“Hurry,” Sam whispers, as she hears Albert’s footsteps in the hallway. She pulls up the phone app as the door slams open behind her, knocking her so hard she drops the phone. She scrambles for it as Albert Bitterman marches into the room, shouting. She reaches for the phone, Albert still yelling, but it’s Sam’s voice that stays with her, calling her name, when the shovel in Albert Bitterman’s hands makes contact with her skull, smashing everything to pieces.
Chapter 53
“No!” Sam screams. “Annie!” He crawls toward her as Albert leans down and picks up her phone. “Come on, Annie, say something.” Albert is standing in the doorway, a gash on his chin, the shovel hanging limply from his hands. “Why, Albert? Why did you do that?”
“You told her to call the police,” Albert says, his body trembling, his face ghost-white. “You said I was dangerous.”
“Albert—”
“You said you’d get me help, that you’d come with me to the hospital. But you lied to me, Sam. Again.”
Albert walks out of the room, and Sam hears him in the kitchen, banging drawers open and shut. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” Sam says, crawling his way to Annie. “You’re going to be fine.” He gently pushes back the hair from her face. “We’re both going to be fine.”
Sam sees it then: a pool of blood spreading from under her head. “Albert, call an ambulance!” he screams. “Call an ambulance. NOW.”
The kitchen is silent. Albert reappears in the doorway, his jaw trembling. “I can’t do it, Sam.”
“That’s fine, Albert, I can. Give me her phone,” Sam says. “Come on, man.” Tears slide down his cheeks. “Give me Annie’s phone so I can get her help.”
Albert spots the blood spreading from under Annie’s head. “Look what I’ve done.” Covering his face with his hands, he starts to weep.
“Please just give me her phone,” Sam pleads. “I’ll help you, I promise. We’ll go to the hospital,” he sobs. “I swear to god. I’ll make sure of it.”
“I hate to say it, Dr. Statler, but I think you might be suffering from a grandiose sense of self-importance. We both know you don’t have the power to keep me from prison.” Albert leans his head against the door and closes his eyes. “I’m tired.”
“You can sleep,” Sam says. “At the hospital.”
“I told you, I’m not going to the hospital.” He’s slurring his words.
“Albert?” Sam says. “Are you okay?”
Albert laughs, and his knees buckle. “You don’t have to flatter me anymore, my dear Dr. Statler,” he says, sliding down the door. He keeps talking, but Sam can’t make out what he’s saying, and then he goes quiet, slumping over, his head hitting the floor with an echoing clunk. Something falls from his hand and rolls toward Sam: an empty pill bottle. Sam picks it up and reads the label. “Margaret Statler. Zolpidem, 15mg at bedtime.”
His mother’s pills.
Albert was drugging him with his mother’s pills. It happens again—he starts laughing: a loud, delirious cackle that rises up from inside of him, carrying with it a wave of fear and panic more powerful than anything he’s ever known. He drags himself toward Albert and digs in his empty pockets for Annie’s phone.
“Yoohoo! Albert?” He stops cold. It’s a woman’s voice, coming from the kitchen. “Anyone home. The door was open—”
“I’m here!” Sam screams. “I’m back here!”
“Albert, is that you? I saw Annie’s car, and I have something for her—” He hears footsteps, and then the door opens. It’s Sidney Pigeon. She’s wearing workout clothes and is holding a baking dish.
“Oh my god,” she gasps, her hand flying to her mouth, the dish falling to the floor, sour cream and refried beans splashing into the air. “Sam?”
Epilogue
Sam hears the cart rattling down the hallway, outside the room, just as he’s falling asleep. He bolts upright and opens his eyes. The footsteps get closer, and he waits, immobilized, for the sound of the key in the lock.
But the sound passes and he exhales, reminding himself he’s not at the Lawrence House. He’s at Rushing Waters, reclined in his mother’s favorite chair, where he must have dozed off after the Wednesday lunch special, fettuccine alfredo. Margaret’s asleep in her bed, and he clicks off the television and kicks the footrest into place, checking the time. He has to go meet the movers.