I didn’t even know what I was looking for . . . a flash drive, money, the stolen Sillin?Oh my God. What if it was the Sillin? What if Everest had planted it in my room to make me look guilty again? What if he’d popped each pill from the foil packets and hid them among the dried rose petals? My stomach began to cramp with a sudden upsurge of nerves. I was going to be sick. I reached for the banister to steady my swayinggait.
“What’s going on?” August stared at my face, then at myabdomen.
Had I paled, or had he felt my jarring stress through the tether? I didn’t want to carry the burden of Everest’s voicemail alone, however unfair it was to push it upon someone else. I swallowed, my throat feeling as dry as Lucy’spotpourri.
“Dimples?”
I closed my eyes, then opened them. “Everest left me amessage.”
He didn’t say anything for so long that I began totremble.
I gulped my saliva, trying to wet my throat. “He left me a message thanking me, and then he said some other things,and—”
“Why don’t you play me his message?” August’s eyes gleamed in the semi-obscurity of thestaircase.
I nodded and dug out my phone. With shaky fingers, I located the message and pressed play. I watched August’s features shift and realign, first in a frown, then in suspicion, then inshock.
“I swear I didn’t warn him the pack was coming,” I murmured after itended.
His gaze hadn’t moved off my phone. “What could he have leftyou?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know whatfl-could be. I was thinking flowers. Lucy leaves these jars filled with potpourri in the bedrooms, but I got rid of the one Ihad.”
He dipped his chin into hisneck.
“Please tell me you believeme.”
Hesighed.
“August, Iswear—”
He finally raised his eyes back to mine. “I believeyou.”
Relief gushed throughme.
In silence, we went to retrieve my key from the back office. I told Emmy I needed to grab something from my bedroom even though she hadn’t asked for an explanation. Concern made her kind eyescrinkle.
As we made our way down the deathly quiet hallway, I asked August, “Do you have any otherideas?”
“I’mthinking.”
The tether that linked us was as taut as a bowstring. I tried not to wonder why thatwas.
I pushed open the door and flicked on the lights, then walked down the short vestibule. I scanned my room for flowers—any flowers—but there wasn’t even a jar. August knelt down and peered under the bed before lifting the mattress and checking under it. While I clanged open every drawer in my room and dismantled the flannel-covered armchair, he caught the edge of the area rug and tugged it free from the bedframe, spraying the air with flickering dustmotes.
“Nothing here,” hesaid.
I checked my closet next while he went into the bathroom and banged open the cupboards. I heard the distinct clang of porcelain—probably the toilettank.
“Did you find any—” My skull throbbed so suddenly with a voice that I lost my balance, and my head bumped into something cold and hard, but the rest of my body landed on something warm andsoft.
“Ness!” My name vibrated inside myears.
I rolled my head back. August was gaping worriedly down at me, my limp body clutched in hisarms.
Had I imagined the wordBouldersscreamed into my head? “Did you hearsomeone—”
“It’sLiam.”
