Last to Die

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.”

Claire gave a dismissive laugh. “Listen to you! You think you can figure out what the police can’t? You’re just a bunch of kids with your microscopes and chemistry sets. So tell me, Julian, how are you going to fit all this amazing police work in between classes?”

“I’m going to start by asking you. You’re the one this is happening to, Claire. You must have some idea what connects the three of you.”

She looked at Will and Teddy. The endomorph and the ectomorph. “Well, we sure aren’t related, ’cause we don’t look anything like each other.”

“And we were all living in different places,” said Will. “My mom and dad were killed in Maryland.”

“Mine were killed in London,” said Claire. Where I almost died, too.

“Teddy?” asked Julian.

“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said.

“This could be important,” said Julian. “Don’t you want answers? Don’t you want to know why they died?”

“I know why they died! Because we were on a boat. On my dad’s stupid boat in the middle of nowhere. If we hadn’t been on it, if we’d just stayed home …”

“Tell them, Teddy,” Claire prompted gently. “Tell them what happened on the boat.”

For a long time Teddy didn’t say a thing. He stood with head drooping as he stared down at the stones. When at last he did speak, it was so quietly they could barely hear him.

“There were people with guns,” he whispered. “I heard screaming. My mother. And my sisters. And I couldn’t help them. All I could do was …” He shook his head. “I hate the water. I never want to be in a boat again.”

Claire went to Teddy and wrapped her arms around him. Felt his heart fluttering like a bird’s against his frail chest. “It’s not your fault,” she murmured. “You couldn’t save them.”

“I lived. And they didn’t.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Blame the people who did it. Or the shitty world. Or even your dad, for taking you on that boat. But never blame yourself, Teddy.”

He jerked out of her arms and backed away from the circle. “This is stupid. I don’t want to play this game.”

“It’s not a game,” said Julian.