A Night at the Asylum (5 page)

“Do you need a ride home?” he asked.

“No,” I snapped. That would be the worst idea
ever.

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and
dialed the only person I knew who would pick me up at two o’clock
in the morning from the police station and not tell my parents. Ten
minutes later a little blue PT Cruiser pulled up and a girl with
dark bouncy ringlets waved to me from the driver’s seat.

Sometimes you had to put your trust in the
nutty granddaughters of the bible-thumping old ladies of the
world.

“Hey Jamie,” I said, climbing into the
passenger side.

****

Three O’Clock

Soft music played on the radio as we pulled
out of the police station parking lot. The stress of the last few
hours had peaked and was now poised to leave my body. Soon I would
be home where I longed to be, where there would be silence, sweet
silence. As the subtle smell of pineapple air-freshener and the
warmth and gentle rocking of the car almost lulled me to sleep, I
remained blissfully unaware of our departure from the road. In
fact, I was dead to the world until a fistful of knuckles clobbered
my arm and I was confronted with Jamie’s infuriated stare.

“Ow!” I squealed. “What the hell was that
for?”

“What do you think it was for?!” Jamie
shouted, her quivering curls coming alive around her face. “I get a
call in the middle of the night to pick you up at the
police
station
and you’re not even going to tell me
why?!”

“Jesus!” I screamed. “Don’t have a stroke! I
was going to!” I glared at her and rubbed my wounded shoulder, then
yanked off my jacket. The interior of the car was suddenly too
warm, and I wanted to see if she’d left a bruise, so I’d have an
excuse to kill her.

“Well?!” she shrieked.

“Okay!” Damn but she was demanding. “I
just…went out for a walk…” I smirked, “and somehow ended up
here.”

Jamie was not amused. Refusing to drive the
car until I told her everything, and of course interrupting me with
questions the whole time, she compelled me to confess. I started
with the dream, because there wasn’t much point in exclusion. As an
assistant pill-pusher at the local pharmacy, Jamie subsists
primarily on caffeine and gossip, yielding an unparalleled power of
persuasion. She’d followed me around for the past year, virtually
forcing me to like her, her annoying cuteness and intense loyalty
equally unwavering. She’s like a stray dog, really. Besides, I had
no one else in which to confide my troubles. And that made Jamie my
best friend.

“And can you guess who the masked man was?” I
pocketed my cigarettes and lighter – still determined to smoke
those bastards – and tossed my jacket into her backseat, where it
landed softly in a pile of discarded Chinese food cartons. She was
waiting impatiently for me to speak again. “Emmett Sutter,” I
said.

The expected squeal, the scoff, the confused
look…none of those came. Instead she closed her eyes. “He’s in
trouble,” she whispered. A storm passed across her face; her long
lashes quivered. Seconds later it was gone, and her eyes opened.
“So was he?” she asked.

“Was he what?”

“Was he drunk?”

“No. He didn’t smell like alcohol. Probably
just high as a kite.” Dread knotted my stomach. Emmett’s words in
the car…I could not deny they were haunting me. “By the way…isn’t
insulin some sort of prescription medication?”

“Yes. It’s used to lower blood sugar when it
gets too high. You’ve never known anyone who was diabetic?” Jamie
looked incredulous. “That’s like, half the population now.”

“Sometimes I think your job at the pharmacy
is just an excuse to be in other people’s business.”

“Please. Everyone knows the national
statistics on diet-related illness.” She tilted her head to one
side. “But come on,” she said agreeably. “Of course it is.”

“Is Emmett diabetic?” Jamie worked at the
only pharmacy in town, and chances were good that the Sutters used
it.

“No,” she answered, frowning. A trace of the
storm clouding her expression a moment ago crept back into her
eyes. “But Ead is. He actually takes insulin for type one diabetes.
Sometimes hereditary, and not diet-related, as it happens,” she
murmured.

He gave me insulin
. My body felt as
though it were sinking through the floorboard of the car.

“Sara? What’s wrong?”

I gritted my teeth. “But you wouldn’t use
it…like, to get high or anything…you wouldn’t become addicted to
it, would you?”

