Beast

Four days. It had been four days since Sophie and Etienne had been put on the Hammedy case and they had gotten nowhere. They had thought that Celine Mercier was going to be a big lead, but they were wrong. When questioned, the staff at the hospital had nothing but praise for Celine. She was hard working, well liked by both her colleagues and her patients, and was passionate about her work. Celine had grown up with both of her parents and her two older brothers, and none of them had noticed anything different in her behavior lately, and they had no answers as to how or why she could have helped Cain Hammedy escape. No one seemed able to believe that good, kind Celine Mercier was with Hammedy of her own free will.

As her long time boyfriend, Justin Harper, had said, "Everything was completely normal, then one day she went to work and didn't come home. We all just want to know that she's alright."

Sophie and Etienne had searched her apartment, as well as checked her phone and credit card records. Both were clean. So the Celine angle was a dead end.

"Cain seemed to be making great progress," the head nurse at St. Jean Memorial told Etienne and Sophie when they arrived at the mental hospital to question the staff who had worked closely with both Cain and Celine. "When he was first admitted, he was suffering from paranoid delusions and he heard voices. He believed that someone was after him. There were things he wouldn't talk about because he was afraid that they would over hear him."

"Who's 'they'?" Sophie asked.

"I don't know," the nurse said. She was a short, plump woman with graying hair. "He called them the monsters."

"And you say he heard voices?" Etienne asked intently. They were standing at the nurses' station, and hospital workers were all around them, busy tending to their patients.

"Yes. When he was first admitted, he had voices in his head. They were the ones who told him about the monsters. I remember, the two voices didn't get along. The devil and the angle, so to speak. One told him one thing, and the other voice told him the opposite. He complained that the voices gave him migraines," the nurse explained.

"When did the voices stop?" Etienne asked, writing everything down on a small notepad.

"Oh, a few weeks after he was first admitted."

"Really? That quickly?" Sophie asked skeptically.

"Yes," the nurse said, smiling proudly. "Therapy and medication helped him a great deal. The voices stopped, but the delusions carried on for about a year or so."

"What about after that? Did he have any other symptoms?" Etienne inquired as she scribbled away on her notepad.

"Well," the nurse said, thinking, "He always seemed very skittish. Very nervous. He often complained about missing his daughter. He always seemed the most comfortable around Celine, though. She was his primary caregiver."

"Was he allowed any visits with his daughter? Phone calls? Anything?" Sophie asked.

"No," the nurse answered, as if something like that was out of the question. "Cain wasn't allowed any visitors or phone calls."

Sophie didn't say anything, but thought that that kind of solitude would have driven anyone crazy.

"Did you notice any difference in him before the escape?" Etienne asked as a worker from the cafeteria walked by, carrying a tray of food.

"You know, he was extra quiet. Cain was always a quiet guy, but it was more noticeable for a few days before he went missing. Does that make any difference?" she asked, looking from Etienne to Sophie.

"It could," Sophie said pensively, trying to consider all the possibilities. "These voices he heard, did they have names?"

The nurse looked surprised, "You know, I think they did! Gosh, what did he call them? Are-ee? Air-ee? Ari! That was one of them. And the other one was... um... it started with an m. Miles? No... Milo! Ari and Milo."

"Ari and Milo?" Sophie asked.

"Yes," the nurse said, more confidence in her voice this time.

"Do you remember any of the things that Ari and Milo used to tell him?" Sophie asked.

The nurse gave her a strange look, as if to say, 'Why does it matter? Don't you know the voices aren't real?'

"I'm not sure exactly what they used to say, but it seemed as if Ari was a friend and Milo was an enemy. Sometimes he asked for his wife," the nurse said somberly.

"His wife?" Etienne asked, raising her eyebrows so high that they became hidden behind her messy bangs.

"Did he ever talk about why he was admitted here?" Sophie asked anxiously, feeling that they were finally getting somewhere.

"Not exactly. He never talked about the incident specifically, but he knew that his wife was gone. I think he thought that Milo did it," the nurse said. She was an older woman who had been working at the hospital for a long time. If she found Cain's psycho babble strange, she didn't show it. By that point in her life, the nurse had stopped being surprised by the things her patients came up with.

"And what about his partner?" Sophie asked, looking at the nurse expectantly.

"He never mentioned him. Even when he was questioned about him," the nurse said, shrugging as if it were no big deal. She was used to that kind of behavior.

Sophie and Etienne glanced at each other, silently agreeing that they had all the information they needed.

"Okay, thank you so much for your time. If you can think of any other information that might be useful in our investigation, please give us a call," Sophie said, handing the nurse a card with her work number on it.

"No problem. I hope I was helpful," the nurse said, smiling at the two young women in a nurturing, motherly way.

"Have a nice day," Etienne said, returning the smile as she and Sophie left the building.

It was overcast and muggy. You could feel the damp air on your skin. The gray clouds overhead showed no signs of letting up, and as they reached their car parked a few blocks away, the first raindrops began to fall.

"What do you think?" Etienne asked, checking behind her as she backed out of the space.

"It's not much to go on, but it's a start," Sophie said, flipping through her notes.

"Do you buy what they said? About Celine being a hostage?" Etienne asked, her eyes focused on the road ahead of her.

"No, but we can't rule it out just yet. The thing is, if Cain is as unwell as they say he is, how in the world was he supposed to make his escape and take this woman with him? Security around his room was as heavy as it could be. The man had to have had help," Sophie said, more to herself than to Etienne.

"Okay, so Hammedy is on the run, and Mercier is his accomplice, but we don't know where he is or what he's doing," Etienne pointed out.

"You see, that's the thing. What do we know about Cain? We know he had a wife and daughter. His wife is dead and his daughter is being watched, so we know he didn't escape to visit her. We know that Cain used to hear voices. What if it has something to do with that?" Sophie said pensively.

"But he hasn't heard those voices for years."

"But what if the voices didn't stop?" Sophie asked, "What if he just stopped mentioning them? Pretended that they went away?"

Etienne sighed, "You have no proof of that. He was being treated by some great doctors and he had a clean bill of health. "

"Then why was he still in the hospital? Why hadn't he been moved to a prison? And he had to be hearing voices for a reason. Maybe there was more to it," Sophie replied, challenging Etienne to defy her.

"In case he relapsed? I don't know, but the doctors say the voices stopped, so I believe them,"

"It's the one lead we've had! What if, just hear me out, what if Cain escaped to take down this Milo guy? No, I know Milo isn't real, but if Cain thinks he is, then he could be after him, right? If Cain believes that Milo killed his wife then-"

"But Milo didn't kill his wife," Etienne interrupted, "Cain did. He had a psychotic break and he shot his wife in the chest. End of story. What we need to do now is check out any friends or relatives of Cain's, see is he's contacted them, ask if they have any idea where he might be."

A solemn silence washed over the car as Etienne merged onto the highway, squinting at the road ahead of her because the windshield wipers couldn't keep up with the rain.