Page 63 of Our Lips Are Sealed
Suddenly, a blast shot forth from the fire, and trickles of air, cold and painful, skated through Evie’s body. She sucked at it greedily, easing the pressure in her chest.
Get up. It’s time.
Slapping a hand on the pavement, Evie tried to sit up and failed, not quite recovered. “Time for what?”
The woman grinned, sharp teeth shining in the sun.
It’s time to run, run, run, as fast as you can.
Chapter 17
“Youscaredme.”
She’d scared herself, too. These daydreams, or whatever they were, had to stop. Living like this wasn’t normal, and maybe Samuel was right, and it was time to accept that she needed to start talking to a professional. Her pills only eased the panic in the handful of times she’d taken them. They never did anything for the hallucinations.
Evie shifted to her side to help with the lingering dizziness, reclining the car’s passenger seat further. “How long have I been asleep?”
“About two hours.” Samuel reached over, resting his hand on her thigh as he drove down the interstate. “How are you feeling?”
Once her breathing evened out, he’d carried her to the car, where she’d dozed off in the passenger seat on her own terms. Unforced sleep after an attack was for the best, and alone with Samuel, she’d felt safe enough to let herself rest.
“Much better. A little sleepy, but at least I didn’t pass out.” She peered through the windshield. “We’re halfway home. Have you learned anything new while I was out?”
“Rowan took a deep dive into the accounts and found that Toby and CeCe use their allowances pretty regularly, although CeCe hasn’t dipped into it much since Christmas.”
Samuel’s grip on the steering wheel tightened. “But Charlie’s account has been dormant for years, with the only transaction being a monthly boat slip rental in St. Thomas that’s on automatic withdrawal.”
Evie recalled a conversation she’d had with Lucas over dinner one night, where they discussed their shared experiences with losing their parents. He’d told her his mother died when he was young, and of how his father had been killed in a boating accident a little later.
“Charlie’s dead,” she said, thinking there should be some sort of emotion at the realization, but there was nothing. No hate, nor sadness. Not even relief. “Lucas told me his father died in a boating accident.”
“I hope he suffered.” Samuel took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. “I hope he’s fucking rotting in hell as we speak.”
Evie pressed her fingertips to her temples, massaging the strain there. “When you stop and look, it’s so easy to see the resemblance to Charlie in Lucas. How did I not know?”
“None of us saw it,” Samuel argued. “That guy you brought to the house not only looked nothing like Toby, but was friendly and talkative. When he and CeCe left Haven, the kid could barely string words together to make a sentence.”
Evie lowered her hands. “But with me, he would talk for hours. Mom and Devon thought he needed some kind of extra help, but he didn’t. Toby was just shy.”
“There was more to it than being shy. He had problems, and yeah, your mom and Devon wanted to believe he could be fixed, but when Toby went through those developmental evaluations, year after year, to get the help they thought he needed, the little shit ended up passing each one with flying colors,” Samuel said, his voice hard. “Remember the Christmas I caught him choking the cat? That’s not fucking normal, and then Selah told me later that night that he and Livy had caught Toby doing things to the cats before, but they would cover it up so the adults wouldn’t find out.”
It was true. They had hidden the things Toby did, with Evie being the guiltiest of them all. “I would catch him setting fires around the old mill, and then once he caught a squirrel and threw it in to watch it burn.” She shuddered from the memory. “He killed it first, snapping its neck, but I remember being too scared to move. The smell of its fur and skin burning made me throw up.”
“When I was talking to Cohen about that night, he had me draw out the ballroom and mark where everyone was as it went down,” Samuel said. “And there was a fleeting second where I asked myself, what if Toby was the one doing all this?”
“Did you say anything?”
“No,” he replied. “I kept my mouth shut and told Cohen that Toby and CeCe had gone off to live good lives, which I really hoped they had.”
Evie grabbed her phone and searched through the Hollingsdale General staff photos. She found Dr. Lucas Fields, who turned out to be an overweight, bald man well into his mid-fifties.
Continuing to scroll, her finger paused on a familiar face hiding in plain sight.
Dr. Tobias Miller.
Thinking back, she couldn’t ever recall seeing Lucas wear a badge on his coat like the other doctors. All he had to do was lie, and she had foolishly believed every word.
She showed Samuel the picture. “He was right there, out in the open.”
