Free The Haunted (Sarah Roberts 12) by Jonas Saul Page A

looked.
     
    A woman with a lock of white hair dangling to the side and wide, crazy eyes, peeked in at her. She had to be in her sixties, but all Sarah could see was her face and that hair.
     
    “Yes?”
     
    “You had better watch yourself,” the woman said, her voice sounding like a whiny creak of an old barn door. “There are people in here who talk.”
     
    “That’s great. I talk too.”
     
    “They talk about the fourth coming and the absolution.”
     
    “The fourth coming? What happened to the second one? Or is it the third one I missed? Oh wait, that was a close encounter, wasn’t it? Yes, you’re right.” In a slightly raised voice, she said, “The fourth coming is upon us.”
     
    “The burning comes in the night and we are offered sweet release. Until dawn’s early light, we awake and we believe.”
     
    Sarah tried to take in what the woman was saying, tried to make sense of it, but couldn’t. “Is it morning?”
     
    The woman raised her head, then lowered it in quick succession. It reminded Sarah of a bobble head on the dash of a car.
     
    “We awake and we believe,” Sarah repeated the woman’s words. “And now you believe?”
     
    “Because of you, I believe.”
     
    Having no idea what the woman was talking about, Sarah nodded back. “Because of me.”
     
    A door slammed from somewhere down the corridor.
     
    “Helena!” a man yelled. “What are you doing?”
     
    The white-haired woman snapped her head to the right, her features darkened, then she looked back at Sarah.
     
    “There’s still time before the burning comes for you. End it, or it’ll end you. The fourth—”
     
    “Get away from that door!”
     
    Helena disappeared, her footsteps echoing softly until they faded.
     
    The guard from earlier pushed a wheelchair inside and stopped at the door. “Sorry about that. She’s not supposed to leave her room.” He kicked something on the bottom of the chair and rolled it up beside the bed. “What were you two talking about?”
     
    “Mostly nonsense.”
     
    He moved to unstrap her left ankle. As the strap slipped free, he stepped back, out of reach if she decided to try to kick him.
     
    As he stepped up beside her left wrist, he said, “Helena suffers from numerous mental maladies, but the one that angers me the most is her paruresis.”
     
    “Which is?”
     
    “She’s unable to urinate while someone is watching.”
     
    “And you routinely watch her urinate?” Sarah asked.
     
    “In the acute ward it is our job to assist most of the patients’ day-to-day functions. Some of the patients in here are too unhealthy, too mentally unsound to be left alone. Even to use the bathroom.”
     
    He slowly unclipped the left wrist strap and then stopped.
     
    “There. It’s loose enough that you can wiggle your way out.” He stepped over to the far corner of the room by the open door. The Taser was in his hand, up and aimed in her general direction. “Undo the other two restraints. Slip slowly off the bed and sit in the chair. Once you’re in the chair, strap in your ankles, then your right wrist. I will do your left one. Remember, the whole time I have a Taser on you. Getting Tased is not pleasant, but I’ll enjoy it. Start now.”
     
    Sarah did as she was told and went to work on her other restraints. Within minutes, she was in the chair and waiting for him to strap her left wrist.
     
    It was good to get out of the wet bed. The urine had been cooling on her, making her shiver. She needed a shower and food and then she would figure out where Cole was, deal with him and leave the building. Unless Dr. Williams came back, she would have to go after him with the police, but there was a part of her that was unsure how far that would go as he was a doctor and they could legally commit her for observation for seventy-two hours. Unless she could trace the money, or whatever it was that made him do it, she had nothing on Williams.
     
    Fully secured to the chair, the