A t-shirt in her drawer at home: Don’t hate me because I’m smart. You need all the brain cells you’ve got just to breathe.
Daphne lay on the cot, staring at the ceiling. Not the stained popcorn stucco of her apartment or the lovely cell at the police station. Nope.
I am in the loony bin.
The detective in charge thought it best she be placed under observation because she was obviously crazy.
Azrael didn’t exist. He couldn’t because then she’d have to figure out how he escaped through a window too high to jump out of. Since that just wasn’t possible, it meant she’d imagined him.
Maybe she was in the right place. She needed help. Something must be wrong with her to imagine a fake guy she’d made out with. If he didn’t exist, did that make her hot and heavy kissing masturbation?
It has to be drugs. Or a brain tumor. She should get them to scan her head, make sure—
Click. Clank. The door to her room wrenched opened, and Owen, the male orderly, entered barking, “Get up, Daphne. You’ve got a visitor.” He appeared in the same fine mood as earlier when the cops drove her over and marched her in. “You do know the hockey game is on tonight,” he’d complained then.
“Do the paperwork later,” suggested one of police officers. “We already signed off, so just fill in the blanks.”
Owen had sighed. “Fine.” He’d showed his displeasure by the way he didn’t really process her. She didn’t even get a change of clothes, just a thin blanket and a snapped, “If you cause trouble, I will sedate your ass.”
His bedside manner actually helped her hold back the tears. Being angry at this jerk made it easier to not fall into despair.
How had she gone from having the best day of her life to looking at jail time? And now, she couldn’t even mope in her uncomfortable cot because Owen had decided to return and yell some more.
“Move it.” He grabbed for her arm, and she found herself rudely yanked out of bed.
“Why? Where are we going?” She had a sudden vain hope that they finally realized their mistake and were setting her free.
“Visitor.”
“Who is it? I don’t suppose I could get a change of clothes, maybe a toothbrush.” A time like this and she found herself glancing at her bare feet, knowing her hair was a nest. She needed a shower something fierce. Her skin practically crawled.
“Do you want to see them or not?” Apparently it wasn’t a question, as she was half dragged down a hall and through some locked doors.
She tried to ask questions along the way. “Who came to see me? Is it my lawyer?” Because she’d yet to see one. They kept saying a public defender would be assigned. She was still waiting when they bundled her off for a psychiatric evaluation, claiming they needed to check her mental state.
With good reason. She sounded loony tunes. A smoky man in a suit and a guy with a cloak who could climb out of a fifth-story window and put people to sleep? Completely off her rocker and in need of meds. It didn’t help that the cameras that should have been recording inside the museum glitched the moment before the smoke attack. The last thing they had on video was her handling the artifacts.
It was only her word Azrael even existed. With Frank still missing and her the last to see him… Even she could see how the circumstantial evidence stacked to make her look guilty.
“You’ll find out who it is in a second.” The meaty grip didn’t loosen until they entered a large room set with round tables and light plastic chairs with tennis balls on the feet. Cubby-style cases lined the window, filled with game boxes and puzzles.
A woman stood at the window with hands tucked behind her back, her long gray jacket cinched at the waist, her hair perfectly coiffed.
The orderly shoved Daphne away from him and left, slamming the door shut. Click. It locked. Leaving her alone with the woman.
The woman turned to eye her, but before Daphne could say anything, a voice from behind exclaimed, “Shit, she looks just like a librarian.”
“Excuse me?” Daphne mumbled, turning around to see a second, younger woman.
“Well minus the proper pants. Blouse. Cardigan. Missing some proper shoes and glasses, too, but other than that, you totally look like you should be working for a library.”
“Museum, actually,” Daphne said.
“Same thing. They both have stuff that tells stories.” The young woman rocked a pixie shag and ripped-up jeans paired with a cropped top. “I’m Babette. And this is—"
“None of her business. Before you start babbling, perhaps we should ascertain we have the correct person.” The elegantly coiffed woman eyed her. “State your name.”
“You’re not my lawyer.” Daphne said.
“No. But I can get you out of here, if you are who I’m looking for. So let’s try this again. Who are you?”
It was Babette who snorted. “Seriously, Yolanda? You can tell who she is because she’s the spitting image of her employee ID and the whole reason we’re here.”
The woman called Yolanda made a disparaging noise. “What if she has a twin?”
“Her file states she’s an only child.”
Daphne was confused. “Who are you? And why are you here?” And why did they have a file on her?
“Who we are isn’t important,” said by a terse Yolanda. “Were you the person working at the museum last night? The one in charge of unpacking the Lost Lake Collection.” The stupid name the media gave the artifacts.
She nodded. “But I didn’t do anything.”
“Never said you did.” Yolanda took a step toward Daphne. “You were there when the dagger went missing?”
“Yes. But I wasn’t alone.”
“Who else was there?” prodded the elegant woman.
Daphne almost blurted it out. How a smoky man and a guy in hot leather pants showed up in the museum. Could hear the crazy in it.
She’d never get out of here if she kept to that story. “No one was with me.”
“The police report says you claimed there were two other people,” Babette declared, holding out her phone and an image with lots of tiny writing.
“It’s possible I imagined them.”
“Let’s say you didn’t hallucinate. Let’s say they actually existed. What did they look like? Can you tell us what they said?”
The older woman sounded reasonable. Was this some kind of trick? Maybe she was a doctor, doing a snap assessment on her mental state.
Daphne chewed her lip, debating how to reply. Lie or tell the truth?
Babette answered before she could decide. “Would it help if we said we believe you?”
“No one else does.” It might have emerged a tad sulky.
“Not entirely their fault. Your story is flimsy, especially without proof those men existed. It would have helped your case if we’d not borrowed the video footage that proved your story,” Yolanda blithely admitted.
“What? You mean to say Azrael and Smoky Man really existed? Then why am I in the nuthouse?” she exclaimed hotly.
Babette shrugged. “Sorry. Not sorry. We needed it more than the cops did.”
“They think I’m crazy. They’ve got me in a tiny cell of a room without even a shower.”