Page 35 of The Same Backward as Forward

By the time I actually got a moment to myself, I was less concerned with eating than I was with the fact that tonight would mark day three. Losing this bet would mean telling Harry about either my mother or Kaylie.

I am not going to lose.On my way to the cafeteria, I grabbed a piece of paper out of the printer and a pen off the desk in the nurse’s station. Mentally cursing Harry the entire time, I finally took his suggestion and wrote down every letter of the alphabet. I stared at the letters.

A large percentage of the numbers in the code start with three, I reminded myself.And there are more numbers with two digits than with one.I had no idea what to make of the fact that three hundred and ten was the only three-digit number in play.

Why?I stared at the letters that I’d written out.Damn him.Would one repeated number/letter really have been too much to ask?

Harry’s voice answered in my mind:As fond as my people are of wagers, I believe we’re also very fond of skewing the game.

And that was when I realized:not a single repeat letter.I scarfed down a single apple, then made my way back to the nurses’ station on the third floor. Keeping my eye out for my supervisor, I slid around the desk and took a seat at the computer.

Thankfully, the hospital computers had internet, because I had a question, and Ask Jeeves at least purported to have all the answers.

I plugged in my question. Glancing up from the keyboard, I saw my supervisor coming my way. I looked back down at the results and…

Got it.I closed the browser but didn’t make it around to the front of the station before she spotted me.

“Hannah.” Her tone wasn’t sharp, not exactly.

“I was just—” I started to make excuses, but she didn’t let me finish.

“You should go, Hannah.Now.” She glanced back over her shoulder, and I realized suddenly that I wasn’t being sent away because she’d caught me using the computer.

What’s going on?My heart skipped a beat as I looked past her to the hall. It was empty, but it didn’t stay empty for long. Double doors swung inward, and a patient was wheeled in. It was clear she’d come in through emergency, but she was being admitted here.

To oncology.

And the patient in question was my mother.

I didn’t leave. Icouldn’t, because that would have been an invitation for her to come after me. If there was one thing that I knew for sure, it was that Eden Rooney didn’t allow anyone in the family to see her weak and walk away.

Why hide when you can run?Right now, I couldn’t afford to do either, so I bided my time, and I donned my poker face, and then I let myself into her room.

She was in the bed. She looked small. But I wasn’t fooled.

My mother stared me down. “You don’t know anything, girl.”Gravelly voice, measured tone.

I refused to feel any of the trepidation I should have felt at that combination. “I don’t want to know anything,” I said.

“Can’t always get what we want, can we?” Eden Rooney wielded pauses like thrusts of a knife. This one was long—tortuously so. “I had plans for your sister,” she said finally. “And you haven’t left Rockaway Watch.”

In other words: She’d had plans that required either a daughter or a young woman, andIwas fair game.

“I’m just here until I finish school,” I said—neutral tone, neutral expression.

“I suppose we have that much in common, finishing what we start.”

The muscles in my throat tightened as I remembered pushing the needle through Rory’s skin. I’d known when she left that night that she would be back, but then Kaylie had died, and my father had somehow been able to hold her back.

Until now.“I’m not going to say anything to anyone.” My voice was as quiet as ever.

“About what?” my mother spat.

I couldn’t saythat you’re sick. I couldn’t utter the wordcanceror so much as mention medical privacy law. I sure as hell wasn’t going to say,I’m not going to tell anyone I saw you weak.

“Exactly.” My mother’s tone was deadly. “I can get to you. Anytime. Anywhere.”

Before I could reply, she started coughing.