That was the connection she’d failed to make all these years. Why would a child give it a second thought? He’d already been called to the house. Not for her. For something else entirely.

Something bad.

Justin must have found out, and Justin was dead. Had Cab Bolton found out, too? Had Dr Smeltz told him? It didn’t matter. She needed to know for herself.

*

Peach grabbed her phone and shut off the power. She checked the downtown street. Awnings on the storefronts flapped madly, like baseball cards in a bicycle spoke. The trees bent down as if they were praying. Branches, leaves, and dirt spat through the air. She knelt in the plaza, which was lined with loose red bricks. It was easy enough to dig her fingers into the gaps and pry them free. She uprooted them and scattered them around the plaza the way the storm would. Gusts of wind could lift up rocks and hurl them like javelins.

She took one brick and walked ten more feet to the edge of the plaza, where she stood in front of the three floor-to-ceiling windows that looked in on the lobby of the clinic. I’m sorry, Dr Smeltz.

Peach hurled the brick into the center window. The glass shattered, caving inward, leaving shards on every side that looked like a shark’s mouth. The crash banged loudly in her ears, but the howling wind drowned it out. No alarm sounded. No strobe lights flashed. She kicked some of the glass teeth out of the frame with the toe of her shoe and carefully squeezed through the hole into the building.

Rain flooded inside, pooling on the floor. The brick lay in the middle of the sandstone tile, surrounded by fragments that crunched under her feet. The water made the floor slippery, and she stumbled. Her skirt tore, and a gash opened on her knee. When she touched it, the cut stung, and her fingers came away with blood. She sucked them clean.

The waiting room was small. It smelled of antiseptic cleaner. Behind the receptionist desk, she saw a door that led to the rest of the clinic. She’d been here many times, heard the young nurse call her name, and followed the woman nervously to the examining rooms in the back. Peach pushed through the wooden door, the way she had as a kid. When she closed it behind her, the hallway was black. She fumbled for a light switch and found it, and fluorescent lights flickered to life overhead. There were no windows; no one outside would see.