I wasn’t sure a diary counted as a little thing, but the theory had seemed sound.
Clumsily, I knelt on the carpet. I ran my fingers along the beveled wood that edged the seat until I found a small groove. I tried lifting up and pulling out, but the wood refused to budge. There was a trick to it, and it took me several moments before I found the right combination of angle and force. Finally, a small section popped out, revealing a gap that was no more than five inches wide.
Kyle began to pace as I pulled out a tangle of objects: a ring Amy had stolen from her grandmother’s jewelry box and been too ashamed to put back, a prescription for the birth control pills her parents hadn’t known she was on, parking tickets, and a wad of cash in a folded envelope marked California Fund.
“What did that woman mean when she said people thought Stephen was responsible for a breach in January?” Kyle’s voice was low and rough as his steps took him from one side of the room to the other. “What breach? What people? And that stuff about Van Horne . . . was CBP experimenting on werewolves at more than one camp?”
“Stephen’s worked in his dad’s office as an intern every summer I’ve known him. Maybe he saw or found something he wasn’t supposed to. The Van Horne stuff . . .” I bit my lip as I struggled to remember everything the warden had said to me while I’d been in the camp. “Sinclair told me she had worked at other camps, but she never said which ones.”
“So maybe one of them was Van Horne. Maybe they started looking for a cure there and then moved things to Thornhill once Sinclair was installed as warden.” Kyle came to a stop and crouched next to me. “We need to find out what—exactly—that woman was talking about. We need to talk to Stephen.”
I made a thoughtful, noncommittal noise as I reached back into Amy’s hiding spot. After the way I’d freaked out at the cemetery, it would be a minor miracle if Stephen told us anything. Even if he was willing to speak to us, how could we trust him? How could we know he wouldn’t just turn us over to CBP? My fingers closed on a small jumble of metal, and I withdrew two keys: the key to Ryan Walsh’s study and a second, smaller key that I didn’t recognize.
The problem with formal dresses? They never had pockets when you needed them. I hesitated a moment and then tucked the first key into my bra. Just one more secret between me and Victoria.
I glanced up in time to catch Kyle sneaking a glance at my cleavage.
Guilt flashed across his face, and despite the situation, I laughed before I could stop myself. It was so deliciously normal. Everything in our world was going to hell, but my boyfriend was still taking time to check out my chest.
Once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop. I tried clamping my hands over my mouth, desperate to silence the sound in case someone wandered upstairs and heard the noise, but the laughter kept bubbling up from deep inside my chest, so hard that breathing became a struggle and tears streamed down my face. Maybe this is what people mean when they talk about hysterical laughter, I thought, and that just set me off all over again.
Kyle was staring at me as though I had lost my mind. He shot a nervous glance at the door and that small gesture helped me regain control.
“I’m okay,” I managed, lowering my hands from my mouth as the laughter finally subsided. “It’s just funny, y’know. Of all the times to sneak a peek . . .”
“Sorry,” he said, but the grin that crossed his face looked anything but contrite.
On impulse, I leaned over and kissed him.
I meant it to be a quick, light peck, but Kyle pulled me close and I found my lips parting under his. His right hand slid up the back of my neck to tangle in my too-short hair as my own hands slipped under his jacket.
I kissed Kyle hungrily, greedily, as though I could borrow some of his warmth and use it to chase away the cold sting of everything we had seen and heard over the past few minutes.
“Everything will be okay,” he whispered, minutes later, somehow knowing they were words I desperately needed to hear. He pulled back and tucked a stray strand of my hair back into place.
“How?” I asked, trying not to cringe at how small and weak the single word sounded.
Kyle trailed his fingers along my temple. “I don’t know,” he admitted, “but it will be.”
He lowered his hand and then reached past me to begin slipping Amy’s things back into their hiding place.
“Wait.” I grabbed the second key before he could tuck it away with everything else. It was small—not as small as the key to a suitcase, but smaller than the key to any door. There was something slightly familiar about the size and shape of it. A locker key, maybe? Or the key to a desk drawer.
“What is it?” asked Kyle.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. But Amy only kept things in here that were important. It was with the key to the study; maybe it opens something in there.” I slipped the key into my bra with the other one, rolling my eyes when he smirked.
I fitted the small section of the window seat back into place as Kyle stood. He reached down and I let him help me to my feet, teetering a little on the dreaded heels.
“Ready?”
I nodded. We crossed the room and Kyle cracked the door, checking the hallway before stepping outside.
I shot one last glance back at Amy’s room before following.
She wasn’t here, not anymore, and that somehow made it easier to walk away.
I pulled the door closed and headed after Kyle, pausing for a moment to check my makeup—makeup I had borrowed from Jason’s mother—in a mirror with a gilded frame. Kyle stopped and waited for me, and I shook my head, amused, as I walked toward him.
I wiped away a small smudge of lipstick at the corner of his mouth. “Jason will never let either of us hear the end of it if you go down there wearing lipstick.”
I expected Kyle to laugh or blush, but something dark and uncertain passed behind his eyes. “C’mon,” he said, the single word soft and gruff, as he headed for the staircase.
Confused and a little off-balance by the sudden change in his mood, I followed.
The sound of voices stopped us on the landing.
A trio of silver-haired men in suits were locked in conversation at the bottom of the stairs. Amy’s grandfather walked by. They called out to him, but the senator waved them off and continued to the hallway on the far side of the stairs, a hallway that wound past the billiard room and the study before eventually leading out to the pool.