LITMIR.BIZ

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the job, the house is yours, rent free. If you stay five years, you get the deed, as well.”

      “That’s an incredibly generous offer, Frankie. Almost too generous.” Jax faced the woman, reminded herself Frankie was something of a kindred spirit, and decided to stop pulling punches. “So what’s the catch?”

      Frankie held her eyes, probably to make it clear she had nothing to hide. “No catch. It’s meant to be an offer that’s too good to turn down,” she said. “Of course, the pay isn’t the greatest, but it’s nothing to sneeze at, either. Best of all, Blackberry’s a safe place to be a cop. Nothing bad ever happens here.”

      Jax crooked one brow. “Aren’t you forgetting your run-in with Mordecai Young last year? I was here for that, Frankie. Remember?”

      Frankie’s smile died. “Not likely to forget. He murdered my best friend.” She sighed, shaking her head. “God rest your soul, Maudie Bickham.” Then she focused on Jax again. “That was a once in a lifetime event. Honestly, Jax, I mean it. Bad things don’t happen in Blackberry.”

      Jax nodded, but she thought about the foundation, the fire that had burned a wing of the house. A woman had been killed, Frankie said. Surely that qualified as a “bad thing.” Jax wondered briefly if the pristine purity of Blackberry, Vermont was anything more than a convincing and beautiful illusion.

      

      A nurse brought River back to his room, speaking softly to him all the way. He checked her name tag, but she was neither a “Judy” nor a “Jensen.” He wasn’t really sure why he was checking. When she got him to his room, he looked around—everything here was becoming familiar. The bed. The mesh-lined glass of the single window. The door to the tiny bathroom. He needed to remember what he had to do. That was all he struggled for. To remember what he had to do. Get away. Get out.

      “There now, I’m so glad to see you’re feeling better this afternoon,” the nurse said, leading him to the easy chair, expecting him to sit down, he realized, when she paused there, just looking at him. So he did. Then she brought out the pills, as he had known she would. She poured water from a pitcher and handed him the tiny medicine cup that held the tablets.

      Remember, he told himself. Remember what to do.

      He took the pills, drank the water, swallowed them.

      “Let’s see,” she chirped, as if she were speaking to a four-year-old.

      River obediently opened his mouth, lifted his tongue, let her assure herself he’d swallowed the pills.

      “Good, good for you, Michael.”

      He could have told her to call him River. He’d started out correcting everyone here. No one had called him Michael since he was thirteen years old. Ethan’s dad had started it that summer after the rapids had gobbled up his canoe and spit him out onto the shore. But River didn’t care what anyone called him anymore. He wasn’t sure who the hell he was, anyway, so what difference did it make?

      “Now if you put in a good night, you’ll get your privileges back tomorrow. You want to go to the community room, don’t you?”

      He nodded, tried to force a smile, and just wished she would leave so he could try to make himself cough up the pills before he forgot.

      “That’s good,” she said. “You just take it easy for tonight. You’ve had a hard day. Do you need anything before I go?”

      “No.”

      “All right then. Good night, Michael.”

      “’Night.”

      He waited until she had closed the door behind her. He heard the lock snap into place.

      Focus. The meds—have to get rid of them.

      He got to his feet and went into the bathroom, angry that hurrying wasn’t much of an option. He shuffled when he walked. Opening the toilet lid, he leaned over the bowl, stuck a finger down his throat, started to gag.

      “Oh, now, Michael. That’s no way to behave yourself, is it?”

      He straightened fast, but it made him dizzy, and when he spun around he fell, landing on the seat. Which turned out to be a lucky thing, because the orderly standing over him was swinging a knife at him. River’s clumsiness caused him to duck the blow that would have slit his throat.

      He reacted with the instinct of a veteran cop, not a mental patient. It was almost as if he were standing aside, observing, silently amazed that his years of training hadn’t been entirely erased, even by the drugs. His body remembered. It didn’t need his mind’s coherent instructions to move; it just reacted. He drove his head into the man’s belly, shot to his feet as the guy doubled over, clasped his fists together and brought them down as one, hammering the back of the orderly’s head.

      The man went down hard, his forehead cracking against the toilet seat on the way. And then he just lay there, not moving.

      River stared down at him, shocked. His heart was pounding as hard as the drugs would allow.

      The drugs! Dammit.

      He grabbed up the knife the downed orderly had been wielding, long instinct refusing to let it lie there beside the man. Then he shoved the limp body out from in front of the toilet, and tried again to vomit. He managed to bring up a little. Enough, he hoped. Prayed. Let it be enough.

      The orderly still hadn’t moved. The toilet seat was cracked, River realized, and so was the bowl underneath it. Water was seeping onto the floor.

      River started to shake as he knelt beside the man, checking for a pulse. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to find it in his condition even if there had been one. So many drugs floating through his bloodstream—even if he had brought up the most recent batch. Still, he tried to find a pulse. But he didn’t think the man was alive.

      He sank onto the floor, rocking back and forth, trying to organize his thoughts. He had to get out of here. He had to. But God, it was so hard to think. Maybe if he’d managed to avoid swallowing his meds for a few days. Maybe then he could have—

      Not then. Now. You have to get out of here now.

      Somehow, he latched onto a thought, a goal. And slowly, clumsily, he began to remove the fallen man’s clothes. All of them, even the lanyard around his neck with the magnetically stripped key card. The front of the card bore a photo of the orderly. His name had been Kyle. Kyle W. Maples.

      It took forever, the better part of an hour, River thought, or maybe longer. But eventually, he was dressed in the orderly’s white uniform, with the hunting knife hidden in a deep pocket and the lanyard around his own neck. The orderly was wearing River’s own powder-blue patient pajamas. They were on him crookedly, the top inside out, but it didn’t matter. He’d done the best he could.

      River lifted the dead man’s head by its hair, and grimacing, smashed his face on the toilet seat three times, hard enough to obliterate his features.

      When he finished, he managed to empty the remaining contents of his stomach without any trouble at all.

      Sighing, breathless, he turned to the sink, washed his face and rinsed his mouth. Then he wet his hands, smoothed down his hair as best he could, wiped the spittle from his chin.

      Have to get out. But how? The door’s locked from the outside.

      Get a nurse to open it. Get a nurse to come in.

      Nodding, River hit the bathroom’s emergency call button.

      After a moment, a nurse’s voice came on. “What is it, Mr. Corbett?”

      He drew a breath, swallowed hard. He was forgetting something, more than likely. He wasn’t in any condition to plan an escape that would work. But he had to try. “I…I fell. I’m…hurt.”

      He released the button and went back into the room, standing against the wall, beside the door. He could hear the nurse’s voice coming over the speaker, asking if he were all

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