Suspicious Minds (Stranger Things Novels #1)(25)

She rushed forward and slipped through just before it closed.

Yes!

Another hall forked off almost immediately, but she went forward instead.

The rooms she passed were empty, filled with a variety of machines and cots. Until one wasn’t.

In this room, there was a child. Was she hallucinating this?

No, the child was still there. The little girl sat at a low table, coloring so hard she almost ripped the paper apart.

What in the world?

Terry knocked gently and opened the door to let herself in.

“Hi there,” Terry said, doing her best to make her voice kind, soothing. Why would a child be here in the middle of a place where experiments with LSD were taking place? She wore a gown like Terry’s.

“Who are you?” the girl asked and blinked up at her.

Terry moved to the seat across from the girl. She was too big and her knees jutted up comically. The girl didn’t seem to mind.

“I’m a patient. Who are you?”

“Kali.” She paused. “What’s a patient?”

“Ah, someone who’s sick.”

The little girl’s black eyebrows drew together. Terry noticed that her drawing was of a man with slicked-back hair. Brenner? She thought so.

“Are you sick?” the girl asked.

“No,” Terry said. “I’m fine.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Oh, I’m part of an experiment. Do you know what that is?”

“You’re a sub-ject.” The girl dragged the word out. “Me too. Does Papa know you’re here? I’m not s’posed to talk to most people.”

Papa. Was this Brenner’s child?

A shape passed by the door outside in the hall. Terry had a sudden suspicion that no one would be pleased to discover her in here.

She moved off the chair, crouching to stay at Kali’s level. “Why don’t we keep my visit our secret? I have to go now, but I’ll come see you again.”

“Okay.” The girl shrugged. “I like secrets.”

Terry needed to go, but she stayed for one last question. “Are you a secret?”

Kali hesitated, then bobbed her head in a nod. “I think so.”

“I’ll come see you as soon as I can.”

Kali nodded again and lifted her right index finger to her lips, the universal sign for quiet. Could a child this young keep a secret? Terry supposed a child who thought of herself as a secret probably had lots of practice.

And so, she realized, must Dr. Brenner.





1.


Andrew had gone to visit his folks for the weekend, and so Terry was forced to wait to unpack her discovery. He’d told her what time he expected to be home and she’d gone over to his apartment to wait. She pounced as soon as he walked through the door and deposited his backpack on the floor.

“He has a kid there, Andrew. A child. A little girl.”

“Babe? Hi,” he said, obviously happy to see her. But also lost. “Catch me up. Who has a kid, where?”

“Oh.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Sorry. The lab—Dr. Brenner—” She searched for the right place to start.

“I think we both need a beer.” He touched her cheek and kissed her forehead, then headed for the kitchen.

“Good call,” Terry said. “I’m sorry. I’ve just been waiting to talk this through.”

“You didn’t bring it up to your lab friends? I liked them.” Andrew opened the door, found two cans toward the back of the top shelf, and passed one to Terry.

“I don’t know what it means…So I thought I’d better keep it to myself for now. But it doesn’t feel right.”

“Okay, lay it on me.” He popped the top on his can and they went back to the living room. Andrew sat on the couch, but Terry was too filled with electricity to relax.

As she paced, she described her acid-fueled wandering and how it had brought her to Kali and the conversation they’d had. When she’d finished up with the promise to return to visit the girl, she paused to take a sip of her beer.

“It’s weird, for sure,” Andrew said from the couch. “Do you think anyone knows you saw her? You didn’t tell the doctor guy, did you?”

Terry shook her head. “No way. I…I was afraid to say a word. I’m just glad I didn’t get busted in the hall.”

He reached out a hand to pat her arm. “Do you think you’d have gotten in trouble?”

“I don’t know.” Terry finally swung down to sit beside him. “I know you probably think this is my own fault. For volunteering.”

“No way.” He put his hand on her knee. “So far, you’ve just seen a little girl. Assuming she is his daughter, maybe she is sick?”

“She didn’t look sick. But who knows? If she’s Brenner’s kid maybe he’s doing all this to try and find some kind of cure.” Terry tilted her head back. “But that doesn’t feel right. There was something…off about it. Her little room—it had bunk beds.”

“That could be to make her more comfortable during whatever treatment…Maybe you should just ask him about her?”

“Maybe.” Terry imagined it. A week ago, she would’ve. But she remembered Gloria’s discomfort with how tied into the experiment their grades were. She needed more information first.