When She Was Bad: A Thriller by Jonathan Nasaw

only twenty or thirty yards from the entrance, as the crow flies. By then Lyssy’s limp had grown more pronounced—he had to use the railing to help him across the wooden footbridge, red-lacquered like the entranceway, that arched steeply over a little streamlet with cement banks bordered by flower beds.
    On the far side of the bridge, terraced steps led up to a cozy-looking little domed gazebo with flowering vines climbing the trellised sides. They sat next to each other with a good eighteen inches of marble bench separating them. Try as she might to convince herself that it would okay to ask him about his limp, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. They sat in silence, listening to the maniacal laughter of the woodpeckers. “Have you seen your room yet?” he asked eventually.
    “Just for a second. It’s on the second floor of the front building? Kind of peach colored, with an adjoining bathroom?”
    “That’s just the observation suite,” Lyssy told her. “It’s only temporary, until they decide how close of an eye they need to keep on you. A word to the wise, though: there’s a reason they call it the observation suite.”
    But the warning did not fully register—nor would it, until the following morning. “Can I ask you a personal question?” Lily asked him after another uncomfortable pause.
    Lyssy’s heart sank. Here it comes, he thought. For a few minutes there, he’d allowed himself to hope that she hadn’t recognized him, that she didn’t know anything about his murderous past. “Go ahead,” he said, bracing himself.
    “Is it true you used to have DID, and Dr. Corder cured you?”
    “Oh, that,” said Lyssy, almost giddy with relief. “Yeah, sure—I haven’t had an alter switch in like, two years or something. No fugue states, no blackouts. Sometimes, though…. “But he caught himself just in time. No sense scaring her, when Dr. Al would have wanted him to be as encouraging as possible. Besides, out here in the sweet air of a summer afternoon, it was easy to believe he’d only imagined the dark place and the muttering voice.
    And even if he hadn’t, divulging the existence of either would have been risky—if the girl passed his misgivings on to Dr. Al, it would mean an end to Lyssy’s hard-earned privileges. No more trips to the game room to hang out with the ODDs and CODs, no more meals in the dining hall, and worst of all, no more visits to the director’s residence to visit Alison and Mrs. Corder—Lyssy would be spending his remaining time at the Institute in a locked room on the locked ward.
    “Well, you know, sometimes, it seems like it’s almost too good to be true,” he finished awkwardly.
    “Yeah, tell me about it,” said the girl. Then those dark round eyes narrowed. “But if you’re better, how come you’re still here?”
    “Actually, I’m due to leave pretty soon,” said Lyssy, truthfully enough.
    “And you’re cured? You’re really, really cured?”
    “A, ah, paragon of mental health,” replied Lyssy, once again mimicking Dr. Al.
    5

    Alan Corder had long maintained that the standard setup for a modern psychiatric evaluation—two people sitting on opposite sides of a desk; one asks questions or administers tests while the other responds—left much to be desired.
    Once she’d recovered from her initial shock at finding herself face-to-face with the man who still figured in her nightmares, Irene had to agree. Walking with Lyssy in the pleasant pocket forest after she and Corder had caught up to their patients at the gazebo, observing him as he interacted with the enriched sensory environment, she found that the disarming awkwardness of his body language, his mercurial attention span, his childish delight in the magical appearance of a hummingbird, as well as his eagerness to share that delight with his companions, all spoke volumes—volumes that would never even have been opened in the usual office setting.
    What she didn’t see was equally as