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Chapter Thirteen

“ A s I said”—the nurse stepped to the side with her back to the door—“if she doesn’t wish to speak with you, I’m afraid there’s nothing any of us can do.”

Kenna nodded. “We appreciate you letting us in.”

That had happened thanks to Jax’s badge more than the goodwill of the staff here at the Morrow Wellness Center.

A fancy name for a psychiatric hospital that turned out to be more upscale than Kenna had expected.

It almost looked like a hotel, or a resort, than a hospital.

All gleaming fixtures and fresh paint. Ceiling fans and precisely controlled temperature.

But Dana Barrett was still a patient. She’d checked herself in voluntarily, knowing she couldn’t leave until she completed the program.

Jax touched her shoulder and whispered, “I’m going to hang out here in the hallway.”

Kenna turned her head to him a little without taking her attention from Dana.

The patient sat in a high-backed chair in the corner of the room.

She had a book on her lap and wore light pink scrubs.

Slippers on her feet. Her hair had been brushed, but it hung limp over her shoulders as if it didn’t have the wherewithal to do anything but lie there.

“Dana? I’m Kenna.” She spotted a wood chair with a pleather seat in the corner. “Is it okay if I sit with you for a few minutes?”

Dana’s gaze shifted from the window to Kenna, then to the door. “Kerry, the cat is back. She caught a mouse.”

Kerry, the nurse, smiled. “I’ll tell the groundskeeper.” She ducked into the hall where Jax stood. He would find out what the staff knew, but it could add context to what she learned from the patient.

There might not be much the staff could tell Kenna and Jax when medical privacy rules came into play. It was up to Dana and what she wanted to share.

“There’s a cat?” Kenna dragged the chair over and sat facing Dana. “My husband and I have a cat also. Her name is Jolene.”

Dana’s lips twitched. “Like the Dolly Parton song?”

“I guess.” Kenna chuckled. “She is always getting up to trouble.” It was important to keep this conversation light, even as much as she needed to press Dana for information. “This seems like a nice place.” When Dana didn’t respond to that, Kenna said, “They’ve helped you in the past?”

The woman nodded. She had to be in her thirties. Nicola’s closest friend, two people who’d stuck by each other for years even when their lives went in different directions.

“We all need help sometimes. It’s great that you have a place to go where you can feel…safe.”

Dana inhaled, just a tiny intake of breath. A miniscule, little gasp.

“You are safe.”

Dana said, “Yes, because they lock the doors here at night, and there is always someone on guard.”

“But that wouldn’t be true at your apartment. I mean, there would be a lock. But no one is on guard.”

She looked at the window.

“I can understand that.” No need to freak this woman out with specifics, though. “I know what it’s like to be scared. And I don’t mean freaked out. I mean the kind of terror where you’re certain you’re about to die.”

Dana kept looking at the window.

“People don’t get it. How scary it is to think you’re going to die. Or when you think you’ve lost someone you love.”

“She isn’t lost.”

“And you don’t think she’s gone. You know she is.”

Dana jerked her head in a nod.

“Did you see what happened, Dana?”

She seemed frozen for a second, then she looked at Kenna. “What do the cops care? It isn’t like they help Santinos.”

“I’m not a cop, Dana. I’m a private investigator.”

Dana looked at the door.

“My husband is an FBI agent, but this isn’t one of their cases as far as I’m aware.

” Kenna shifted in the seat, adjusting her position so she came across as open and like she had all the time in the world.

“I met Nicola at the medical center where she worked. You’ve known her for years, haven’t you? ”

Dana nodded. “You’re not a cop?”

“Not officially. I would just like to know what happened to Doctor Santorini.”

“She loved that name. It’s why she chose it.”

“Did you choose yours?”

She wrinkled her nose. “I always thought I should change it. Nicola and I could’ve been sisters, officially.”

“She helped you out a lot, didn’t she?”

“Sometimes, I wonder if it’s why she became a doctor. So she could help me, or so she’d know what to do. She couldn’t be my doctor, since we’re friends.”

“Sisters.”

Dana said, “Can’t treat a family member.”

“I’m guessing she did everything she could to make sure she was there for you.”

Dana nodded.

“I’d like to find her. If she’s still alive, she may be in danger.”

Dana remained silent for a long moment. Finally, she said, “They took her.” Tears filled her eyes. “They should’ve taken me instead. But I’m not worth anything.”

“Nicola doesn’t see it that way, though. Right?” Kenna figured Nicola would much rather be the one who was taken if it spared her friend more pain. “She looked out for you.” Kenna waited a beat and then said, “Did she protect you?”

“She told me to run. But they didn’t care about me.

” Dana’s breaths came faster. “They came into the house, and they grabbed her. I screamed. She was screaming and crying. They put a cloth over her mouth, and she went limp. I tried to stop them, but one of them slapped me.” She showed Kenna a red area on her cheekbone and gasped back a sob. “I couldn’t do anything to stop them.”

