The guy had been washing the deck with a hose when they appeared on the dock near his house and asked to speak with him. It had probably been more curiosity than anything else which made the ornery male invite them inside. He’d gestured for them to take the small sofa, but only Knox and Tanner took a seat. Levi was leaning against the counter in the tiny galley kitchen.
Tanner’s demon didn’t like the cramped space. Didn’t like the scents of brine, motor oil, coffee, and a faint hint of fish guts. It also didn’t like being around someone that reminded it of a bad time in its existence.
The demon hadn’t minded being around Muriel—she’d just been a child back then, couldn’t have helped. But Milton had been an adult, a member of the staff. And though Tanner understood that, as a caretaker, Milton hadn’t had enough power or influence to make changes to the shitty place, his hound wasn’t so understanding.
“We want to know if something could have happened at Ramsbrook that would explain why someone is killing people who once stayed there,” said Knox. He’d called Muriel to notify her of Mattias and Joseph’s deaths. She’d claimed there was no way that Dale and the other victims could have been involved in something together.
Milton’s brow furrowed. “Who was killed?”
“Harry Tomlinson, Dale Tipton, Mattias Ranger, and Joseph Morgan.”
A shocked silence seemed to descend on Milton, making the exterior noises of the creaking of the taut rope outside, the flapping of the mast, and the cries of seagulls that much louder.
Finally, Milton’s eyes clouded, and he expelled an audible breath. “Ah, shit.”
“The only common denominator we can see is that they stayed at Ramsbrook. We need to know if they were involved in anything that could explain their deaths.”
Sighing, Milton rubbed at the back of his nape. “Yes, the boys were … I don’t know if you’d use the word ‘involved.’ Something happened to them. I don’t even know how long it had been happening. But it came to an end about a year after you left. I might never have known anything about it if it hadn’t been for Harry.”
“What did Harry tell you?”
“He didn’t tell me anything. But one night he asked me to stay in his dorm; to use my ability of camouflage to conceal myself. Said there was something I needed to see. It was the same small dorm that Dale, Mattias, Joseph, and some other kids slept in. I did as he asked. Only Harry knew I was there, from what I could tell. It was about midnight when they came.”
“Who?”
“Two of the tutors, Mr. Giles and Mr. Shephard. They ordered the children to get out of bed and form a line, facing the tutors. The kids were pale and trembling, clearly terrified out of their minds, and I knew this wasn’t the first time it had happened.”
A sliver of unease snaked up Tanner’s spine, raising the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck.
Milton fiddled with the collar of his tee. “Mr. Giles asked, ‘So, who will it be tonight?’ He made the children vote on who would go with him and Mr. Shephard. Then the tutors dragged whichever child received the most votes out of the room. I followed them, still camouflaged. They took him down to the basement. Chained him up. Probably would have done despicable things to him, only I slit both their throats and then released the boy.”
Disgusted, Tanner ground his teeth to bite back a curse. He remembered the tutors well. Remembered how staid, stringent, and authoritarian they’d been. They’d had no patience for error or idleness; hadn’t seemed to take any joy in teaching. But he wouldn’t have suspected them capable of such cruelty. That was the thing about evil fuckers like that, though—they were very good at hiding what they were.
The thought that those poor kids had been subjected to such abuse and felt they had nowhere to turn … Tanner’s blood boiled. He hated that it went on right under his fucking nose. If he’d known, if he’d even suspected, that such things were happening, he’d have acted—teen or not. And Knox and the other sentinels would have been right at his side when he did.
“I notified the rest of the staff,” said Milton. “They were horrified. You might find that hard to believe, since they were so cold towards all the children. The punishments were harsh, yes, but the staff never took any sadistic pleasure in them. They did what they thought was necessary to control a whole building of orphaned, angry, gifted children. And maybe sometimes they were harsher than they needed to be, but they didn’t get a kick out of it.”
Tanner had never got the feeling that any of the staff enjoyed what they were doing. They’d never punished anyone for the sake of it or for some imaginary slight. But then, he’d never got the feeling that Giles and Shephard would take delight in abusing kids. “The tutors made the other kids choose which child would go with them because the bastards wanted to make the kids feel partly to blame, didn’t they?”