secrets,” Scarlett went on, “do you mean like what was done to the natives?” She paused. “That was so long ago, though. Those men are dead and gone.”
“Those ones are, yes. But that’s where Lilith House comes in.”
She stared at him, unblinking.
“I lived at Lilith House all my life, Scarlett. You already know that. I . . . saw things.” Shame filled him for his inability to stop the evil he’d witnessed, his failure in preventing other people’s pain. Yes, he’d tried, but in the end, did it matter? Was that a solace to Georgia? To Mason? It was certainly no solace to the girls of Lilith House.
“What kind of things?” she asked warily. She had a right to be wary. He hated having to tell her the truth.
“The guild, they took advantage of those girls. With approval from the headmistress and a blind eye from the staff, the men drugged them and used them regularly.”
She did blink then, her pretty mouth falling open as a disbelieving horror took over her expression. “They . . . raped them?”
He nodded, swallowed. And yes, it was the word he should have used outright. To mitigate what they’d done with softened language made him culpable, even now. “Yes. Yes, they raped them.”
“Oh my God,” she breathed. “No one . . . no one ever went to the police?”
“No. And if any of the women suspected, they had no proof.” He paused. “Except one. Kandace Thompson.”
Scarlett blinked again. “You did know Kandace.” She sat back, her shoulders slumping. “And she . . . she was . . . raped?” The last word emerged as barely a whisper.
He nodded, his gaze locked with hers, a fresh bout of shame washing through him. The look on Scarlett’s face was killing him. “Yes. I knew Kandace. We were banned from interacting with the students but”—he smiled a sad smile—“Kandace was not a rule follower. She discovered me, us, and she became intent on finding the truth. She found out who our mothers were. She had proof.” He shook his head. “She took some files or . . . I don’t know. She didn’t tell me what she had, only that she was going to bring help. She was going to take that place down.”
“Oh my God,” she repeated, looking shell-shocked. “Did she really run away, Camden? Or . . . did they do something to her?”
“I don’t know that either. All I know was that she planned to leave, to escape. As far as I know, she did, but she never came back. A week later, the fire happened.” His mind traveled back to the day she ran, how he’d picked the fresh mushrooms for her and left them at the top of the crawlspace where she could access them. How nervous he’d been, how relieved when he’d listened through the walls to them shouting about how she’d gotten away . . . and how she hadn’t come back . . . not a day later, not five days later . . . never as far as he knew. And he had no idea if that was because something more terrible had happened to Kandace, or because she’d changed her mind about rescuing him.
He’d been abandoned before. He was used to it.
Scarlett sat forward, gripping the couch cushion. “Camden, we have to go to the authorities. We have to—” She shook her head. “Wait, you are the police.”
“Yes. Like I told you, the woman who tutored us took me with her to San Diego. She gave me her name. I kept in close touch with Georgia and Mason, who’d been taken in by members of the guild. Of course, we call Mason’s father his father, but we have no clue. Nor who my father might be. We had a plan. We were going to save our money, buy Lilith House. We were going to find that proof Kandace hid, whether in the walls or in the woods, or maybe somewhere buried in the sheriff’s office for all we knew, and then we were going to take down the people responsible for what happened there.” He eyed her, saw her mind racing to keep up with all the information he was dumping on her. “Mason already worked at the hardware store owned by the family who took him in after Lilith House, and I applied to be deputy sheriff.”
“They trusted you?” she asked. “After what they’d done to you?”