Page 59 of If Anything Happens To Me

“I do,” I said, steeling myself. I needed to hear everything my sister had gone through.

“I told Eloise that Gale was sick, couldn’t go to school that day. And that I had to stop by to make sure she had her medicine, and I asked if she’d stop by with me—that it would cheer Gale up to have a visitor.”

I thought of my sister and her big heart, and how she would definitely have wanted to help.

“So we came here, to the Miramar. Eloise was curious about why my sister was here instead of home, so I gave part of the story—how there was medical equipment here, that it was our family’s private clinic. She came right up the stairs, without any trouble. Shewantedto,” he said.

“Only because you were lying to her,” I said.

“No,” he said. “I wasn’t. I told her the truth—that my sister was sick. And I told that detective the same thing. That I’d been a little late getting to school that day because I had to take care of Gale, and that I came straight home after school for her, too. No one even questioned it. My sister’s condition is in her records. She needed me.”

“She needed you to kidnap my sister?” I asked harshly.

“Gale had no part in that.” He smiled at me. “I wish you had been at the bus stop, too, Oli. I was going to grab you both.”

“I would have saved Eloise if I had been there,” I said.

“You would have tried,” he said. “But I would have stopped you.” He held up the hypodermic needle, and I felt my stomach churn. “This is how I stopped Eloise, too, once she realized I wasn’t going to let her go. That she was going to have to stay here in the attic.”

She must have been so scared, I thought. I imagined her fear and panic, and I squeezed my hands so tight, I felt my nails dig into my palms.

“Did she try to get away?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “I knew she would. So I increased her medication. I am sorry for that part, Oli. I didn’t mean to give her too much.” He shook his head sadly. “She seemed to fall asleep. I went to school after that but when I came back later that night, she was . . .”

“She was dead,” I whispered, unwilling to hear his fake apology. “And then you buried her. We didn’t know where she was for two days. You knew how close she and I were. Didn’t you care how that felt, waiting with no idea of whether she was okay or not? Didn’t you care about her, Fitch? She was your friend.”

“I cared,” he said. “But there was no alternative. She was my friend, but Gale is my sister. My entire reason for living right now is to find a cure for Gale. If I got caught, my work would stop.”

I filed that one away: He was giving me fair warning that he couldn’t let me and Hayley go—because he would get caught.

“I had to be very careful,” he went on. “Studying science is helpful in so many ways. I made sure to wear gloves, I took steps to keep from leaving any DNA when I buried her.”

“In the Braided Woods,” I said quietly, thinking of how sick it had been of him, to choose a place she and I had loved so much.

Fitch nodded. “It was quiet there,” he said softly.

“If killing Eloise was an accident,” I snapped, “what about Iris?”

“Same thing,” Fitch said. “I made a mistake. I misjudged. Look, I’ve had enough of these accusations. You’re in a medical trial, think of it that way. This might not be a state-of-the-art research facility, but the work I’m doing will cure a disease. It’s more important than anything else.”

“Fitch,” Abigail said from the bed. “Just stop it. Stop making excuses.”

He blinked at her, almost as if he’d been slapped.

“I can’t listen to Oli,” Fitch said to his sister. “She doesn’t understand. You do, though. That’s all that matters to me.”

“You’re upsetting me now,” Abigail said. “Please go back downstairs, Fitch. I can’t rest when you’re like this.”

The fight seemed to drain out of Fitch. “Whatever,” he said. He gestured toward the tall panels painted with the ethereal Sibylline sisters. “You want to be like them, Gale? The two who died? Only one survived. I need you to survive, and you will.”

Abigail didn’t reply. She looked away from him. Fitch glared at me and Hayley in an accusatory way—as if blaming us for upsetting his sister. He locked the hypodermic in a metal cabinet, left the attic, and closed the door behind him. I heard the key click in the lock. I hurried over to turn the knob, to see if we were really locked in, and we were.

The Miramar was the kind of building my grandmother would call a firetrap. Architecturally beautiful, but built entirely of wood, with all those twisty and hard-to-navigate hallways, at the edge of the bay where a sea breeze could catch a spark and send the hotel up in flames. If there was a fire, we’d never get out.

I walked around the attic again. I paused at each window. I wished I could see out more clearly, but the glass was so salt-caked it was impossible. I tried to peer down to the street. We were four stories up; we could jump, but we’d break bones, might not even survive the plunge. I banged on the windows with both fists.

“We’ve done that,” Hayley said. “No one comes.”

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