Archie stood.

More shouting.

“Call security,” someone yelled.

Archie went through the door and into the hall. Rosenberg was behind him, two nurses were coming around the corner. Autopilot kicked in. Through the door. Three people scrambled out past him as he entered. There were five people left in the room. The counselor, crouched, bleeding, behind an overturned desk. Two women standing frozen by the wall. Frank, still sitting in a plastic chair, knees apart, a dazed grin on his face. And the woman standing in the center of the room, hunched, crying, gripping a shard of something hard and bloody.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Archie.

The woman’s name was Courtenay Taggart. She’d been transferred up from the ER with bandaged wrists, and had then managed to peel up a piece of Formica off the built-in bedside table in her room and had tried to finish the job. She’d been on suicide watch ever since. They’d taken everything out of her room except a mattress. Her door was never closed. A staff member sat in a chair outside her door 24-7. Archie had seen her a few times through the doorway as he passed by in the hall, lying on her bed like a child.

She spun toward him now, and lifted the shard to the soft flesh of her neck. Apparently she’d found another source of Formica.

“What are you doing, Courtenay?” Archie asked.

He guessed she was about twenty. She might have looked younger if she’d been wearing civilian clothes and not green hospital pajamas. Her dyed-blond hair was pulled back. Her face was flushed sunburn-pink. She had a nice face, round cheeks, and the kind of skin that had never seen a blemish.

She opened her mouth to say something and then Archie saw her eyes dart behind him. He turned his head and saw one of the ward orderlies moving cautiously in from the door. He was a young guy, all ninety-degree angles, strong and stocky, with hair buzzed short and a square face. Archie had seen him in the halls, pushing a mop or wheeling a meal cart.

“Put it down,” the orderly said.

Courtenay looked right at the orderly and pushed the piece of Formica into her neck.

One of the women huddled near the wall gasped.

“Get out,” Courtenay screamed at the orderly, her pretty face twisting, sending forth a spray of saliva and snot.

“It’s okay,” the orderly said. “My name’s George. What’s yours?”

Archie cringed. Don’t admit you don’t know her name. The orderly’s expression was earnest, palms held out and up, posture neutral. He had probably taken a seminar on hostage situations. Introduce yourself. Establish a rapport. Stall.

“Courtenay,” Archie said, trying to distract her from the orderly. “What can I do for you?”

She nodded toward the orderly. “I don’t want him here,” she said. A bead of blood ran down her neck.