Michael Prescott - Stealing Faces

Even then Cray maintained his vigil. He monitored his patient’s pulse, observing the onset of bradycardia, the most common symptom of a digitalis overdose.

Walter’s heart rate dropped below sixty beats per minute, then below forty, then became irregular.

At dawn his heart stopped. Supine on the sofa, his mouth open, head lolling, the big man shivered all over like a wet dog and lay still.

Watching him, Cray reflected that he was indeed like God, in at least one way.

He could take a life.

He remembered that stray thought now, as he crossed the grounds of the institute under the clean blue sky and the crisp peaks of the Pinaleno range.

He felt whole. He felt strong. He felt—

“Dr. Cray!”

Cray stopped.

He knew that voice.

Damn.

He looked down the long driveway toward the front gate, where a guard had detained a burly, bearded man of seventy.

“Dr. Cray, I demand to speak with you!”

The man’s voice carried easily. Several patients were staring in his direction. An orderly pushing a woman in a wheelchair had stopped on the greensward, his gaze swinging between the unwelcome visitor and Cray himself.

“I know you can hear me!”

“Oh, hell,” Cray muttered.

He would have to acknowledge this man, much as he hated to. Straightening his shoulders, he marched along the driveway toward the gate, where Anson McMillan, Kaylie’s father-in-law, waited by his pickup truck, glaring at Cray through the wrought-iron bars.

McMillan had gray hair and a gray beard. He was all squares and rectangles — hard, blocky face, squat frame, wide shoulders. In his denim shirt and corduroy pants he looked like an aging cowhand, lacking only a lasso and a wide-brimmed hat.

Cray had expected him to return eventually, but not so soon. McMillan had visited the hospital only last week, immediately after Kaylie’s arrest.

“Dr. Cray,” McMillan said again, with dangerous courtesy, as Cray drew close.

“Good afternoon, Mr. McMillan.” Cray kept his voice even. “What seems to be the problem?”

“The problem is that this glorified night watchman”—McMillan threw a contemptuous glance at the guard, who stiffened under the insult—“won’t let me pass.”

“Don’t denigrate my employees, please,” Cray said, reaching the gate at last and coming face to face with McMillan across the iron barricade. “Officer Jansen here is doing his job.”

“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 own it. One of these big health-services companies in Phoenix has got title. You’re their hired hand, is all. And they don’t like bad publicity, do they? I’ve been reading up on this place. Patient got beaten here last month, state government’s investigating. Another patient, Walter somebody, died just three days ago.”

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 won’t —because it’ll never get that far. They’ll overrule you and let me in, pronto, just you wait and see.”

“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.