“Why did I pay attention to him?” David chimed in. “That’s what she said. Hayes and his stupid ideas. That’s what got him killed.”

“It must have freaked you out,” Stevie said, “to find out that Hayes didn’t work alone, that he may have told Ellie something about what he’d seen or heard, and now Ellie was on the verge of talking. You had to think fast. So you brought the whole thing to a halt and said you had to call the school’s lawyer. This seemed like the nice, responsible thing to do. When we were all leaving the room, did you whisper to her? Tell her there was a way out in the wall? Maybe you said that she should run, and wait in a place in the basement, and you would help her. She was terrified, and she bolted. She went down to the basement, down into the passageway. All you had to do was push something over the opening. Again. Impersonal. Clean. Just another accident. Ellie wouldn’t even know what happened.”

“Stevie,” he said, “your murder mysteries are showing.”

Charles’s smile had slipped out of position. He tried to keep it up, but it was as if it was suspended by two nails at the corners and one of them had come loose.

“So now two students are dead,” Stevie said, “and bonus! I’m gone. My parents yanked me out of school. But no matter how clean and clinical you want things to be, life happens. People walk in when they aren’t supposed to. Things get left behind. Every contact leaves a trace. In this case, Edward King stepped in. He was upset because David was being an asshole and he wanted me to calm him the hell down. Edward King doesn’t care that you’re in charge of the school. He’s an even bigger asshole.”

“Fact,” David said.

“He comes in with his cheap security system and flies me back on his plane and drops me right in your lap. So now you have to deal with me again. Fine. You continue with the plan of having Dr. Fenton as my adviser. When I was working with her, she had really specific things she wanted me to look into—she wanted me to find a tunnel under Minerva. I did. That’s where I found Ellie. That had to be part of the plan. . . .”

This, Stevie was arranging in her head as she spoke. She gestured, assembling the picture in the air with her hand.

“I think,” she said, “you realized it would be better if Ellie’s body was found. The school needed to seem unsafe. It was easier if the school shut. You wouldn’t have students around getting in the way anymore. You could hide the body more easily, and no one would stumble on to it accidentally. But the school rallied. Nothing was going right for you, especially since I found something that got Dr. Fenton’s interest. I showed her this.”

Stevie put her backpack down on a chair and removed the tin.

“You found tea?” Charles asked.

“This shows who composed the Truly Devious letter . . .”

“Stevie, how many stories—”

“It’s all one story,” Stevie said, and the confidence in her voice surprised her. “It was about money then, and it’s about money now. They took Alice in 1936 and used her to try to get money. You had Alice now and were trying to get the fortune her father left behind. And you were almost there. You told Dr. Fenton about Alice, and she couldn’t contain herself anymore. She wasn’t playing along. Again, in your normal way, you set it up so that things would just happen. You turned the knob on the gas and left. Eventually there would be enough gas in that room that when she lit up, everything would go up in flames. It’s smart. It’s impersonal. It’s not even your fault, is it? It’s not a crime to bump into the knob on a stove. Anyone who messed up your plan was simply moved out of the way. Did each one get easier when you saw that you didn’t get caught? You were in so deep now, you had to finish it. And thanks to Germaine, the last move was obvious.”

“Thanks to me?” Germaine said, looking up from her notes.

“When Hunter got the invitation to come live here, Germaine asked why someone who wasn’t a student was getting to live here, and I said because the school felt bad. She was right. Schools don’t feel bad. You still needed a person unconnected with the school to collect the money for you. This time, you wanted to make sure the school was shut down. All you needed was for one more thing to happen. Again, you used something of Janelle’s. You changed the pressure setting on her tank to make it shoot away from the machine. I don’t think you cared who got hurt as long as something happened. A nice big accident. You like accidents. Plus, there was the storm. Clear out the school. But Hunter could stay.”

“I didn’t . . . ” Hunter began.

“No,” Stevie said. “He had to wait until the place was empty. He would make his move on you like he had your aunt. He’d play on your interests, probably say something about how you could use the money to help the environment—”

“Stevie,” Dr. Quinn cut in. “This is quite a story, but it’s not based on anything. Are there facts?”

“Here’s one fact,” Stevie said. “We sent you that email about the codicil.”

“The one from Edward King’s office?” she asked.

“The one from Jim Malloy,” Stevie said. “The one you replied to. Then Jim wrote back, a bit more firmly, and Charles sent the codicil. But here’s the thing . . .”

She turned back to Charles.

“You called the King offices. You found out there was no one there named Jim Malloy. But you answered the email anyway—after you made that call. David, check your phone. What time did your dad write to you?”

David pulled his phone from his pocket and the room was silent as he scanned through his texts.

“Two twenty-four.”

“So by two twenty-four it was clear that Jim Malloy wasn’t real. And the codicil was sent at . . .”

David did some more checking.

“Three forty-seven,” he said, looking confused.

“You had taken a good guess who Jim Malloy was,” Stevie said. “You wanted me to see that there was a provision in the will that said teachers and staff could not benefit.”

“I think that’s a pretty broad reading of the situation,” Charles said. “I replied to an email from someone who may have been on Edward King’s staff. Now, if you’re finished, Stevie, I think we should—”

“Where did you put Alice?” she said.

“Stevie . . .” Call Me Charles half smiled. Half. The other bit was something very unpleasant. “I genuinely admire what you’ve done here. I think this is a real triumph of imagination. I also think the cabin fever has gotten to you a little, but no harm done. . . .”

“Like I said,” Stevie went on, fighting back a tremble, “where did you put Alice?”

On that, the study doors opened and a cold snuck into the room.

“I think I have the answer to that,” Larry said. “You were right, Stevie. This thing works like a charm.”

He held up the wall scanner.

25

“OH MY GOD,” STEVIE SAID, LETTING OUT A LONG BREATH. “WAS that enough time? Because I was running out of stuff to say.”

“More than enough,” Larry replied.

“That was exhausting,” she said, leaning against the mantel. “Seriously. They make it seem so easy in novels, but you have to keep talking and talking . . .”

“Can I ask what you’re doing here?” Charles said as a greeting to the former head of security. “You’re no longer employed by this school.”

“I’m well aware,” Larry replied. “However, I’ve rejoined the local police department on a temporary basis. I’m up here officially, doing a welfare check on everyone. I started making plans to get here as soon as I heard the school was closing and a few idiots decided to stick around and wait out the blizzard. I definitely knew who one of those idiots would be. So I hitched a ride on an emergency vehicle with a plow, then hiked up from the road. Took me almost two days. Then that idiot emailed me to say what she was going to do, and that she’d left me a wall scanner and some very interesting instructions. It’s a good thing I trust you.”

Stevie looked down to keep herself from smiling.

“I’ve done most of the second-floor offices,” Larry said. “Dr. Scott’s office is the last room left to do.”

“I object to an illegal police search of Ellingham property—” Charles said.

“Larry,” Dr. Quinn cut in, “I authorize anything you’re doing.”

Charles spun around and faced Jenny Quinn, who seemed to rise out of the floor a bit.

“Jenny,” he said, “this goes against—”

“My authority is equal to yours,” she said simply. “And I am telling Larry he should do as he feels best.”

Her words were a wall that could not be scaled.

“Fine,” he said. “Go and look in my office if you want. But I would like to be there.”

“We’ll all go!” David said chirpily. Larry opened his mouth to object, but David was already out the door. Once David had gone, it seemed inevitable that the entire company would be coming along. Larry was not in a position to stop anyone.