EIGHT HOURS MISSING
The sky was beginning to darken, taking an air of mystery as it closed around Sam and Jack. Her heels clicked on the pavement underneath her shoes as they walked to the imposing building in front of them. As they stepped indoors, the smell of disinfectant, and of clinical cleanliness attacked their senses. Snow white tiles covered the walls and the floor, and harsh overhead lights caused a shine, giving the unit an almost blinding quality. At the end of the long corridor, a nurse pushed what seemed to be a drug cart from room to room. They turned in the other direction, spotting the nurse's office. Before they reached it though, a woman in a uniform exited, her brown eyes tracing over Sam and Jack with a smile.
"Agent Jack Malone and Samantha Spade," They both held out their ID's as the nurse gave them a fleeting glance, "We talked on the phone earlier about Erin Phillips."
She nodded in recognition, "Nice to meet you," She shook their hands formally, ushering them to the side of the corridor as a group of young nurses walked past, "although I'm not sure how much help I can be to you." She paused, "Erin left eight months ago. Apart from a monthly therapy session with Dr Crace, she doesn't come here very often."
"When's the last time that Erin came here, apart from therapy?" Sam asked, mindful of the patients walking by. Evidently St Augustine's Psychiatric Unit was a very busy place.
The nurse frowned, "It can't have been less than three weeks ago..." She stopped suddenly, "Oh, wait..." She began, "She came in three days ago. I wasn't on shift and I completely forgot."
"Do you know who she came to visit whilst she was here?"
"I can't say for sure, but I'd presume it was Zoe Halter," The nurse told them, "They were close friends and I know they still talk over the phone regularly."
The agents exchanged looks at the mention of Zoe, knowing it was the name that little Matilda had heard whilst overhearing Erin's coversation. Thoughts of a last goodbye ran through Sam's mind, "Would you mind if we talked to Zoe?"
"I don't know..." She said hesitantly, "We've tried not to mention Erin's disappearance to the patients."
"Zoe could really help us find Erin," Jack informed her, urging her to let them at least try and get some answers from Zoe, "We have reasonable information that apart from her family, Zoe was the last person Erin talked to before she went missing."
Upon this information, the nurse's resolve seemed to crumble and she nodded lightly. Beckoning them to follow her, they walked down the corridor, rooms passing them by with drugged and listless patients sitting inside of them. Jack shuddered to think how many teenagers sat in the building, and that was just the adolescent ward. They finally arrived at a door, a small white board screwed to the wall next to it, reading "Halter, Zoe. Consultant: Dr JAMES".
"This is Zoe's room," She indicated before knocking on the closed door three times, "Zoe?" She called out, opening the door slightly to poke her head round. "I've got some visitors from the FBI to talk to you." Before they knew it, the door had opened fully, and the nurse was ushering them into the room. As Sam began to take her surroundings in, her attention was drawn to the bed at the other side of the room, a brown haired girl sat cross legged staring out of the window with barbed wire covering the view it bore. She barely seemed to acknowledge their entrance.
"They want to talk to you about Erin sweetheart," The nurse approached the bed, sitting down next to Zoe.
"Erin's gone."
"Gone where?" Sam asked almost instantly.
"She's left the ward. Months ago." Zoe said, and Sam sighed. She shouldn't have thought it would be that easy.
"Didn't she come to visit you a few days ago?" The nurse asked, stroking Zoe's back gently. The girl turned to face the nurse, her eyes searching as to whether she should answer, "Please talk to them."
But she was unmoved by the nurse's request and remained silent. Jack looked to Sam and his look said more than words would; they wouldn't be getting anything from her soon. "We better go," Jack said to the nurse, and Sam began to follow him out of the door.
"Wait!" Zoe said urgently, almost instinctually as though she couldn't let them go. They both turned round at her exclamation and looked expectantly towards her. "She came to visit me. On Tuesday."
"What did she say to you?" Jack immediately questioned her, and the nurse gave a disapproving look which he ignored.
