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair as if they were here on a social call and Dr. Caulder was an old friend. “Did J.J. ever talk about Dr. Susan McKnight?

  Caulder pushed his glasses back on his nose. “No. Most of the guests deal pretty much in the present or the distant past, things that happened when they were growing up. Childhood patterns of acceptance and rejection have been proven to be the strongest influence on personality development.”

  Jack tapped his pencil on his notebook. “I guess that’s why they say the apple doesn’t usually fall too far from the tree.”

  “You could put it that way.”

  Susan expected Jack to follow up the doctor’s comment with his speech on how he spoke fluent cop talk. He didn’t. Apparently he was too intent on getting what he came after.

  “I’d really like to take a look at the records you have on Darby,” he said. “You know charts, files, medical records, that sort of thing.”

  Caulder stared at Jack over the rim of his glasses. “Do you have a warrant?”

  “No, I didn’t think I’d need one. After all, Dr. McKnight’s father founded and ran this place for years before his death. And she’s an expert in the field as well. I’m sure you can trust her to examine the records of a guest who’s no longer with you.”

  Susan got the message loud and clear. This was why Jack had insisted she accompany him today. In this place it was the shrink, as he called her, and not the cop who had the clout.

  They spent the next two hours looking at every scribbled comment and reading every progress report that had ever been written about J. J. Darby. As far as Susan could tell he’d gone up and down on the emotional scales like a seesaw at a school picnic. Her father had been his therapist for most of the years he was here, and Kelsey had tried a multitude of drugs and behaviorchanging techniques. Apparently none of them had steadied the seesaw for any extended period of time.

  The activity room was empty when they walked through it on the way to the door. Evidently, the guests were all at dinner in the cafeteria. The television was still on, beeping, as a severe weather warning flashed across the bottom of the screen. Travel was not advised unless absolutely necessary. And then only if drivers kept to the main roads.

  The Potter-McKnight Mental Health and Research Center was thirty miles from a main road.

  “There’s a café of sorts down the road,” Jack said, taking Susan’s arm and guiding her down steps that were already glazed with ice. “I noticed it when we drove in. I’d like to stop there if it’s open and grab a quick bite. We’ll call Mrs. Bailes from a pay phone there, or from my car phone if the café’s closed.”

  Susan nodded and pulled the hood of her all-weather coat higher. It was a good thirty yards from the front door of the building to the gate that led to the parking lot. On a night like this it seemed a hundred.

  This time the guard stayed inside his cozy guardhouse when they approached, pressing his nose against the glass to get a good look at them before he punched in the code.

  The gate swung open, and Jack all but carried Susan through it, making sure she didn’t fall on the concrete that had turned into an ice-skating rink in the short time they’d been inside.

  A white Christmas came early, something rare for the Deep South. But this was not the frothy white snow dreams were made of. This was the ice that glazed roads, especially bridges and overpasses, making them impassable.

  The kind of night people should stay inside, huddled by a warm fire. Home with Rebecca and Timmy and a lopsided Christmas tree with homemade ornaments and strings of popcorn. And a policeman standing guard.

  But in spite of everything, the trip to the Center had eased Susan’s mind. An emotionally disturbed surgeon who blamed her for his present problems was a much more likely candidate to be their murderer than an unstable man she’d barely known seven years ago. Especially when they’d found that surgeon practically in the act.

  But information about Darby had surfaced during Jack’s investigation, and he was determined to find the man. He wouldn’t stop until Darby was returned to the mental hospital or to jail. If only all cops were this dedicated, she thought, there wouldn’t be any unsolved crimes.

>   Jack eased the car from the parking spot and out the long drive that wound through a stand of pine trees. A crack rang through the night, like a shotgun at close range. Susan looked up just in time to see a giant icecovered limb fall to the road in front of them.

  Jack dodged the branch, sliding into a skid that took them to the edge of a ditch before he could straighten the wheels and get them back on asphalt.

  Susan tightened her seat belt. “That was a close call. Will it be safe to drive tonight?”

  “Not if this keeps up.” Jack picked up his cellular phone and punched in a number.

