"My mother was a nurse. She worked at Adirondack Medical Center. Before the community pulled her in." Seraphine's arms were still folded but something in her expression had shifted. Not quite hope. Not quite desperation. Something between the two. She was handing over the last thing she had.
"Maybe you could ask there," she said.
Noah looked at Callie. Callie looked at him. The air in the studio was still and the bog painting watched them from the far wall and the answer they were looking for had just changed direction.
"Thank you, Seraphine," Noah said.
They walked out into the daylight and the door closed behind them and the lock clicked and they stood on the sidewalk in Saranac Lake with the afternoon stretching ahead of them and one word turning over in both their minds.
Nurse.
38
The elevator doors opened onto the basement level of Adirondack Medical Center and the smell hit them before they'd taken two steps. The same disinfectant and cold air from hours earlier. Noah and Callie walked the corridor toward the ME's office with the fluorescent lights buzzing above them and the sound of their footsteps echoing off the tile in a way that made the basement feel emptier than it was.
Adelaide looked up from her desk when they appeared in the doorway. Her reading glasses were on and a stack of files sat in front of her, paperwork that accumulated around a body like sediment around a stone. She frowned.
"That was fast. I'm still waiting on the dental records. These things take time, you know. I can't just snap my fingers."
"It's not about that," Noah said.
Adelaide took her glasses off and set them on the desk. "Okay. What can I do for you?"
"Jessie Maddox. Does that name mean anything to you?"
"Should it?"
"She was a nurse here. Went missing a long time ago. Her daughter told us she worked at Adirondack Medical Center before she joined the Three Pillar Community."
Adelaide leaned back in her chair and thought about it. "How long ago are we talking?"
"Twenty-one years."
She shook her head. "I've only been here about four years. Never heard the name." She paused. "But there are plenty of nurses who have been here longer than me. Maybe even a doctor or two. Your best bet would be the front desk. They can point you to whoever's been on staff the longest."
"Thanks, Addie,” Noah said.
Noah and Callie turned to leave. They were almost through the door when Adelaide's voice followed them.
"Actually, you know who you should ask? Lydia Holt. She's been here longer than anyone. Twenty-seven years, if I remember right. If this Jessie Maddox worked here, Lydia would have overlapped with her."
Noah stopped in the doorway. "Good thought. Is she in today?"
"No, it's her day off. But Paul was here earlier. He might still be around if you want to leave a message with him."
Noah turned around. "Hold on. Paul works here?"
Adelaide looked at him with the mild confusion. "Oh, he doesn't work here. He volunteers. Has done for a couple of years now, since his father passed. Mopping, emptying bins, that sort of thing. It gives him purpose." She smiled. "He's a sweet guy."
"Right," Noah said. "Thanks."
He walked out of the office and into the corridor. Callie was beside him. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead and the basement stretched out in front of them. It was the same corridor that Hailey Benton would have walked down the night she disappeared. The same floor Paul Holt mopped. The samebuilding where a girl had entered a stairwell, vanished from the cameras, and had never been seen again.
Lydia had told him Paul helped around the property. Helped his sister with the kids. Didn't need a job. She'd bristled when Noah pushed on employment. Talked about the hardware store disaster. The boys who made fun of him. The mother who never put him through that again.
She never mentioned the hospital.
They were halfway to the elevator when Callie looked at him.
