Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Later she’d sent that official-looking death certificate.
Darcie had been horrified to see Bea standing there, alive and well. That part, at least, hadn’t been an act.
Darcie’s belief in Bea’s death—and the resulting destruction of Bea’s property on Darcie’s command—was also why Grace had stolen her phone. So that Darcie couldn’t even attempt to call the facility’s unlisted number, a number saved on her phone alone; she’d certainly never shared it with Ash.
“Grace,” I said to Bea, “told me you asked to stay inside when she could’ve got you out six months ago.” After making Darcie believe Bea was dead, Grace had taken over the fee payments and all communications with the facility—in Darcie’s name. However, even with all the skills she’d learned, it had taken her several more months to arrange for Bea’s release. Only for Bea to ask her to wait even longer.
“I wrote the release paperwork on the judge’s stationery,” Grace had said with a grin back in the car. “Same man who put her in now ordering that fucking prison to let her go. Seemed poetic.”
“My new regimen of drugs was working,” Bea whispered in the soft, almost dreamy light of her lamp. “But I wasn’t me yet. I had to wait.” She was the one who stroked my face now, the bandage around her right palm a searing white. “I’m still not me, Nae-nae. I don’t know if I ever will be again.”
“You’re alive. You breathe. That’s all I ever wanted.” My own breath caught. “Forgive me for not finding you.”
“How could you?” She touched her forehead to mine. “You trusted Darcie. So did I. I have no memory of being admitted to the facility—I went to sleep one night, and I woke up there. I don’t blame myself or you. Only Darcie.”
I stroked her wrist. “Let’s go for a walk.” I didn’t think this room was being monitored, but we couldn’t take the risk.
Bea’s eyes held a thousand secrets as she rose. Her hospital gown was loose, the slippers into which she slid her feet institutional. The police had taken the dress in which she’d come into the ER, and all her other stuff was at the estate.
“I’ll buy you some clothes,” I said as we padded out of the room. “Your favorite pink jeans and a sparkly unicorn T-shirt.”
Sudden laughter before she tucked her arm through mine. “I’ll have you know that was ironic high fashion at fourteen.”
We didn’t speak again until we were outside the ward, in the wide-open corridor with no one else around. As if even the staff had gone to sleep. A false silence, but in this moment, we walked alone. “Grace said it’s been a month since she got you discharged.” Me and Grace, we’d had time to speak in the Land Cruiser.
Bea nodded, her slippers making hush hush sounds on the hospital tile. “She picked me up, took me to the estate. Already had clothes and other supplies, even my favorite perfume. I wanted to get on a plane and come to you, but I was afraid, Nae-nae. When you’ve lived in a cage for so long, the outside world feels like it’ll crush you—and I didn’t know who you were anymore.”
Baby steps, Luna. One at a time.
Dr. Mehta, her wisdom infinite. “I understand. The estate was a safe place to heal, decide on your next steps.”
“Yes, and I had my secret room to hide in if the caretaker came by.”
“Cops don’t know about that room.”
“Even Darcie didn’t know where it was. I found it as a kid, used to hide there when she got annoying.” Bea looked up at me, a question in her expression.
“Far as cops are concerned, you stayed in one of the main bedrooms until we arrived, then hid in a remote part of the estate after our arrival—until Grace began to drug you so you were malleable and she could walk you to places she knew we wouldn’t or couldn’t look.” Blake Shepherd’s locked study, for example. “She’d then give you another dose so you’d lose consciousness.”
No one was going to test Grace on her stated ability to pick locks, not when they were dealing with murder and attempted murder. “Your secret room can stay a secret.” There might be nothing in there for the cops to find, but why take the risk?
“What about my things?”
“Grace’s told them you didn’t have much, that the bag will be around somewhere. She can’t quite recall the last place she shoved it. Ratene’s good, but cops have budgets. They can’t hunt endlessly for a victim’s belongings when they have the perpetrator and the necessary evidence to put her away.”
Reaching the end of the hallway, we turned right, continued on to another. A harried doctor passed us in a half jog, two nurses crossed ahead of us, then the world went quiet again.