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Do it tonight.
“Who was this meant for?” he asks.
“I thought maybe me at first. Maybe someone knew I needed money for my mother.” I sigh. “I know that doesn’t make sense, but I was desperate.”
Nathaniel looks back at the phone. “It wasn’t meant for you,” he says.
“I know that now.”
“You weren’t supposed to take it.”
“I know.”
“You weren’t supposed to find it.”
“Maybe not.”
“No.” His voice is quiet. “Definitely not.”
A chill runs through me. “Then who was supposed to get it?”
He doesn’t answer.
“It must have been someone else,” I say. “Someone on staff. Someone who could move through that area without being noticed.”
“Or someone who expected staff to find it and pass it along.”
“To who?”
I think of Hazel. Of the way she knew the tunnels. The way she knew where the bodies were buried.
A bitter knot forms in my stomach.
“Not Hazel,” I whisper.
Nathaniel looks at me. “I don’t know.”
My chest tightens. “We can trust her, right?”
Still nothing.
“Nathaniel?”
He looks at the bust of his father. Then at the rest of the busts on display, as if he’s asking them for answers. “I feel in my gut that Hazel is okay,” he says finally.
A shaky breath leaves me. “But?”
“But my gut has been wrong before.” He puts the phone in his pocket. “Hazel knows too much, but she hasn’t used it against us. Not tonight. She could have screamed. Could have gone to my father. Could have led us straight into a camera. She didn’t.”
“Maybe that’s what she wanted us to think.”
His mouth curves faintly, without humor. “You’re learning.”
I sigh. “I don’t want to learn this.”
“No one sane does.”
I wrap my arms around myself. “Then who?”