“‘Please forgive me for not giving this to you myself, but as long as there’s a chance that I can go on without putting anyone else in danger, I have to take it. I think that I have the key—quite literally—to bringing the Circle down. But a key does no good without a lock, and that’s the next thing I have to find. I’ve stored the key in a bank box in Rome that only you and Cammie and I will be allowed to access.’”
“Rome,” Abby whispered. Guilt and grief filled her eyes, but there was no time to think about it, because Bex kept reading aloud.
“‘I shouldn’t say any more here, in case this note falls into the wrong hands, but once you have the key, you will understand. If I am right, then there is a way to bring the Circle to an end, a window that can lead to a happy ending. And I will find it. I promise you I will.
“‘I love you both.’” Bex laid the letter on the table, and I stared numbly at the words until my gaze came to rest on the three letters at the bottom of the page.
M.A.M.
Matthew Andrew Morgan.
“Cam,” Bex was saying. “It will be okay. We will—”
“I…I saw this.”
“Yeah, Cam,” Macey said. “You had the letter. You found it at Joe’s cabin and took it to Rome and—”
“Not in Rome.” My hands shook as they traced my father’s initials. The paper was smooth, but what I felt was rough stone and crumbling mortar.
“Cammie,” Abby said softly. “Cam!” she snapped, pulling me back.
“Aunt Abby.” I heard my voice crack. “We need to get the car.”
Chapter Thirty
My memory wasn’t back. It wasn’t as simple as that. But there were flashes—images and sounds. I felt my head spinning like a compass, guiding us for hours until our ears popped and the snow blew, and I stared out our car window, looking for anything that seemed familiar.
No one spoke as the roads grew narrower, steeper. I didn’t know if it was the altitude or the situation, but I found it harder and harder to breathe until I said “Turn here” for reasons I didn’t quite know.
We drove on. The road turned to lane and then…to nothing. Agent Townsend stopped the SUV. “It’s a dead end,” he said, and Abby turned to me.
“It looks different in the winter, Squirt. Don’t pressure yourself or—”
“I’ve been here.” It wasn’t just the feeling of waking up in the convent, the memory of the chopper ride down the mountain. I knew that air. “We’re close,” I said, and before anyone could stop me, I reached for the door and was out, wading through the drifts.
The flashes were stronger then, clearer than they had been on the hillside with Dr. Steve. Those rocks were the same rocks. The trees were the same trees. And when I saw the broken branches, I knew that I had broken them on purpose—that I’d known someone would come looking for me eventually and I wanted to show them the way.
I just hadn’t known that that someone would be me.
“Are you sure?” Bex said from behind me. “Are you positive that this—”
I reached out for a piece of pine, my blood still on the bark. “This is the place.”
It took an hour to reach it—the ruins of an old stone house that stood alone, crumbling at the top of the mountain.
“I was here,” I said.
The images in my mind were black-and-white and blurry, but I felt it in my bones. My dreams were coming back, but they weren’t dreams. And yet they weren’t quite memories either as I pushed through a creaking wooden door and walked through rooms I didn’t recognize, listened to sounds I didn’t know. Only the feel of the stones beneath my fingers was familiar.
There was a cold fireplace filled with black logs and forgotten ashes. It hadn’t burned in months, but I heard the crackle of the fire.
Two bowls sat on a table, cold to the touch, but I could taste the food.
I’d already broken free once, but there was something in that building that hadn’t let me go.
Townsend and Abby were wordless, efficient. Opening drawers, scanning floorboards. They covered every inch of the old stone house until they finally huddled together and spoke in low, conspiratorial whispers.
“Nothing,” Abby told him. “You?”