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Jalicia’s jaw literally dropped. “What?” Padgett was already starting to get to her feet, as if the discussion were over after fifteen years of being mute.
“Wait a minute. You haven’t said a word since you entered this facility and now . . . you’re . . . able to speak . . . and you want to leave?”
“I’ve always been able to talk.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Not to you or any of those other ridiculous doc-360 Lisa Jackson
tors my father hired. Ask Rosie or Toby or . . . or Scott.”
“Who are they?”
“Other inmates.”
“You mean patients . . . there is no Rosie or . . .”
“Rose Anne Weeks, Tobias Settlemeier, and Scott Dowd. They were all before your time. Inmates.”
“Where are they now?”
“They’re dead, Dr. Ramsby. Someone pulled me down here to this very room to tell me that they’d died. Rosie committed suicide—hanged herself at the next facility to which she was committed by her parents. Toby’s in prison. No one told me that. They wouldn’t. But I overheard Nurse Martha telling one of the aides all about it.” She offered up a saccharine smile. “She gossips, you know, and eats the desserts of the ones who don’t really know what she’s up to. She’s really into apple crisp and ice cream.”
She turned toward the door.
“We’re not finished here,” Dr. Ramsby said.
“Sure we are. I know that I came here voluntarily and that no one ever bothered to set up a guardianship. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure that I would have been before a judge to determine my ability, or inabi
lity, to take care of myself. Since that didn’t happen, I suspect my father thought that my brother would always see to my care.” Her eyes darkened with a deep, simmering hatred. “As if he would.”
She reached for the door handle. “Now that he’s dead, it’s safe for me again, so I know you have the authority and some money set aside for me. Again, Nurse Martha, maybe she talks a little more freely than she should. What I need from you is a car to pick me up and take me to the airport. SeaTac isn’t
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far from here. I see and hear the jets, so then I’ll want to be on the next flight to San Francisco.”
“You mean Denver, right?” Dr. Ramsby clarified. She was beginning to believe that the slim woman before her knew exactly what she wanted and that she had for a long, long time.
“San Francisco. As you said, that’s where my son is, but I won’t be taking him to see dear old Dad. The old man didn’t want him fifteen years ago, he’s not going to get to see him now, even if I can find him, which is going to be difficult.” Her lips thinned. “Let’s get the ball rolling, shall we?”
“Just like that? You want to leave just like that?”
“I’ve wanted to leave for a long time, Dr. Ramsby. But it just wasn’t safe.”
“And now it is?”
“If my brother is really dead? Yes.”
“Don’t you want to call someone?”
“Who? My brother’s dead, and if he’s currently married, I’ve never met my sister-in-law.”
“He wasn’t.”
“My mother’s dead, too, and my father, as you said, is about to die. So who would that leave?”
