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It stares back.
Hundreds of eyes and noses and gaping mouths.
A few days ago, I had thought those open mouths meant they were talking or laughing or singing.
But now I know better.
Now I know what they’re really doing is screaming.
NOW
Dr. Wagner gives me a look that’s one part shock, two parts disbelief. “That’s an alarming accusation.”
“You think I’m lying?”
“I think you believe it happened,” Dr. Wagner says. “That doesn’t mean it’s real.”
“I’m not making it up. Why would I do that? I’m not crazy.” There’s a feverishness to my words. A simmering hysteria that’s crept in despite my best efforts. “You have to believe me. At least three people have been murdered there.”
“I read the news,” the doctor says. “There haven’t been any murders at the Bartholomew. Not for a very long time.”
“That you know of. These didn’t look like murders.”
Dr. Wagner runs a hand through his leonine hair. “As a physician, I can assure you it’s very difficult to disguise murder.”
“He’s a very smart person,” I say.
Bernard, the nurse with the kind eyes, pokes his head into the room.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he says. “I saw this and thought Jules might like to have it in the room with her.”
He holds up a red picture frame, the glass spiderwebbed with cracks. One shard has fallen out, the space gaping like a missing tooth. Behind the skein of cracks is a photograph of three people.
My father. My mother. Jane.
I was carrying it when I ran from the Bartholomew. The only possession I thought worth saving.
“Where did you find it?”
“It was with your clothes,” Bernard says. “One of the medics gathered it up at the scene.”
That frame wasn’t the only thing I was carrying. I had something else with me.
“Where’s my phone?” I ask.
“There was no phone,” Bernard says. “Just your clothes and that picture.”
“But it was in my pocket.”
“I’m sorry. If it was there, no one found it.”
Worry expands in my chest. Like a ball of dough. Rising. Growing. Filling me up.
Nick has my phone.
Which means he can find all the information on it and delete it. Not only that, he can read my texts, see who I’ve contacted, learn what I’ve told them.
There are others.