Never Fear - The Tarot: Do You Really Want To Know? Read online

  Oh… my… god. Was he a patient too? I waited several minutes to have him turn back, but he wasn’t budging and no one else miraculously appeared, so I turned around, grabbed my suitcase and started to say. “Is there an elev...?” Never mind, I thought. I’d take the stairs. This place gave me the creeps, and I was going to call Fabio and give him a piece of my mind as soon as I got cell reception.

  If I got reception.

  But no way would I confine myself in some old, rickety elevator in this facility.

  *

  My room was rather New Englandy quaint. It overlooked a few overgrown gardens, but further in the distance I could see the water. I opened the window and inhaled to replenish my serotonin. After that bizarre arrival, I needed it. Several people walked in the dilapidated gardens, and I thought it a shame that no one kept up the flowers and bushes. Several men in navy scrubs where out there too, so they must be staff.

  I stuck my head back into the room, which had a brass bed, a real old one, and a twin, no less, a small rocking chair with a side table holding a candle. Geez. I thought that’s dangerous in a place like this, but looking closer saw it was a fake battery one. Somehow that made me feel better even if an odd thing for this old decor.

  One would expect chipped paint on the walls, but the coat appeared rather fresh, although a drab gray. If I was a superstitious person, I’d think this place haunted. Instead, I said a few prayers to St.

  Theresa and a back-up “Hail Mary.” Couldn’t hurt. The breeze from the water filled the room, so I sat in the rocker—without a soft cushion I might add—and started to look through the file Fabio had given me and the one from, well, Kirk.

  Someone was sending bills to Atlas New England Insurance Company from here. Didn’t seem any big deal, until I looked at photo copies of the bills.

  Nineteen fifty seven.

  I held the bill closer to the light, although I’d never had vision problems. Sure enough, all the copies had dates back before I was born. Back before my mother was born! How odd and why would Fabio give me these? Was I supposed to solve some case that was over sixty years ago?

  These patients were probably not here any longer or they would have passed away by now.

  My head pounded, so I decided to take a walk and clear my thoughts. I grabbed my cell to try to get service outside, although the way things were going, I wasn’t too hopeful.

  I took the gigantic key from my purse, left the purse on the bed and tucked the cell into my pocket. Once outside the door, I shut and manually locked it. Oh, how very old fashioned. Down the hallway I started to turn toward the stairs but heard a shuffling, a bang, and saw the doctor in the blue suit run out of a room.

  “Hey! You okay?” I shouted and ran toward the room.

  Room 120.

  I looked in the doorway to see Kirk, sleeping on the treatment table, no one else in the room. A tongue depressor sat on the stand nearby and a syringe. Oh, dear. What had they pumped into poor Kirk, and where was a staff member?

  With his hands and feet restrained, Kirk looked safe enough from falling as he snored softly, so I went to the door.

  Down the end of the hallway after the staircase, was that doctor. Facing me, but not moving.

  “Hey, sir! Doctor!” I hurried toward him.

  He didn’t budge.

  Since I didn’t see him up close and personal, I hadn’t noticed before, but his eyes were rather glassy when he looked at me. No, through me. He stood still, staring, then turned, and over his shoulder said, “Only concern yourself with the lovers, Pauline. The lovers.”

  “What the heck does that mean?” I yelled after him, but he kept going, and soon, as if he just disappeared, I could no longer see him. Of course, he hadn’t just disappeared, however, the hallway was long and dark and had several doors off of it. As I got closer, I noticed all were closed. He must have sneaked into one, but I wasn’t about to open any doors in this place unless it was part of my job.

  My job.

  Geez, I had no idea what I was supposed to do or when.

  “The lovers,” came from nowhere in a rather deep, scratchy voice.

  I swung around but that didn’t sound like that doctor or John, and I could hear Keith still snoring away in the distance. Chills ran up my spine in the humid air. I hugged my arms around myself and said, “Damn.” Knowing I should go back to my room and read more about this case, I couldn’t help myself, so I walked further down the hallway—away from my room.

