“I will,” Sam said after a few seconds. “It’s not every day I feel like I’ve got a target on my back. It makes me nervous, Jennifer. Sorry.”
“I get it,” Jennifer said.
“I’m assuming there’s a phone,” Sam said, thinking of how the number of the Yellow Pages ad had rung here.
“Yes, but it’s connected to the hospital line. If we use it, they’ll know.”
They walked inside and shut the door behind them. Sam looked around and saw that the house was decorated more like a private men’s club than a garden center. The foyer was paneled with dark wood, with rustic balusters on stairs leading to the second floor, a chandelier madeof interlocking deer antlers, and landscape paintings in gold frames with discreet bronze lights highlighting the art.
“Are you sure they sell flowers here?” Sam asked.
“In the shop next door. I told you—this is where 1740 meets. It’s their clubhouse,” Jennifer said.
The floors were covered with Oriental rugs in muted colors. As they walked through the rooms, Sam saw reading nooks, window seats, Tiffany lamps on Craftsman-style tables beside burgundy leather armchairs, and more art. Sam recognized several of the paintings; she had seen them at her aunt’s art gallery, and she knew that Crispin Adams had bought them.
There were antlers everywhere and other objects that made Sam shiver: one entire wall covered with animal skulls, each displayed on its own shelf; a corner cupboard filled with tiny fetishes of animals, all carved from stone; another cupboard filled with archaeological statues and artifacts; and a small dollhouse filled with dolls holding knives.
Sam crouched in front of the dollhouse, looking through the windows.
“Nice, right?” Jennifer asked.
“This looks real, I mean as if a child actually played with it,” Sam said. “Someone made curtains for the windows and braided rugs for the floors. Look at the little coloring book ... there are crayon marks on the open page.”
“Take it out,” Jennifer said. “Someone signed her initials on the back.”
Sam didn’t reach inside; she didn’t want to touch anything. She peered more carefully at the tiny knives and saw that they were cutout pieces of cardboard, the hilts colored with brown crayon, the blades colored silver.
“How do you know someone signed her initials?” Sam asked. “Have you spent a lot of time in this house?”
“I’ve been here before,” Jennifer said. “We all have, for the parties. But that’s not how I know about the signature. Go ahead, look.”
Sam wasn’t sure why she felt so reluctant to put her hand inside the dollhouse. It felt as if she was reaching into something evil. When she took the tiny coloring book out, she turned it over and saw the crudely written letters.
“JS,” Sam read out loud.
“Jennifer Stewart,” Jennifer said. “That’s me. I wrote those initials when I made the coloring book. I cut tiny squares of paper and sewed them together—like a real book binding.”
“When did you make it, Jennifer?” Sam asked.
“When I was six,” Jennifer said, staring at the book.
“Was this your dollhouse?” Sam asked.
“Yes. They let me bring it with me to the hospital,” Jennifer said.
Sam stared at her. “Have you been at Maynard-King since you were six?”
“Not continuously,” Jennifer said. “I’ve been in and out.”
“So even though you’re working there now, are you still a patient?” Sam asked.
“They want me to be,” Jennifer said. “They would keep me sick forever if they had their way.”
“Why?” Sam asked. “Is it for the money?”
“No, it’s one therapist in particular. When I was fourteen, I was assigned to her. She used to tell me stories about her family, and she made it sound so perfect, like the family I wish I’d had. I couldn’t wait until it was time to see her each day. And I’d go into her office, and she had postcards of mountains on a bulletin board. She told me she had climbed every one of them.”
Sam listened; as Jennifer talked, she almost seemed to fall into a trance.
