Tess Gerritsen - Last to Die

“Promise what?” said Teddy.

“That you won’t reveal this location. It’s our place, and the last thing we want is that grumpy old Mr. Roman telling us it’s off limits.”

Claire snorted. “You think he doesn’t already know?”

“Just promise. Raise your right hands.”

With a sigh, Claire raised her hand. So did Will and Teddy. “We promise,” they said simultaneously.

“All right, then.” Bruno turned and pushed aside a clump of bushes. “Welcome to the Jackals’ Den.”

Claire was the first to step into the clearing. Seeing stone steps, slippery with moss, she realized this was no natural opening in the trees, but something man-made. Something very old. She mounted the steps to a circular terrace built of weathered granite, and entered a ring of thirteen giant boulders, where her classmates Lester Grimmett and Arthur Toombs now sat. Nearby, in the shadow of trees, was a stone cottage, its roof green with moss, the shutters closed, its secrets locked away.

Teddy moved to the center of the ring and slowly turned to survey the thirteen boulders. “What is this place?” he asked in wonder.

“I tried to look it up in the school library,” said Arthur. “I think Mr. Magnus built this when he built the castle, but I can’t find a reference to it anywhere.”

“How did you find this place?”

“We didn’t. Jack Jackman did, years ago. He claimed it for the Jackals, and it’s been ours ever since. The stone house there, it was all falling down when Jackson first saw it. He and the first Jackals fixed it up, put on the roof and shutters. When it gets cold, we meet in there.”

“Who’d put a house way up here in the middle of the woods?”

“It’s kind of strange, isn’t it? Like these thirteen boulders. Why thirteen ?” Arthur’s voice dropped. “Maybe Mr. Magnus had a cult or something.”

Claire looked down at where clumps of grass had pushed through the cracks between the stones. In time saplings and eventually trees would do their part to camouflage this foundation, to lift and separate and shatter the granite. Already the years had wrought their damage. But on this summer morning, with the haze hanging in the distance, it seemed to her that this place was timeless, that it had always been this way.

“I think this is way older than the castle,” she said. “I think it’s been here a really long time.”

She walked to the edge of the terrace. Through a gap in the trees, she looked down into the valley. There was the Evensong School with its many chimneys and turrets, and beyond it the dark waters of the lake. From here, she thought, I can see the whole world. Two canoes being paddled across the lake, sketching wakes on the water. Students on horseback, moving dots on the pin scratch of a trail. Standing here, with the wind in her face, she felt all-seeing and omnipotent. Queen of the universe.

The sound of a barking dog told her that Julian was approaching. She turned to see him stride up the steps to the stone terrace, Bear at his heels as always. “You all made it,” he said, and looked at Claire. “You took the pledge?”

“We promised not to talk about this place, if that’s what you mean,” she said. “It’s not like you’re some secret order. Why do we have to meet up here?”

“So we can feel free to say exactly what we think. No one else can hear us. And what’s said here, stays here.” Julian looked around at the circle of students, now seven of them in all. A fine collection they were, thought Claire. Bruno, the cheerful little mountain goat. Arthur, who tapped everything five times before he used it. Lester, whose nightmares sometimes ended in screams that woke everyone in the dorm. Claire was the only girl in the group, and even among these oddballs she felt conspicuous.

“Something strange is happening,” Julian said. “They’re not telling us the truth about Dr. Welliver.”

“What do you mean, the truth?” asked Teddy.

“I’m not convinced she killed herself.”

“I saw her do it,” Claire said.

“That may not be what actually happened.”

Claire bristled. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“I saw Maura bag up Dr. Welliver’s sugar bowl and send it to the crime lab. And the night after she came back from watching the autopsy, she had a long meeting with some of the teachers. They’re worried, Claire. I think they’re even scared.”

“What’s this got to do with the three of us?” asked Will. “Why did you ask us to be here?”

“Because,” said Julian, turning to look at Will, “you three are somehow at the center of this. I heard Maura talking on the phone with Detective Rizzoli, and your names all came up. Ward. Clock. Yablonski.” He looked from Will to Teddy to Claire. “What do you three have in common?”

Claire looked at her two companions and shrugged. “We’re weird?”

Bruno let out one of his annoying giggles. “Like that wasn’t the obvious answer.”

“There’s also their files,” said Arthur.

“What about our files?” asked Claire.

“The day Dr. Welliver died, I was her one o’clock appointment. When I walked into her office, I saw she had three files open on her desk, like she’d been reading them. Your file, Claire. And Will’s and Teddy’s.”

Julian said, “That night, after she killed herself, those three files were still on her desk. Something about you three caught her attention.”

Claire looked around at the expectant faces. “You already know why. It’s because of our families.” She turned to Will. “Tell them how your parents died.”

Will looked down at his feet, those enormous feet in their enormous sneakers. “They said it was just an accident. A plane crash. But I found out later …”

“It wasn’t an accident,” said Julian.

Will shook his head. “It was a bomb.”

“Teddy,” said Claire. “Tell them what you told me. About your family.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Teddy whispered.

She looked at the other students. “They were murdered, like Will’s parents. Like mine. That’s what you all wanted to hear, isn’t it? That’s what we have in common.”

“Tell them the rest of it, Claire,” said Julian. “What happened to your foster families.”

Everyone’s eyes turned back to Claire.

She said, “You know what happened. Why are you doing this? Because it’s fun to screw around with the weird kids’ heads?”

“I’m just trying to understand what’s happening here. To you, and to the school.” Julian looked at the other Jackals. “We talk about being investigators someday, and how we’ll make a difference in the world. We spend all our time learning about blood types and blowflies, but it’s all just theoretical. Now we have a real investigation going on around us, right here. And these three are at the center of it.”

“Why don’t you just ask Dr. Isles?” said Will.

“She says she can’t talk about it.” He added on a faintly resentful note, “Not to me, anyway.”

“So you’re going to run your own investigation? A bunch of kids?” Claire laughed.

“Why can’t we?” Julian moved toward her, so close she had to look up to meet his eyes. “Don’t you wonder about it, Claire? You, too, Will and Teddy? Who wants you dead? Why do they want it so badly that they’d twice try to kill you?”

“It’s like that creepy movie Final Destination ,” Bruno said, far too cheerfully. “About those kids who are supposed to die in a plane crash, but they escape. And Death keeps coming after them.”

“This is not a movie, Bruno,” said Julian. “We’re not talking about the supernatural. Real people are doing this, and for a reason. We need to figure out why.”