Page 22 of Edging Sanity

“Evidence?” she asked in a harsh voice. “For a suicide?”

“Another patient had this in their possession.” Rowan held out the knife. The detective wrinkled her nose before snapping at someone else to collect it. “There’s blood on it,” Rowan added uselessly.

“Thanks.” The detective nodded. “We’ll test it.” She moved away, dismissing Rowan, but something made her grab the woman’s arm, stopping her.

“Can you—” She hesitated. “Can you let me know what you find?”

“Who are you?” The woman frowned.

“Ah, sorry. I’m Rowan Aberdeen. Head of security here.”

“Detective Chen.” She nodded. “Yeah, I’ll have one of my guys reach out when the results come back. But, to be completely honest, there’s no evidence that this is anything other than a suicide. I’m sorry for your loss.” She started to turn away again, then stopped herself. “Can you get me her next of kin? Would make my life easier.”

“Of course,” Rowan said, turning to Lincoln, who’d been watching the interaction with curiosity. “You got this?”

“Yeah, boss,” he said, giving her a mock salute that made her roll her eyes before he fled the room. Rowan wasn’t going to hover any further. She followed him quickly, turning to get up the stairs to the camera room.

“Move,” she ordered Grimes, who was sitting lazily, watching through the last several hours of footage. “I need to check something.”

She reached over him before he had a chance to react and then pulled up the last four hours of Delilah’s feed. It showed her returning from her unsanctioned field trip, disappearing into the bathroom, and then returning to lie on her bed and stare at the camera for the next hour until Rowan entered the room. She ground her teeth, switching the feed to footage from that morning for hallway two.

“Uh,” Grimes interrupted, “I already looked at that.”

“And?” she snapped, rewinding until she spotted Delilah walking past the room with her two guards in tow. They didn’t stop. Delilah barely even glanced at the door as they passed. She switched to the camera inside Mariana’s room, showing the woman pacing—something that Rowan knew she did on mornings when she was antsy.

Then, five minutes later, the feed cut out.

“The whole floor was out, ma’am,” Grimes said. “Think it must’ve been a malfunction or something.”

“A malfunction?” she snapped. “Conveniently timed to when Mariana was killed and Delilah claimed to have a knife on her?” He gawped at her, his eyes wide. She shook her head. Useless.

A ringing chime broke the stillness as they stared at the black screens, waiting for the feed to come back up. Rowan checked her phone and groaned when she saw Adele calling her. What now?

“Everything okay?” she asked upon answering.

“I need you to escort Ms. Watson to room 112.”

Rowan frowned, standing up and already walking to the door, barely waving at Grimes to carry on with the review. “Why?”

Adele’s sigh came through before her tired voice. “Her lawyer is coming.”

“Why the hell is her lawyer coming?”

“She had a weapon on her, didn’t she? The detective told me you handed one in, and I can only assume you found it on her and didn’t report it to me because you were too busy with the code blue.” Rowan winced at the chastising tone and the sound of paper shuffling in the background. “I had to contact her lawyer. Atkins, I think her name was. Anyway, she’ll be here soon. Delilah is supposed to meet her in a ‘neutral’ environment. I’ve got a couple attendants clearing out 112 to make it more visitor friendly since she obviously can’t meet her lawyer in our visitation room. They’ll need privacy.”

“Fine. I’ll get her now.” Despite her grumbling, Rowan had already made it halfway to Delilah’s room by the time the conversation ended. Her adrenaline pumped faster the closer she got.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

Within thirty minutes, Rowan was sitting across from Delilah, arms crossed and glaring while Delilah watched her with smug satisfaction. It wasn’t even lunch time on Monday. All this had happened because Rowan had taken the weekend off—as she always did.

They were currently separated by a shitty foldable table while they waited for the lawyer who was supposed to have shown up five minutes ago. Rowan sat with her back to the door, blocking any hope of escape if Delilah had even debated entertaining the notion. The room had been haphazardly thrown together in the midst of the day’s chaos as soon as Delilah’s lawyer informed Adele that she’d be paying her client a visit.

Interrogation rooms didn’t exist in psychiatric hospitals, even one like Raven Wood, which frequently accepts criminals. And the visitation area was just one large room with couches, tables, chairs, and multiple exits. Therefore, the only solution aside from keeping Delilah in her own room—god only knows why they didn’t—was to adjust one of the already empty rooms on Delilah’s hallway into a makeshift visitor room.

Hence the plastic folding chair currently digging into Rowan’s spine and adding to her mounting irritation. She’d known there would be something. There always was. But she hadn’t taken Delilah for the jealous type. And Rowan knew Delilah had done it—killed Mariana. It was a punishment.