Chapter 45
“D on’t come near me, Will. I mean it.”
Will’s eyes look like dark hollows in the dim moonlight. Despite my warning, he takes a step toward me. I take a step back and stumble into the bathroom door.
“Will…” I say. “What did you do to her? What did you do to Mary?”
He stops abruptly. Looks over at Mary’s bed and frowns. “What did I do? What are you talking about? What do you think I did exactly?”
“I have no idea.” My voice is a hoarse gasp. “You obviously did something to Mary. And… and Cameron… and Miguel…”
“Me?” He clutches his chest. “Are you serious? I came here to talk to you because I don’t know what the hell is going on. Why would you think I did this?”
He takes another step forward and I slide along the wall toward the window. Not that I’m escaping from a window on the ninth floor, but it somehow makes me feel more secure. “I know everything, Will.”
“Everything?” He shoots me a baffled look. “What do you know? I don’t understand.” He frowns at my trembling hands. “Would you just relax? I’m not here to hurt you, for Christ’s sake.”
Yeah, right. “I know about you and Jade. That she’s your girlfriend. You lied to me.”
His jaw looks like it’s about to become unhinged. “Me and Jade ? You mean that psycho chick in 905? You think she’s my girlfriend ?”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not!” He lays a hand on his heart. “I swear on my life that Jade is not my girlfriend. I hardly even know her!”
“Is that why she had her hand on your shoulder when we were in the hallway before?”
He frowns. “She looked upset about Mary. What was I supposed to do? Push her away?”
“And I saw you disappear into her room…”
“I assure you,” he says, “that never happened. Jade is… She’s somebody to stay away from. So that’s what I’ve been doing. I don’t even know her last name. I swear.”
Will’s eyes are wide and earnest behind his glasses. He actually looks like he’s telling the truth.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just very hard to believe you after you lied about those pills. I mean, you haven’t taken any of the antipsychotics you’ve been prescribed. How can I trust you?”
“Look, I didn’t take those pills because I don’t need them.”
“Oh really? You think you don’t need any treatment for hearing voices?”
“No, I don’t,” he says firmly. “Because… I don’t hear voices.”
I snort. “I see. So they just went away on their own, is that it?”
“No, I…” He licks his lips as he takes a breath, carefully measuring his next words. “They never went away because I never heard them in the first place. I was never hearing voices. I… I lied about it.”
Okay. This is the absolute last thing I expected him to say. “Excuse me?”
“I lied, okay?” He scratches at his stubble. “I read a bunch of stuff about how a paranoid schizophrenic is supposed to act, then I went to the emergency room and read the script. And they put me here.”
I stare at him. “Why on earth would you do something like that? Are you out of your mind?”
“No, I’m not . That’s the whole point.” He drops his voice so I have to strain to hear.
“So here’s the thing. I’m not an Uber driver.
I’m a reporter. This former patient of Ward D came to me with this story about how he felt patients were mistreated here.
But, you know, it’s hard to get a straight story out of a lot of the patients here, and I didn’t want to print a bunch of patient hallucinations.
So I thought the best way to get my story would be to experience it firsthand. ”
I open my mouth, but I don’t even know what to say. He lied about being a paranoid schizophrenic? That’s pretty… I don’t even have words for it.
“In a few days, I was planning to say the voices went away,” he says. “Like I took some illegal drug and that triggered it, and now I’m fine. That was my plan, anyway. But it’s not working out like I thought it would.”
“Gee, you think?”
“Even before tonight, I had some issues to write about.” He looks back at the door to Mary’s room, still shut tight.
“The seclusion rooms here… I don’t know how ethical any of that is.
They should at least have windows on the doors so staff can check on them regularly.
I didn’t see it happen, but you should’ve heard that Damon Sawyer guy screaming his head off when they locked him in there.
And Miguel was screaming to get out too… At least, until…”
I study his features in the moonlight. Can I believe anything he’s telling me? It seems like such a crazy story. Who would pretend to be hearing voices, just to get a news story?
“I didn’t want to tell anyone the truth about me, obviously,” Will says. “But enough is enough. Between Cameron disappearing and that blood on the floor and now Mary…” His shoulders heave. “And, well, you’re the only person here that I trust.”
“I wish I could say the same,” I mumble.
“I know, I know.” He sighs. “I wish we had internet access, because I could look it up for you and prove who I am. Will Schoenfeld. I write for The Daily Chronicle . I’ve been there for two years. My dream is to work for The New York Times , but you don’t get there by doing fluff pieces.”
“You do it by pretending to have schizophrenia?”
He sinks onto the bed. “Obviously, I wish I hadn’t done that. And I’m paying for it right now. Amy, you have to know that something really bad is happening right now on Ward D.”
He’s right about that part. Something terrible is going on here tonight. I have no idea what it is, but I’m starting to be seriously worried that I might not make it through the night here. I’m not sure Cameron has.
“You don’t trust Ramona?” I ask.
“Absolutely not. I mean, strawberry jelly ? We both know that was blood on the floor.”
He’s right. Out of everyone I have spoken to, he’s the only one who is willing to concede that the blood wasn’t a hallucination. “What about Dr. Beck?”
He hesitates. “I’m not sure. But either way, he doesn’t believe anything is amiss here tonight. So he’s not helping the situation.”
“So suppose I do decide to believe you,” I say. “What do we do about it?”
“Here’s what we need to do.” The whites of his eyes glow in the moonlight. “We survive the night.”