Zoe looked down to her lap, breathing steadily. "At first, we talked about the usual stuff. How we were both doing, about her family. She gave me a few letters that my family had sent her to give to me; they live in LA," She paused to look up, "Then she started talking about her parents...her biological ones..." Zoe corrected herself, "She just said that she was going to finally put everything to rest..."
The room, like the rest of St Augustine's Psychiatric Unit, was clinically clean. Everything sparkled with an eerie gleam of obsessiveness. Erin's willow-like body entered the Visitors Hall and unlike most of the other visitors, she wore a beaming smile. She scanned round the patients and recognised almost all of them. Finally her gaze settled on Zoe, and they both grinned at each other. Erin dodged the chairs to get to the far end of the hall to see where Zoe sat down, a small plate of biscuits in front of her.
"I made them in baking class today," She said with a small roll of her eyes, "They taste pretty good though."
Erin smiled, "Aren't you going to give me a hug?" Zoe pushed out her chair and wrapped her arms around Erin, embracing her gently.
"It's so good to see you," She whispered in Erin's ear, and the girl nodded in agreement as they broke apart. "Everything good with you?"
Erin nodded defiantly as she sat down on the chair opposite, "Life is good. Matilda and I have been getting on better than ever and art college is fantastic."
Zoe's hand reached over the table, "I'm so pleased for you."
Erin moved her other to clasp Zoe's, looking deep into her eyes "It'll be you soon," She said genuinely, "You'll be out of here in no time."
"Sometimes it feels like I'll be here forever."
Erin shook her head and sighed, "I know it feels like an impossibility, but I was here too. You need to be positive and look to the future. We both should."
"I'm not going have much of a future," Zoe countered, "My parents can't afford me to live with them, and even if they could I have to be near New York..."
A smile crept onto Erin's face, "I've been thinking about that."
"You have?"
"Mmm. How would you like to live with me and my parents?" Erin told her, before adding, "I mean...Richard and Anne..."
Zoe smiled comfortingly at Erin's Freudian slip, "I don't know. I'd feel like I was completely imposing."
"No, they said it was a good idea. And then when we have enough money saved, we can buy a townhouse near Richard and Anne." Erin reassured her, "They think you're great and Matilda adores you." Erin's face moved into her familiar puppy dog expression, "Please, say yes?"
"Do you think she was going to commit suicide?" Sam asked.
"No!" Zoe countered back like lightening, horror visible in her eyes, "She was talking about her future, about the rest of her life. She was planning for us to live together when I got out of this place," The young woman paused, "She wasn't going to kill herself after telling me that. She just wouldn't."
"Did she seem quiet or reticent when she came to talk to you?"
Zoe smiled sadly, "Erin's always quiet ma'am. It's how she is."
"We have a witness who says they heard Erin talking to you on the telephone in her bedroom, only a few days before she disappeared. By all accounts, she was apparently tearful and made references to suicide." Jack told her, "Can you tell us anything about that?"
Zoe looked genuinely puzzled, "We talked on the phone, and yes, we did get a bit tearful. That was only because of the anniversary of Mary's death is coming up."
"Mary?" He looked to the nurse for an explanation.
"Mary Goldstein was a patient here and cultivated a very good relationship with Zoe and Erin. Couldn't separate them. Erin and Mary were due for release on the same day, with Zoe following a week later. But one of the nurses found her dead in her room," The nurse looked to Zoe, mindful of her words, "It was a great loss to the unit, but also to the girls. It set them back in their therapy a great deal."
Sam and Jack maintained a moment of silence as Zoe's eyes began to tear up at the thought of her passed friend, "You have to understand," Zoe began, her words needing no encouragement for the first time during the time the agents had been there, "That Erin wouldn't kill herself. She just wouldn't. After Mary died, we both promised to live every moment to the full like she would have wanted us to. That's why she was going back to art college and starting her exhibitions again. That's why I'm working so hard to get out of here." Zoe paused, "She's not dead. Trust me."
End of Part Three