Page 99 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

“What . . . what do you mean?” She glanced around the room, looking for something she could use as a weapon. There was nothing.

“I wanted to make it look like Wayne killed her.” His eyes grew glassy. “You know what he was doing to her. I wanted him to pay. But I promise, she didn’t feel a thing. She swallowed a handful of pills before I cut her throat.”

A burning lump blocked Sage’s windpipe. She felt like she was suffocating. “If you were trying to make it look like Wayne killed Rosemary,” she said, “why did you move her body?”

He shrugged. “Because I panicked. And because I decided I wanted you to stay.”

Oh God.That’s why he had lied. That’s why he let Dr. Baldwin lock her up again. She had to get out of that room. Had to get away from him. Had to tell someone what he’d done. But she wanted to understand how he did it, and she needed to know how to find more proof.

“How did you have time to move her before taking Dr. Baldwin into the tunnels?” she said. “You said you were waiting outside his office while he was making phone calls.”

“I was. But there’s so much you don’t know about this place, like that fact that Dr. Baldwin’s secretary, little Miss Evie Carter, was a lying slut. While Baldwin made the phone calls, I told her she had to let me leave for a few minutes, otherwise I’d tell her husband about her extracurricular activities with Baldwin and Wayne. Of course I promised to come right back.”

An image flashed in her mind—Evie’s husband out in the woods, threatening to kill Dr. Baldwin. “Dr. Baldwin said Evie’s husband was helping Dr. Wilkins. So he’s your uncle, right? The one who told you about the reporters having a key to House Six? Or was that a lie too?”

“Dr. Carter is good to me, like an uncle is good to his nephew, or a father to his son. He’s a decent man who wants to do right by the residents. He deserves a loving, faithful wife.”

“So you . . . you killed Evie too?”

“Maybe.”

Horror and bewilderment twisted in her mind. “But why? She just worked here. She wasn’t a resident. She didn’t do anything to you.”

“Like I said, she was a slut. And it helped make Wayne look guilty.”

She stared at him, unable to shake the feeling that she’d disconnected from reality. Even though he was standing right in front of her. Even though he was saying the words. “Then why did you kill Wayne if you were trying to frame him?”

“Because he deserved it and I needed to stop him. After you told me about Norma, I couldn’t let him get away with it anymore. He was a fucking pig.”

“But it worked. Everyone thought he was the killer until you put him in the morgue. Why would you—?”

He shrugged one shoulder. “To fuck with Baldwin. The more bodies found on Willowbrook property, the more attention on him and everyone who works here.”

“And Alan?”

He frowned, confusion lining his face. “I thought you hated him?”

“That doesn’t mean I wanted him dead!”

“Well, he was an asshole. When he was finally home to answer the door, he was so drunk he could barely stand. He told me to get lost and slammed the door in my face.”

“So you never left him a note about me being here?”

“Oh, I did, but after I gave him what he deserved, I found them in the apartment and got rid of them.”

Putting a hand over her mouth to hold back her revulsion, she pictured him slitting Alan’s throat, painting a clown smile on his face, and shoving his body under the bed. No matter what he said about “helping” people, he was clearly a cold-blooded killer. Then she had another thought and shivered.

“What about . . .” But she hesitated. No. She couldn’t ask him that.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said, then crossed her arms and began to pace, hoping she could get closer to the door without him noticing.

“Tell me what you were going to say,” he said. “I want to know.”

“I don’t remember,” she said.

“Yes, you do. Tell me.”

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