  You have no business sneaking around, Pauline, I thought, however, I had to keep going. Guess my investigator juices were flowing. When I got to the end of the hallway, there was a door. Not just any door. It was so institutional, with a frosted glass window and lettering that had withered and faded with age.

  Thirteen.

  I could make out a thirteen. How corny. Above the number was the word “Ward.” So that door led to Ward 13. Corny, yes, but enticing nevertheless. I had my phone with me, so I’d take some pictures to, perhaps, use on this case. Not much made sense around here, so I reached for the handle and turned it downward. With a click and a squeak as I pushed the door open, I felt a rush of cold—really cold—air, smack me in the face. Who would have thought part of this old place was air conditioned?

  When I stepped through the doorway, the air smothered me in humidity. Hm. I was guessing it wasn’t air conditioned at all. Very dark, except for the light through the extremely dirty windows, I took out my phone to use as a flashlight. I slid my finger across the bar on the phone, pressed the flashlight symbol, and suddenly regretted doing that.

  As if I’d stepped back in time, the furniture in the room looked like it was from the fifties. Much like my mother’s nostalgic house. But Stella Sokol’s house always had a warm, cozy feeling with delicious food aromas. This place was hot, humid and confusingly cold feeling. The furniture was filled with cracks in the vinyl, holes in the carpet and scratches in the woodwork of the doors and tops of the tables, as if someone had tried to scratch messages into them. Patients? The aroma was certainly not food but more medicinal. Institutional, if that could explain a scent. I held my phone up to see farther into the room.

  The doctor stood in front of a distant window.

  “Hello. I seemed to have lost my way.”

  As I cautiously walked forward, I realized it wasn’t a figure of a man but the gentlest of breezes that had the worn blue curtains spinning upon itself to trick my mind. “Oh.” I had to either find my way back or go out of one of the side doors that, hopefully, led to the courtyard where I might find a staff member.

  This place gave me the creeps, and the worse part was how empty it was.

  So far I’d only seen two patients here: Kirk and the lady in white on the stairway. It hadn’t been that many years since I worked in a hospital, and no unit at Saint Gregory’s was ever empty. Mental health has made leaps and bounds over the years, so many patients were treated as out-patients, but there still were a number of institutions with the more severe cases. Why would they need my help here if there weren’t hardly any patients? Wait. There were several outside my bedroom window that I’d forgotten about, but still not many for a place this size.

  Amity by the Sea was making me feel nuts, and I was a logical person. Nothing logical about this ward, the doctor, poor Kirk or a slew of oddities around here. Enough. I had to get back to my room and some sanity. I turned to go back to the door that I’d come through, and it was then I heard a scream.

  “Help!” a female voice cried out. “Please!”

  Damn. My Catholic-school-induced conscience would never allow me to walk away from helping someone, nor would my years of being a nurse. “Yes? Hello!”

  Silence.

  I ran toward where I thought the sound came from. Of course, the way things were going, maybe I imagined the voice. “Is someone there?” Three corridors came off the main room I’d landed myself in, so I turned toward the one on the right. That had to be where the person was. “I can help you if
you tell me where you are!” I shouted.

  This time the voice came out considerably weakened. “Help.” A deep sigh followed. “Here.

  Here.”

  “Okay. I hear you. Bang something so I can follow the sound.”

  Clang. Clang.

  It came from the last room at the end of the hallway. I had a pretty good sense of direction and realized that was the room that I thought I saw someone in earlier. I’d managed to get myself into the older, more dilapidated building when I came through the door. Before me, the hallway ended with an Exit sign and probably a fire escape. I hurried into the room.

  A beautiful, and by beautiful I meant creamy white skin, black hair piled high in a bun and dressed in a white johnny coat, yet looking at if she were in the nineteen-fifties, woman lay on the bed—in restraints much like Kirk’s.

  “Oh.” I came closer to her. “I am a nurse, but don’t think I should undo the restraints until I talk to a staff member—”

  If I thought the doc’s eyes looked through me, this gal’s burned into me.

  I reached out to touch her, but before I could… a card fell from her hand onto the floor.

