Betrayed: She Took My Son novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Front Door

I walked into Larkmont through the front door at ten on Wednesday morning.

The last time I had been in that lobby, I was carried through it on a gurney with a strap across my chest.

Now the automatic doors opened for me, and a fountain ran in the corner.

A woman at the desk smiled and asked how she could help.

I knew her. She had checked me in.

"I'd like to see the director," I said.

"Do you have an appointment?"

"She texted me."

Clayton stood at my shoulder in a clean shirt, with a manila envelope under his arm. Dot waited outside in the truck with Liam.

Behind us the glass doors slid shut, and my hands went cold.

The director came out within a minute.

She was a trim woman in a navy suit, with silver earrings and a lanyard.

She held out her hand and saw that I wasn't going to take it.

"Ms. Avery. Thank you for coming. Let's go up to my office, where we can speak privately."

"No, thank you."

"I think you'll find it more comfortable."

"I was comfortable here for seven months," I said. "I'd like to do this in the lobby."

There were people on the couches, a man with a bouquet and a teenage girl with her mother.

Two aides on a break stood by the coffee machine.

All of them had stopped talking.

The director's smile did not move.

"Very well."

"Mr. Bartlett has something for you," I said.

Clayton stepped forward and set the envelope on the front desk.

"It's a copy of the dose log for room 14," he said. "Every pill, every injection, every time she asked for her son."

"I kept it in my own handwriting from the first night I read the chart."

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