Page 98 of The Lost Girls of Willowbrook

“What are you talking about? You’re not free. You’ve been in Willowbrook since you were nine years old.”

“That’s true, I have,” he said. He held up the keys again. “But freedom looks different to everyone.”

She furrowed her brow. It was her turn to look at him like he was crazy. “There’s nothing about being locked up here or anywhere else that means you’re free, keys or no keys. What I don’t understand is, why don’t you leave? Why would you stay here when you can get out so easily?” As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Maybe, impossibly, he hadn’t thought about leaving and now that she’d suggested it, he would. Not that he deserved to stay locked up in Willowbrook—no one did—but what if he wanted to leave with her? What if he thought he could be part of her life?

He shook his head, suddenly serious. “I can’t leave.”

She breathed a silent sigh of relief. But his answer made no sense. Who, in any capacity of their right mind, would want to stay? Maybe he really did have a psychological problem. “Why not?” she said.

“Because I can’t abandon them.”

“Abandon who?”

“Everyone. The staff. The residents. They all need me.”

She started to say he was being ridiculous, that everyone would get along fine without him, but stopped herself. Not only did she want to avoid encouraging him, but suddenly she was frightened by the way he stood so terrible and still. He was dead serious. Delusional. And who knew what else.

“What do you mean they need you?”

He groaned, long and loud, as if it took too much effort to explain. “Because Ihelpthem. I help the staff by working. And I help the residents when they’ve had enough of this place.”

“What do you mean you help the residents? How?”

“I help them escape.”

Her eyes widened. “Through the tunnels?”

“No, not like that. Takingyouthrough the tunnels so you could escape was different. You’d be all right out there in the real world. But the other poor sons-a-bitches in this place? They’d never survive out there, and they know it. That’s why they come to me when they’re ready to be set free.”

She shook her head, confused. What was he talking about? Did he get them more drugs? Move them to the experimental wards where there were drapes on the windows and silverware in a dining hall? “I don’t understand.”

He rolled his eyes. “How long were you locked up here, a couple of weeks? Imagine living in this place for years. Decades. Your entirelife. Imagine coming here as a child. Then the day comes when you’re no longer cute. You’re big and smelly and even more broken from years of abuse and daily drugs. It’s different for someone like me, I’m perfectly sane and I don’t have any mental or physical handicaps. I understand what the staff wants. I know how to stay out of trouble. But the others? They have some real problems for sure, but it’s this heartless institution that makes them act the way they do. They want love and compassion and kindness just like everyone does. Sure, they get angry and confused and upset, but it’s the way they’re treated that makes them crazy. Hell, animals get treated better than the residents do in this place. I give them a way out of this nightmare.”

Her skin prickled as a hint of realization took shape in her mind. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying—could he? “How do you . . . ‘give them a way out’?”

He gave her a stern look, like a teacher scolding a lazy student. “I told you before that no one has any idea how many residents die in this shithole every year. Doyouknow how many? Hundreds. Four hundred died last year.Four hundred.” A pained expression pinched his face. “Do you think anyone cares why, or how, or what happened to them? Their death certificates say they stopped eating or died from pneumonia or measles or some other bullshit virus that was given to them on purpose, like they were no better than lab rats. Their death certificates never say ‘kicked in the head by an attendant’ or ‘starved to death.’ Never ‘beaten to death’ or ‘given too many drugs.’ Because that might make the city and state suspicious. That might make someone dig into what’s happening here.”

She swallowed, feeling sick. Despite her reluctance to hear more, she needed to know exactly what he meant. She needed him to spell it out in black and white, to put the last piece of the puzzle in place so she could be sure. “I understand what you’re saying, but how do you help the residents escape?”

“The fact that no one cares how they die makes it easy to do what I do. That’s why the residents need me. I want Willowbrook shut down, but I don’t see that happening. And no one leaves here unless they die. That’s why the residents think of me as their angel of mercy.”

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Angel of . . . ?”

“Angel of mercy. Cropsey. Whatever you want to call me.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “What . . . what are you saying?”

“You know perfectly well what I’m saying. But you need to remember thatWillowbrookis the culprit here, not me. Willowbrook makes life a living hell.”

She went rigid, her body turned to ice. He was out of his mind. And now she knew his secret. She glanced at the door, praying he hadn’t locked it. She had to get out of there. “And Rosemary? Did you . . . did you—”

“Your sister had an unbearable existence,” he said. “When she wanted to escape it, I hid her for days, trying desperately to talk her out of it because I truly cared about her, but she begged me to end her pain.”

Sage clenched her teeth, holding back a scream. It was easy to understand why Rosemary had wanted to end her dreadful life in Willowbrook, but surely she hadn’t wanted her throat slashed. Surely she hadn’t wanted to bleed out, to be left to rot in a pitch-black tunnel before being buried in the cold, muddy ground. Grief tore at her heart again. Her poor sister had endured so much.

“By slitting her throat?” she managed.

He shook his head, his face waxen, brittle. “No. When I gave her the freedom she longed for, I decided to kill two birds with one stone.”

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