“It doesn’t really work like that.” Jamie
said. “You know, they did insulin coma experiments on patients at
the asylum…” her voice was distant, almost inaudible.

“What?”

“Never mind.” She shook her headful of curls.
“Are you sure Emmett was high? You know he’s not into drugs, right?
I mean, he doesn’t even take pharmaceuticals. He’s…sort of
a…fanatic about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know he’s a vegan…” I looked at
her questioningly and she continued. “You know, clean
living…environmentalist…he doesn’t believe in putting anything
unnatural into his system. Ever since his mom died, he has
this…aversion…to chemicals…he doesn’t smoke or drink or anything
like that. That’s why I never fill anything for him. He won’t even
take cough syrup.”

“You found all that out from
not
filling his prescriptions?”

“No. I’ve…talked to him.” Jamie’s liquid
brown eyes held the slightest trace of guilt.

“Oh, really?” That feeling…was that a pang
of…annoyance? Frustration? Jealousy? I snorted. Still, I knew Jamie
was right. Though Emmett and I didn’t exactly run in the same
circles, I’d gone to school with him only my entire life. He was
one of those kids that was always doing animal shelter fund raisers
and volunteering at the community garden. Back then he’d seemed
like the black sheep of his family. Nice work for a future
felon…

“What is it?” Jamie asked.

“What would happen to someone if they were
given insulin and they weren’t diabetic?” Goosebumps rose on my
flesh.

“A blood sugar crash, probably…hypoglycemia,
disorientation, dizziness. And depending on what type of insulin it
is, it could persist in the blood stream for…hours. Do you think
that’s what was wrong with him?” Her eyes widened in alarm.

Roy had said Emmett had a drug problem. The
argument I’d heard in the station, and all Jamie had just told me,
seemed to suggest something different, something much more
sinister. “I don’t know.”

“You’re really worried about him.”

“He was
really
messed up.”

Jamie contemplated for a moment before
snatching her cell phone from the console. “You didn’t tell anyone
else about this, did you?” she asked, the buttons beeping as she
pressed them.

“Well, I sort of told Roy.”

“He’ll do the right thing…he just needs a
little help.”

“Huh? Jamie…what are you doing?”

She put the phone to her ear. When she spoke,
her voice was nasally, accented…unrecognizable. “Yeah, I just saw a
cop kicking the
crap
out of someone who was unconscious –
looked like an OD victim – and they were dragging him inside the
police station.” Like a ninja, she anticipated my desperate,
exasperated grab for the cell and karate chopped my arm away. “He’s
gonna need an ambulance. Caught the whole thing on my phone cam
too…can’t wait to sell it to the Journal.” Almost as an aside, she
added, “This is amazing…a police brutality story. In an election
year! So exciting.”

My hands grabbed for the cell again, but her
palm clapped over my face and she gave my head a vehement
shove.

Her drawl deepened, bordering on ridiculous.
“The victim? White male, 19 years old. Five foot nine, 150 pounds.
My name?” Instead of answering, she ended the call with an impish
grin. “Saw that on TV once,” she giggled.

“Jamie, what did you just do?!” I was reeling
in paranoia, dizzy with shock.

“I called an ambulance for Emmett,” she
answered innocently. “Oh, relax.”

“Relax? You just – what was –” My brain could
not comprehend the preposterousness that had just occurred. “What
if Brad or Roy already took him to the hospital? What if they
figure out we’re the ones that called? Caller ID, hello?! What if
this whole thing is just Emmett trying to keep himself out of
trouble?” There was still that nagging chance he’d gone rogue or
insane, abandoned his former convictions for a try at the more
literal interpretation of the word. It was hard to fathom even
someone as disgusting as Ead trying to kill his own brother. Even
if all the pieces seemed to fit…it was hard to believe.

Jamie waved her hand and rolled her eyes at
my apparent idiocy. “
None
of what you just maniacally
screamed at me is even relevant. I know what I’m doing.”

“What makes you think even if the ambulance
gets there, they’ll get past Brad? And what exactly are you selling
to the Journal?!” Half-shouting, half-crying, I was a bundle of
sleep-deprived nerves. “And why did you say police brutality?”