  “Are you calling Mrs. Bailes?”

  “Not yet. First I want to check with the state police up here and get a report on the condition of the roads and the location of the nearest hotel.”

  “I really wanted to be home when the children woke up in the morning.” She squirmed while Jack asked about road conditions.

  “It’s that bad, huh?” Jack growled into the phone.

  A heavy scowl twisted his lips, and Susan knew that she’d never be home by morning. She’d be spending the night with Jack.

  Chapter Ten

  Tuesday, December 21

  9:00 p.m.

  Susan and Jack were batting zero by the time they pulled into the meager parking lot of the motel the state police had recommended. The café was closed, and Nurse Bailes’s phone was apparently knocked out by the same storm that had dipped the temperatures into the low twenties and stranded them in the northwestern corner of the state. One of the worst on record for this date, according to the radio announcer.

  “I forget what a frigid difference a few hundred miles can make,” Jack said. “Now I know why I moved to South Louisiana.”

  “A few hundred miles and the warming effects of the Gulf of Mexico.” Susan stared out the car window, eyeing the motel warily.

  It was no more than a low line of adjoining rooms with an almost flat roof and doors that opened onto a walk, a line of scraggy hedges, and the parking lot. The end room, the one marked office, had a dim light glowing through a pair of flimsy curtains. The rest of the place was bathed in gloomy darkness.

  “Do you think it’s open?” she asked, her voice betraying her uneasiness.

  “Probably. There are cars parked in front of some of the units. My guess is the electricity is out.”

  “There’s a light on in front.”

  “Could be an emergency lantern. But, if there’s a bed, it’ll beat sleeping in the car.”

  Susan had her doubts, but she climbed out of the warm car when Jack did. The sleet was mixed with rain now and falling harder. She hurried as fast as the icy pavement allowed. Jack gave her a hand up the two slippery steps and held the door for her.

  An overweight man in tight jeans and a plaid flannel shirt looked up as they came through the door. He pushed his way out of a wooden rocker as if it were a real struggle. “You folks picked a bad night for traveling.”

  “That we did,” Jack said, stamping his wet feet on the doormat. “Actually, it picked us. Do you have a room available?”

  The man scratched his whisker-roughened chin. “I can fix you up. Ain’t got no electricity though, and don’t know when it’ll get turned back on. Storm knocked it out a good half hour ago. Phone’s knocked out, too. We got heat, though.”

  “Glad to hear that. What about food? Is there a place to get a bite of something around here?” Jack asked.

  “The café up the road’s usually open. My son runs it, but he closed early tonight. No use to stay open without electricity. You people miss your supper, I guess.”

  Susan wasn’t sure if it was a question or a statement.

  “We did,” Jack said, moving over to stand beside a gas heater.

  “I can find you something around here, but it won’t be no fancy meal. The nearest restaurant’s in town, a good thirty miles away. Nearest motel, too, except this one. I wouldn’t advise making the trip tonight. Lots of creeks in between here and there and those country bridges are narrow and slick as a…” He shot Susan a sheepish look. “Well, you know they’re real slippery when they get coated in ice. Had a fellow run off one last year on a night not near this bad.”

  “That doesn’t sound like fun,” Jack agreed.

  “Nope. He lived, but his car didn’t.” The man shuffled to a low counter in back of the narrow room. “How’d you folks manage to get stuck out here on a night like this?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  The man chuckled. “Probably a good one, too. We don’t get a lot of business out here this time of the year. In the summer we have our regulars, fishermen looking for a cheap place to stay. There’s a public boat launch about a mile up the road. They pull some nice bream and catfish out of this end of the lake when the weather’s right.”

  He pulled a spiral binder from the drawer and moved it over to catch the light from the lantern. “Then sometimes we get family members visiting up at the Mc-Knight-Potter Center. But on a night like this, we might get anybody.”

  He tapped his pencil on a couple of names marked under the heading December 21. “These guys work up at the Center. They figured if they went home, they might not make it back for the early shift tomorrow, so they just stayed here.”

  “A home away from home,” Jack said, joining in the man’s small talk as if they were fishing buddies.

