“Yes, please. Thank you.”
I pick up the bottle and take a step toward the sink when he calls after me, his voice a lot more fatigued now than before. “Can you leave it half-empty like it was before?”
“Why?”
He hesitates. “So that when your parents see it, they would assume it’s the water they left for me.”
I blink.
He points his chin to the wall on the other side of his bed. “Pull the mattress back and take a look.”
Leaning over him, I pull the mattress back a notch. The wall behind it is wet.
“Your mother crushes my antibiotics and painkillers into my water,” he says. “Until very recently, I was too weak to swallow anything solid.” He hesitates before adding, “I’m almost certain she adds other drugs to her mix.”
“What drugs?”
“A mild sedative and something psychotropic. She might be resorting to hypnosis, too.”
“Rubbish—”
“Last night,” he interrupts me, “I pretended to drink but spat out my water after your parents left. And today, my head is clearer than it’s been since my accident.”
I stand up. “It’s too much. You’re manipulating me! What was that you said about my parents? Their crazy little cult? We’re Christian. Is that what you were referring to?”
“Of course not!” His expression becomes a little detached, as if he’s considering an idea. “I can prove my claim about your parents.”
“Oh, yes? How?”
“Do you have fifty bucks to spare?”
I nod.
“Order a spy cam off Amazon or eBay,” he says. “Have it delivered to a locker, not to your home address. And make sure your camera has local storage, since Wi-Fi doesn’t work here.”
“And then what?”
“And then unpack it, charge it, and hide it in here.”
I shake my head. “I won’t do that. For all I know, you’re a fugitive criminal that my parents took pity on. And now you’re messing with my mind, so I’d help you harm them.”
“I’m not messing with your mind,” Darrel says, his voice growing weaker. “All I’m trying to do is persuade you to believe me, and to help me.”
I rise to my feet and head to the door.
He can’t be telling the truth. If he is, then it means I don’t know my own parents. It means they’re capable of things I never imagined. Like kidnapping a man.
Preposterous!
Darrel Vlovsky—if that is his real name though it doesn’t seem to be the case—is a liar. He’s a bad man with a secret grudge against my parents. He also happens to be infuriatingly handsome, even in his current state, but that changes nothing.
I won’t let him use me against Mom and Dad!
STELLA
“We have a busy day ahead of us,” Mom says, pulling over in front of the clinic. “Did you take your pills at breakfast?”
I climb out of the car. “Yes, Mom.”
