Allison Brennan - The Prey

But she wouldn’t appreciate it. Not now. Maybe later, when it was done, she’d want someone to lean on. He planned on being there for her.

“Rowan,” Roger said as he turned off the ignition, “are you sure?”

She didn’t respond, but shot him a cold look. As she moved to open the passenger door, John quickly jumped out the back and opened it for her. She seemed surprised, then sighed and allowed him to escort her to the main door.

Roger scrambled to follow them. He’d called ahead, and Dr. Christopher met them in the lobby.

“Collins,” the doctor said with a curt nod. Then, “You must be Rowan Smith.”

“I am.”

“I can only allow two visitors with Mr. MacIntosh. I need to be in the room to observe.”

“I’m her bodyguard,” John said as he stared pointedly at Collins.

“I’ll wait here,” Roger said, defeated. He’d screwed up big time, losing Rowan’s trust and respect. John almost felt sorry for him. Until he remembered Michael was dead.

John followed Dr. Christopher and Rowan down the wide corridor. Silence filled the halls, an eerie emptiness that surprised John. Shouldn’t there be orderlies milling around, nurses with medication, patients making demands? It was as if they were the only people alive in the complex, and it made John nervous.

“Where is everyone?” he finally asked when they went through a secure door and still no one had greeted them since their arrival in the lobby.

“We have minimal staff on this end,” Dr. Christopher said. “Our patients are on a strict schedule. They are not your typical mentally disturbed individuals. Everyone here is required to be by court order. Most will die here. The violent patients are in the north wing. That area has far more personnel and is much noisier than this wing. But every room, every hall, is monitored by security.” He gestured to cameras in every corner. “A trained and armed medical team can be anywhere in this facility in sixty seconds or less.”

Dr. Christopher stopped outside a wide door. Through the window, John saw the back of a skinny man sitting hunched in a chair facing a large plate-glass window that looked out onto lush greenery. He glanced at Rowan. She stared at her father, fear making her shake.

John cupped Rowan’s jaw, forcing her to look at him. He caught her eyes and held them. “You can do this, Rowan. I will be with you the whole time. He can only hurt you if you let him.”

“I’m ready.” Her voice was shaky but clear.

“Very well.” Dr. Christopher palmed his badge on the security panel and the door clicked open.

Mind numb, Rowan didn’t move to enter. All she saw was her father, but not here, not in this sterile, sparsely furnished room. She saw him drop a bloody knife and pick up his dead wife. Beth. Beth. What have I done ?

“Rowan?”

John’s voice came from far away, at the end of a tunnel, basked in light. She faced him, wanting-needing-his strength. His dark green eyes held hers, sending her his vitality.

“Rowan, I’m right here,” he was saying.

She felt John squeeze her hand. She didn’t know if she’d reached for him, or he for her.

It didn’t matter. She wasn’t alone.

Rowan placed the only other chair in the room in front of her father. With a deep breath, she sat down and forced herself to look into his eyes.

He didn’t see her.

His blue-gray eyes, so much like her own, stared vacantly beyond her. They didn’t see her, didn’t see anything. Her father was still gone, his body an empty shell, just as it was twenty-three years ago after he killed her mother.

“Daddy,” she whispered, her voice a croak. “It’s Lily.”

No recognition. No movement. Nothing but the blank stare.

She tried again. “Daddy, I know that Bobby came to visit you.”

Nothing.

Nothing! How could he sit there and not be in there somewhere? “Daddy, I need you!” Her voice rose. “Wake up, dammit!”

“Ms. Smith, he can hear just fine,” Dr. Christopher interjected. “His brain has stopped making connections between speech and thought.”

“What, he’s brain dead? In a coma?” she asked, incredulous.

“No, nothing like that. Though it’s more like a coma than anything else,” Dr. Christopher explained. “Your father’s condition is purely psychological, and technically a coma is caused by an internal or external injury to the brain. A car accident or a tumor, for example. Your father has a neuropsychological disorder, quite rare but there are several documented cases. Your father hears everything, but can’t understand it. He sees, but can’t process the images. He’s locked himself in his mind because of the trauma of the crime he committed. If he hadn’t, he likely would have committed suicide when he realized what he’d done. In all likelihood, if your brother hadn’t picked up the knife, your father would have used it on himself.”

Rowan listened to what the doctor said, but all she could think about was why ? Why did her father kill his wife? Though her years of training reminded her that abusive husbands often killed, she still found it difficult to reconcile the abuse with murder, the violence with her parents.

She wanted to end that part of her life and start over. But as much as she’d become her own person, separate from her upbringing, she was so intricately tied to her father. Her mother. Her dead sisters.

Bobby.

“Why, Daddy?” she said, surprised that her voice sounded so young. “Why did you kill Mama?”

He blinked. She sensed rather than saw the doctor come to attention. No one said anything.

“I saw you, Daddy. I saw you stab Mama.”

“Beth.”

Rowan sucked in her breath. Her father had spoken her mother’s name.

Rowan looked like her mother. Only she and Bobby were fair-haired like her. She nodded. “Yes, Robert, I’m here.”

He blinked again. This time, a single tear ran down his cheek. Rowan watched as it hung off his jaw for a second, then fell onto his hands.

“Robert, I need your help.” He didn’t say anything, but Rowan continued. “Bobby came to visit you. He talked to you. What did he say?”

“Beth.”

This was impossible. She resisted the urge to reach out and slap her father. Instead, she said, “Robert, Lily needs your help. Bobby wants to hurt her. What did he tell you?”

Nothing.

She heard Dr. Christopher writing frantically and he passed her a note. Ask him why he killed you .

She closed her eyes. She could do this. She could. Tears stung the back of her eyes, her throat.

“Robert. Why did you kill me?”

He blinked and turned his eyes toward her. His expression wasn’t normal, but it wasn’t the empty stare he’d had when she first walked in.

Her heart beat so fast her chest stung. She kept her expression blank, firm. She would not break down. Not here. Not now.

“Bobby saw you with him again. I told you to stay away from him, but you didn’t.”

Bobby. She stifled a cry and felt a hand on her shoulder. John. Sharing his strength. She took a deep breath.

“Bobby wants to hurt Lily. Please help me stop him.”

Her father shook his head very slowly back and forth. “Bobby killed our children, Beth. Lily’s dead.”

“No, no I’m not, Da-Robert. Lily is alive. Bobby is trying to kill her.”

His head rocked back and forth, very slowly. His voice was as petulant as a child’s. “She’s as good as dead. Bobby said so.”

Rowan wanted to scream, hit him, shake him until he started making sense.

She tried everything she could, but her father didn’t say another word. He sat there, staring at her with odd eyes, eyes that saw and didn’t see at the same time. His head moved back and forth, back and forth, until Rowan couldn’t take it anymore. She jumped up and ran to the door. It was locked; she couldn’t get out. She pounded her fist against the door. John was at her side, his arm around her shoulders. Dr. Christopher let them out.