Chapter 4

Willowbrook Memory Care sat behind a hedge on Delaware Avenue in Albany, three stories of tan brick with a courtyard in the middle and a sign out front that said COMPASSIONATE TRANSITIONS.

Vera parked in the visitors' lot at ten past four and walked in with her barn polo still on.

"I'm here for Constance Whitlock."

The woman at the desk was kind and immovable. Family only. Physician-approved contact list. Mrs. Whitlock was in a structured evaluation period and the family had asked for limited stimulation.

"I'm her trainer," Vera said. "I've known her eleven years."

"I'm very sorry."

"Does she have a phone in her room?"

"I'm very sorry."

Vera went back outside and sat in her truck because her hands had started shaking and she did not want to be seen doing it. Through the dayroom window she could see a row of chairs, a television on mute, a cart of juice cups.

And in the third chair, in a pale blue cashmere cardigan, with her silver hair set and her hands folded on her lap, sat Constance Whitlock.

She was watching the door.

Vera got out of the truck. Constance's chin came up. She knew the walk - forty yards of gravel and asphalt and one woman in a barn polo coming toward the glass - and her mouth opened, and she started to rise, one hand on the chair arm, and Vera was already saying it, mouthing it, I'm here, I'm here-

A nurse stepped between them and pulled the blinds.

Vera stood in the parking lot with her palm flat on the warm glass and called Constance's attorney, Eleanor Voss, from the contact list in the back of the red binder she no longer had.

Voss listened. She was quiet for a long time.

"The power of attorney is properly executed," she said finally. "The admission is voluntary on its face. She signed the intake sheet Tuesday morning."

"Did you see her sign it?"

"That's not how it works, Ms. Lindqvist."

"Did you see her?"

Another silence, longer. "No."

Vera drove back north with the windows down. Somewhere past Clifton Park her phone buzzed twice against the seat, and she pulled onto the shoulder to read it.

Pierce. One text.

Trespass notice filed at the training center this afternoon. Security has your photo. Marcus is done as of tonight - I've been generous about the dorm room, but he's out by the weekend.

And a second one, sent a minute later.

Your call.