“I tried to break into it. So I could get a needle. I thought maybe I could use it as a weapon or . . .”

“Or what?” I asked.

“Or I could use it to kill myself.”

There may have been sounds around us. There may have been cars driving by or children playing somewhere nearby or something like that. But I heard none of it.

“Bat Lady came in. She was dressed like a nurse. She took me away.”

“Where did she take you?”

A small smile came to his lips. “Where do you think?”

I remembered the tape he wanted. “To that tunnel?”

“Yes. For a long time, that was where we hid the rescued until we could find them safe transport. There is a door down there. It can be hidden by a false wall.”

“I saw it,” I said.

“When you found that tape?”

I remembered it now. I had walked past it. “Yes.”

“Anyway, that’s where I stayed for the first two weeks. There was so much attention that they couldn’t move me. The room has all this canned food and a toilet and a shower. It’s soundproof so if, say, a scared child started crying, the police or a nosy visitor wouldn’t hear. Two other boys were down there with me too. One was already there when I arrived. One came a few days later. Eventually we were moved.”

“Moved where?”

“Someplace safe. We never find out where they go. That’s part of how Abeona works. We compartmentalize. So I don’t know what happened to those boys.”

“And you?”

“In my case, I was sent to England. I grew up in the town of Bristol.”

That explained the accent. This all made sense. No one knew about that tunnel. You could approach it hidden, from the woods and into the garage. “I blew it, I guess.”

“Pardon?”

“You can’t use that secret room anymore,” I said. “Now I understand what Bat Lady meant. The police know about it now. If more kids go missing, it will be the first place they look.”

“True,” he said. “But the house is gone anyway. We had been using the tunnel. But that secret room . . .” A shadow crossed his face. “We stopped using that room a long time ago.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We sealed it shut. It hasn’t been open in years.”

“Why?”

Dylan didn’t answer right away.

“Why did you stop using that room?”

“That’s what I need you to understand, Mickey.”

“What?”

“You watched the tape with Luther and your father?”

It felt as though a cold hand had caressed the back of my neck. “Yes.”

“Those boys were the last ones to ever use that secret room.”

CHAPTER 33

Dylan started walking faster.

“Wait,” I called to him. “What happened?”