Psychic Visions 08-Now You See Her... (23 page)

She’d made it this far. She could do this.

What did companies do with buildings that had served their time and had their day? Did they bulldoze them to the ground? Sell them off for property value? Someone had to pay the taxes on these places.

As long as this particular lab never was a fully functioning prison again, she’d be fine with it.

With Dean trailing behind she headed to the door. Off to the side she read the small sign. Psyche Laboratories. She didn’t remember that at all.

In her mind, she could see herself entering this building so long ago. Twice. She’d not looked back when she’d escaped the second time. Not until today.

The knob turned under her hand. She frowned. “Shouldn’t this be locked?”

“Not if there’s nothing inside. Think about it, if there is something inside and people want to know what’s inside, they will break a window or break down the door to find out. If you don’t lock anything and they can walk through and see it’s empty then they can’t cause major damage in the process.”

“I suppose.” The open doorway yawned in front of her. She winced. “I never thought I’d see a day where I’d willingly step back inside this place.”

“That just goes to show that you couldn’t imagine such a positive future.” He pushed the door open wider and stepped around her. “Let’s go. We could be home in an hour.”

That brightened her spirits. She wasn’t still a prisoner here. Life had changed for her. She could walk back out again.

She stepped inside then turned and looked back. Deliberately, she walked back out. She turned, a grin on her face and explained to a very confused Dean. “I was just proving to myself I could leave. That I wasn’t going to be locked up again.”

Understanding lit his face. “No worries there. I’d never let that happen to you.”

She studied his face, and for the first time in a long time she realized – she was alone no longer.

*

Such a simple
movement. She’d entered and left to prove she could. He was only just realizing how much pain and fear she’d had to overcome to be here. That she’d entered on her own was fantastic. Now to make a quick search to prove to her that the place truly was empty, that there’d be no answers to find here and then they could go home. He had pizza on his mind. Maybe a couple of beers and her.

Maybe, just maybe, he’d manage to get her back into his bed.

This time for a whole different reason.

But first he had to get her through this. And if there was information to find, they needed to find it. Jones was doing his level best to dig up the information on this property, but the corporation that held the title, a biomedical company, hadn’t used it for years. They were holding onto the property until the area regained some of the value it lost when the economy crunched. It had recovered slightly but not enough to make it worthwhile to sell. The property was derelict and the building deserted.

Dean knew that.

But convincing Tia was a whole different story.

S
he walked slowly
down the hallway, wondering at the reception room that sat securely behind walls with just a glass window that opened and closed to allow communication between both parties. She didn’t remember that part. She didn’t remember the institutional white, the long stretch of uncompromising entrance. Doorways that played off from side to side. But she did remember that bank of scary elevators. She knew they went both up and down. God help her. She’d taken them in both directions many times.

“I suppose the offices would have the most promise?” Dean asked.

“Maybe. We certainly need to check.” But inside she knew it wasn’t where they’d find the stuff she was looking for. She couldn’t take her mind off the elevator. Even in the semi-darkness it had enough power to gleam in the weird light. A beacon.

Painfully she ripped her gaze away to watch what Dean was doing. He’d gone into each room and systematically searched the offices as he came to them. Six doors down he popped back out again and said, “Everything is empty.”

She nodded and walked to the elevator. She stared at it. It had frequented her nightmares for a long time. Even though it was old and likely broken it still had power over her subconscious.

“This is a big old thing,” Dean remarked, pounding his hand lightly on the metal front. The noise gave a dull throb that echoed downward. “Is there a downstairs to this place?”

“Several,” she said painfully. “First I want to go upstairs.” She turned to the stairs and started climbing, wondering at her impulse to see her old room. The window she’d stared out of for years, hoping, wishing for a better life.

She kept climbing, Dean silent at her side.

At the third floor, she opened the door and walked out. She studied the long hallway and realized it was still the same dingy color as before. There weren’t as many doors here. She turned left and headed to the third one down. She stood in front of the door, slightly ajar and took a deep breath. She pushed it open.

Beside her, Dean gasped.

Her old bed still sat there. Steel frame that she’d been tied to when she’d misbehaved. The window with the bars that had been attached when she’d threatened to jump out and end her life – and his research.

