The Dream Thief, Kari Kilgore [reading well TXT] 📗

top of the end cabinet for depth syndrome, the insanity that struck Builders who lost the way back to reality after getting too far into their work. Karl barely managed to keep the whole stack from falling over and going everywhere. Several of the folders did land at his feet, thankfully without spilling their contents. He picked them up, glancing at their covers.

"Hang on a minute..."

None of them had the same name, so these weren't just spillover storage. Karl pulled another stack down without seeing any kind of pattern. He was normally great at that if nothing else, spotting a pattern where no one else could see it. These patients had nothing at all in common. Unless...

Karl flipped through the folders again, this time looking at the dates of admission. That was it. These were new patient folders, in order by nothing more than those dates. And unless he was misunderstanding a strong hunch growing in his belly, he was looking at the big surge he'd noticed over the past few weeks. The same surge Andy had spotted.

He grabbed a few more folders and carried them to a long table by the window already overflowing with paperwork. Once they were laid out where he could see them all, another of Karl's talents he didn't give himself credit for kicked in. His memory was beyond good; it was as extraordinary as any Builder's. He recognized several family names he'd known all his life, and a few of the individuals.

Andy was right. Out of almost twenty new patients in a couple of weeks, more than half were from their neighborhood.

Karl got though the stack to the bottom before he realized he'd been straining to read the last couple. The sun had nearly set. He'd been digging through the files for over an hour. Cold sweat broke out all over his body at the thought of a watchman or someone on the cleaning crew walking in and catching him with confidential folders scattered everywhere.

Even worse, there was no rule at all to stop a new admission from coming in at any time during the day or night. If a Director walked in instead, Karl might be on the next train back to Waldron's Gate for a permanent stay.

He managed to get everything stacked up in the same order he'd found it, and remarkably close to the same twisted and tilted arrangement. He thought about grabbing a few pieces of paper so he could write down the names, but that seemed as bad an idea as hanging around here long enough to do it.

Better to just trust he'd remember the names when he needed to than to get caught with the lists. He doused the lamps one at a time behind him as he walked back out.

Karl stepped out into an empty hall, but he could still hear people hurrying around close by. He shook his head, not sure what had possessed him to do such a crazy thing to begin with. Almost as crazy as his patients.

That curiosity, the same thing that had gotten him in trouble as a kid and scolded as a green orderly, had apparently followed him into adulthood. That was all well and good until it got him fired. It was far past time to make himself scarce tonight.

If nothing else, he couldn't even ask questions if he ran into anybody. They'd just ask why he was wandering around the administration building if he wasn't supposed to be here.

He knew exactly who would gossip and who wouldn't on his shift in the patient residential areas and treatment rooms. Tomorrow would be soon enough to find out more. Especially if it meant keeping his job.

Chapter 4

Loretta paced back and forth in her study, turning her head with every turn of her body so she never looked away from her wall. Several lamps were on full brightness, and she knew the map better than she knew her own face.

Still she paced.

Maybe she was worried about going out into the night again, into the risky business of Building. Maybe this was part of her routine, what she needed to get herself and her nerves steeled. Maybe she was just giving her own excitement and anticipation the chance to get to a delirious fever pitch.

The only thing she truly still needed was full dark.

The map of the Builders' neighborhoods in Waldron's Gate was the largest she'd been able to find in any of the shops in town, nearly five feet to a side. She'd often wished for something a bit bigger, though this did serve her purposes quite nicely. Several colored pins and matching lengths of thread decorated the otherwise plain map, spiraling out from individual houses.

Loretta didn't need such a visual representation of her nocturnal adventures, but it pleased her greatly to have it.

A false wall with a boring but flawlessly executed painting was pushed back behind the bookshelves to her right, all the traps and warning devices disabled. She'd never had to put any of them to use since no one had ever entered her study. Again, she was pleased and reassured to have them.

Right now she was not reassured by the amount of time she had available to her. So many Builds, so little time.

She normally worked on Builds for at least a month, often longer if she had as many requests as she did right now. Her encounter with Olsen Norwood kept her uneasy in her bones. None of her other clients or anyone else acted strangely, but that didn't lessen Loretta's sense of danger all around her and her need to complete these Builds as quickly as possible.

She finally walked over to the map and touched the only pin with no thread yet attached to it, the head a rich, dark green. So far, she'd matched the pin to the main paint color of the first house in her circuit. That match was not always an easy thing with such elaborate decorating styles all the rage