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While Maddock and Bones signed in, hastily scribbling their names, the visitor desk attendant informed them that the residents had just finished breakfast and should be in their rooms, or engaged in one of the morning activities.
Maddock led Bones down a series of tiled floor corridors, following posted signs to reach the nursing home’s rehabilitation wing. Pictures of flowers and birds lined the cream-colored walls. The antiseptic smell assaulted Maddock’s nose, but it was better than stale urine, a childhood memory that lingered from when his mother took him to visit an ailing neighbor.
Stopping at the nurses’ station that appeared to be the hub of three hallways, counting the one they’d traveled down, Maddock asked directions to Ruth Harshbinner’s room. A nursing aid pointed down
