Hemlock 03: Willowgrove (21 page)

Jason cut him off. “It doesn’t matter how we got in or why. What matters is the tie between CutterBrown and what was happening at Thornhill. That’s the only reason you’re here and not lying in an unconscious heap for the police to find.”

“Jason.” Kyle’s voice held a sharp note of warning. Kyle was a werewolf, but so was Stephen. Force wouldn’t get us far.

Stephen’s eyes narrowed as he stared at Jason. With their blond hair and tuxedos, the two boys could have passed for brothers. If things had worked out differently—if Amy hadn’t died and she and Jason had miraculously stayed together—maybe they would have been. “What makes you think there’s a tie between CutterBrown and the camp or that I would even know about it if there was? I’m just an intern.”

“An intern whose father runs the company,” countered Jason. “Plus, there’s the fact that Mac saw the CBP logo inside the camp and you still haven’t explained what the hell you were doing in Flagler.”

Though he hid it quickly, it was impossible to miss the flash of annoyance that crossed Stephen’s face. “You really want to know why I was in Flagler?”

No
, I corrected myself,
not annoyance, anger
.

“I was good at control. Great, even. No one but Amy knew I was infected. My parents, my friends, the girls I dated—none of them had a clue. And then Amy died. She was murdered by someone like me. After that, control got harder. A lot harder.” His face twisted, almost as though the admission had cost him. For Stephen—someone who had always excelled at everything—it probably had. “I was taking a class on the LS epidemic and how the government was managing it. We learned about this woman who had these new ideas about behavior modification and control. She had just been given a new camp to test her methods.”

“Sinclair.” The warden’s name was little more than a breath on my lips, but Stephen nodded.

“I thought maybe some of the things she was doing could help me. A few months after Amy’s death, when things hadn’t gotten any better, I went to Flagler to try and meet her. I figured I could say I was interested in her theories and methods, that I was writing a paper on them.”

“Sinclair would have eaten that up.” The class explained why that copy of
Managing an Epidemic
had been in Stephen’s bag.

Stephen shrugged. “Maybe, but I couldn’t get a meeting with her. I stayed for a couple of days and then headed back. That’s why I was in Flagler. It had nothing to do with CutterBrown or my father.” His eyes locked on each of us in turn. Bright and blue and earnest, they seemed to reinforce everything he had just said.

And it seemed plausible. More plausible than the idea that Stephen could have knowingly been embroiled in anything as awful as what had happened at Thornhill.

Jason reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a silver flask—one I was certain he hadn’t had before the party. “Why should we trust anything you say?”

“I’ve known you your whole life,” countered Stephen. “You dated my kid sister for
years
. Why
wouldn’t
you trust me?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Jason took a deep swig from the flask. “Maybe it has something to do with the mess you left in your father’s study. I hope your parents have a good cleaning service. All that blood is going to be a bitch to clean up.”

“Jason!” My voice sliced the air as Kyle walked over to
Jason, unceremoniously plucked the flask from his hand, and hurled it into the trees.

Stephen didn’t flinch at Jason’s words. “That guy lunged at my grandfather and I attacked. What else was I supposed to do?” Maybe it was my imagination, but I thought I saw the muscles in Stephen’s arms twitch underneath his jacket.

Kyle returned to my side, standing a little closer, a little more in front of me, than he had a moment before.

Not my imagination, then.

I cleared my throat, trying to draw Stephen’s attention away from Jason. “When I asked the man in the study about your grandfather, he said, ‘He found out his son is a monster.’ What did he mean? What did your grandfather find out about your dad?”

“Nothing.” The word came out harsh and bitter. “He was probably talking about me. My grandfather didn’t know I was infected. When he saw what I did . . .”

His heart gave out.

It made sense. Sort of. Stephen did look an awful lot like his father. In the rush of an attack, in the dim light in the study, it would be possible to confuse them.

Stephen flexed his right hand and turned it over, studying his palm before glancing back at the house. “I keep expecting it to feel different. You think it would, after what I did.”

