Reece’s words floated through my thoughts, and for the first time in like forever, I thought about his parole hearings, I thought about his trial and everything since that night until now. It killed me to acknowledge it, but never once did Henry make excuses for what he did. Never once did he not show remorse, and not the kind when you get caught doing something bad. I remembered him crying at the trial. Not when the guilty verdict was handed down or at sentencing, but when I took the stand and recounted the events.

Henry had cried.

And back then I had hated him so much for that. I didn’t want to see his tears, couldn’t even understand how he could cry when he was the one who hurt Charlie. But now I knew it was more than that. All this time I also blamed myself and I had cried an ocean’s worth of tears. When I thought of Henry, I always thought of my role in things.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and tried to picture Charlie’s reaction to what I was thinking about doing. Would he be upset? Or would he turn to me and say finally? I let out a shaky sigh. My throat felt thick. My eyes burned when I reopened them.

Then I dialed the number on the card.

My stomach twisted until I thought I’d hurl all over the clothes as the phone rang once, twice, and then five times before voice mail picked up. I didn’t leave a message, because seriously, what would I say? I didn’t even know what I was going to say if he did answer. I started to stand up when I felt the cold air again, this time stronger and steady, as if a hard gust of wind blew out of the closet.

So freaking weird.

Placing the phone on the floor, I scooted forward on my knees, pushing the hanging clothes even further back as I scanned the closet. The air couldn’t be coming from outside, because the closet butted up to where the steps used to go upstairs. Could it be from the main door opening? Stretching, I placed my hand against the wall. The surface was cool, as expected, but the wall didn’t feel . . . solid. Not like the rest of the closet. It almost felt like fake wood, the kind cheap bookshelves were made out of and would fall apart if it got wet. Upon closer inspection, I could actually see a crack, a separation between whatever kind of wood this was and the actual wall. Almost running the length of the back wall, it was about two feet wide and five feet in height.

Which probably explained why drafts were getting through.

Pushing on the section of the wall, I gasped as it shifted, swinging open into a space behind the wall without so much as a whisper.