The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer, #3)(35)

The video camera swiveled in our direction. I’d already told Jamie what to say.

“Hi,” he said, as if reading from a script. “I’m here to see Noah? I’m a friend from school?”

There was a click, and then a voice on the intercom. “No visitors are to be admitted at present, I’m afraid.”

I knew that voice. “Albert?” The Shaws’ butler. He’d met me before. I prayed that he would remember. “It’s Mara Dyer—I have something of Noah’s—”

“He’s . . . he’s unavailable, miss.”

Unavailable. Unavailable dead or unavailable alive?

“Where is he?” I asked.

There was a pause. “I’m afraid—” My heart lodged in my throat. “I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to say.”

I tried to stay calm. I had to stay calm, or we would be thrown out of there with more questions and fewer answers than we’d arrived with.

“Can I give you something to give to him?”

There was no answer, but the gate swung open. I leaned my head back against the seat in relief as Jamie drove forward.



“I don’t know if I can do this,” Jamie said. He’d said that before. Every time, actually.

Watching him exercise his ability was sort of fascinating. He worked himself up into an anxious, nervous frenzy, wondering out loud if he could do it, mumbling to himself about the consequences. It reminded me of something I’d read once, about divers making themselves hyperventilate before they dove, to force more oxygen into their lungs or something. Since we were triggered by stress and fear and possibly pain, Jamie freaking out about whether or not he could work his magic made it more likely that he could.

Albert was waiting for us at the front door when we drove up. His hands were tucked behind his back. I fleetingly wondered how he would react to Jamie vomiting in one of the mammoth potted boxwood urns when he finished with him.

“You can do this,” I whispered to Jamie. And then he did.

“Hi, Albert,” Jamie said in that calm, confident, crystalline voice. “My name is Jamie Roth, though you’re not actually going to remember that, or the fact that we had this conversation, once we’ve had it.”

“Of course, sir.”

“So here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to give me honest answers, all right?”

“All right.”

“Okay, what’s your middle name?”

Stella and I shared a glance.

“Eugene.”

“Do you have a driver’s license?”

“Yes.”

“Give me your wallet, please.”

Albert did so. Jamie checked it. “His middle name is in fact Eugene. Great. Okay, Albert. Now this is where it’s going to get a little weird. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready for weird, sir.”

“Is Noah Shaw alive?”

It took an eternal, agonizing second for Albert to answer.

“Yes, sir.”

“Yes, Noah’s alive?”

“Yes, he is.”

I wanted to do cartwheels on the lawn. I wanted to fly. I wanted to rocket into the sun.

“Where is he?”

“At the Horizons Residential Treatment Center, sir.”

No. No.

“Are you sure, Albert?”

“Yes, sir. I drove him there myself.”

“When?”

“Three weeks ago.”

That was shortly after I’d been dropped off myself.

“Do you know if he was there just for the retreat or if he’d been admitted long-term?”

“I’m not sure, sir.”

“Aren’t his parents worried about him?”

“Not particularly, no.”

No surprise there.

“Are they home?” Jamie asked. “Can we speak to them?”

“I’m afraid they’re in Europe at the moment.”

“What about Katie?” I asked. Jamie repeated my question.

“Her as well,” Albert answered.

Jamie looked at me and shrugged. “What next?”

I didn’t know. But at least we had one more answer than we’d had when we’d arrived; there had been no funeral. Which meant his family believed he was alive. But they also thought he was at Horizons. Noah had gotten himself thrown in there for me. To be with me. And now— Now he was nowhere. Because of me.





22


JAMIE AND STELLA TRIED TO cheer me up when we got back into the car. “It’s not hopeless,” they said. “We’ll find him.” But I began to feel hopeless and doubt that we would find him. I had nothing to hold on to, so I held on to myself. My arms crossed over my stomach, pressing his clothes against my skin as I tried to think about what he would have said if he’d been there. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine him, what he would have looked like, sounded like, if he’d been in the seat next to me.

I pictured his face, careless and unworried, his hair a tousled mess as he reminded me that his parents were idiots. That they never knew where he was, even when he was home. He would tell me not to believe something unless it could be proven. Once, I would’ve said that just because you couldn’t prove something didn’t mean it wasn’t real. But I wouldn’t say that today. Today I needed to believe he was right.