Chapter 18: The Back Room Door

I woke on the road with blood in my eye and the nurse pressing a cloth to my head.

The grey van was gone.

So was my brother.

"The corner room," I said.

"What?"

"They took him to the yard. They took him to the room with the bolt."

I knew it the way I knew my own name.

It was where they put the things they wanted quiet.

Rowan's car skidded to a stop beside us, and he was out of it before it finished moving.

He knelt in the gravel and took my face in both hands.

"The detective needs one hour for the warrant," he said. "Leland will not have Tobias for an hour."

"I'm not waiting an hour."

"I know." He wiped the blood from my eyebrow with his thumb. "Make your call."

I took my phone out and found the number of the reporter with the microphone.

"Mrs. Peverell?" she said.

"Bring every camera you have to the Penhallow gate," I said. "Ten minutes. Tell them my brother has been kidnapped."

By the time we reached the gate, there were forty people on the road.

There were three vans with antennas.

A cameraman walked backward in front of us.

Rowan stepped out of the car.

He did not reach for the chair.

He stood in the road on his own two feet, with the whole street looking, and held out his arm to me.

I took it.

We walked through the Penhallow gate together, with a line of lenses behind us.

My father came out of the front door with his coat half on.

"You cannot come in here," he said. "This is private property."

"My brother is in your yard," I said. "I want him out."

"Your brother is at a clinic."

"Then you won't mind if the cameras look."

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