The Tracking Device

The pharmacy logo on the bag was a beacon of complicity, bright green against the beige lining of Sabrina’s designer purse. Iris felt a cold, hard knot form in her stomach. Sabrina wasn't just a bystander. She was the courier.

"Is that for Elias?" Iris asked, pointing at the bag.

Sabrina snapped her purse shut, her face flushing crimson. "I told you, it's for Grandma."

"Don't lie to me," Iris said. "I saw the pickup log, Sabrina. I saw your signature. You pick up his meds when Julian is out of town. You keep him sedated."

"It's not like that," Sabrina whispered, leaning in, her voice a desperate hiss. "He needs them. He gets... agitated. He starts talking about things that aren't real. About the girl. About the quarry."

"Because he saw what happened," Iris said. "Because he saw your father kill her."

"Stop it!" Sabrina’s voice rose, cracking. A few heads turned. She lowered her voice again. "My father didn't kill anyone. Elias is sick. He has delusions. We keep him safe so he doesn't hurt himself or anyone else. That's all."

"Then why hide him in a basement? Why the fake passport? Why the lies about India?"

Sabrina looked down at her hands. "Because the world wouldn't understand. They'd put him in a state hospital. Have you seen those places? They're hell. At home, he has his books. He has his music. He's safe."

"He's a prisoner," Iris said. "And you're his jailer."

Sabrina stood up. "I'm not having this conversation. Stay away from us, Iris. Stay away from the house. If you go near him, my father will destroy you. He has lawyers you can't even imagine."

She turned and walked out, her heels clicking a sharp, staccato rhythm on the tile.

Iris didn't follow her. She waited until the door closed, then counted to ten.

She stood up and walked to the window. Sabrina was getting into her car, a sleek white Audi. She pulled out of the lot, but she didn't turn right, toward the highway that led to her apartment in the city.

She turned left. Toward Mercer Hall.

But she didn't go to the main house.

Iris ran to her Honda. She needed to know where Sabrina went when she wasn't being the perfect daughter.

She followed at a distance, keeping two cars between them. The road wound through the old money district, past the estates and the iron gates.

Sabrina drove past the entrance to Mercer Hall.

She kept going.

She turned down a narrow, unpaved lane about half a mile past the main driveway. It was an access road, overgrown with rhododendrons and ivy.

Iris killed her headlights and followed the dust cloud.

The road ended at a clearing. There, hidden behind a wall of trees, was a structure Iris remembered from her childhood but hadn't thought of in years.

The old carriage house. It sat on the edge of the property line, technically part of the estate but separated by a ravine and a dense thicket of woods.

Sabrina’s car was parked in front. She got out, the pharmacy bag in her hand. She unlocked the door and went inside.

Lights flickered on. Not just downstairs. Upstairs, too.

Iris parked in the brush and got out. She crept through the trees, the brambles tearing at her jeans. She reached the edge of the clearing and crouched behind an old stone wall.

She watched the windows.

Sabrina moved through the kitchen, filling a glass with water. She took the pills out of the bag.

Then she walked to the stairs.

Iris shifted her gaze to the second-floor window. The blinds were drawn, but they were thin. She could see shadows.

A figure was pacing back and forth. Back and forth. The same rhythm Iris had seen on the thermal camera in the basement.

But the basement was under the main house.

Iris pulled out her phone. She opened the map app.

The blue dot of her location hovered over the carriage house.

She zoomed out. The main house—Mercer Hall—was half a mile away.

The person in the basement wasn't Elias.

So who was in the carriage house?

And why was Sabrina bringing him antipsychotics?

The dot stopped at the property line. The one place Iris had no keys for.