Jamie laughed. “The mayor is the only guy
with authority over the police commissioner, right? So he’ll make
sure the EMTs get past Brad.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“Because he thinks reporters are about to
swarm his little police station. Like you heard me say on the
phone, my dear, it’s an election year,” she repeated, grinning
triumphantly. “And the overnight dispatcher – who, by the way,
answers the anonymous tips line starting at midnight – God, I just
love small towns – just so happens to be the mayor’s wife.”

For a moment I was completely dumbstruck.
When I recovered, my voice was shriller than ever. “How the hell do
you know all this?!”

“My friend Doug is an EMT here.” She
shrugged.

My heart was pounding. I couldn’t decide if
what she’d done was the stupidest thing I’d ever witnessed or pure
genius. Of everything bad that could come of it, I only wondered
what the consequences might be for Emmett.

“Well, whether he was telling the truth or
not…at least he won’t die.” Jamie’s words were a reply to my very
private thoughts, bringing me out of my stupor. That’s one thing
about Jamie that cannot go unmentioned – her very uncanny
perceptiveness often seems to run deeper than simple
gossip-whoring.

“Seriously! Relax!” she laughed again.

Terrified as I was, a weight seemed to have
been lifted off me somehow. Gradually, my anxiety dissipated into
laughter. It bubbled out of me, easing the pressure of the crushing
paranoia. “I have to admit it…you’ve got balls.” I stated
genuinely. “I am slowly feeling my indifference toward our
friendship turn to true respect.”

“Really?” Jamie beamed. Her ringlet curls
shook giddily as she eased the car into drive and back out into the
road.

A moment later we heard the startup of the
sirens, their mournful wail reaching a crescendo as they passed on
the street behind us. I ducked down in the seat, still freaking
out, and Jamie giggled at me. I tried to not think about Emmett and
what the rest of this night would be like for him. It was best to
put it completely out of my mind. After a few minutes we were calm
again, lapsing into silence. My eyes caught the dashboard clock. It
had been nearly three hours since being awakened by the dream of my
brother, and in two more hours I had to be at my family’s
restaurant serving donuts and coffee to a bunch of toothless old
farmers who got up way too damned early.

Jamie looked over at me. “Don’t worry, I’ll
help you open the restaurant. Tell me more about your dream.”

There was that keenness again, and while
normally it didn’t faze me, tonight with my nerves so on edge, it
was strikingly obvious...not to mention aggravating.
Either
she’s really good, or my face is easy to read,
I thought.
“Nothing else happened,” I answered with a tired shrug, “just the
usual stuff. We’re sitting on the porch playing some game. I know
something bad’s going to happen but can’t make him stay.”

“How was it this time?” she asked
sympathetically.

We’d talked about this before. “Very real.
Like really being there.”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see her
staring at me. It lasted so long I inwardly questioned her ability
to stay on the road. “What if you were?” she asked.

“Oh, here we go.” We could never have a
conversation about the dreams without it devolving into an absurd
debate about the supernatural.

“What? Some people believe that dreams like
that aren’t dreams at all, they’re visitations. Maybe Tommy is
really trying to get through to you and you just don’t want to
accept it.”

“Look, don’t talk about him like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like you…like he…like it was real.” What did
she know about him? I felt unreasonably protective for a moment,
but forced myself to calm down. She meant well, even if she was
immensely irritating. I struggled to put my exasperation into
words. “He was my brother. He could tell me anything. So why come
to me in a dream? Why not right in front of my face while I’m
awake?” This whole conversation was provoking another round of
goose bumps on my arms.

“Maybe he’s tried that. Maybe you didn’t
notice.”

Now she was just being ridiculous. “No. No. I
definitely would have noticed.”

“And by the way,
you
shouldn’t talk
about him like
that
.”

“Like what?”

“You said
was
. You shouldn’t say he
was
your brother. He still is.”

In spite of the boundaries she was straddling
with that one, it felt wrong to argue.

“Look, the fact that there’s a spirit world
that overlaps our own is practically common knowledge now,” Jamie
said. “It’s part of pop culture. All over television, movies, the
internet…you need to get with the times. This isn’t 1984. The
science is way ahead of you on this.”