  “Yeah, I try to make it comfortable. They were drinking beer and partying earlier, but it seems they quieted down when the electricity went out. I’ll leave a room in between them and you, just in case they get loud again.”

  “We’d appreciate that,” Susan said. She’d also appreciate a hot shower and a clean bed. And sleep. She wasn’t sure any of them would be forthcoming.

  “The rooms all have two double beds.” He glanced at Susan’s ring finger. “Will you need one room or two?”

  “One will be fine.” Jack answered before she had a chance to state her option.

  She started to protest. She changed her mind, though she wasn’t sure what stopped her. Maybe the weather. Maybe the gory images of finding Sherry’s body, or maybe just the memories of the past that the visit to the Center had evoked.

  She only knew she didn’t want to be alone in a strange motel room on a dark and stormy night.

  At any rate, there were two beds in the room. And she could trust Jack. After all, he was the one who’d pulled away when the passion burning inside her had been so strong and hot that she might not have been able to. And he’d given no indication today that he was interested in a repeat of Sunday night’s performance.

  The man handed Jack the key, a flashlight, a couple of candles and a promise that he’d get the wife to rustle something up in the kitchen. And if they needed anything else, they could pay a visit to the house out back where he and the family lived. That is, if they could find it in the dark.

  Jack paid the man and led the way to the room. “We may be glad the lights are out,” Jack said, unlocking the door and swinging it open. “I’d say this is about a half-star resort.”

  “I’ll settle for dry.”

  “And warm,” Jack added. He scanned the room with the beam of his flashlight. “Actually, I’ve stayed in worse,” he said. “Back when I was a narc doing undercover.”

  Maybe it was just that the light was too poor to notice the faults, but Susan was pleasantly surprised herself. The two beds were separated by a large table that held a lamp and clock and a basket of dried flowers.

  A large dresser hugged the opposite wall. The mirror was slightly off-kilter, but there was a tray with individually wrapped plastic glasses.

  She threw back one spread and inspected the sheets. Snowy white and clean. What more could she ask for? She followed Jack to the back to complete the inspection.

  “Hurray for natural gas,” he cheered, turning on the faucet in the bathroom. “I see steam. Not that I doubted we could generate some ourselves.”

  He turned to face her, and his eyes telegraphed a smoky d
esire that sent her pulse spiraling upward. She forced it to steady. Leaning in front of him, she slipped a finger under the stream of water to see for herself. “Hot water, soap and lots of clean towels. You may have to add another half star to your rating.”

  “First I’ll have to check out the mattress. Care to join me?”

  Anticipation prickled her flesh. He had been deadly serious all day. Now, stranded in the middle of nowhere, he was joking and looking at her with that gleam in his eye.

  She had to think rationally, remind herself of the impossibilities of her entering a relationship with Jack. They were two very different people, caught up in a situation that had thrown them together daily in an emotion-charged atmosphere. Neither of them was bound by another relationship, so it was only natural they would reach out to each other, connect at some intimate level they would have never reached under other circumstances.

  That was the psychological theory she would have used to explain the same feelings she was experiencing if they had been described to her by someone else. But she’d lived a lifetime in the last few days, and she was falling in love with Jack Carter.

  Jack stepped closer. She could feel the nearness of him, feel his breath on the back of her neck. She turned, and his gaze locked with hers.

  She longed to step into his arms, but a lifetime of inhibitions, a lifetime void of intimacy, held her back.

  “Give me the key, Jack, and I’ll get our bags from the car before the weather worsens.”

  “You are independent. But a true gentleman always carries a woman’s bag into his motel room.”

  He was teasing again. She let it ride. It was safer than touching the topic of sleeping in the same room. She busied herself, pulling down the spreads on both of the beds and lighting the candles while Gentleman Jack ventured back into the cold.

  Jack returned a few minutes later with bags in hand and his cellular phone at his ear. His conversation jarred her back to reality. He was reporting their whereabouts to someone at police headquarters in New Orleans, and barking instructions as to how he wanted the search for J. J. Darby conducted.