“I don’t know.”
“Where is he?” She asked Tatum, who stood filming at the door.
“You should remain calm.” Tatum’s voice shook. “Tristan is being taken care of.”
Suddenly, phantom hands pushed at Linda’s back from behind. She stumbled into the parlor, her palms slapping against the floor. A sting traveled from her hands to her elbows.
“What did you do to him?” Sabrina stepped forward. Her forehead was covered in sweat, a wild energy in her movements as she advanced.
“Something bit him,” Linda said as she scurried to her feet and gazed out at a knot in the distant floor, another daze coming over her. “In the orchard.”
“Bullshit! He’s got bruises here.” Sabrina pointed to her own neck to illustrate. “You think I don’t see strangling victims in the ER?”
Linda shook her head until it made her dizzy. “It came out of nowhere. Some kind of creature.”
Rushing toward them, Marion grabbed Linda by the shoulders and shook her. “Where the hell is he, Linda?”
“He’s in the hall,” Sabrina said.
Marion let out a pained gasp as she hurried through the doorway. Her scream vibrated through Linda like a terrible orgasm. Was he—? Had he found his way to the hall, or had Deja brought him there for all to see—to catch their reactions as they absorbed this new horror? As Linda stepped out of the parlor, she lay her eyes on the lump of decaying flesh. Her hands flew to her mouth. It wasn’t Tristan; it was Brandon.
“I didn’t do it.” Linda heard her words echo inside her, like listening to a conversation while in the first stages of sleep. In her panic, she imagined herself back in the nursery, her hand closing over Deja’s mouth, her fingers around Deja’s throat until Deja was slumped on the floor, no longer able to threaten her. The vision passed, and Linda gulped for new breath.
“Then who the fuck did?” Sabrina barged at Linda as though to attack, then stopped. Her face journeyed from wrinkled-brow confusion to a cocked-head morbid curiosity. “You’re the one who has a violent little secret.”
Charity forced herself between them. “We all have secrets.”
Linda’s stomach jumped. She closed her eyes, fearful that her eyes might somehow betray her, or that her mouth might speak of its own accord.
“Like what?” Sabrina said. “I’m a goddamn open book.”
“I’m an actor.” Charity’s tone was too soft for the situation, like birdsong in a thunderstorm. “They paid me to be here.”
“No fucking duh,” Sabrina said.
Pieces clicked into place. Linda opened her eyes and found Charity staring, waiting for a reaction, but Linda had no emotion left inside her. She’d used it up, or pushed it down.
“He hung himself.” Linda’s voice came out thin. As lifeless as the man below. “Deja has the note.”
“Why would he do that?” Sabrina asked.
“You’re all missing the point,” Marion said, her voice shaking as it broke through. “Tristan was hurt.”
Sabrina turned on her heel. “What?”
“It’s true.” Linda flinched. “Out in the courtyard. Deja carried him off. I have no idea where.”
Sabrina rushed at Tatum, a blur of fury, and pushed his camera over. He yelled out as it crashed to the ground, then knelt to gather the pieces.
“This is coming out of your paycheck,” he said.
“Joke’s on you,” Charity said. “They don’t get paid.”
But Linda didn’t feel like laughing. Linda didn’t feel anything at all. It was just like home.
“I’m a fucking nurse.” Sabrina balled her hands into fists. “You’re going to tell me where he is.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sabrina
In the guest bedroom named after birch trees, Deja had laid Tristan out on a bed, with silver sheets pulled to his waist. As the women and Tatum entered the room, Deja looked up from a chair in the corner. The room’s faint light reflected off the sweat beaded all over his body. Deja had ripped away his shirt and wrapped his shoulder with a torn sheet now bloodied into a Rorschach pattern. Sabrina saw nothing in the blots but a desolate future she intended to avoid.
“Get out.” Deja wrinkled her forehead.
“I’m trained for this,” Sabrina said. “I’m an RN.”
It was muscle memory, what came next. She scanned the room for things she might use, but it was bare of supplies, stuffed instead with pointless vases of dried flowers and an old, timeworn porcelain doll posed on the bureau, her skin cracked to reveal the hollowness inside.
Sabrina closed her eyes, mentally recreating every room, every movement of the other women since they’d arrived. She gestured at the door with her fist. “Charity, grab the hand sanitizer from the bag in your room. Linda, keep an eye out while I wash my hands.”
For the first time since arriving, Sabrina was in control.
“Of course.” Linda’s voice was meek.
As she made her way to the bathroom, Sabrina wondered how she ever could have accused someone so small and helpless of overpowering a man like Brandon Fuller. In her nurse’s mindset, she knew that it could only have been himself, or someone stronger. She let the water run over her hands, meeting her own gaze in the mirror. Tristan was ill. In this game, she had no competition.
Back in the birch room, Marion hurried to Tristan’s side as Charity slouched against the wall. He looked pathetic and nearly dead. Sabrina pushed her sleeves to her elbows. She handed Linda the hand sanitizer.
