So as soon as the beep alerts us that the door’s unlocked, I strut in as if I belong there … just in case. That’s the only way to enter if he is here, like I’m looking for him. He’s done it to me a million times. Except the room is empty.
I let out a tense breath.
Sophia leans against the closed door, sagging like her legs are about to give out from under her.
“You okay?” I ask her. “It’s not too late to change your mind and wait for me outside.”
She shakes her head, unable to speak. Sophia may be at Blackwood because she popped a few too many pills, but she’s not a natural rule-breaker. Her neurosis probably makes going against the establishment feel like the ultimate betrayal. I hope I’m not doing more damage by asking her to participate in this break-in.
“They won’t know it’s you,” I remind her again that I’m willing to go down for this if we’re discovered.
She nods blankly.
I inspect the bookcase with the rolltop desk and begin pulling books from the shelves, flipping through pages in hopes that something will fall out.
“What should I do?” Sophia whispers.
“Search the unlocked drawers. Look for anything … weird.”
I don’t know what I’m hoping to find exactly. But I’m convinced I’ll recognize it when I see it.
“Speaking of weird,” I murmur, sliding out a book of love poems by Rumi. There’s no way Brendan is the romantic type. As soon as I open it, I know … he’s not.
The inside of the book has been hollowed out, and instead of pages, it houses pictures. I flip through them. Most of them are of his mother, as a teenager and in her twenties. There’s a small stack of the two of them together. Brendan as a baby, a toddler and … older. Much older than four, when he claims to have lost her to suicide. He appears to be twelve or thirteen in one of them.
Is she still alive?
The thought that he would lie about her death disturbs me more than any lie he could possibly tell. There has to be a reason … right?
I freeze when I come across a picture of his mother, her light-brown hair laying softly on her shoulders, holding a young Brendan, around five or six, with his fine blinding-white hair floating around his small head. And next to them, as if posing for a family photo, is Kaden—Niall’s brother. The man my mother was madly in love with. The man who could be my father.
I look between him and Brendan, searching for a resemblance. Kaden has medium-blond hair, sun-streaked with pale blond highlights. His skin is golden, and the creases around his eyes make him look like he’s spent most of his time outdoors. His smile is bright. He genuinely looks happy.
They all do.
Other than the hair, the resemblance isn’t obvious. Brendan’s face is shaped like his mother’s. And I can’t tell what color Kaden’s eyes are, but they’re not brown. They look more hazel-blue or even grey.
Could he be Brendan’s father? My father? Maybe … but there’s no way he’s Vic’s. Unless …
Joey can’t be the third sibling. My stomach roils at the thought.
Brendan’s words echo in my head. “It’s obvious you’re a Harrison.”
He’s right. And so is Kaden.
I shiver.
I stuff the picture in my back pocket and try to force my gnarled family tree out of my head.
“We should go,” I tell Sophia, my voice a rasp.
She’s flipping through a folder of photos, her eyes wide with shock. “How did he get these?”
I come up beside her to examine the images. They’re black-and-white stills from security footage. Pictures of Ashton talking to a guy in a lobby, at lunch with Sophia, and in the birch forest, vaping. There are other images of Lance, a ton of me, and a couple of Sophia. And oddly … one of Mr. Garner talking with Parker.
“What?” I take the photo from the file folder to inspect it.
How does Parker even know Mr. Garner? Other than both being from Oaklawn … they lead polar opposite lives.
In the image, they’re somewhere dark. It looks like a stairwell. The still is grainy and hard to decipher. Mr. Garner isn’t wearing his glasses. He looks normal, like a regular twenty-something guy out with friends. Except he’s pissed. I know those hand gestures and frown better than anyone.
I direct my attention to Sophia when she begins wheezing. The color has drained from her face. “You okay?”
“He knows.” Her eyes dart around frantically, like he’s recording us right now. Which he may be.
“Knows what?”
“How does he have these? He doesn’t have a key to the administration building. He couldn’t get them from the monitors in Dr. Kendall’s office.”
“He has his own,” I tell her regretfully.
I scan the corners of the room for cameras with a shiver. Brendan has pushed some disturbing boundaries on his mission to learn the truth.
“Put these back where you found them.” I give her the picture of Parker and Mr. Garner.
Examining the bookcase, I search for the section that opened for Brendan and push against it. Nothing. I try a different spot and feel the shelves give with an audible click. When I release it, the section pops out, and I pull it open the rest of the way.
Sophia gasps. “How did you know this was here?”
“He showed me once,” I tell her as I enter the dark, cramped space within the wall. My hands skate over the rough boards, getting tangled in cobwebs, until I find the string of lights and click them on. Miniature lightbulbs illuminate the ladder.
My stomach twists from the nerves warring inside. I’ve always been suspicious of Brendan, sensed he wasn’t being honest. Most of the time, I’m only half-serious about him being a stalker, but to actually find proof makes every inch of me feel exposed, like I want to peel off my flesh and scrub it.
With a flip of a light switch, the attic space fills with the hum of monitors coming to life, and another feeling takes over. Anger.
This time, all the monitors light up. At first glance, they appear to be live feeds of campus—and not just the perimeter. I watch several students in the dining hall, eating dinner. A large monitor is cut into quadrants, flashing through different aerial views of the Court, positioned to capture every garden and passage. There are screens showing inside the library, including the hallway where the study rooms are located on the basement level. He can spy on the entire campus from here. I search for one inside the girls’ dorm but don’t find it.
When I notice a computer screen tucked behind the others on the main desk, I collapse onto the rolling chair. My fingers brush the glowing screen where a girl is lying in a hospital bed, a tube down her throat, an IV in her arm and various wires attached to her body. She’s still. Almost peaceful-looking. A woman sits in a recliner next to her with a book on her lap and one hand holding the girl’s.
“Allie,” I rasp, blinking back tears.
The sound of Sophia tapping on a keyboard snaps me out of my sorrow. She’s typing like crazy on a laptop set on the corner of the desk. She’s hyperfocused on the blur of symbols threading down the screen. The letters look like an alien language. Or code—basically the same thing.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to figure out how he’s gained access to the security feed. What network the other cameras are connected to. I’ve never seen them before,” she explains, fixated on the screen, the string of code reflecting in her unblinking eyes.