Twenty-Eight

Fitch had found a good place to hide the white metal box that held the router and other Wi-Fi components necessary for running the security cameras. It wouldn’t have been the first place most people would look, but it certainly had symbolism. If Abigail hadn’t told us, we never would have found it—but once she did, it made perfect sense.

She gestured toward the Sibylline panels.

“It’s behind that one with Daphne painted on it,” she said.

I was dying to get my hands on the box, but the irony was, the cameras were most likely trained on us now, making it almost impossible to disable the electronics. Fitch would see us, and that would defeat the purpose. Abigail had come up with a plan that would require serious synchronization. The success or failure of our operation depended upon her acting abilities.

So Hayley and I pretended to be absorbed in working on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle on the card table and Abigail lay on her bed. I felt tense, waiting for what I knew was coming. And then Abigail got started.

I never thought she could have done it well enough to fool Fitch, but within half an hour, she was faking an episode. If Fitch was monitoring the seizure the way he had last time, we’d have about one minute from the moment Abigail went rigid to the instant Fitch came bursting through the door. During the time it would take for him to run upstairs, no one would be watching the monitor, so that was exactly as long as we had to get into the system.

Abigail moaned and tossed in bed. It seemed so real. Real enough that it was easy for me and Hayley to look at her with concern.

We saw her stiffen up. She was forcing herself to lower her respiration so Fitch would see she wasn’t breathing right. A great stillness filled the room. I remembered how scared I’d been to think she had actually died, and it was a tribute to her acting that I felt it again now.

I heard the quick throb of the buzzer attached to her mattress, and I knew that was our sign—it meant that Fitch had been alerted, and he’d be running up to the attic to tend to her.

“Now!” I said sharply.

Hayley and I ran to Daphne’s panel. We tilted it forward—it was super-heavy, and our muscles were straining just to support it and keep it from crashing down on top of us. Behind the tall sheet of wood was a small door cut into the wall. While Hayley steadied the panel, I scoped things out. There, inside the cupboard, was the alarm box containing the router and modem.

“The system is password protected,” I said, even as I was typing the password Fitch had told me: SibyllineADC. The window on the apparatus began to blink. I knew we were in. As soon as the flashing stopped—theoretically—I would cut the power.

But that didn’t happen.

Across the screen appeared the message: Nice try, Oli!

And that didn’t surprise me one bit—I had expected Fitch to have been one step ahead of me, or to think he was, and I had to stop myself from laughing out loud. This chess move was playing straight into what I had hoped would happen.

Then the attic door opened slowly, and Fitch walked in, with that cruel grin on his face. “I knew you’d try to hack into something of mine—I actually ‘forgot’ my laptop in the exam room so you’d try that, but you didn’t look in there. Did you honestly think I was careless enough to allow that password to access my security system?”

“Not careless, Fitch. Stupid is the word,” I said, deliberately wanting to rile him and get him off guard.

“I’m not stupid,” he said, fury in his voice. “And I’ll make you pay for saying that.”

I tried not to look at Hayley. Disabling the Wi-Fi had actually been plan B, but we hadn’t let Abigail in on plan A. As much as she wanted to help us, hurting her brother might have been too much for her to handle, and she might have stopped us. Fitch hadn’t left any obvious weapons around, but after conspiring—heads together as we’d worked on the puzzle—Hayley had found the perfect thing.

As Fitch stood there glaring, I distracted him by walking toward Abigail. Hayley crouched down to pick up the doorstop—antique iron, shaped like a swan.

“You know what bothers me?” Fitch asked. I thought he was talking to me.

“What?” I asked. But then I realized he was addressing Abigail. He was staring straight at her. She had given up her act. Sitting on the edge of her bed, one arm slung around one of the posts, she was watching everything unfold.

“You betrayed me,” he said to Abigail, ignoring me. “They would never have found the camera control box if you hadn’t told them about it. After all I’ve done, sacrificed, to work on this cure. To help you. My sister. And this is what I get from you.”

“Fitch?.?.?.” Abigail began.

“I was testing you as much as I was Oli,” he said, sounding genuinely heartbroken. “I thought you loved me.”

“I do,” Abigail said, her voice cracking. “But not the way you are now, Fitch. Finding a cure, helping me, was so important. You were devoted to the work, even when Mom and Dad broke up, and when Mom stopped caring.”

“I’m still devoted to the work,” he said.

“But for the wrong reasons,” Abigail said. “Not to save me, not even for your personal glory. I’ve seen you, Fitch. I wanted to believe that everything you were doing was for good. But, Fitch?.?.?.?you cause pain. And I’m worried”—her voice dropped—“that you like it.”

“It’s part of the research,” he said. But instead of looking upset at being accused, he looked pleased.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Hayley inching forward, gripping the doorstop in her hand behind her back. Fitch’s phone buzzed, and he took it from his pocket and read a text. His smile grew wider. My stomach flipped, anxious for Hayley to make her move. I saw her raise the doorstop above her head, ready to smash it down on Fitch and give us a chance to get away.

“We have company,” Fitch said, half turning toward the door just as Hayley began to bring the doorstop down. It hit him with a glancing blow to his shoulder. He shoved her away, as if she was no more than a mosquito, knocking her to the floor, and stepped past her to unlock the door.

And there he stood, the boy I had thought I loved.

“Sorry I’m late,” Matt said to Fitch, not even glancing at me.

“Hey, you’re here now,” Fitch said. “That’s what counts.”

I took a step forward. I stood between Fitch and Matt, making it impossible for Matt to avoid looking me in the eyes.

“I never would have believed it,” I said.

“Hello, Oli,” Matt said coldly.

“You’re really part of it,” I said. “Were you there when he killed Eloise? Did you help bury her? I need to know.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Matt said, his eyes narrowed. I barely even recognized him. I saw nothing of the old Matt, the one who had made my heart race, calmed my spirit, eased the sadness I’d felt from losing my sister.

“You were just pretending to help us,” I said. I remembered him on his phone—he must have been texting Fitch our location. It was why he immediately suggested meeting up with him. “You drove me and Iris all around. You were just having fun, waiting to deliver us to Fitch.”

“The point,” Fitch said, interrupting me, “is that you are right where you belong, Oli. You and Hayley. And my disloyal sister.”

“Where’s Iris now?” I asked him.

“What have you done to her?” Hayley asked.

“Don’t worry,” Fitch said. “I’ll find her.”

What did that mean? He didn’t have her?

“Anyway, I’ll give you time to think about things, but we’ll be back very shortly,” Fitch said. He gestured at Matt. “Come on, let’s go.”

Matt nodded. His eyes bored into mine, and for just a split second, he glanced down at the rope bracelet on my wrist: the Turk’s head, our sailor’s knot. Then he turned away and headed downstairs, with Fitch right behind him.