Cawley’s eyebrows rose, and he gave a small sigh. “No. Invite&him to sit and have breakfast with them. He declined, naturally, and called the police. Rachel still believes the children are alive, waiting for her. It might explain why she’s tried to escape.”
“To return home,” Teddy said.
Cawley nodded.
“And where’s that?” Chuck asked.
“A small town in the Berkshires. Roughly a hundred fifty miles from here.” With a tilt of his head, Cawley indicated the window behind him. “To swim that way, you don’t reach land for eleven miles. To swim north, you don’t reach land until Newfoundland.”
Teddy said, “And you’ve searched the grounds.”
“Yes.?’
“Pretty thoroughly?”
Cawley took a few seconds to answer, played with a silver bust of a horse on the corner of his desk. “The warden and his men and a detail of orderlies spent the night and a good part of the morning scouring the island and every building in the institution. Not a trace. What’s even more disturbing is that we can’t tell how she got out of her room. It was locked from the outside and its sole window was barred. We’ve found no indication that the locks were tampered with.” He took his eyes off the horse and glanced at Teddy and Chuck. “It’s as if she evaporated straight through the walls.”
Teddy jotted “evaporated” in his notebook. “And you are sure that she was in that room at lights-out.”
“Positive.”
“How so?”
Cawley moved his hand back from the horse and pressed the call button on his intercom. “Nurse Marino?”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Please tell Mr. Ganton to come in.”
“Right away, Doctor.”
There was a small table nar the window with a pitcher of water and four glasses on top. Cawley went to it and filled three of the glasses. He placed one in front of Teddy and one in front of Chuck, took his own back behind the desk with him.
Teddy said, “You wouldn’t have some aspirin around here, would you ?”
Cawley gave him a small smile. “I think we could scare some up.”
He rummaged in his desk drawer, came out with a bottle of Bayer.
“Two or three?”
“Three would be nice.” Teddy could feel the ache behind his eye begin to pulse.
Cawley handed them across the desk and Teddy tossed them in his mouth, chased them with the water.
“Prone to headaches, Marshal?”
Teddy said, “Prone to seasickness, unfortunately.”
Cawley nodded. “Ah. Dehydrated.”
Teddy nodded and Cawley opened a walnut cigarette box, held it open to Teddy and Chuck. Teddy took one. Chuck shook his head and produced his own pack, and all three of them lit up as Cawley lifted the window open behind him.
He sat back down and handed a photograph across the desk—a young woman, beautiful, her face blemished by dark rings under the eyes, rings as dark as her black hair. The eyes themselves were too wide, as if something hot were prodding them from inside her head. Whatever she saw beyond that camera lens, beyond the photographer, beyond anything in the known world probably—wasn’t fit to be seen. There was something uncomfortably familiar about her, and then Teddy made the connection—a young boy he’d seen in the camps who wouldn’t eat the food they gave him. He sat against a wall in the April sun with that same look in his eyes until his eyelids closed and eventu ally they added him to the pile at the train station.
‘
Chuck unleashed a low whistle. “My God.”
.
“Yes, sir.”
“With the door still open.”
“Sir?”
“You said that you entered the room and looked around and couldn’t find the patient. Then you shut the door behind you.” “No, I... Well...”
Teddy waited, took another hit off the cigarette Cawley had given him. It was smooth, richer than his Chesterfields, and the smell of the smoke was different too, almost sweet.