“That’s it.” I point to my travel bag on a middle shelf on the right side of the enclosed space.
Belle grabs the bag and then pulls the closet door shut. We hurry back into the hall and to the front door. Belle chooses a different key to open the lock, and we quietly step out into the night.
Belle runs down the steps and onto the gravel drive, and I struggle to keep up, the burning sensation between my legs now feeling like fire.
“We’ve got to be quick about this part,” Belle whispers over her shoulder urgently.
“I know,” I say.
“Let me take Amaryllis.” Belle slings the travel bag over her shoulder and reaches for the baby as we continue to run.
“No, I’ve got her.”
A sallow moon is throwing pale light onto the gravel. Ahead are the darkened gatehouse and the two massive oak trees thatframe it. No one comes through the gates after lights-out, and Rudy does not have a key to the gate, but he promised to leave it unlatched when he left for the night. As we near it, I hope against hope that he has done so.
We are nearly at the gate when a figure steps out of the shadows cast by one of the oak trees. Belle and I startle to a stop.
Stuart comes into the light spilled by the moon. He looks angry, defiant, and in charge. He also looks a little out of breath, like he ran to the shadow of the tree ahead of us before Belle even opened the front door. He must have seen us creeping down the stairs or entering the infirmary. He had to have seen us in the darkened halls to be here now, standing in front of the only way out of this place. He could’ve sounded the alarm when he first saw us, but he’s waited until Belle and I are just seconds away from our escape.
My heart begins to hammer inside my chest. In my arms, Amaryllis stirs.
“What are you doing here?” Belle says impatiently, clearly not concerned about how Stuart has come to be standing in front of us, blocking our way. But then she quickly softens her tone. “Come now. I know you care for me, Stuart. Let us be on our way. No one needs to know you saw us. You’ll be our hero.”
Stuart is staring at her as if he wants to be the hero of our story. As if maybe he is considering it, imagining what it might be like to be that man in Belle’s life, the man who saved her. But then his look goes stony.
“Why should I do anything nice for you?” He reaches for the whistle hanging around his neck. “After what you did to me?”
Belle takes a step forward. “Don’t—”
But Stuart puts the whistle to his lips and blows.
“Damn you!” Belle screams. She grabs me with one hand, throws open the gate with the other, and we dash out past the gatehouse and into the road. Amaryllis is wailing in earnest now.Behind us, Stuart is blowing into his whistle again and again as he runs back to the building. Over my shoulder, I see lights flooding the first-floor windows.
“Run!” Belle yells.
And I do. I try, but Amaryllis is screaming and Belle is running too fast and the night is dark and the road uneven and I can feel blood trickling down my legs. I stumble, and as I begin to go down, I cocoon my daughter against my chest so that my own head and cheek and shoulder take the brunt of the fall. For a second as I lie at the edge of the roadside ditch, I see only brilliant starlight. I raise myself up as my vision begins to clear, with blood and dirt in my eyes and my screaming baby still in my arms. I see Belle, with my travel bag over her shoulder, a speck in the distance.
Then there is the sound of a vehicle, and then headlights and loud voices.
The blood from inside me is warm on my legs, and the night is cold. And then my world goes black.
16
Before...
FEBRUARY 1939
Truman arrived home from his overnight trip to San Leandro in the late afternoon.
I had been instructed that when I heard his car, I was to stay in my bedroom. I was not to be seen or heard if I knew what was good for me.
It was a warm day for late February, and Celine had opened some windows in the house, including the one in the master suite. Perhaps Celine wanted me to hear what she was going to say to her husband, because she didn’t close it when, after having seen no one in the front of the house upon his arrival, Truman proceeded to their bedroom. My window was open as well.
Celine wasted no time.
“I have very distressing news about Rosie.” Her words were clipped but clear, floating on the air from her window to mine like they were pinned to a connecting ribbon.
“Oh?” Truman said.
