And what waswrongwith Sam that all she wanted to do, the only thing in the world, was talk to William?
She had been utterly unprepared for the instant surge of animal relief she’d felt when she opened the suite door and saw him standingthere:It’s you!Or for the joy that had flooded his face, probably mirroring her own, swiftly replaced by confusion, then anger, then frustration as he chased her through the rooms.
Or for the hot, damp solidity of his body as he restrained her when she lunged, howling, toward the bathtub—screamingNo, no! No!His ferocious growl in her ear:Don’t, Simone! Stop it. You can’t help her. She’s beyond that now. And don’t touch her. You can’t disturb the scene.
She’d thought he might offer some commiseration, some touch or reassurance, when she sat shuddering on the couch while he called the front desk. His voice so calm as he saidThere’s been an incident in Room 620, I need the police, but he’d been pulling down the skin under his eyes as he spoke, turning his face into a grotesque Halloween mask. When he hung up, he’d been remote as a stranger, standing in the middle of the room with his hands at his sides, muttering a most familiar refrain:I should have done something. I should have known.
And when the detectives arrived after the manager and EMTs, William had spared Sam only one glance, the kind he might give a pedestrian on the street, before they escorted him from the suite.
Of course, he’d been under terrible strain. As Sam was. They’d been in the same room with a dead woman. They’d found her together. Maybe that was why Sam’s need to see William, to talk to him, was like a fever. Even though he’d dumped her and ignored her, even though he’d taken up with a woman a decade his junior who was emotionally unstable, even though Sam’s subsequent behavior had turned her into someone she didn’t like, was actively ashamed of, who called him and messaged him and stalked him and eventually set a honey trap in desperation—after all this, William was the only person in the world who knew exactly how Sam felt right now. How terrified he might be blamed. How scared that there might have been third-party Rabbit involvement. How guilty that, if Cyndi’s death was the suicide even the police seemed to believe it was, he might have done something to prevent it.
Sam’s phone buzzed. Drishti. Sam hadn’t told Drishti beforehand that she was going to the Hawthorne, nor, later, about finding Cyndi inthe tub. Sam had texted onlySOS, can I stay with you guys tonight?, because the thought of being in her own apartment, visited by spectral Cyndi or perhaps the actual Rabbit, was insupportable.
But it was time to tell Drishti what had happened and come clean. Sam flipped her phone.
The text said:Hi Simone. Where are you? Are you all right?
Chapter 28
Trauma Bond
Hi, William. No, I’m not all right. Are you?
No.
Did you give a witness statement?
Yes. You?
Yes. It sounds like they think Cyndi’s death was a suicide.
What else could it be? Occam’s razor: The simplest explanationis usually the right one.
Agree. But it could have been the Rabbit?
Unlikely. But possible. I told them that.
So did I.
Has she troubled you lately? Contacted you?
No. Not since we stopped... No.
Thank God for small mercies.
I guess.
...
...
God, that was devastating. I’m sitting in my car shaking and I can’t stop. Can I tell you something I’ve never told anyone?
Yes. Tell.
I found Hank.
... Forgive me, I’m confused. Was he lost?
