The Twin They Erased novel · Chapter 20 of 24

Chapter 20: The Quiet Room

Eamon's POV

Odile Astley walked across the lawn like a woman late for a train.

She did not hurry, and she did not look back, and her heels sank into the wet grass at every step.

I ran after her with the deputy a few strides behind me.

Her car stood at the end of the gravel drive, a long grey sedan with a driver asleep at the wheel.

She was twenty yards from it when the girls came out of the side doors.

I heard them before I saw them, a hundred and forty pairs of school shoes on the gravel.

The twelve who had stood up at Founders' Night came first, in a line, with the cough girl in the middle holding her notebook.

They spread across the drive and linked arms.

Behind them the rest of the school filled in, row on row, until the road was a wall of grey skirts.

Odile stopped.

"Move," she said.

"No, ma'am," said the cough girl.

Her voice shook, but she did not step back.

"I am the largest donor this school has."

"You're the reason we paid half," said the tall girl who had said nine times.

"Step aside."

"You step aside," another girl said. "Go around."

Odile looked at the line of arms and at the faces above them.

She looked at the sedan, and at the driver waking up behind the glass, and I saw her measure the distance.

The deputy was ten feet behind me with his hand on his belt.

She turned.

East of the main hall, past the dying roses, stood the bell tower with its door open.

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