Page 6 of Her Last Refuge

She listened to his footsteps fading down the hall toward the elevator, and Rachel sat there for a moment in the quiet he left behind. She finished the last section of the report on her screen, fixed two sentences that didn't need much fixing, and sent it back with a short note. She checked her email once more, and found nothing new. She looked at the clock on her monitor and realized it wasn't even 3:00, and that she'd run out of things to do.

She knew what she wanted to do. But she knew better than to go back to Eleanor's file. Not here, not now, not with an entire afternoon of nothing stretching out in front of her and every name in that mystery already thirty years in the ground. She knew that she needed to just give it up, to admit that it all came down to nothing more than he hopes and heartbreak of a dead woman. There was nothing left to dig up from a database that hadn't already turned up nothing the first six times she'd looked. She closed the laptop more out of instinct than decision, and reached for her bag.

When she thought back on it later in the day, she had no idea at what exact point she'd decided to drive to Brandermill. It wasn't a plan so much as a pull, something that had been sitting under her ribs since Caleb's call. Ever since then, she’d seen all the players a bit more clearly—Walter Durst, whom she’d visited with and spoken to about ten times or so, and his wife, who moved in and out of the hospice room like a whirlwind when she would come and see her husband. She wasn’t sure what it was with her looking into dead people all of a sudden, but at least the person who had asked for this favor was still alive.

By the time she reached the parking garage, keys already in her hand, she understood that she'd made the decision somewhere between her office and the elevator without fully admitting it to herself. Sure, Eleanor’s favor seemed to have hit a dead end, but Ruth Durst ad died recently. If there was something worth looking into, it would be a lot more recent.

She pulled Ashford Glen up on her phone and found that it was twenty-five minutes away, if traffic behaved. She pulled out of the garage and got on the parkway, and somewhere around the second exit she started running through it in her head. Was she making a mistake? Was she over-reacting? Or was she maybe trying to do something active for this dead person because she’d found nothing for Eleanor?

She had no case. That part was easy enough to keep straight; if she pursued this, it was as another favor, and nothing official in the bureau’s eyes. And why would there be? A seventy-four-year-old woman with dementia had died in her sleep at a licensed facility, and the police had come out, looked around, and left within the hour. The medical examiner's office hadn't even finalized a cause of death yet, not that she expected anything other than what the on-site doctor had already guessed. Heart failure. Old age. The unglamorous math of a body that had simply worn out.

She wasn't a detective on this. She wasn't even, technically, anyone's friend here in an official sense. She was a private citizen driving out to look at a building because someone she barely knew had called and expressed a concern.

That didn't mean there was anything there. She reminded herself of that twice on the drive, once at a red light and once again pulling off the exit for Brandermill. It probably meant nothing at all. But it wouldn't hurt to see it for herself, to walk the halls Ruth had walked and get some sense of the place beyond what Caleb had described over the phone. Maybe a few conversations with staff and residents would give her easier answers than she was expecting.

Ashford Glen sat back from the road behind a low stone wall and a stretch of manicured lawn. It was the sort of place that kept the grounds looking fresh and gorgeous without trying too hard to prove it. The building itself wasn’t anything special. It was long and low, brick with white trim, and looked more like an upscale inn than an institution. Mature oaks lined the circular drive, their shade falling across a row of benches arranged along a walking path that looped around a small pond near the entrance. A few residents sat out on the benches with aides beside them, blankets over their laps despite the mild afternoon. One small group appeared to be playing a board game.

Rachel parked in a visitor spot near the front and sat for a second before getting out. She smoothed the front of her blazer and reminded herself one more time that she wasn't here as a federal agent today. If she wanted any real answers, she was going to have to get creative.

She walked to the front door, looking to her right and seeing that the small group was indeed playing a board game—Settlers of Catan. Inside, the lobby was cool and quiet, all soft lighting and pale wood, with a fountain gurgling somewhere off to the side that was probably meant to be soothing. The front desk sat just past the entrance, and two women stood behind it. One was on the phone and the other was flipping through a folder of paperwork. The one with the folder looked up as Rachel approached, her expression settling into the kind of practiced welcome that came from going through this exact greeting a hundred times a week.

"Can I help you?"

"I hope so." Rachel offered a small, careful smile. It had been a while since she’d had to covertly gather information. "My name is Rachel Gift. I was hoping to speak with someone about Ruth Durst."

The woman's expression shifted, just slightly, the polish giving way to something more careful. "I'm so sorry for your loss. Are you family?"

She gave a small, innocent shrug. “A close family friend," Rachel said, and the lie came out smoother than she expected. "I knew Ruth and her husband for years. I wanted to see the place she'd been staying, if that's alright. Just to have a sense of it. I, uh…well, I guess I’m just feeling guilty that I never made it a priority to come out and see her more often, you know?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I don’t think that will be a problem. You need to get the go-ahead from Miriam, though,” she said, nodding toward the woman on the phone.

“Oh, thanks.”

Rachel stood her ground, wanting to make sure she was the first thing Miriam saw when she ended the call—which just happened to be about ten seconds later. Miriam was in her mid-fifties, dressed in a cream-colored blazer that looked tailored rather than bought off a rack. She had the kind of composed and confident presence that suggested she was used to being the person in charge.

Miriam looked to the first woman and then to Rachel. “Hey there,” she said. “What can I do for you?”

Once again, Rachel went through her practiced lie. Miriam seemed to also buy it, though there was an underlying caution to her expression.

"Oh, let me tell you,” Miriam said. "It's a terrible loss for the whole community here, honestly. Ruth had a way of making people feel at ease, even on her harder days."

"That sounds like her." Rachel kept her voice light and sympathetic, the tone of someone still absorbing bad news rather than someone fishing for information. "I actually hadn't seen her much these last few months, and I wanted to come see where she'd been staying. Get a sense of it, if that's alright. I know that probably sounds strange."

"Not strange at all. We get that sometimes, from friends and family both...especially for those who hadn’t seen the resident in a long time. It helps to see it for yourself." Miriam's smile stayed in place, but something behind her eyes had gone a little more attentive, a little more measured. "Was there anything specific you wanted to know?"

"Just how she was doing here, mostly. Whether she seemed happy.” She did her best to seem sad without overdoing it. “Whether anything had changed recently. I’d heard from her grandson that she'd had a good stretch right before she passed. Is that right?"

"She had, actually,” Miriam said, her eyes brightening. “Her appetite had been better, she'd been more social in the common areas." Miriam's tone stayed even, informative without straying into anything that resembled real detail. "Ruth had good days and difficult days, like most of our residents. That's the nature of the disease, unfortunately. But nothing about her passing surprised our medical staff, given her age and her overall health history. I want to be honest with you about that."

"Of course." Rachel nodded, filing the phrase away without letting it show on her face. Nothing about her passing surprised our medical staff. It was a careful sentence, the kind built to close a door rather than open one. "Would it be alright if I looked around a bit? Saw her hallway, maybe? I don't want to be any trouble."

Something flickered across Miriam's expression, brief and controlled, and it was gone almost as soon as it appeared. "Of course. I'll have one of our nurses take you around, that way you'll get the full picture and someone can answer any questions that come up." She turned toward the woman still standing behind the desk. "Can you page Brian for me?"

"Of course."

"He knows the east wing better than anyone," Miriam explained as she turned back to Rachel with the same composed smile from before. "He'll take good care of you."

"Thank you. I appreciate it."