“How do you two know each other?” Owen asked. He had a problem with prolonged silences. They made him uncomfortable. Besides, I sensed his eagerness to move on from Adam, to do what we should have done all along—return him to his people.
A smile flickered. She didn’t look away from Adam. “John’s been in love with me since we were eight years old,” she said, and I thought I could detect the same hint of pride that I got when I talked about him. It was aimed at something completely different, but I still recognized it as there. “It took me a little longer to come around, I guess,” she said. She lifted her fingertip from his brow and quietly clasped her hands together. A pale pink rose to her cheeks. “I think I need to sit down,” she said. I gestured to a nearby stool that Owen dragged over for her. She perched on top and shifted her weight. “I always had a problem trusting men. It’s easy to get that way where I come from. It was almost too late by the time I came around on trusting John, but the two of us”—she twisted her mouth sideways and gave a small shrug—“we were always—I don’t know what to call it—meant to be. Like something out of the movies.”
“I—” My voice was hoarse. “Well—that’s very romantic.” I coughed into the crook of my elbow, hoping to clear the cobwebs that had suddenly taken up residence on my vocal cords. My mind was spinning. None of this felt real.
“John…” Adam sounded out the name, trying it on for size. “Victoria? But—”
So much had happened today. I had to look away from him. I studied the skull of the skeleton dangling near the far wall. “It’s true, Adam. I found a flyer just before the dance, and I knew the photograph was of you. Meg was searching for you.”
It’s for the best, I told myself. This is what has to happen. The experiment has failed. Adam killed. But it didn’t feel right.
She shook her head and stared at her knees. “I … just can’t imagine that he wouldn’t remember me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful, but to have it all just be gone.” The last word was choked in the beginnings of a sob. She took a deep breath and recovered.
“He’s in trouble,” I said, making sure to stare past Adam and directly at Meg.
She nodded. “I guess he seems to find trouble wherever he goes then.”
Adam looked between the two of us. Here we were, the most important women in his life. “I don’t want to be in trouble. I’m good. I want to be good.” He knitted his hands together. “Victoria, I didn’t mean to break the wall or the mirror or Knox. I’m sorry. I can fix them. Right? Can’t I fix them? Victoria, you can bring him back. Put him in the tub. I know you know how.” The veins writhed in Adam’s forearms, twisting like snakes.
“It’s gotten a little bigger than you, buddy.” Owen put a hand on his shoulder. Owen gave me a small frown, meant to be reassuring.
“What kind of trouble?” I asked Meg. I probably should have offered her something. An iced tea. A Diet Coke. But I had nothing to give, and besides, the situation seemed beyond niceties.
For the first time, Meg looked grim. She took a deep breath and looked between Owen and me. “Like you said, it’s a long story, but John took off after a … fire. He’s wanted from here to the Mississippi, I imagine. I wasn’t sure I’d ever see him again.”
“Fire?” Adam and I both said at once.
She studied us. “Yes … But I thought you said…”
“I’ve seen fire,” Adam explained, and I thought of him searching for the house, searching for numbers painted on a curb, searching for answers. “Bits of my memory. They come back. Mainly that one bit. The fire. I can see it sometimes. Victoria said she would help me find it, but she never did.”
Meg’s shoulders fell. “Oh.” And I could see she was disappointed that his first memory wasn’t of her.
“There hasn’t exactly been a lot of downtime since Adam’s arrival,” I said.
“Better that you didn’t. I thought maybe you were dead.” I could tell she wanted to touch him again, but she held back. “There are some bad people after you. Some things you—we—got mixed up in. I would have come sooner, but I thought you were gone.” She looked down at her shoes, and when she looked up, the sparkle of tears danced in her eyes. “I guess you were, almost. When they found your car near Lake Crook, that’s when I started looking.”
I felt Owen’s eyes snap onto me. A fugitive on Lake Crook. I knew what he was thinking, but just because of Knox didn’t make Adam the Hunter. The methodology was all off.
We waited several heartbeats when it began. It was soft at first, so soft we could have been imagining it. But then, from above, came the sound of sirens.
“They’re coming,” Owen whispered. Light flashed over his glasses. We both cast fleeting looks around the room. The cellar felt like an animal trap. There was nowhere to go.
“What’s happening?” Meg tilted her chin to the ceiling. “Are they coming for him?”