“No,” I lied. “Absolutely not. He was still breathing.” I didn’t think there was any way the man in the junkyard was alive, but Serena didn’t need to know that.
Sinclair had seen infection as a bomb waiting to go off, as something she could diffuse, but the fear and memory of the camp—not lupine syndrome—was what had pushed Serena over the edge in the junkyard.
It hadn’t been Serena’s fault—not really. Besides, it had been self-defense. Better she believe a lie than spend the rest of her life feeling guilty and looking over her shoulder. No one else had seen her kill the man, and since her hand had been clawed, there would be no fingerprints. Whoever those men in the Meadows had been, I had a feeling they weren’t the ones who had called the police and I doubted they’d stick around to answer questions.
Serena was staring at me, brows furrowed.
“He was still breathing,” I repeated, more firmly, but I could still see the doubt in her eyes. “Come on,” I said, turning away in an attempt to put an end to the subject.
I walked the length of the church, looking for a way in. The stained-glass windows were still intact—I guess even vandals had limits—but several basement casements had been smashed.
I went to the nearest one and crouched down. Jagged shards of glass still clung to the frame, making it look as though the window had teeth. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and carefully knocked out the remaining pieces before sticking my head inside.
The room beyond the window was as dark as a tomb.
“I need Jason’s phone,” I said, reaching back blindly. Serena handed it to me and I shone its light down into the darkness.
The feeble glow didn’t pierce more than three feet into the gloom, but it was enough to tell that the room had been some sort of office. There was a desk underneath the window and the floor was littered with file folders and pamphlets.
I stowed the phone in my pocket before scooting back and swinging my legs over the windowsill.
Serena grabbed my wrist. She was still shivering, shivering so hard the trembles radiated up my arm. “You’re not seriously breaking into a church?”
“We broke three hundred werewolves out of a government rehabilitation camp, you can’t possibly be squeamish about a little B and E. Besides,” I added, “the window was already broken.”
“Breaking out is different from breaking in,” insisted Serena. “And it’s different when it’s a church. It’s sacrilegious or bad luck or something.”
I rolled my eyes and pulled my arm free. “It’s not like our luck can get much worse.” Slowly, trying not to slice myself open on any remaining glass, I lowered myself through the window.
Shards crunched under my sneakers as my feet hit the desk. “Be careful when you come through,” I warned as I hopped down to the floor. The mingled scent of mildew, old books, and mothballs ruffled my nose. I fumbled in my pocket for Jason’s phone and used its light to find the door as Serena climbed through the window.
I stepped into a hallway. A rectangle of daylight glowed at the far end of the corridor: a door at the top of a single flight of stairs.
Serena was silent as she followed me up out of the basement and into the main part of the church.
Light filtered through stained-glass scenes of angels and mangers and illuminated rows of wooden pews—most of which had been turned on their sides. Soft coos echoed above our heads, and I glanced up to spot clusters of pigeons nesting in the rafters. It wasn’t hard to see how they had gotten in: patches of the roof had rotted through.
I wandered up the center aisle.
There were scattered signs of habitation. An old sweatshirt. A Bible with pages torn out. Three battered paperbacks and a book of matches from some random cheap motel. A travel mug next to a stack of newspapers. I picked up the topmost paper. It was from last week. “Someone was crashing here. Recently.”
I strained my ears, but the pigeons and the creak of old wood were the only sounds I could hear. Hopefully, whoever had been squatting here had moved on.
The paper had been left open to the business section and my eyes were drawn to a photo in the upper left-hand corner of the page. It was a picture of Amy’s father standing outside of CutterBrown Pharmaceuticals—the company he had helped take from a niche research outfit to one of the leading drug developers in the United States.
Someone had doodled a circle around Ryan Walsh’s head, but all of my attention was focused on the building in the background, on the steel-and-glass sign that stood just a few feet from the main entrance.
A roaring sound filled my ears. It felt like something was prying my rib cage open, like the thoughts and emotions rushing down my throat with every breath were too large for my body to contain.
No wonder the image in my dream had seemed familiar. Even seeing just a small slice, I should have known what it was. A kingfisher in flight: the symbol of CutterBrown. Their logo was everywhere—on everything from the new wing at the hospital to scholarship applications in the guidance office at school. But nowhere had I seen it more often or on more random items—on everything from pens to shot glasses—than at Amy’s house.
Amy’s father had chosen the symbol himself. He had told me so, once, a long time ago—so long ago that the memory was hazy around the edges.
Before Ryan Walsh joined the company, CBP had been one of a handful of medical start-ups in Hemlock—small companies like the one Kyle’s parents and Serena’s father worked for—but he had lured away some of the best researchers in the world and then channeled the company’s R&D budget into two drugs that had proven very, very popular.
These days, CBP was involved in all sorts of things and was one of the largest employers in Hemlock, making Ryan Walsh a sort of local god.
The paper shook in my hand.
A pharmaceutical company would have been the perfect partner for Sinclair. Hell, even the blood test the camp used to confirm incoming inmates were actually infected was something CutterBrown had been developing. Despite that, not once had it occurred to me that the warden might have been working with—or even for—CBP.
Why hadn’t it occurred to me? How could I have been so stupid?
Sometimes people see things they’re not ready to accept. Amy’s words drifted through my head.
There was a soft thump behind me. I had been so consumed by the paper and the horrible ideas filling my mind that, for a moment, I had forgotten where I was.