Break Me: Smith and Belle (Royals Saga Book 12) Page 13

  I peeled the name tag the man at the guard post had given me when I drove up and stuck it to my sweater. I opened the front door, entering a holding vestibule, and waited for an attendant to buzz me. I supposed it was a precaution to keep patients from escaping. A bolt clicked and I pushed open the main door with hesitation. For all intents and purposes, I was entering a prison. I ignored the surge of adrenaline that rushed through me as the door locked behind me, trapping me in this soulless place.

  A woman in a prim, maroon suit walked over to me and stuck out a hand. “Mr. Price,” she said, reading my name tag. “Doctor Fellows. I’m told you’re here to visit one of our long term patients.”

  “Yes. Miranda Thorne,” I said in a clipped voice. I didn’t want to explain myself. I wanted to get this over with and get out of here as quickly as possible.

  “And how do you know Miranda?” she asked curiously.

  “I bought her house,” I said with a grim smile.

  “It’s not common knowledge that she’s here,” Dr. Fellows informed me. “May I ask how you knew?”

  “My gardener worked for the family. His brother was a friend of hers.”

  “Ah, Seth,” she guessed.

  “You knew Seth?” I studied her for a moment. She looked to be in her forties, not old enough to have been here when Miranda first came.

  “Seth visited often. In fact, he was the last visitor Mrs. Thorne had.” She led me toward a pair of double doors, pausing to swipe an access card. “I have to warn you that Miranda doesn’t speak much.”

  “I just want to see her.” I didn’t know what seeing Miranda would prove to me.

  Fellows stopped in front of a door and knocked before opening it. I was surprised to see it was unlocked. She poked her head inside. “Mrs. Thorne, you have a visitor.” She moved to the side. “Please return your name badge when you leave. We like to keep track of them.”

  “That’s it?” I asked. “Don’t you need to lock the door or watch or something?”

  “Usually,” she admitted before glancing at Miranda who sat silently on the bed, staring at the wall. “But Miranda has been here longer than any other patient in the facility. Most people pass through our facilities for a few weeks or months. She’s been here for decades, as you know. She’s never tried to escape. She’s never harmed another patient. She just sits in her room. Of course, she’s quite heavily medicated. Anti-psychotics. They affect everyone differently.”

  “I see. I won’t be long.”

  The doctor left, closing the door, as I lingered in the entry.

  “Mrs. Thorne, my name is Smith.”

  She didn’t answer. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be locked away for fifty years, rarely speaking, never trying to escape. The woman in front of me didn’t look insane. Her silver hair was neatly combed, her dress old-fashioned but clean. She didn’t look up at me as I spoke, but remained seated on the edge of her bed with her hands folded in her lap. The room itself was as lifeless as its inhabitant. Walls, which had once been a cheerful yellow, had faded to the color of an old newspaper. The walls were bare save for a single cross hung in the center of the far wall. There was a chair and a bureau, but nothing else. No books. No art. No photographs. No sign that this had been someone’s home for half a century.

  “I was hoping you could answer a few questions.” I crossed the room, hoping my movement might inspire a reaction.

  It worked. Miranda lifted her eyes and I stepped backward. There was nothing there. No sign that a person inhabited the body in front of me. It was like looking into the eyes of a corpse.

  I cleared my throat, determined to press on. “I recently purchased Thornham.”

  Her cheek spasmed, but she didn’t move. I couldn’t decide if I’d imagined the reaction.

  “My wife and I moved there with our daughter, Penny. I understand Thornham was in your husband’s family for a long time.” The second time I mentioned the house, her shoulders arched protectively up towards her ears.

  “There have been some strange things happening,” I continued. She was listening. I could sense it. Her hollow eyes glinted slightly. “To my wife and my daughter.”

  “You should leave.” The words cracked from her like she’d opened a dusty, old book with a rigid spine.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, moving towards the door. “I was just hoping you might tell me what happened to you.” I reached for the knob when she spoke again.

  “Leave Thornham.”

  I turned to find she was watching me, her chest rising in quick, shallow pants. “Why?”

  “They’re all there,” she said, her head swiveling back to the wall.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “My children.” Her voice grew more distant, and I realized she was slipping away again.

  “We found them,” I said softly. “We found their bodies. They’re dead.”

  “Oh no.” Miranda shook her head, sending her hair rippling like melting ice. “No one is ever dead at Thornham, Smith, no matter how hard you try to kill them.”

  Hearing my name on her lips was like having a bucket of ice water thrown on my head.

  “I spoke with Seth’s brother,” I forced myself to continue.

  She whirled around. “Seth? He stopped coming to visit me.”

  “I know. Seth died.”

  “Maybe he’s at Thornham now,” she said, looking to the cross. “You might watch for him.”

  I swallowed. “I will. Mrs. Thorne, when you came here you were pregnant. What happened to the baby?”

  “Seth took her.” There was a soft sigh to her voice. “He took her to Thornham.”

  “No one’s been to Thornham in a long time,” I told her.

  Miranda looked up, piercing me with her ghost eyes and smiled, revealing rows of rotting teeth. “That’s not true, now is it?”

