The county clinic was a small, sterile box. They left me in a sparse room, a thin blanket on a narrow bed. The rain continued its relentless assault outside.
My mind raced. Toby. Alone. That academy.
Around 2:00 AM, the door creaked open. A night nurse, her face kind, peered in. She was a familiar face, a frequent patron of the library during my years there.
“Mr. Croft,” she whispered, her gaze meeting mine. She slid a small metal key across the floor with her foot. “The side door to the parking lot. It’s unlatched. Just don’t tell anyone I told you.”
I looked at the key, then at her. A nod, a small gesture of defiance. She gave me a faint, sad smile, then slipped out, pulling the door shut.
I was out the door in seconds, my legs stiff, my muscles aching. The rain hit me like a physical blow, cold and biting. The wind tore at my thin hospital gown.
Two miles. Two miles back to Eleanor’s estate.
I stumbled through the mud, the darkness thick and suffocating. My 69-year-old body shivered uncontrollably, the early stages of hypothermia setting in. Every step was a battle against the sucking mud, the driving rain.
Finally, the iron gates of Eleanor’s estate appeared through the deluge. Miraculously, they stood ajar, unsecured. The deputies must have left in the chaos, perhaps expecting me to remain confined.
I slipped through, my breath ragged, my lungs burning. The estate grounds were a muddy mess, trees swaying violently in the gale-force wind.
I crept towards the eastern wing, towards Toby’s second-story bedroom window. A sliver of light, almost imperceptible through the storm, emanated from it.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Was he still there? Had they taken him early?
I reached the base of the wall, my eyes straining upwards.
The window was shattered. The heavy glass, broken outward, shards glinting in the faint light from inside. A bedsheet, twisted and knotted, dangled into the mud below, swaying wildly in the wind.
On the flagstones, half-submerged in a puddle, lay a small, dark object. Toby’s cell phone. Smashed. Its screen a spiderweb of cracks.
He hadn’t waited. He had fled. Into the storm. Alone.
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