Tess Gerritsen - Last to Die

Did one of them just move?

She stood clutching the drape, staring at statues that stood like chess pieces among the clipped hedges. Across that spectral landscape moved a slender figure with long silver-bright hair and limbs as graceful as a nymph’s. It was a girl, walking in the garden.

In the hallway outside her door, footsteps creaked past. She heard men’s voices.

“… We’re not sure whether the threat is real or imagined, but Dr. Welliver seems convinced.”

“The police seem to have the situation in hand. All we can do is wait and see.”

I know that voice . Maura pulled on a bathrobe and opened her door. “Anthony,” she called out.

Anthony Sansone turned to face her. Dressed in black, standing beside the much shorter Gottfried Baum, Sansone seemed a towering, almost sinister figure in that dimly lit hallway. She noticed his wrinkled clothes, the fatigue in his eyes, and understood that his journey here had been a long one.

“I’m sorry if we woke you, Maura,” he said.

“I had no idea you were coming to the school.”

“Just a few issues to deal with.” He smiled, a wary smile that did not reach his eyes. She sensed a troubling tension in that hallway. She saw it in Gottfried Baum’s face, and in the cool distance with which Sansone now regarded her. He’d never been an openly warm man, and there had been times when she’d wondered if he even disliked her. Tonight that reserve was more impenetrable than ever.

“I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s about Julian.”

“Of course. In the morning, maybe? I won’t be leaving until the afternoon.”

“You’re here for such a short time?”

He gave an apologetic shrug. “I wish I could stay longer. But you can always discuss any concerns with Gottfried here.”

“ Do you have concerns, Dr. Isles?” said Gottfried.

“Yes, I do. About why Julian’s here. Evensong isn’t just any boarding school, is it?”

She saw a glance pass between the men.

“That subject would be better left for tomorrow,” Sansone said.

“I do need to talk about this. Before you vanish again.”

“We will, I promise.” He gave a brisk nod. “Good night, Maura.”

She closed her door, troubled by his remoteness. The last time they had spoken was only two months ago, when he had stopped at her house to drop off Julian for a visit. They’d lingered on the porch, smiling at each other, and he’d seemed reluctant to leave. Or did I imagine it? Have I ever been wise about men?

Her track record was certainly dismal enough. For the last two years she’d been trapped in an affair with a man she could never have, an affair she’d known would end badly, yet she’d been as helpless as a junkie to resist it. That’s what falling in love really amounted to, your brain on drugs. Adrenaline and dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. Chemical insanity, celebrated by poets.

This time, I swear I’ll be wiser .

She went back to the window to shut the curtains and block the moonlight, said to be yet another source of insanity so praised by those same witless poets. Only as she reached for the drapes did she remember the figure that she’d spotted earlier. Staring down at the garden, she saw statues in a silvery landscape of shadows and moonlight. Nothing moved.

The girl was gone.

OR HAD SHE EVER been there ? Maura wondered the next morning when she looked out that same window and saw a gardener crouched below, wielding hedge clippers. A rooster crowed, loudly and lustily, proclaiming his authority. It seemed a perfectly normal morning, the sun shining, the cock crowing again and again. But last night, under moonlight, how unearthly everything had seemed.

Someone knocked on her door. It was Lily Saul, who greeted her with a cheerful “Good morning! We’re meeting in the curiosities room, if you’d like to join us.”

“Which meeting is this?”

“To address your concerns about Evensong. Anthony said you had questions, and we’re ready to answer them.” She gestured toward the staircase. “It’s downstairs, across from the library. There’ll be coffee waiting for us.”

Maura found far more than just coffee waiting for her when she walked into the curiosities room. Lining the walls were glass cabinets filled with artifacts: carved figurines and ancient stone tools, arrowheads and animal bones. The yellowed labels told her this was an old collection, perhaps owned by Cyril Magnus himself. At any other time she would have lingered over these treasures, but the five people already seated at the massive oak table demanded her attention.

Sansone rose from his chair and said, “Good morning, Maura. You already know Gottfried Baum, our headmaster. Next to him is Ms. Duplessis, who teaches literature. Our botany professor, David Pasquantonio. And this is Dr. Anna Welliver, our school psychologist.” He gestured to the smiling, big-boned woman to his right. In her early sixties, with silver hair springing out in a cheerfully undisciplined mane, Dr. Welliver looked like an aging hippie in her high-necked granny dress.

“Please, Dr. Isles,” said Gottfried, pointing to the coffee carafe and the tray of croissants and jams. “Help yourself.”

As Maura took a seat beside Headmaster Baum, Lily placed a steaming cup of coffee in front of her. The croissants looked buttery and tempting, but Maura took only a sip of coffee and focused on Sansone, who faced her from the far end of the table.

“You have questions about our school and our students,” he said. “These are the people who have the answers.” He nodded to his associates around the table. “Please, let’s hear your concerns, Maura.”

His uncharacteristic formality unsettled her; so did this setting, surrounded by oddities in cabinets, and by people she scarcely knew.

She answered him with equal formality. “I don’t believe Evensong is the right school for Julian.”

Gottfried raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Has he told you he’s unhappy, Dr. Isles?”

“No.”

“Do you think he’s unhappy?”

She paused. “No.”

“Then what is the nature of your concern?”

“Julian has been telling me about his classmates. He says that a number of them have lost family members to violence. Is this true?”

Gottfried nodded. “For many of our students.”

“Many? Or most?”

He gave a conciliatory shrug. “Most.”

“So this is a school for victims.”

“Oh dear, not victims,” Dr. Welliver said. “We like to think of them as survivors . They come to us with special needs. And we know exactly how to help them.”

“Is that why you’re here, Dr. Welliver? To address their emotional needs?”

Dr. Welliver gave her an indulgent smile. “Most schools have counselors.”

“But they don’t keep therapists on staff.”

“True.” The psychologist looked around the table at her colleagues. “We’re proud to say we’re unique that way.”

“Unique because you specialize in traumatized children.” She looked around the table. “In fact, you recruit them.”

“Maura,” said Sansone, “child protective agencies around the country send children to us because we offer what other schools can’t. A sense of safety. A sense of order.”

“And a sense of purpose? Is that what you’re really trying to instill?” She looked around the table at the six faces watching her. “You’re all members of the Mephisto Society. Aren’t you?”

“Maybe we could try to stay on topic?” suggested Dr. Welliver. “And focus on what we do here at Evensong.”

“I am talking about Evensong. About how you’re using this school to recruit soldiers for your organization’s paranoid mission.”