  I peeled off the name tag as soon as I passed through the double doors, wanting to leave everything about this place behind. It crawled under my skin like a burrowing insect and I fought the urge to rip off my sweater and scrape it off me. I stopped at the desk, annoyed to find it vacant, and dropped my name badge.

  “Terrible idea, Mr. Price,” Fellows said, returning from around the corner. Twenty years ago, a visitor took off his name tag when no one was watching and he wound up stuck here for a week until someone came looking for him. The orderlies thought he was a patient.”

  “Then I’m glad you saw me,” I said tightly.

  “I was hoping I’d catch you,” she said, holding up a file. “I was wrong about Miranda’s visitors before. She has had one other visitor. Curiosity got the better of me. I had to look.”

  “Who was it?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t say. But you can fill out an information request and we’ll contact the individual if it’s okay with her, we can release her contact information.”

  Fucking bureaucracy. There was always more tape to work through. “Why would I do that?”

  “I assume you were here looking for the Thornes. The other ones, I mean.”

  “We found them. They’re dead.” I didn’t bother to sugar coat this.

  But, working in an asylum, Fellows was no stranger to death. “I always suspected as much, sadly. At least, her daughter is alive.”

  My eyes flashed to her. “The baby? The one she had here? The one the father came for?”

  “I’m sorry.” She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said anything. You really must fill out the form, but I’m sure the individual will be happy to speak with the new owners of Thornham.”

  “I doubt it,” I bit out. I started to turn toward the exit before reconsidering. “Dr. Fellows?”

  “Yes, Mr. Price?”

  “Take my advice and lock that woman’s door.” I didn’t wait for her to respond. I needed to get out of her. Away from this prison. Away from the woman who’d once walked the halls of my home.

  Outside the air felt fresher, but the storm continued to press down. I walke
d slowly to the car, despite the fat, cold raindrops hitting my skin. I wanted them to let them wash this place away. I waited until I’d driven a half mile down the road before I pulled to the side and called Georgia.

  “What did you find out?” she answered.

  “Miranda Thorne is insane,” I said.

  “I could have told you that. Is that all?”

  “No.” I closed my eyes, hoping that I’d found my answer and dreading that I had. “The baby? Seth took it.”

  “Rowan didn’t mention that,” Georgia said slowly.

  “Miranda said he took it back to Thornham.”

  “That’s impossible. This house was empty—”

  “As far as we know.” I no longer could pretend that there was a rational explanation for Thornham and its effect on people.

  “Smith, there’s no such thing as ghosts,” she reminded me.

  I placed a hand on the steering wheel and recalled Dr. Fellows’s slip about Miranda’s visitor. “We’re not looking for a ghost. We’re looking for her daughter.”

  20

  Belle

  “But it’s not my birthday.” Georgia tied the rubbish bag she was preparing to haul from my bedroom.

  Next to me, Edward stared at it suspiciously. “What is that?”

  “It’s better if you don’t know, your highness.” Georgia heaved it over her shoulder and turned her attention back to me. “Why the fuck did you tell her that it was my birthday?”

  I was on the edge of an hysterical breakdown, and I couldn’t get Georgia to play along. I pressed my fingertips to my temples and rubbed circles. “Because she wanted to go up and clean Nora’s room,” I snapped. “And I couldn’t come up with a reason why that was a bad idea.”

  “And you couldn’t just tell her not to?” Georgia asked.

  “Have you ever tried to give Mrs. Winters an order?” Edward asked, coming to my defense.

  I gave him a grateful smile. “It doesn’t matter. You have to go along with it now.”

  Georgia looked as though she seriously doubted she had to do anything I said.

  “Please,” I tacked on anxiously.

  “It’s done now,” Georgia informed me. “There’s nothing left in Nora’s room, so there’s no reason to pretend it’s my birthday.”

  “Cake,” Edward said out of nowhere. “Cake is always a good reason.”

  I stamped one foot on the floor until they were both looking at me. “We should just call the police,” I hissed. “I don’t want to hide this.”

  “That’s exactly why Smith left your phone with me,” Georgia said, pushing past me to carry the bag—and the last of the evidence—out the front door.

  “He what?” I patted the pocket of my jeans and realized for the first time I didn’t have my mobile. “Give it back to me.”

  “No way, beautiful,” she said in a saucy voice.

  “You seem to think this is funny.” I was on the edge of collapse. I wanted Smith to come home. I needed him to reassure me that everything would be okay. But even I knew that wasn’t true. Unless he found Nora, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.

  “I’m just trying to keep you from doing anything stupid,” Georgia whispered. “Like calling the police or telling Mrs. Winters. We don’t know anything yet.”

  “That’s just it.” I shook my head, wishing she understood me as well as she understood my husband. “We don’t know that I didn’t do it.”

  “You didn’t,” Edward interjected. He’d maintained this stance since we’d watched the footage from the video monitor. In his eyes, I couldn’t have hurt her.

  “Are you forgetting what happened on the ice? The sleeping pills—I wasn’t supposed to take any more. But I did, and now Nora is missing.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with that.”

  “What if she did?” Georgia asked him bluntly.

