This had to work.
She inhaled and slipped into the old Katarina persona with ease. The same way she’d molded herself into the type of daughter each new set of parents wanted back before Kingsley swooped in and carted her away.
With her heart fluttering like a hummingbird’s, Katarina reached out and grabbed the old woman’s chin, wrenching the wrinkled face around until she stared into those dazed blue eyes. Her other hand dug into the woman’s shoulder and gave her a brisk shake. “Jesse is dead. Do you hear me? Dead. I killed him. I slit his throat with my knife and watched him bleed all over the floor.”
Confusion clouded the woman’s eyes at first…then her gummy lips opened wide, and she started to scream. Shrill, nerve-shredding shrieks burst into the room from that frail body, surprising Katarina with their force as she darted behind the door and waited.
The old lady continued screaming until footsteps pounded down the hall.
“Mrs. Thomas, what’s wrong?” The nurse ran straight to Mrs. Thomas’s bed, allowing Katarina to slip out of the room unnoticed as the old woman yelled and thrashed.
“Code yellow, we have a code yellow in room six twenty!”
The call spilled from the intercom, filling Katarina with an odd pang of regret as she speed-walked to the nurses’ station. A middle-aged, dark-haired nurse muttered under her breath before pushing the chair back. She made a shooing motion at Katarina with her hands. “Go back to your room. I can’t help you right now.”
“My room’s the one with the overflowing toilet. I’ll just stand right here until you get back.”
Muttering under her breath again, the nurse scurried down the hall. Katarina leaned against the wall and pretended to be bored while she tracked the nurse’s progress into Mrs. Thomas’s room. The back of her head was still visible in the doorway when Katarina raced into the nurses’ station and slapped the button that opened the locked double doors.
She whirled as they swung open and raced for the opening. If anyone spotted her now, she was screwed.
Three steps. Five steps. Seven. On the eighth step, she burst through the open doors and into the outer hallway. Out of the psych ward, but not yet free. She fled for the stairs, taking two at a time, circling down to the third-floor door before shoving the metal bar and popping out near a waiting area. Her pulse thundered like she’d been climbing for days as she checked for threats.
A forty-something man sat on one of several couches, talking on a cell phone while staring at a TV. “Yeah, I’m just waiting on them to discharge her. No, they said her hip should be fine to go home now. She’s been using a walker to get around and has decent range of motion. We just need to make sure she keeps up her exercises once she’s back home…”
Rehab floor. Perfect. No locked doors.
Katarina veered left at the nurses’ station, heading straight toward the open door that led to the patient rooms. Unlike the psych floor, neither nurse here spared more than a passing glance as she hurried by, allowing Katarina’s breathing to return to a regular rhythm. She peeked into the first open doorway but kept walking when she spotted the patient sitting upright and flipping through channels on the TV. The second room had visitors clustered around the bed.
She paused in the third doorway. Soft snores emitted from the elderly man who sprawled in bed with his eyes closed, but what really caught Katarina’s eyes were the blue hospital socks on the empty chair.
Slipping inside, she tiptoed to the chair and slid the socks on her feet. After glancing at the bed to make sure the patient was still asleep, she rummaged around in the tiny closet and drawer.
Clothes, two books, a family photo. No wallet or money.
She went back to the clothes. No pants that worked, but the gray Berkeley sweatshirt would do. After turning the sweatshirt inside out to hide the logo and pulling it over her head, Katarina scurried from the room.
Socks and shirt, check. Now she needed something to cover her bare legs.
In the hallway, another elderly man in a hospital gown was pushing a walker past while a white-haired woman kept pace and chattered in his ear. “Coco is doing fine, but I can tell she misses you and wants you to come home. She’s been crying at night and peeing on the floor.”
Katarina adopted a stiff-legged, clumsy walk as she headed toward them, hoping that Coco was a dog. At just the right moment, she let her right leg buckle and stumbled into the woman’s oversized purse. “Oh no, I’m so sorry about that. Still getting the hang of this new knee.”
The woman smiled. “That’s like my John here, except he’s getting used to his new hip. See, John? Getting a joint replacement doesn’t make you old.” John mumbled and continued pushing the walker. “Oh, don’t be such an old grumpy pants. Coco will be mad at you if you come home with that attitude.”
Katarina retraced her steps down the hallway with the woman’s wallet tucked beneath her sweatshirt. Thank god the woman hadn’t paid enough attention to notice Katarina’s lack of a bandage or surgical scar.
Sweat dampened her armpits as she hurried back past the nurses’ station. Any minute now, Jasper would notice she was gone. If Katarina was still inside the hospital when that moment arrived, she was toast.
She raced down the last three flights of stairs, slowing her pace to a quick walk when she hit the lobby. Arrows pointed the path to the gift shop. Resisting the urge to peer over her shoulder, she rounded a corner and burst into the sweet-smelling space.
Almost there.
The clothing was near the front. She grabbed the first pair of sweatpants she found and moved on to slippers next. At the register, she grabbed a cheap pair
