Chapter 1

Hollis drove his Honda Accord onto a state highway leading to the capital. It was a raw, overcast October morning. A light drizzle fell on his windshield and he periodically flipped on the wipers.

He arrived at Clency State hospital, parked the car and trudged inside. There he rode an elevator and approached a receptionist. “Hollis George,” he announced himself. “Doctor Wallis called me.”

“Have a seat,” he was instructed. Hollis sat and waited. Soon a late middle-aged man with a graying goatee approached him

“Mr George. We believe we’ve made a breakthrough.”

“It’s about time,” Hollis replied. “I was beginning to lose hope.”

“These cases are so rare,” the doctor replied. “We’re feeling our way through this. If you’d follow me.”

Hollis followed the doctor through a set of locked doors and then another. They approached a patient room. Using a key on his chain the doctor opened the door.

Sitting by a window was a woman in early middle age. She was blonde and of moderate build. Her eyes brightened upon seeing Hollis.

“Hollie!” she exclaimed. “It’s so good to see you.”

“Corinne,” he replied, “how are you feeling?”

“Good, good. Come in, sit down.” She looked up at the doctor. “Don’t worry -- I won’t bite him. Can’t I have a few words with my husband ... in private?”

Dr Wallis nodded and left the room, locking the door behind him. Hollis pulled up a chair and sat across the table from his wife. “How have you been?” Corinne asked him.

“Good ... good,” Hollis replied.

“And the shop?”

“Keeping me busy. I’ve hired an assistant.”

“Really?”

“Yeah -- a high school kid. She’s a good worker. She’s made it her project to straighten up the dump ... arrange the merchandise for visual appeal. She puts in ten or fifteen hours a week.”

“I’m glad she’s working out,” Corinne replied. She regarded him. “It looks like you’ve lost some weight.”

“Some,” Hollis replied. “I’m trying to do some walking a couple days a week.”

“That’s good. How’s Brian?”

Hollis regarded her. “Don’t you remember, Corinne?”

“Remember what?”

“Brian is dead.”

“That’s right. Now I recall.” Corinne lunged at him, locking her hands around his throat. “YOU KILLED HIM!”

Hollis tried to pry her hands from his neck. She squeezed tighter. He stood and tried to back away from her but she kept her contact. He reached a red pull chain and tugged it.

Can I help? came a voice through the intercom.

“HELP!” He made a strangulated cry.

His peripheral vision was going gray when the door opened and a pair of orderlies rushed in. One pried Corinne’s hands from his throat. Hollis fell backward onto the floor.

“NO! NO!” Corinne screamed. “HE KILLED MY BABY!”

The other orderly approached her with a hypodermic syringe. The first orderly attempted to restrain her as his partner jabbed her deltoid.

Corinne swung around and struck the orderly holding the syringe and the device flew across the room. A splotch of blood formed on her shoulder.

“Did you dose her?” the first orderly asked.

“I think so...”

Corinne’s thrashing subsided and she fell limp against the first orderly. With his partner he laid her on her bed and fastened restraints. “We’ll get Dr Wallis,” he said.

Rubbing his throat, Hollis sat across from Dr Wallis’s desk. “I’m very sorry, Mr George,” the doctor said.

“That obviously was fully premeditated,” Hollis remarked.

“She had been working for weeks to gain our trust,” the doctor replied. “I was bamboozled by her performance. So were my colleagues. I’m a bit taken aback that she could do something like this.”

“So, what’s next?”

“We’ve tried all the psychoactive drugs in our pharmacy. We’re asking you once again to consider ECT.”

“Shock therapy?” Hollis shook his head. “It’s a barbaric treatment.”

“ECT is making a comeback,” Wallis replied. “It’s performed under general anesthesia. It’s safe and, in some cases, remarkably effective.”

“But, you can’t guarantee results.”

“We can’t guarantee anything, Mr George. We’ve seen a handful of cases like hers nation-wide. Personally I think it’s irresponsible to deny us any weapon in our arsenal.”

“Dr Wallis -- I was the one who authorized the treatment that got her into this mess. Without a guarantee that at least it won’t make things worse -- I can’t consent to that.”

“Then, we let Nature take its course.”

“Thank you Dr Wallis,” Hollis said.

“Sorry to bring you all this way for nothing.”

“I understand. Let me know if there’s any improvement ... any REAL improvement, that is.”

“We certainly will, Mr George. I’ll see you out.”

Hollis drove past his Emporium. It was a three-level, yellow barn set into a hill, with the main floor at street level in the front and the lower level looking out on a parking lot in the back. The structure dated to the late eighteen-hundreds. Since it was built a suburb had sprawled around it. A long and broad porch had been added, and he noticed the lights were on. A neon sign announced, OPEN and he saw an antique cigar-store carved, wooden Indian figure standing by the front door.