  “You can’t honestly think—”

  She cut him off, “I’m not thinking about it. You two shouldn’t be, either. Let Smith do some digging. Let me look into things. Stop jumping to conclusions.”

  I threw my hands in the air and marched off. “I’m going to check on Penny.”

  “When are we going to the village?” Edward suggested in a quiet voice, joining me in the nursery.

  I watched Penny dozing in her crib. She’d managed to roll over on her stomach. I didn’t even know she could do that yet. I’d missed so much of her first few weeks. I couldn’t stand the thought of missing more of her life. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t live with what I’d done if I’d hurt Nora.

  “She made it past your husband,” Edward reminded me.

  “That doesn’t give me the right to hurt her. Fire her? Yes. Murder her? No.” I choked back a sob. “Maybe I am crazy.” I had just begun to believe I wasn’t. I had thought I was turning a corner. Instead, I found myself right back where I had started. It felt like an unholy limbo, and there was no escape.

  Penny lifted her head, blinking her eyes blearily, and smiled to find us there. Edward took a step closer and picked up the baby bag.

  “You need to get away from Thornham,” he decided for me. “Let’s go buy Georgia a fake birthday present.”

  “She doesn’t want one,” I said flatly.

  “Then take joy in giving her one anyway. How often do you get to piss Georgia Kincaid off?”

  He was trying to cheer me up or distract me. I appreciated the effort, so I went along with it. After all, how much time did I have left to spend with him?

  Buying a fake birthday present for someone who didn’t want one proved to be harder than we had anticipated. Perhaps, it was down to the meager selection in the Briarshead shops, or maybe it was that I didn’t know Georgia well enough to pick out something for her.

  “Maybe we should ask Clara what she got her for her birthday,” Edward suggested as we stared at a selection of locally crocheted tea cozies.

  “The only thing I’m sure she likes are guns and leather.” I picked up a teacup from the display. “If she doesn’t want a present, why are we worrying about what we get her?”

  He shrugged, and Penny moved along with his shoulders. He’d placed her in a baby carrier so that we would have our hands free. Most of the shops in the village weren’t suited to prams. Of course, that meant he’d been getting a lot of interested looks. I had no doubt there would be a picture on a tabloid by tomorrow morning of the Prince of England wearing a mysterious infant.

  “Well, I don’t think we should get her any of this,” he said. “Should we try next door?”

  I nodded. At the door, I checked the blanket we’d thrown over Penny, making sure it was tucked around her small feet. The weather was warmer than it had been the last few weeks, but the sky was darkening overhead. A storm was moving in from the coast and would reach us any moment. We needed to hurry up. As we ducked into the shop next door—a quaint bookstore—we ran directly into Tomas.

  He feigned surprise at seeing Edward and pointed to the baby. “You could’ve told me I knocked you up.”

  “I don’t think that’s how this works,” Edward said, grinning despite himself.

  Thomas leaned over and air kissed both my cheeks. Then, he turned and laid one on my friend. “You didn’t call me.”

  Edward looked over at me, sending an SOS with his eyes. I shrugged. “Don’t look at me.”

  “I meant to,” Edward said quickly. “We’ve been really busy at Thornham.”

  “Don’t worry about it. It sounds like your aunt and my uncle are having a good time in Paris,” he said.

  “I haven’t heard much from her,” I admitted.

  “Exactly,” Thomas said with a wink. “That means they’re having a good time. Well—” he held up a shopping bag “—I need to get back to the restaurant. I’ll see you around?” He posed the question casually but I knew it was intended for Edward.

  “Yeah,” Edward said. Tomas ducked out of the shop and I immediately smacked my best friend’s shoulder. He rubbed it
gingerly. “Ouch! What was that for?”

  “You didn’t call him?” I demanded.

  “I haven’t really dated anyone,” he said.

  “No one expects you to move on this quickly,” I began, but he held up a hand.

  “I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I’ve never dated anyone but David.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, and I realized he was holding back tears. “I don’t know how to do this.”

  I wrapped him in a tight hug. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. We’ll figure this out together.”

  “If you don’t go confessing to murder,” he whispered.

  “Edward, if I—”

  “You didn’t do it.” He pulled back and smiled through his tears. “Murderers don’t give good hugs.”

  “Is that right?” I asked, smiling despite the way my heart constricted at that word.

  “It’s a fact.”

  21

  Smith

  I tossed my umbrella in the stand by the door and headed for the stairs, just as the lift door dinged. I paused on the first step as it opened. Mrs. Winters hobbled up, pausing when she saw me. Her hand rubbed her hip, which must be partially responsible for the scowl on her face.

  “Have you seen my wife?” I asked, knowing that asking after the housekeeper’s well-being would only elicit a stern rebuke. She was made of stern British parts and didn’t like to be reminded otherwise.

  “I expect that they’re planning the party,” she said wearily. “Although, I’m the one left to make a cake all day.”

  “Party?” I repeated. Belle hadn’t seemed in a particularly festive mood when I’d left for Brighton, and there didn’t seem to be anything worth celebrating, at the moment. Not with Nora missing and no clue who was responsible for her disappearance.