“Nicola didn’t want you to get hurt.” The question was, why she hadn’t gone to the police? Instead, she’d checked herself into the safest place she knew. “Will you help me figure out who they are?”

“How?”

Kenna kept her voice gentle. “What did they look like? Can you describe any of them?”

Dana inhaled through her nose, squeezing her eyes shut.

“What is it?”

“They had…masks on.”

“How many of them were there?”

Dana shook her head. “Five. Six?”

That was interesting, for taking one person. “What were they wearing?” She needed to get to the masks but in a roundabout way. “Can you describe their clothes?”

“That’s what was…terrifying.”

Kenna waited.

“They had on those white medical outfits. Like old-timey nurses, with the white dresses and the little watch thing on the breast pocket and that white card thing over their hair.”

“All of them were women?”

Dana bit her lip. “There were a couple of men in white scrubs. Maybe three. And two women.”

“All of them dressed in white medical staff clothing?” A memory sparked in Kenna’s mind, but she pushed it aside for now.

Dana nodded, opening her eyes.

“Tell me about the masks.”

Fear flashed in her eyes. “They were white and plastic. Maybe porcelain. With round holes for eyes.”

“That sounds pretty terrifying.” Especially for a person trying to avoid the usual ways she’d have disassociated in order to cope with the high stress in her life. A woman who had suffered for years with addictions had come to exactly the right place—where she knew she’d get the help she needed.

“She told me to hide in the closet, but I just crouched behind the chair. I didn’t have time to run.

They rushed in and surrounded Nicola. It looked like they swallowed her up.

Then she was limp, and they carried her out.

” Dana gasped. “One of them looked at me. But then she turned away and left with the others.”

“Do you have any idea who they were or where they might have taken her?”

Dana shook her head.

Kenna sat forward in the chair, resting her forearms on her knees. “Did she seem worried about anything?” She needed Dana to think through the days before Nicola was taken. “Did she seem different or stressed more than normal?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about people in her life? Is there anyone you can think of who might have a reason to take her?”

“I don’t know who those people were!”

Kenna nodded. “I know you don’t. But pretend for a second they’re some kind of theater troupe or the whole thing was a practical joke.” She paused. “Is there anyone in Nicola’s life who might have done something like that?”

The older men she and Jax had met at that retirement home were the ones who had disposed of the mother of those abused children. Had they taken her from the hospital without anyone knowing by using the same people?

She needed to find out if they’d done this to Nicola.

Or if it was someone else entirely.

Kenna continued, “Someone like an ex-boyfriend or a current relationship? Maybe someone in her family?”

“You think it was a joke?”

“I have to ask every question, even the ones that are less likely. I need a place to start looking.”

Dana was the one who had seen it happen, and they’d left her alone. So, they didn’t consider her a threat. Or she was irrelevant.

Did this Doctor Buzard guy have a terrifying staff who kidnapped people?

And what did he want with Nicola?

“Is there anyone in her life who might have done this, whether with evil intentions or as a joke?”

Dana sucked in a choppy breath. “I don’t think so. Not even her family.”

“Is there anything else you can think of that might help me find her?”

She shook her head. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Kenna said. “You’ve helped. Probably more than you know. Okay?”

She seemed reassured by that.

Kenna chatted for another minute, then wished her all the best and left her to her peace.

She found Jax in the hallway speaking with a doctor.

The guy had a kind face, but she didn’t trust places like this.

There was too much in Kenna’s past that had put her mental health on a knife-edge.

She could easily have ended up confined to a facility, unable to regulate her fears or come to terms with the loss she’d suffered.

There but for the grace of God.

It was absolutely true. She wasn’t ever going to take her peace, or her freedom, for granted. Not when things could so easily have gone the other way.

The grace of God had her where she was.

At the same time, the grace of God might be the reason Dana was here.

Because this was the best place she could be.

And hopefully, the grace of God would allow Kenna to find Nicola despite the odds, allow her to take down Dominatus and do so with minimal collateral damage.

She had to rely on the Lord because there was no way she could do this on her own. Even with a team behind her.

Kenna’s dislike of feeling trapped was her deal. She wouldn’t project that fear onto someone else. The kind of person who might need a situation exactly like this in order to feel as if they were in control.

“Thanks.” Jax turned from the doctor and walked toward her, making a face. Apparently, there wasn’t much that the doctor had said, even if Jax had thanked him. Seemed like it was more of Thanks for nothing .

He stopped in front of her.

“It might be a serious long shot, but we need to see if anyone caught Nicola’s kidnapping on camera.” With the perpetrators wearing masks, they might not learn anything useful if they did manage to find evidence, but they had to at least try. “I think this doctor guy took her.”

Whatever he wanted her for, it wasn’t going to be good.

Kenna needed to find her.

And fast.