Johanna forgot to breathe again. “What do you mean?”
“Some say—you know how these ignorant, small-town folk can be—that one of your patients might have come to town and attacked Ingram.”
“That is ridiculous.” She stepped back and turned in a small, agitated circle. “None of the Haven’s residents would have done such a thing. When has any one of them ever come here and caused trouble?”
“Johanna,” Bolkonsky said softly, “I agree with you. I know as well as you do the misconceptions held about the insane. But I have been listening to the gossip. Quentin Forster and one of your other patients caused a minor disturbance here several days ago. A matter of fisticuffs with local children.”
Of course. Johanna hadn’t forgotten. She’d known all along how that one incident could feed the fire of any prejudices the local folk already harbored.
“Oscar wouldn’t hurt anyone,” she said. “He was the one attacked. He merely defended himself.”
“But he is certainly big enough to do damage if he wished, according to what I’ve heard. It’s much easier for the ignorant to place the blame on outsiders than look among themselves for a culprit. And then there is Quentin—”
Quentin. The crux of the business. Quentin, who’d been missing all day. Who’d been worried for May. Who might have learned of May’s father, and her acute misgivings about him.
“When did this attack occur?” she asked.
“Last night, well after midnight. A few drunks from the saloon claimed to have observed someone running away from the hotel, but no one clearly saw him, except a maid who was able to describe his general height and build.”
Johanna didn’t ask for the description. She felt cold all the way to her bones.
Why? Why should she jump to the same conclusions held by these unenlightened townsfolk? Quentin had exhibited occasional lapses into a darker state, a side of himself that hinted of undispelled pain and anger. He claimed, under hypnosis, to be a lycanthrope. He’d suffered periods of amnesia related to his drinking. He’d even admitted to concern for his own occasionally erratic behavior.
But he was not dangerously insane. He’d never acted overtly violent in any way—not with her, or the others. Surely reading of Johanna’s suspicions about Ingram wouldn’t be enough to send him tearing into town to attack a stranger.
But if that possibility were as ludicrous as it seemed, why was she trembling?
“What is it, Johanna?”
She shook herself from her bleak thoughts and met Bolkonsky’s gaze. “If feelings against my patients are running so high, I must return to the Haven.”
“Johanna—are any of your patients unaccounted for?”
“No.” The lie came far too easily, but she felt free of guilt for the transgression. “I must be getting back.”
“Why did you come to town, Johanna?” he asked, too insistently. “We still have the situation with May to resolve. You understand that in light of what has happened, Mr. Ingram is most anxious to leave Silverado Springs as soon as he is able to.”
“We agreed upon a week at least, Dr. Bolkonsky.”
“Did we?” His upper lip twitched. “I can make no guarantees, Dr. Schell.”
His renewed formality came as a warning. She nodded and turned to collect Daisy. The pointed stares of the townsfolk made unpleasant sense, now. She could only pray that the residents of Silverado Springs were mistaken in their conjectures.
Once home again, she gave Daisy into a curious Oscar’s care and began another circuit of the Haven’s grounds, on foot, starting with the vineyard and ending at the orchard.
That was where she found him.
The half-conscious man slumped against a young apple tree was not the one she’d known for the past two weeks. He bore more resemblance to the stranger she’d rescued on the lane to the Haven, clothes dirty and abraded, face unshaven, hair matted and tangled. He raised his head from his chest to look at her through bloodshot eyes.
“Johanna,” he croaked.
He had been drinking. She smelled it on him, but she would have known even without the stench. It was amazing that he could be in such poor condition after only a single day of imbibing.