“His job is to keep me out?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Why?” McMillan barked the word, baring his teeth in a threat display. Cray thought he looked like an ape in a cage.
“Surely, Mr. McMillan, you don’t need it explained to you. It’s my policy to deny access to any visitor who might be reasonably expected to disrupt this hospital.”
“I’m not here to disrupt anything.”
“Your behavior last time suggested otherwise. Perhaps it’s slipped your mind that you had to be escorted off the premises by several members of the institute’s security detail.”
“Slipped my mind — hell.” McMillan chewed the words and spat them out. “Don’t talk to me like I’m a senile old fool.”
Cray kept his expression blankly formal. “I’m merely explaining why Officer Jansen is under orders not to allow you readmittance to this facility.”
“Damn it, I wouldn’t have raised a ruckus if you’d acted sensible about things.”
“Mr. McMillan, I know what’s best for the patients treated here—”
“And visitors aren’t what’s best? Family?”
“You’re not a blood relation.” Cray spread his hands. “Frankly, given the circumstances, I’m surprised you care to see her at all.”
“Well, I do.” McMillan hesitated, then added in a gentler voice, “She needs to talk to someone.”
“She talks to me every day. I see her for therapy. And there are nurses and orderlies to chat with, if she lacks company.”
“That’s not what I mean. She needs somebody who’ll listen to her. Who… who believes in her.”
“No, Mr. McMillan. That’s precisely what she does not need. A sympathetic listener would only encourage the persistence of her delusions. What’s necessary for her right now is a structured, supervised, carefully controlled environment.” Cray found a smile, cool and calm, and unsheathed it like a blade. “I only want what’s best for her, you know.”
McMillan was not charmed. He took a step closer to the gate, and Cray could see his eyes, coal black, strikingly intense.
“What’s best for her,” McMillan whispered, “is a shoulder to lean on. That’s what she’s always used me for. We’re close, her and me. She’s like a… like my daughter.”
“A daughter? She murdered your son.”
McMillan was unfazed. “There were reasons.”
“An odd thing for a bereaved father to say. What would possibly induce you to forgive Kaylie for what she did?”
McMillan brushed this question aside. “I didn’t come here to be psychoanalyzed. I came to talk with her. You’re going to let me.”
“No.” Cray shrugged. “I’m not.”
McMillan’s hands were large and callused, and when they squeezed into fists, they became blunt instruments packed with force, meaty hammers that could have opened Cray’s skull in a cascade of blows, if not for the dual barriers of the iron gate and McMillan’s precarious self-restraint.
A moment passed, and then the hands relaxed, weapons no more, and McMillan asked softly, “How long do you intend to keep me away from her?”
“Until she’s ready to face her past.”
“How long?”
“It could take weeks. Months. An indefinite period of time. There’s no way to predict the length or efficacy of a course of treatment.”
McMillan absorbed this, then rejected it with a shake of his shaggy head. “No, sir. Not weeks, months. I’ll see her sooner than that. She’s my daughter-in-law. She’s family. I have an interest. I can force the issue.”
“It would not be advisable—”
McMillan cut him off. “Screw what’s advisable. I’ve been talking to a lawyer. He’s the one who told me to come on over here and give you a second chance to be reasonable. Seeing as how you won’t cooperate, we’ll just have to go over your head.”
“I run this institute,” Cray said sharply.
“But you don’t
Cray said nothing.
“That’s not the kind of track record your bosses probably want to see. And now here I come — me and my lawyer — demanding action. You think they’ll side with you? If they do, I’ll go to the papers. I’ll get a court order. I’ll make a stink.”
“I’m sure you will.”
“No, I’m sure I
“You’re a determined fellow, Mr. McMillan.”
“Damn straight I am, where Kaylie’s concerned. Now one more time I’m asking: do I get in to see her?”
“I think not,” Cray answered mildly.
“Then we’ll do it the hard way. I’ll be back.”
“No doubt.”
“Soon. Maybe tomorrow, if my lawyer can open the door to the corporate boardroom quick enough, and I’m betting he can. Good day, Doctor.”
Cray watched Anson McMillan walk to his truck and swing open the door on the driver’s side.
“Why are you doing this?” Cray asked suddenly, the question coming as a surprise even to him.
McMillan paused, half-inside the truck, looking at
Cray over the door frame. “Because she’s not crazy,” McMillan said. “She never was.”
Cray was silent. He stood motionless as McMillan slammed the door and started the engine. Even when the pickup reversed out of the entryway and vanished down the road, he did not move.
“Some kind of nut, huh?” Officer Jansen said finally, for no reason other than to break the long silence.
Cray nodded. “Yes.”
“Think he was serious about all that lawyer business?”
“Yes.”
“So… what are we gonna do?”
“We’ll handle it.” Cray took a step back from the gate and repeated the words. “We’ll handle it.”
He turned and headed back toward the administration building. His mind processed the dilemma, evaluating options, ordering priorities, weighing risks.
McMillan could not be allowed any contact with Kaylie. She knew too much. She would tell him everything. And given what McMillan must know or guess about his son Justin’s past, he might very well put the whole story together, then persuade the sheriff to take a fresh look at the case.
“Dangerous,” Cray murmured, mounting the staircase of the administration building.
Yes. Much too dangerous.
Cray had not avoided arrest this long by taking chances. His survival instinct was finely honed. To save himself, he would do whatever was necessary.
There was only one way to defuse this latest threat. It was a course of action he disliked, one that carried risks and smelled of desperation.
He would dare it, though. He had to. And quickly, before McMillan returned.
Pausing at the front door, he nodded slowly, in silent endorsement of his decision.
Kaylie must die.
Tonight.
