Finally, she turns away from me and shouts.
“Sonja! Sonja Carrera!”
49Lord Edward
After midnight, I pull on my coat and move toward the sliding door in the bedroom, though I don’t know exactly why. Surely Amelia doesn’t want to see me after last night.
She thinks I don’t want to believe this place could be sketchy because I’m scared they’ll take my pills if I ask too many questions, but that’s not true, at least not entirely. (Anyhow, I don’t have any pills left.) But this place is where Harper’s parents wanted me to be. I owe it to them—to her—to stay until the doctor says otherwise.
But before I can move across the terrace to the stairs, I’m accosted by light and sound. People shouting, torches blinking beneath me. My heart beats faster, though I’m not technically doing anything wrong. I duck behind the railing, biting my lip to keep from shouting in pain.
Suddenly, I’m back in the headmaster’s office at Eton, watching my father’s face twist with anger as I’m expelled. There hadn’t been many things in his life, including his disastrous first marriage to my mother, that he couldn’t throw money at to solve.
My fucked-up leg buckles. I hear the sound of a lighter clicking beneath me as someone lights a cigarette. Voices float up from below.
“You’re back in your civvies, I see.”
“Civvies?”
“You know, your usual clothes. Not wearing your old man’s tweed jackets.”
The second man laughs.
“You think the place’ll get sued?”
“It didn’t last time.”
At once, I recognize the second voice—it’s Dr. Rush. He sounds different, his words coming out with a hint of a Southern twang he must disguise around me, hidden alongside hisusual clothes.
“Last time?”
There’s a pause, and I realize Dr. Rush is taking a drag on his cigarette before answering. So much for his lectures about healthy coping mechanisms.
“You never heard this story, Maurice? Just after we opened, our first-ever patient flew the coop. Evelyn was still running things then. She was good at keeping the details out of the papers, gotta give her that. ’Bout ten years ago.”
“What happened?”
Another pause. It’s late, but not terribly dark. I watch a plume of smoke rise as Dr. Rush exhales. “We put in security measures to appease the investors—that’s why you need a combination to open the gates instead of motion sensors, why care managers sleep in the cottage with our clients now. Back then, Evelyn stayed in her house across the property. The housekeepers and chefs commuted from wherever they lived.”
I blink as snow starts to fall. The flakes are small, dry, the sort that sting one’s eyes and accumulate into a light powder.
“Who was the patient? The one who went missing.”
Dr. Rush takes another drag, longer this time, like he’s weighing whether he ought to share this particular piece of information.
Finally he says, “Some washed-up musician. Remember that wannabe band in the nineties, Shocking Pink? It was their lead singer. You know, Scott Harris’s widow.”
50Florence
The rage takes over, same as it did when I threw my guitar at Joni’s face, eager to break her plump, dewy skin wide open. I’m on the stage, the spotlight blinding me, so hot it makes me sweat. I slide out of my coat, letting it fall to the ground, and wrench the microphone from Andrew’s hand. It falls to the floor with a sickeningthump.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I shout.
“I was doing this for you.” Somehow, Andrew’s voice is even and calm. “Introducing the world to your new song.”
My hands are balled into fists, shaking with rage. “You said it was your song. I heard you.” The whole goddamn place heard him.
“It’soursong.”