He pulled around the rear of the building and climbed an outside staircase to a living apartment in the rear. With his latchkey he let himself into the apartment and from there he headed to the main display level. He walked past shelves of 1950s vintage glassware, household appliances, phonograph records, cookware, bottles and clothing.

Sitting at the checkout desk was a teenaged girl. She was slim with shoulder-length, light auburn hair and sparkling blue eyes. She wore jeans and a yellow blouse, and with her hair held back in a headband. Her oblong face featured a squarish jaw, a wide mouth with medium lips and her high and broad forehead was covered with long bangs that brushed the tops of her eyebrows. In front of her were a school textbook and an open three-ring binder. “Annie -- you opened up?”

“Oh, hi, Hollie,” she replied. “I came after school and found the place closed. I used the spare key to let myself in and decided to open up. I hope that’s okay.”

“Did we have any customers?”

“No ... none so far.”

“Then I guess it wouldn’t matter one way or the other.”

She regarded him, drawing back one corner of her mouth. “Just trying to be helpful,” she replied.

“Do you have cash to make change?”

“The drawer was in the register,” she replied.

“Crap -- I forgot to put it in the safe.”

Annie pushed a button on the register and with a ding the drawer slid open. “It looks like it’s all here,” she said, picking up a stack of dollar bills. She pushed the drawer closed. “Where were you? At some estate sale?”

“No. I was visiting my wife at Clency.”

“Did the visit not go well?”

“Not at all.” He flopped into an easy chair with worn, velvet upholstery.

“What happened to her?” Annie asked. “How did she end up there? If you don’t mind telling me.”

“I’ve never told you?”

Annie shook her head. “No.”

He sighed. “Corinne was a registered nurse ... good one, too. She had empathy with her patients ... took good care of them. One day she developed a rash. It turned out to be MRSA.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a staph infection that’s resistant to antibiotics ... you’ve heard of flesh-eating bacteria?”

“Is that what she had?”

“It was that sort of an infection. Within a couple of days she was at death’s door. They had determined the bacterium was susceptible to a new class of antibiotics -- flouroquinolones. They asked my permission to use one on her.”

“And?”

“It knocked out the germs ... saved her life -- at the expense of her sanity. Corinne suffered a very rare side effect. It made her psychotic. I watched her descend into madness. One day I came home to find she had killed our two-year-old son, Brian. She drowned him in the bathtub. Voices made her do it.”

“Oh, God...”

“She was arrested ... it was obvious she was delusional. She was sent to Clency. I was told in most cases these incidents resolve themselves, but it can take months or years. Or, never.” He planted his elbows on his knees and held his forehead. “Somewhere along the line she convinced herself it was I who killed him -- not she.”

“How often do you visit her?”

“I’ve given up,” Hollis replied. “There’s no point. The sight of me puts her into an irrational rage. This time, her doctor called to say she had a breakthrough. She was mimicking sanity in order to lure me close enough to have her revenge.” Hollis showed Annie the bruise on his neck. “I couldn’t believe how strong she was. I couldn’t get out of her grip. They had to sedate her.”

“You and I have something in common ... your wife and my mother.”

“Your mother got a raw deal,” Hollis replied. “She did not deserve the sentence she received. I won’t say your father deserved to die ... I don’t think any human being deserves to die before his time. I understand why your mother did it.” He regarded the girl and saw a tear roll down her cheek. “Hey...” Hollis embraced her and she rested her face on his shoulder. “Sorry...”

“I’ll be in my thirties before she has a chance of freedom,” Annie sniffled. “I miss her horribly.”

“At least there’s a light at the end of your tunnel,” he replied, “even if it is a long one. Mine’s only darkness.”

“I’m okay,” Annie said. Hollis released her from his embrace. She closed up her textbook and binder and slipped them into a backpack.

Hollis sat on a stool behind the counter. Annie picked up a feather duster and began using it on a shelf of porcelain figurines. “You know what you should do?” she asked.

“What’s that?” Hollis answered as he powered up a laptop computer near the register.

“You should make a page on Facebook. That way you can keep in touch with your regular customers.”

“I suppose you have a page on Facebook?”

“Yeah...”

“I hope you don’t post any personal information. You know creeps and perverts troll those pages.”

“I know how to protect my personal stuff,” she replied. “Only my friends can see it.”

“You have a lot of friends?”

“A dozen or so.”

“Any boyfriends?”

“Ewww ... The boys at my school are so gross.”

Hollis began punching inventory codes from a spiral-bound steno pad into his laptop. “Not a bad week, all in all.” He retrieved some credit card slips from under the cash drawer and started reconciling them. “We cleared twelve hundred this week ... four hundred of it in cash. What were your hours this week?”