I wanted to tell Stephen who Ben was and what he had done to Amy—and I would—but now wasn’t the time. Knowing would help ease Stephen’s guilt, but it wasn’t an easy or quick conversation and we couldn’t afford to stay here much
longer. More police would arrive. Soon. It was only a matter of time before they—and the Trackers—started searching the rest of the neighborhood. There was no time for lengthy explanations.

So instead of telling Stephen about Ben, I said, “We saw your father talking to a woman who had worked at Thornhill. They knew each other.” There was no need to tell him just how well. “She mentioned you. She said you had been behind some sort of breach at CBP. Why would she say that?” I tried to keep my voice neutral, but hints of distrust bled through. I wanted to believe Stephen’s story about Flagler, but it was hard when I had seen his father with the woman who had singled Serena out for torture, when they had been talking about
him
.

Stephen opened his mouth and then closed it. His shoulders slumped as he ran a hand over his face. It was a long moment before he spoke. “I knew my father was involved with something—something serious—but I didn’t know what. I didn’t know it had anything to do with Thornhill. I still don’t think it could—not if the things you said about that place are true.”

He glanced back at the flashing lights outside the Walsh house. “My father’s been different over the past year and a half. Drinking a lot. Losing his temper. Board members and people from his office would show up at the house in the middle of the night and there were days when he wouldn’t leave his study. He wouldn’t tell us what was going on. Not me or Amy or even our mother. It got worse while I was away at school. Amy said he was getting obsessive. He kept
asking where she and Mom were all the time and who they were with. By the time I came home for Christmas break last year, she was really scared.”

I swallowed. “So you broke into CBP to try and figure out what was behind the attitude change?”

Stephen nodded. “I figured it had to be something with work. Work is practically the only thing he does.”

“How did you get in?” asked Jason.

Stephen’s eyes flashed. “Whatever you think he did, he’s still my father. I’m not going to tell you how to break into his company.”

“You found something, didn’t you?” Kyle tried to keep things on track. “You took something. That woman we saw your father talking to—she said something about a breach
and
a leak. It wasn’t just that you got in. It was that you got in and took something.”

“Maybe.” There wasn’t much open space in the grove, but Stephen began to pace, his steps taking him on a winding path around the trees. “I didn’t have much time—even with . . . well, let’s just say I was lucky to get in at all. I copied as many high-level access files as possible onto an external hard drive. I barely even looked at what I got. I figured I could decipher it all later.”

“So what happened?” Jason’s voice was sharp and impatient. He cast a glance toward the road; we had already stayed here too long.

“Amy.” Stephen came to a stop and turned back to us. “She knew where I was going that night. She wanted to
know what was going on, too, but she was scared I’d find something that would ruin the family. She waited until I got back. As soon as I left the room, she took the hard drive and disappeared. She turned up in the morning but wouldn’t tell me where it was. She said I didn’t want to know what was on it. No matter what I said or did, that was all she would say. I went back to school a couple of days after New Year’s because I didn’t know what else to do. A week before she was killed, she called me. She was scared and angry. She said I never should have gone to CBP that night, but she wouldn’t tell me why.”

His eyes locked on mine. “This whole time, I thought maybe I was the reason she had been killed. I knew it was a werewolf attack, but she was so frightened the night she called . . . I kept wondering if it could have been tied to the files I had taken. That’s why I didn’t go to the funeral. I couldn’t—not when I thought I might be the reason she was dead.”

“You weren’t.” To my surprise, it was Jason who spoke. Some of the hostility had dropped from his voice. More than any of us, Jason had struggled under the weight of guilt after Amy’s death. He started to reach for his jacket pocket before casting a slightly mournful look at the spot in the trees where the flask had disappeared. “You don’t have any idea where Amy hid the hard drive?” he asked, turning his attention back to Stephen.

“No.”

“Would you tell us if you did?”

“I don’t know,” Stephen admitted. “Would you—if your father was potentially involved in something like this?”

“Completely different situation. I hate my father.”

Another thought occurred to me. “That’s why you were going through Amy’s things. That’s why you wanted to know if I had taken anything.”

