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“Or ...” Jordie said quietly, looking at his hands.
“You could go to jail for obstructing justice, if there’s something important that you’re not telling us.”
Jordie let out a strange heaving sound and then wrapped his arms around himself, rocking back and forward.
Charlie knew he had gone too far. If he wasn’t careful, Jordie was going to do exactly what Doctor Whitmore had said and lock up completely.
“Jordie,” Charlie said softly. “Look at me. It’s okay. I promise. Look at me.”
Jordie looked up.
Charlie put his hand in his pocket. “Can you keep a secret?”
Jordie nodded. “Y ... Yes.”
Pulling his hand out of his pocket, Charlie produced his FBI badge. “No one will hurt you. I won’t let them. But you could help us make sure the killer never hurts anyone else in here or outside ever again.”
For a moment, it looked as though Jordie was mulling over standing up and walking away. But instead, he leaned down low,and in a quiet voice said: “P ... Patrick Ives. H ... He hates all of us.”
“A security guard?” asked Will.
“Yes.”
“But why?” Charlie asked. “Why would Patrick hate the patients when it’s his job to protect them?”
“I ... I don’t know,” Jordie said, before looking down to the checkers board and picking up one of his pieces.
“Did you ever see him do anything to Gillian?” Charlie hoped for an answer.
“N ... Not exactly,” said Jordie. “B ... But he put Gillian in her room once and I ... I was in the hall. I ... I heard him hit her. A ... And then she cried.”
“No one went to the doctors about this?” Will now seemed to be holding his anger under his breath.
“W ... We are all af ... afraid of Patrick.”
Charlie put his badge away.
“Well, you don’t have to be afraid anymore, Jordie,” Charlie said. “I’m going to pay him a visit.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The ticking of the grandfather clock got under Valerie’s skin.
Each tick and tock felt like time slipping away. The sounds said in their own way that she had to try and gain an early breakthrough, otherwise someone else would almost certainly die. That was how most killers operated. Once they started, they didn’t stop, and the ticks and tocks, the time in between each kill, would grow shorter and shorter.
She was sitting in the living room of an old bungalow waiting to speak with the family of Agatha Mitchell, the first victim.
For the moment, Valerie was alone in the room. It was filled with figurines and antique furniture, and Agatha’s grandmother, Margaret, was in the next room making coffee for them both.
This was the part of the job that Valerie hated the most. The true horror of any murder was that it left a wake in the lives of so many. Families, friends, colleagues, they would all wonder why their loved one had been brutally taken away.
Out in the hallway, the grandfather clock continued to tick as Valerie waited. For a moment, she zoned out. Her thoughts went back to a memory of her own grandmother.
Her father’s mother. Long since dead.
Beneath the ticks and tocks of the clock, for the briefest of moments, she thought she heard her grandmother’s voice.
“Here you go, Dear,” Margaret said, appearing from the doorway.