Chapter 10

As soon as we arrived at the hospital, Lizzie reached into the back seat for her lab coat. Her badge was pinned to the pocket.

I dropped her off at the main door and told her I’d find a place to park and meet her in the cafeteria.

Almost an hour later, while I sat alone at a table staring into my black coffee, Lizzie approached and sat down across from me.

“Well?” I said. “Were you able to read the chart?”

She leaned forward, folded her hands on the table and stared at me directly. “Yes.”

“And? Was it Wendy’s handwriting?”

Lizzie’s chest expanded and contracted with a heavy sigh.

“No, because there was no record of any psychiatric consultations at all. No notes about any of the interviews you described. There was no sign of Wendy in your chart. I’m sorry, Nick.”

“Great. Now you must think I’m a total nutcase. Completely delusional.”

“I hate to tell you this,” Lizzie said with a smile. “But it’s a little late for that. Since the moment you walked into my house, you’ve been suggesting you had conversations with my sister’s ghost.”

“I never said ghost. That’s your word, not mine.”

“Fine.” She held her hands up in surrender. “I just think we should call a spade a spade. Do you really think you talked with her?”

I nodded.

“That’s why you came by the house today,” Lizzie went on, “To see her again because you liked her.”

I nodded again. “She told me where you were living and gave me directions to find your house.”

“You have good taste, because Wendy was the most amazing person I ever knew.”

I decided to bring the subject back to my records. “Would the psych notes be somewhere else, like in the psych department?”

“No, the only place they’d be is in your chart. In the records department. I did see the notation for a consult, but there was a line drawn through it, so someone obviously cancelled it. I’m not sure why. Maybe you could talk to your doctor about that.”

Now I was beginning to wonder if I really was losing my mind.

But that wouldn’t explain all the things Wendy had told me about her brother J.J. and how I knew where their house was.

“I need to talk to Dr. Russell,” I said, rising from my chair. “I want to ask him why he cancelled the psych order.”

“Would you mind if I came with you?” Lizzie asked.

“You’ve come this far,” I replied. “You might as well stick around for the rest.” I gestured with a hand for her to follow.