Stephen nodded. “I finally ran out of places to check. You were her best friend. I thought she might have given the files to you. Or told you where they were. When you said she’d given you a USB drive, I thought maybe she had copied some of the data from the original hard drive onto it.”

“It was just photos and songs.” I was beginning to think Amy hadn’t told me anything. Nothing important, anyway. I stared at the red and blue lights pulsing in the distance. It looked like the ambulance was leaving. How could Amy have lived there, in that house, with so many secrets? How was it that Trey was the only one who had noticed something was wrong?

Why was Trey the only one she had turned to? The one she had called when she needed help.

Trey.

An idea hit me so hard that I reached out to steady myself against a nearby tree. I suddenly knew why there had been something familiar about the second key we had found in Amy’s room.

I reached into Kyle’s inside jacket pocket and fished out his phone. Turning my back on the others without explanation, I walked deeper into the grove of trees, teetering
dangerously and trying not to break an ankle in my ridiculous shoes.

Behind me, the voices of the boys faded.

I stopped at the edge of the water trap and dialed.

Trey answered on the third ring.

“The night you picked Amy up at the strip mall—do you remember the date?”

“Dobs? Where the hell are you?” Trey’s voice was rough and unsteady, almost breathless.

My stomach twisted as I heard shouts and sirens in the background. “What’s going on? Is Serena—”

“She’s all right. We couldn’t stay at the church. Someone started a rumor that wolves were hiding in the empty houses in River Estates. Trackers flooded the development and set a few places on fire. The whole town is going crazy.”

“Where are you now?”

“The ball field at the end of Elm. Taking Eve’s car would have drawn too much attention, so we left on foot. We’re headed for your place. It’s the closest spot we could think of and Ree said your cousin would let us in.”

“She will. She knows Serena.” The last thing I wanted was to drag Tess into this mess, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of alternatives.

“What about you?” Trey asked. “Will you meet us there?”

“Yeah. As soon as we can.” I glanced over my shoulder. Kyle and Stephen looked like they were deep in conversation. Jason was watching me, but he was too far away for me to make out his expression. “We’re still on the north side.
Right now, I just really need to know what night you picked up Amy at that strip mall and if it was the one on this side of the river.”

“What does it matter?”

“Amy might have had proof that CutterBrown was involved in something. I promise to explain everything when we see you, but right now I really need you to answer the question.
Please
, Trey.”

“Around New Year’s. I don’t know the exact date.”

Which probably meant it had been the same night Stephen had broken into CBP.

“Which strip mall was it?” I prodded. “Was it the one on this side of the river? The one with the mail supply store?”

“Yeah. Just before the exit for the bridge.”

I gripped the phone tightly as something unraveled in my chest. Maybe I hadn’t known most of Amy’s secrets, but I was suddenly very sure I had the key to at least one.

I heard a commotion in the background. There was a muffled, scraping noise and then Trey told Eve and Serena that they had to get off the street. A second later, Eve’s voice came over the line.

“Trey’s indisposed.”

Fear slid over me. “What happened? What’s going on?”

“Nothing we can’t handle.” There was a harsh, vehement edge to her voice, an edge that reminded me of my father.

“Eve . . .”

“We’ll be fine, Mac. Trey and Serena will be fine. I’ll make sure of it. I promise I’ll take care of them.”

I heard Trey make an indignant noise in the background
and couldn’t keep a small smile from flashing across my face. Trey was tough, but Eve was my father’s protégée. Of all the wolves in his pack, she was the one he trusted to send to Hemlock. To protect us.

And I trusted her to protect them.

“Thanks,” I said. The word came out thick and slightly choked.

“Are you close to finding anything?”

“I think so.”

“Then do whatever you have to. Don’t worry about us, we’ll be okay.”

“Mac—” Kyle’s voice was a terse warning from across the grove. Something was happening.

“Eve, I have to go.”

“Be safe,” she said.

“You, too,” I replied, but she had already ended the call.

I hastily made my way back through the trees. The boys had moved to the very edge of the grove. As I joined them, I spotted a half-dozen shadows walking along the road. They were too far away to make out clearly, but the women were obviously wearing dresses. Refugees from the fund-raiser.