The lack of personal effects because she wasn’t allowed anything to remind her of the family she no longer had.

She shook her head, releasing the memories and forced herself to look around with a detached mindset.

“I wonder if anyone else stayed in this room after I left.”

“Does it still look the same?” he asked, a banked rage in his voice.

She nodded. “Exactly the same.”

“Then likely not.”

“Good.” She did a quick search, including the closet, found it empty and turned back to the hallway.

“Do you want to check the other rooms up here,” he asked quickly. She spared a glance his way, realizing he was being patient and strong at her side. Letting her do what she needed to do when she needed to do it.

She appreciated that about him. “Thank you, but no. This floor was empty for most of the time I was here.”

He started. “Why?”

“Who knows? They certainly had the space. Maybe it was punishment for me. More isolation.” She shrugged. “At the end, Wilhelm wasn’t the most rational.”

“Jesus.”

Back at the stairwell, she took one last look down the hall then walked down the steps forever. At the main floor she kept going. There were two more floors below. She went down to the first one and opened the door – or tried to. It was locked.

“Oh, this is promising.” He stepped in front of her and did something with his hand. Before she could figure out what it was the door opened. Surprised, she walked through and stopped. To the right were the treatment rooms, but in front of her was the glass wall to the observation room.

“What went on here,” Dean asked in a hard voice. He reached out and rapped the glass wall. “Not glass.”

“Supposed to be something unbreakable.” She shrugged, her gaze lost in the room she’d spent days in. But he wasn’t there anymore. She could leave now. Dean had helped set her free – at least in her mind. She turned to Wilhelm’s office. The first door on the right – where he could see her in the observation room.

Bastard.

*

Dean stared at
the layout. This most auspicious room with its walls of glass had likely belonged to Wilhelm. The asshole could sit there all day and watch those imprisoned in the observation room. In one way that was likely a good thing. It was an observation room. However, in another way – it was really creepy.

“How often were you in here?” he asked, absently noting the bathroom with only part walls offering the barest of privacy. He couldn’t imagine how that lack had affected a traumatized young girl.

“Sometimes daily, sometimes only monthly. Depended who else he had to pick on at that time,” she said, her voice hard, cold. “When he was bored, I was his favorite pet.”

She turned and walked to his office door and pushed it open. “There could be stuff in here, but if not he had a warehouse downstairs where he kept the old stuff.”

The room, he could see from over her head was a little less empty than upstairs. There was a scarred desk in the center and an office chair turned on its side. A couple of papers lay crumpled on the floor with footsteps crushing them flat. It had been deserted a long time ago. The only windows were to the hallway. No filing cabinet and no closet. It was dismal.

“Next,” he said. “Where else do you want to look?”

But she’d wandered over to the desk, straightening up the chair. An odd look on her face. She sat down in the chair and pulled it to Wilhelm’s desk. There she stared out at whatever he’d stared at all the time she’d been here.

“Are you okay?”

She lifted her head and smiled. “I am.” She motioned to the desk in front of her. “I spent a lot of time wondering what he saw when he sat here and watched me. Now that I’m in this same place…” She shook her head and stood up. “It’s all so crazy. And foolish.” She walked out the door adding, “And a long time ago.”

He watched her give the observation room one more brief look then turn her back on it and walk purposefully back to the stairs. He followed. She had a goal.

All he could do was see she reached it.

T
he file storage,
or the warehouse as Wilhelm called it, was downstairs in one of the locked rooms. Wilhelm had originally had a partner, but they’d parted ways a long time ago. He’d hung onto the other man’s research just in case he came back. He’d often told them that one day he’d be famous, but his partner wouldn’t because he hadn’t believed in him anymore.

She wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’d done something to his partner. No, that wasn’t Wilhelm, but that the partner never came back had to mean something. Still, as her doctor, he’d had a ton of power over her and she hadn’t had a choice while young. Now…

He was dead and life wasn’t fair but at least she was out of that hellhole.

Dean kept up beside her as she strode down to the next level. She’d escaped through here the first time but knew the other patients and some of the staff were scared of this area.