  “I’ll get that for you.” I reached to pick it up, and when I stood, she was gone. Gone.

  I never heard a sound. And the restraints were gone too. Someone was trying to fool me. Or scare me.

  I turned and ran to the exit door, pushed the door till it creaked on its hinges, and I flew down to the last stair of the fire escape, which was several feet from the ground. “Oh, hell!” I jumped, landed on my feet and ran toward what I thought was the courtyard.

  My sense of direction was correct. The courtyard lay ahead, but no one was around, so I flopped onto the closest bench and tried to breathe slower. Then I fell back, shut my eyes for a second and let out a gigantic sigh. I needed to find my way back to my room, pack my bags and get the hell out of Amity. With that plan in mind, I looked at the card still in my hand. Much larger than a playing card, it was rather worn, but I held it out to the sunlight to see two naked figures, male and female, with what looked like some angel behind. The label on the bottom read: The Lovers.

  On the top of the card, in a very female handwriting was written, My Lover. And that made my heart skip a few beats.

  *

  Taking slow, deep breaths till my heart beat in a regular sinus rhythm, I stayed out in the open and out of the buildings, and pulled my cell from my pocket. Damn. I hadn’t taken any pictures, but then again, I was fleeing for my life. Or, at least, my own mental health. Only two bars on my phone. I put Jagger’s name into contacts and pressed the green button until it became red and shut my eyes. “Please answer. Please, Jagger.” But nothing. I waited to leave a message, but the phone conked out before I could. Damn again. I tried to text and that didn’t work either. So, I got up, walked away from the water and tried the office. If anyone knew where Jagger was, it would be Adele. No answer, and again, as if someone had control over my phone, the reception died.

  I made my way around the buildings to the front door, since I was familiar with how to get to my room from there. If I had my purse and car keys, I think I would have high-tailed it to my car and peeled out of the weed-infested driveway to get back to the safety of Hope Valley.

  Yanking the huge door open with little difficulty, I assumed my adrenaline was pumping from my “fight or flight” response to this place. I had no intention of fighting. Flight was my first choice.

  John was behind the desk. Great. I’d have to explain to him that I needed to leave.

  When I walked closer, he turned around. He’d been reading a paperback novel and had a stack of five or six in front of him. Good for him. He looked up and said, “They have been waiting for you.”

  If “they” were all the ghostly weirdos I’d run into already, I was about to tell him they could go jump in the sound. I was leaving. But curiosity and logic got the best of me. “They?”

  He turned toward the back table, rifled around with some papers, then turned back only to hand me one—that was blank.

  Oh… my… god.

  “I don’t see anything on this.” Yes, I felt stupid saying that, but it kept getting weirder and weirder around here, so stating the obvious was logical to me right now. “Nothing. Look.” I held it out toward him.

  “Room 213.” He turned his back toward me.

  I knew he wouldn’t answer anything so I turned toward the stairs. As I walked up, they creaked as if I’d fall through any second. Nothing would surprise me. It bothered me and yes, made me curious and curiouser to know what John meant by “they.” Guess I’d find out in Room 213, but what the heck floor was that on?

  Maybe I’d stick around a bit more and try to find out more about the insurance fraud. Since John seemed the most normal of anyone I’d met, he kind of gave me a false sense of security. Okay, I’d give it a shot. I stopped mid-stairs, leaned over the railing and asked rather loudly, “What floor is that on, John?”

  “The one you just left.”

  Gulp. He knew I’d ventured into the other building, but how? Maybe they had a system of cameras around here? Would make sense, except that I never saw a camera on the ceilings nor did I see monitors near John’s desk.

  I turned toward the stairs and walked slowly to the top. I figured I would need my strength if I ended up in some weird time warp as I had before. But John said they were waiting for me, and he was certainly real.

  I think.

  *

  I managed to make my way through to Ward 13. A nurse sat at the desk this time. She actually wore nurse’s whites, a cap, and if I could see her feet, I’m sure she had old Clinic White Nurse’s shoes on! Oh well, to each her own. It did make her look more professional than scrubs and clogs.

