Unhinged (Necessary Evils #1)(60)

Noah went to set the photo down when something caught his eye. He squinted harder at the picture, his gaze snagging on one man in particular. It was the eyes. “That’s my da—Holt. That’s Holt.” He scanned the photo and found another familiar face. “And that’s Gary.”

“They met at summer camp?” Adam asked, taking the photo and flipping it over. “New Horizons, 1990.”

“That doesn’t sound like a summer camp to me. Sounds like a drug treatment facility,” Atticus mused without looking up from his task.

Thomas hit the button on the boomerang and before Calliope could even say hello, asked, “Calliope, we’re looking for a camp program called New Horizons, would have been active in 1990 or so. Holt and Gary both attended the program.”

They listened as she worked, Noah frowning at the pictures, flipping back through them before stopping short. “I-Is that the priest? Father O’Hara?”

Adam leaned forward, close enough for their hair to touch. The photo was grainy and the man wasn’t even in the forefront, just lingering in the background, watching.

“Yeah, I think so,” Adam confirmed, handing over the photo to Thomas.

“Okay, no summer camps,” Calliope interrupted, “but I do have a New Horizons Program for Boys that started in 1974 and…still runs to this day.”

“What kind of program?” Atticus asked.

More clacking and then a soft exhalation. “It’s a rehabilitation program—”

“Told you,” Atticus broke in, smug.

“But not for drugs or alcohol. It’s a treatment program for juvenile sex offenders run by the church. It’s billed as an alternative to prison. If these boys went there, it’s because they were ordered there by the courts.”

“Wouldn’t you have seen that in their backgrounds?”

“Not if the records were sealed or expunged,” Calliope said. “Records for juveniles are often hidden so they don’t ruin the rest of their lives.”

“Can you unseal them?” Adam asked.

Calliope scoffed. “I can now that I know they exist, but it’s going to take more than five minutes. I’ll call you back.”

There was no goodbye, so Noah returned to his file box. Beneath the stack of pictures was a photo album with a pink and blue pastel patchwork bear. Noah’s hands trembled, every fiber of his being telling him to just hand over the album to Adam. Instead, he turned the page and came face to face with a photo of himself.

He couldn’t have been more than five. He sat on that race car bed from the cabin, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. His eyes were hollow and he stared up at the camera with a pain and desolation that made Noah dizzy. Under the photo were the words: Our Boy.

The album fell from Noah’s hands, clattering on the table, capturing the attention of the room. Adam swiped it before Noah could reach for it again, flipping open the cover and then thumbing through it, the muscle of his jaw ticking as he scanned the pages.

“What is it?” Noah asked, voice dull.

“Exactly what you think it is,” Adam said, handing it to his father. Noah had to fight the urge to rip the album from Thomas. Hadn’t he already been humiliated enough? Did they all have to share in his tragedy? Thomas grimaced as he opened the book, fanning through it, just as Adam had, though with more speed.

“Let me see it,” Noah said, voice trembling.

Thomas gave him a sad smile. “No. I won’t. There’s literally no reason for you to see this.”

Part of Noah was grateful, while the other part hated that they got to see him at his worst but he didn’t. “How will I know who they are if I can’t see their faces?”

Thomas closed his eyes, his face pained. “There are no faces but yours. Please, I know you want to be tough, but you can never unsee this. Just…let us protect you, just this once.”

Adam snarled, his own hands trembling, not with fright but with rage. “I want them dead, Dad. All of them. I don’t care if it puts us on the map. They all need to die. Screaming. Bloody. Bruised. Writhing in agony. Every fucking one of them.”

Noah would usually try to rein in Adam’s homicidal fury, but, this time, it felt good. Just. Necessary. Every one of them deserved to die screaming, and he didn’t want Adam less angry. He just wanted to watch.

Thomas kept a grip on the album as they continued to excavate the boxes. More photos, more albums, more boys. Noah might have been the first album, but he was by no means the last. Each with their own disgustingly childish album cover. Noah wasn’t permitted to see any of them. He really didn’t want to see. It was one thing to know it was him being hurt, it was something else altogether to see another child suffering the way he had.

The boomerang chirped beside Noah’s thigh. Thomas reached over and pushed the button. Calliope’s somber voice flooded the room. “Incoming,” she said.

A screen lit up on the wall beside the white board and a picture of a boy in his early teens appeared. It was a mugshot. “Wayne Holt, arrested at the age of thirteen for assaulting his six-year-old neighbor. Was sent to New Horizons instead of a juvenile detention center because the judge felt he shouldn’t ruin a young boy’s life after ‘one mistake.’”

“Pretty big fucking mistake,” Atticus muttered, sounding disgusted.