7
I THINK ALL OF US half-expected to find a swat team armed and waiting for us. Or to be felled by poison darts or something. But when I entered Dr. Kells’s office, with Jamie and Stella flanking each shoulder, the room was dark and silent.
The room was also practically empty. Distressingly blank. There were no papers on the metal desk, which was really just a worktable, but there was a worn Persian rug beneath it, looking out of place in the sterile room. There were no notebooks, no file folders, not even an office chair—just a little metal stool. It looked nothing like an office, even, except for the wall-to-wall file cabinets, which I prayed weren’t empty.
“Where do we start?” Stella asked. “And what are we looking for, exactly? Can someone catch me up?”
I looked at Jude’s watch. Twelve thirty-six. In the morning, I assumed. We had passed no windows, and there was no way to tell whether it was night or day, but I guessed night. It seemed more appropriate.
If what Jude had said was true, Kells knew where we were, and she was probably watching us right now, so I played the tape. We listened to Jude’s message together. It sounded even stranger in Kells’s office, somehow, than it had in the room with Wayne, and I noticed things I’d missed the first time. Jude’s voice sounded softer than I remembered it. More earnest. There was no edge to it, no hint of sarcasm or impatience. And he sounded sick. I heard him faintly wheezing between words, and his breath rattled when he coughed.
“He never told us where to find the map,” Stella said when the tape ended. “It could be anywhere. And there’s only one way in and out.” She flicked a nervous glance at the door.
“That we know of,” Jamie added.
They were both right. “But why would Jude help us escape just to trap us in her office, when we were exactly where she wanted us before?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want what she wants anymore,” Stella said. “Maybe . . . ” Her voice drifted off. “When he took us before, I was on my way back to my room, and he just grabbed me. Stuck something into my arm, and I passed out and woke up in the Zen garden, tied up like you saw.”
Jamie picked at his lips. “Same with me. And he never said anything to us, not until you got there. He was just—quiet. Focused.”
Stella closed her eyes, and her thick eyebrows drew together. “Megan woke up, and she was begging him not to hurt her.”
Who’s Megan? I mouthed to Jamie.
“Megan? From Horizons? Who was afraid of everything in Group?”
It didn’t register, and Jamie could tell. He looked worried.
“And then Adam—” Stella began.
“The douchecanoe who always fucked with me,” Jamie added helpfully.
“—wanted to know why Jude was doing this to us, and Jude just looked at him, and then at Megan, and then at Tara, who was passed out. He slit Tara’s throat while she was unconscious, just like that.” Stella snapped her fingers.
“Didn’t say a word till after her blood had already soaked into the sand,” Jamie said. “And then he said that if we didn’t stay quiet, he would do the same to the rest of us, one by one. No diabolical monologue. No explanation. Nothing.” Jamie paused. “That is all to say—he is one seriously sick fuck.”
“I know this.” My voice was firm and clear. “I’ve known Jude longer than I’ve known either of you.”
I thought about telling them about Laurelton, and the asylum, and the scars on my wrists—the things Jude had done to me, the things he’d made me do. I decided I would, but now was not the time.
“I’m not saying I trust him. I’m just saying we don’t have a lot of other options. Can we just look for the map, please, and get Noah and get the fuck out of here?”
Without another word Jamie and Stella began to search. We opened drawer after drawer. They were all empty.
The minutes ticked by, stoking my frustration and my rage. I wanted to knock the file cabinets over, to lift the table and throw it into the wall. I wanted to claw the walls down to their studs. Stella grew visibly nervous, grinding her teeth, winding her fingers around her hair, until finally she said, “We have to get out of here.”
“Do you hear something?” Jamie asked her.
She shook her head. “No. But I want to go.” She tried to turn the door handle. It had locked behind us.
“You can’t get out like that,” I said as Stella let out a whimper. I was on my hands and knees on the rug, under the desk, trying to find anything that could help us. “You need to use the eye.”
I’d left it on the worktable above me, but as I tried to stand back up to get it, I banged my head. “Ow.”
Jamie poked his head under the table. “You okay?”
I shot him a glare. “Do I look okay?”
“Touché,” he said, kneeling beside me. He patted my head a few times until I threatened to eat him.
“Hey, Mara, did you see this?” he asked.
“What?”
He was staring at a spot on the rug, and reached for it. It was a key.
Stella’s face split into a smile, showing teeth. “It has to open something!”
“That is what keys generally do,” I said.
“And not a drawer,” she said, ignoring me. “None of them were locked.”
“So maybe a safe or something?” Jamie crossed the room. He leaned one of the empty file cabinets forward, to find only solid wall behind it.
I rocked back on my heels and plucked the key from Jamie’s fingers. “Where did you find it?”
“It was right there.” He pointed under the table. “Maybe it was taped under the table, and when you banged your head, it fell?”
An idea crystallized as I looked at the worn, patterned rug. “Help me move this,” I said, indicating the table. Stella looked unsure and cast a glance at the door before she joined me and Jamie. We lined up on one side of the table.
It was insanely heavy, solid metal, and it took everything we had, which wasn’t very much, to push it off the rug. Panting, we took a moment to catch our breaths before Jamie and I reached for the rug and pulled it up at the same time.
“Well, heavens to Betsy,” Jamie whispered.
A rectangle had been cut into the linoleum floor. And at the bottom of it, right in the center, was a keyhole.
Before Jamie or Stella could say another word, I stuck the key into the hole. The room was so quiet that the three of us heard the tumbler click. I hadn’t noticed before that the alarm had gone silent.
I pulled back on the key, and the trapdoor lifted with it, surprisingly light. We peered down but couldn’t see anything except the top rungs of a ladder.
“Jamie, you keep the eye.” Never know when you might need it. I swung my leg over the first rung. Stella tugged at the shoulder of my hospital gown. “Where are you going?”
“Down.” I picked her fingers off me. The ladder had raised bumps for traction, and they pricked my bare feet. “You have the tape?” I asked Jamie. He nodded. And I still had the scalpel, now tucked into the waistband of my underwear. “You guys can stay here if you want till I come back with the map.”
“Yeah, no,” Jamie said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Then I’ll see you on the other side,” I said, and disappeared into the darkness.