Tess Gerritsen - Last to Die

“Paranoid?” Dr. Welliver gave a surprised laugh. “That’s hardly a diagnosis I’d make of anyone in this room.”

“The Mephisto Society believes that evil is real. You believe that humanity itself is under attack, and your mission is to defend it.”

“Is that what you think we’re doing here? Training demon hunters?” Welliver shook her head in amusement. “Trust me, our role is hardly metaphysical. We help children recover from violence and tragedy. We give them structure, safety, and a superb education. We prepare them for university or whatever their goals may be. You visited Professor Pasquantonio’s class yesterday. You saw how engaged the students are, even with a subject like botany.”

“He was showing them poisonous plants.”

“And that’s precisely why they were interested,” said Pasquantonio.

“Because the subtext was murder? Which plants can be used to kill?”

“That’s your interpretation. Others would call it a class on safety. How to recognize and avoid what could harm them.”

“What else do you teach here? Ballistics? Blood splatters?”

Pasquantonio shrugged. “Neither would be out of place in a physics class. What is your objection?”

“My objection is that you’re using these children to advance your own agenda.”

“Against violence? Against the evils that men do to one another?” Pasquantonio snorted. “You make it sound like we’re pushing drugs or training gangsters.”

“We’re helping them heal, Dr. Isles,” Lily said. “We know what it’s like to be crime victims. We help them find purpose in their pain. Just as we do.”

We know what it’s like . Yes, Lily Saul would know; she’d lost her family to murder. And Sansone had lost his father to murder as well.

Maura looked at the six faces and felt a chilling sense of comprehension. “You’ve all lost someone,” she said.

Gottfried gave a mournful nod. “My wife,” he said. “A robbery in Berlin.”

“My sister,” said Ms. Duplessis. “Raped and strangled in Detroit.”

“My husband,” Dr. Welliver said softly, her head bowed. “Kidnapped and murdered in Buenos Aires.”

Maura turned to Pasquantonio, who stared down in silence at the table. He did not answer the question; he didn’t need to. The answer was there, in his face. She suddenly thought of her own twin sister, murdered only a few years earlier. And Maura realized: I belong in this circle. Like them, I mourn someone lost to violence .

“We understand these children,” said Dr. Welliver. “That’s why Evensong is the best place for them. Maybe the only place for them. Because they’re one of us. We are all one family.”

“Of victims.”

“Not victims. We’re the ones who lived .”

“Your students may be survivors,” said Maura, “but they’re also just children. They can’t choose for themselves. They can’t object.”

“Object to what?” said Dr. Welliver.

“To joining this army of yours. That’s what you think you are, an army of the righteous. You gather up the wounded and turn them into warriors.”

“We nurture them. Give them a way to spring back from adversity.”

“No, you keep them in a place where they’ll never be allowed to forget. By surrounding them with other victims, you take away any chance of them seeing the world the way other children do. Instead of light, they see darkness. They see evil.”

“Because it’s there. Evil,” Pasquantonio whispered. He sat hunched in his chair, his head still bowed. “The proof of it comes from their own lives. They merely see what they already know exists.” Slowly he lifted his head and looked at her with pale and watery eyes. “As do you.”

“No,” she said. “What I see in my work is the result of violence. This thing you call evil is merely a philosophical term.”

“Call it what you will. These children know the truth. It’s burned into their memories.”

Gottfried said, reasonably, “We provide them with the knowledge and skills to make a difference in the world. We inspire them to take action, just as other private schools do. Military academies teach discipline. Religious schools teach piety. College preps emphasize academics.”

“And Evensong?”

“We teach resilience, Dr. Isles,” Gottfried answered.

Maura regarded the faces around the table, evangelists all. And their recruits were the wounded and vulnerable, children who had not been given a choice.

She rose to her feet. “Julian doesn’t belong here. I’ll find another school for him.”

“I’m afraid that’s not your decision,” said Dr. Welliver. “You don’t have legal custody of the boy.”

“I’ll petition the state of Wyoming.”

“I understand you had the chance to do that six months ago. You declined.”

“Because I thought this school was the right place for him.”

“It is the right place for him, Maura,” said Sansone. “To pull him from Evensong would be a mistake. One that you’ll regret.” Was that a warning in his voice? She tried to read his face, but like so many times before, she failed.

“This is up to Julian, don’t you think?” Dr. Welliver said.

“Yes, of course it is,” said Maura. “But I’m going to tell him exactly how I feel about this.”

“Then I suggest you take the time to understand what we’re doing here.”

“I do understand.”

“You just got here yesterday, Dr. Isles,” Lily said. “You haven’t seen what we offer the children. You haven’t walked in our forest, seen our stables and farm, observed all the skills they’re picking up here. Everything from archery to growing their own food to learning how to survive in the wilderness. I know you’re a scientist. Shouldn’t you base your decisions on facts and not emotions?”

This made Maura pause, because what Lily said was true. She had not yet explored Evensong. She had no idea if there was a better alternative for Julian.

“Give us a chance,” said Lily. “Take the time to meet our students, and you’ll see why Evensong is the one place that can help them. As an example, we’ve just taken in two new kids. Both of them have survived two separate massacres. First their parents were killed, then their foster parents. Imagine how deep their wounds must go, to be twice orphaned, twice a survivor?” Lily shook her head. “I don’t know of another school that would understand their pain the way we can.”

Twice orphaned. Twice a survivor . “These children,” Maura said softly. “Which ones are they?”

“The names don’t matter,” said Dr. Welliver. “What matters is that they need Evensong.”

“I want to know who they are .” Maura’s sharp demand seemed to startle them all.

A silence passed before Lily asked: “Why do their names make a difference?”

“You said there were two of them.”

“A boy and a girl.”

“Are their cases related?”

“No. Will came to us from New Hampshire. Claire came from Ithaca, New York. Why do you ask?”

“Because I just performed autopsies on a family in Boston, killed in a home invasion. There was one survivor in the house, their foster child. A boy of fourteen. A boy who was orphaned two years ago when his family was massacred.” She looked around the table at the stunned faces. “He’s just like your two students. Twice orphaned. Twice a survivor.”

TEN

IT WAS A STRANGE PLACE TO MEET.

Jane stood on the sidewalk, eyeing the blacked-out windows where the words ARABIAN NIGHTS were stenciled in flaking gold letters over the painted figure of a buxom woman in harem pants. The door suddenly opened and a man stumbled out. He wobbled for a moment, squinting in the daylight, and headed unsteadily down the street, trailing the sour scent of booze.