  Those were the days. “Hello, I’m Pauline, the new nurse.”

  “Room 213.” She quickly bent her head to the left and back upright.

  Okay. I guess that was down the corridor on the left. A few patients sat in the chairs of the common area this time, watching TV. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The TV was tiny and the picture in black and white. They didn’t seem to mind, though, as they just sat staring. Sad, I thought. How very sad when one’s mind goes. Mental health was a difficult field. How much easier to treat people with stomach or heart or muscle problems. But not the mind. Much more difficult, and it seemed, when one’s mind became lost, it was very difficult to get them back to reality—if they ever could.

  I looked at the top of the doors to see the numbers and found myself at Room 212. Then the hallway ended. Strange. I was certain she meant this corridor. I started to turn around and noticed a very tiny sign above a doorway. Two hundred thirteen. It must have been through the doorway. I opened the door only to see a set of stairs. Great. I held onto the railing and walked down. This place now had creeped me out so much that I feared I’d do a nosedive down if I wasn’t holding on.

  At the bottom of the stairs, I froze. Ahead of me was a long tunnel. I’d walked down below the ground level and the tunnel had no windows. But on the side wall was 2-1-3, with an arrow pointing—toward the tunnel.

  Pauline Sokol was no fool. Pauline Sokol was an investigator, and if she doesn’t do her job, thousands suffered with higher insurance premiums because of all the fraud. I have to help, I thought after that little pep talk. For a few seconds, I stood staring down the tunnel, felt my phone in my pocket. If nothing else, I could use it as a weapon. Maybe. Then, suddenly a figure walked down at the other end.

  “Oh, hey! Can you help me find Room 213?” I ran forward, but the figure, a woman in a johnny coat again, walked away from me. “Damn it.” Hurrying faster, I got to the end of the tunnel, and naturally, another door. I never saw the figure leave through the door, but she was gone, so that had to be where she went. “I feel like damn Alice in Wonderland,” I mumbled.

  I opened the door and stood, shocked.

  Not only was Room 213 probably in here, but first, it was also another common are
a. No nurses or other staff were around, and this time, no patients either. The décor was similar to the one upstairs, aquamarine vinyl chairs and couches, purple walls with black trim. Yikes. Suddenly I remembered one of the nuns back in Catholic grammar school telling us that if kids wore purple and black, that was a sign of mental illness. I chuckled. I’m sure the nun said that so we’d be glad to wear our gray plaid uniforms.

  I heard a woman yell out again. Oh, dear. She kind of sounded like the one I saw, or thought I saw this morning. I touched my pocket. I still had her Tarot card in my pocket. I guessed she’d want it back, so I followed the voice and turned into what looked like a treatment room.

  She stood there, this time her bun was undone to reveal long, flowing dark hair. Her patient gown was much longer when she stood, and a gentle sea breeze blew it and her hair in a very sensuous way. No wonder. I could see she held the hand of a man who lay on the treatment table.

  I hoped they hadn’t overly medicated him.

  The woman sang softly into his ear. Maybe he was her lover.

  How sweet. I couldn’t see past her, though, to see if he were awake or zonked out, like I’d found poor Kirk. “Excuse me,” I said as softly as I could. I stepped forward but didn’t want to startle her with my touch, so I repeated, “Excuse me.”

  She swung around, glared at me until I shivered, and ran past me. No, she kind of floated past me, but at warp speed! In her haste, I had been spun around as if the ocean breeze had turned into hurricane force winds. “Geez!”

  I swung back around and walked toward the bed—then froze. “Ja… Jagger?”

  *

  It couldn’t be! What would Jagger be doing in this lunatic bin? Now I decided that term was truly appropriate. I tried to shake him. He had been drugged, and hopefully, not received electric shock therapy. I cringed at the thought. I bent toward his ear. “Jagger. It’s me, Pauline. You know, Sherlock?” He’d given me that endearing term way back when we worked cases together, but back then I’m not sure it was endearing. I reached out to touch his shoulder for a gentle shake.