Page 77 of Our Lips Are Sealed
“Because he was evil,” he said to Evie, smiling at the now docile and under control Jamison when he was finished. “After we left Haven, Charlie took us to Texas. He and my grandmother wanted to punish Ben, and used us to do it.
“What would they gain by punishing Ben?”
The question amused him. “I almost forgot you didn’t know my grandmother,” he said. “I guess that’s a good thing because there never was a truer definition of the word evil than Helen Fairweather.”
Coming to the mouth of the forest, they crossed the threshold and an unnatural silence greeted them. Without the canopy’s usual chorus of birds and small animals scampering about, Evie found the surrounding void of silence disorienting. It was as if they’d stepped into someone else’s woods. A foreign place far from Haven House, not welcome to them.
“I don’t understand.”
Jamison squirmed again, and Toby snapped his teeth in her face. “It was Helen’s idea for Charlie to take us,” he explained. “Trevor called her when my mom died, wanting to know what to do with my dad, and once she learned all the sordid details, Helen saw it as an opportunity to strike against Ben.”
The pine straw spread over the trail left the earth slippery, and Annabeth’s near deadweight made walking increasingly difficult. Her socked feet skidded on the ground, and when they made it to the fork in the path, Evie readjusted her hold. “Helen was the one who had Trevor take you guys from us?”
“In the beginning, she was nice and pretended to care. She even sent Charlie to rehab, and we lived with her while he got sober,” Toby replied, jerking his chin for her to turn left. “You would’ve hated it there. Helen’s home was in one of those Houston gated communities where every other McMansion on the street looks the same. It was quite a change coming from Haven House.”
Evie heaved Annabeth up a notch and followed the trail. They were entering the section of the woods she had always found creepy. More times than not, she hustled through on her runs, using the ick factor it provided as an incentive to push herself. According to Ty, it was said that one of the first Fairweathers of Haven House attempted to kill a disobedient daughter in this very spot, but instead ended up dead himself.
“What made Helen so bad?”
“With my dad in rehab, she locked us in a set of bedrooms that connected to a shared playroom so we could see each other but no one else. There weren’t any school lessons, or a yard to play in, but we didn’t mind too much. After living at Haven, we’d always felt cut off from the world, so being in the house was fine,” he said. “But we missed everyone, CeCe especially. Late at night, I would hear her crying for Simone.”
“Why didn’t you say something?” Evie tried recalling bits of memory from that time. There wasn’t much, but she remembered how distraught Simone would be after her conversations with CeCe. “Ben went out there, and Simone talked to you two on the phone.”
“Helen would ask us questions about Ben. To this day, I’ve never understood what she was hoping to get from a couple of little kids,” Toby replied. “If we didn’t answer, she would make it hurt, and threatened to do worse if we told what was really happening. Miranda came out to Texas, too, and tried to bring us back. But our fear of Helen was enough incentive for us to stay silent, so we put on a good show for Miranda and lied to Simone when we talked to her.”
Evie halted to face him. “I’m sorry, Toby,” she said, trying to reach the boy she’d once known. “We were all devastated when you and CeCe left.”
The monster retreated, and Toby stared at her with such adoration, Evie had to look away. “That’s what I love most about you. You’re so empathetic,” he said. “But it wasn’t all bad. Charlie got out of rehab, claiming to be a changed man. We were no longer useful to Helen by then, and she told him to take us and leave.”
Needing distance, Evie started walking again, but Toby would have none of that. “On our last night at her house, CeCe and I heard Charlie and Helen arguing about money in the upstairs study,” he went on, rushing after her with a still silent Jamison in tow. “My dad was trying to squeeze her for more cash since Ben had basically cut him off.”
Toby stuck his face next to hers, and a tinkling giggle filled Evie’s ear. “Helen laid all her cards on the table then, which was a stupid mistake for such a master player.”
Annabeth moaned, banging her forehead on Evie’s shoulder while Jamison pivoted, drawing Toby away from them.
“What do you mean?” Jamison asked. “And why the fuck do you think everything is a game?”
Toby snickered with a roll of his eyes. “Helen explained to Charlie that her small fortune, the McMansion, and the villa gifted to her by her father, would go to him upon her death. I don’t know if she was trying to pacify him or what, but what she was saying got me thinking that Helen might need a little push in the right direction to help us out.”
Annabeth ceased her abuse on Evie’s shoulder and went quiet, her head wobbling loosely. She stared off into the abyss of trees like a zombie, seeing nothing.
Concerned, Evie stopped and tapped Annabeth’s cheek, but there was no response. From the beginning of their exposure therapy plan, the therapist guiding them had warned not to push too hard, or else Annabeth’s mind would bury itself so as not to break completely. That seemed to be exactly what was happening, which meant if they had the opportunity to run, Annabeth might be too far gone to escape.
They had to keep moving, and Evie picked up the pace.
Forcing Jamison to match his stride, Toby walked with her side by side. “Charlie found Helen’s body at the bottom of the stairs the next morning. Faulty steps can be death traps for the elderly.”
Evie’s heart lodged in her throat as what he was saying sunk in. “What did you do, Toby?”
“What didwedo,“ he corrected. “CeCe and I pushed together.”
The tiny flicker of hope for CeCe’s innocence died in Evie, and she scanned the area, half expecting her to jump out from behind a tree to help her brother.
“What about Charlie?”
“What about him?” Toby snorted. “He didn’t care what happened to his mother. Rehab hadn’t changed him. It just taught him how to hide what he was, and when we made it to St. Thomas, he fell right back into his old ways. The only difference this time was that he had his mother’s money and what was left over from the sale of the Houston property. I guess Ben must have felt guilty sometime later because he reinstated Charlie’s allowance and provided one for each of us.”
Toby shook his head. “But by the time I was ready to graduate high school, the money was almost all gone, and anything paid out monthly from Ben was already spent on debts Charlie owed. We eventually lost the villa in some wager he made, and had to move to a sailboat purchased with the last of the cash on hand.”
