“Have you ever heard of Camden House?” I asked Nan. “It’s a treatment center for—”
“I know what it is.” Nan cut me off, her voice gruff.
There was no easy way to ask this next question. “Did your daughter and son-in-law send Toby there?”
“He wasn’t an addict,” Nan spat. “I know addicts. That boy was just… confused.”
I wasn’t about to bicker with her about words. “But they sent him to Camden House, for his confusion?”
“He was angry when he left and angry when he got back.” Nan shook her head. “That summer…” Her lip quivered. She didn’t finish what she was saying.
“Was that the summer of the fire?” I asked softly.
Before Nan could reply, a shadow fell across the two of us. Mr. Laughlin stepped onto the garden path. He was holding a pair of shears. “Everything okay here?” He scowled, and I thought about Mrs. Laughlin calling me cruel.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, my voice tight.
Mr. Laughlin looked toward Nan. “We talked about this, Pearl,” he said gently. “It isn’t healthy.” Clearly, he knew what I’d told Nan about Toby. And clearly, he didn’t believe me any more than his wife did.
After a long silence, Mr. Laughlin turned back to me. “I made some repairs in the House.” A muscle in his jaw tightened. “To one of the older wings. When things fall into disrepair around here…” He gave me a look. “People get hurt.”
I understood then that one of the older wings was code for Toby’s. I wasn’t sure what the groundskeeper meant by repairs until I made my way back into Hawthorne House and went to check.
Toby’s wing had been bricked up again.
CHAPTER 20
On the way from Toby’s wing to mine, I found myself glancing back over my shoulder every hundred feet. As I stepped into my hall, I heard Libby’s voice: “Did you know about this?”
“You’re going to have to be a bit more specific, darlin’。” That was Nash, obviously. I could see his silhouette in the doorway to my sister’s room.
“Your lawyer girlfriend. These papers. Did you know?”
I couldn’t see Libby at all, so I had no idea how she was looking at Nash or what kind of papers she was holding.
“Sweetheart, I wouldn’t let Alisa hear you refer to her as my anything.”
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
This didn’t feel like a conversation I had any business overhearing, so I crept for the door to my room, opened it, and slipped inside. Closing the door behind me, I flipped on my light. A breeze caught my hair.
I turned to see that one of the massive windows on my far wall was open. I didn’t leave that window open. A breath caught in my throat, and I felt the drum of my heart in every inch of my body. I’d had nightmares like this before: First you notice one thing that’s off, and then— Blood. The muscles in my throat tightened like a vise. There’s blood. Panic flooded my body like a shot of adrenaline straight to the heart. Get out. Get out get out get—
But I couldn’t move. All I could do was stare in horror at the white bedsheet lying under my open window, drenched in blood. Move. You have to move, Avery. Sitting on top of the white sheet, there was a heart.
Human?
And through the heart—a knife. My lungs felt like they were locked. My body didn’t listen no matter how many times I told it to run. There’s a knife. And a heart. And—
I let out a low gurgling sound. I still couldn’t run, but I managed to stumble backward.
I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I felt the way I had in the Black Wood, in the sights of someone who wanted me dead. I have to get out of here. I have to—
“Breathe, kid.” Nash was there suddenly. He placed a hand on each of my shoulders. He bent down, putting his face even with mine. “In and out. That’s a good girl.”
“My room,” I wheezed. “There’s a heart in my room. A knife—”
A dangerous expression flickered across Nash’s face. “Call Oren,” he told Libby, who had appeared beside us. When Nash turned back to me, his expression was gentle. “In and out,” he said again.
I sucked in a frantic breath and tried to look at my room, but the eldest Hawthorne brother sidestepped and blocked me from seeing a damn thing except for his face. He was suntanned and had a five o’clock shadow. He was wearing his trademark cowboy hat. His gaze was steady.