Stevie couldn’t help but hear the echo of Truly Devious: A broken head, a nasty fall . . .

Over the next few hours, more people turned up as more vehicles were able to access the school. There was a steady flow of uniforms. Things were photographed and recorded and bagged and sealed. Everyone in the group was interviewed, but not for long. Then two individuals in dark suits with large winter coats over them appeared. They did not fit in with the other officials.

“Oh good,” Nate said, looking out the window. “The Men in Black are here. Time for the brain wipe.”

David looked out as well.

“I think that’s my ride,” he said.

Sure enough, the two suited persons were at the door of the morning room within the minute.

“We’re from Senator King’s office,” one of the men said. “We’re here to take you home, David.”

“So soon?” David replied. “Gosh, I guess he really does love me.”

The quip felt forced. Stevie found herself reaching up and grabbing David’s hand, squeezing it hard.

“Are you with law enforcement?” Vi asked.

“We work for the senator,” one of the men replied.

“So, that’s a no,” Vi said. “Which means you have no legal right to remove him.”

“Vi is right,” Janelle chimed in. “You have rights. You don’t have to go with these two if you don’t want to.”

David turned in surprise. He had not expected Janelle to have his back.

“It’s okay,” he said. “But thanks. These nice people will give me a minute to speak to my girlfriend, won’t they?”

The two men backed away from the door, and David ushered Stevie out into the hall, Stevie felt an urgency akin to panic. Her hold on his arm intensified.

“What do we do now?” she asked quietly.

“Well, my dad can’t actually chain me up in the basement. Probably. I mean, he is a senator, so he might get access to some kind of chamber inside the Washington Monument . . .”

“Seriously,” she said, fighting back tears.

“I don’t know. We both go home. And we figure it out.”

“Can your dad press charges?”

“I don’t know if stealing blackmail materials from what’s technically my own house is a crime, or at least one he would want to report. He’s going to make my life unpleasant, and he’s going to cut off my money, but that’s okay. I can get a job. It’s better not taking anything from him.”

He leaned down to kiss her, his lips warm against hers, his hand rubbing the nape of her neck. It was such an intimate moment, witnessed only by a dozen or so strangers, Larry, Dr. Quinn, Pix, and all her friends. As they broke their embrace, David said good-byes to the group.

Hugs were exchanged all around, except for Nate, who extended his hand for a handshake before saying, “Just . . . don’t . . . do anything. Ever.”

“Got it,” David said, saluting. “Let me get my coat and bag.”

When he had the coat and the scruffy backpack, Stevie walked with him out to where the snowmobiles were waiting. Stevie realized that she had started crying. She rubbed under her eyes roughly with the back of her hand.

“I have to go,” he said, wiping her face. “Don’t worry. I’ll be in touch, Nancy Drew. I’m hard to get rid of.”

She reluctantly relaxed her grip on his hand.

As he walked off, he turned to her one last time and smiled, his looping, half-cocked smile. Then he opened his two-thousand-dollar coat. At first, she wasn’t sure why he was showing off the rich red lining. She had seen it—it was nice lining if you cared about lining.

But it wasn’t the lining he was trying to show her. It was the inside pocket, or, more specifically, something peeking out of the inside pocket.

It was a stick of dynamite.

TRAGEDY STRIKES AGAIN AT ELLINGHAM

Burlington Herald November 11

In another in a series of tragic events, Dr. Charles Scott, the head of Ellingham Academy, fell to his death yesterday morning after gaining entrance to a sealed passage in one of the school’s buildings. The staircase was a remnant of a series of passages built by the school’s founder, Albert Ellingham, in the early 1930s. Dr. Scott accessed the passage after being confronted about his possible involvement with the accidents at the school that resulted in two deaths, and the house fire that claimed the life of Dr. Irene Fenton.

“Dr. Scott was a person of interest in a number of recent deaths both at the school and in the Burlington area,” said Detective Fatima Agiter of the Vermont State Police. “We believe the deaths of students Hayes Major and Element Walker, and the death of Dr. Irene Fenton of the University of Vermont, may all be connected. Investigations are ongoing.”

KING FACES DONOR BACKLASH

PoliticsNow.com November 27

Senator Edward King has a money problem.

Over the last week, he has suffered the sudden and inexplicable loss of many of his major donors. The senator, who announced his presidential run last month, has lost the support of many of the backers who have made his candidacy possible. Recent reports have surfaced that the senator may have been keeping blackmail materials on his own donors in order to ensure their continued support.

“Complete nonsense,” said spokesperson Malinda McGuire, when asked for a comment. “The media bias against the senator is astonishing. Senator King will continue to fight for what he believes in: traditional American values, personal freedoms, and a return to responsibility. We look forward to talking about all these things on the campaign trail in the following months.”

IS THE TRULY DEVIOUS CASE SOLVED?

True Crime Digest

December 3

It’s been called the greatest mystery of the twentieth century. In 1936, Albert Ellingham was one of the most powerful men in America, his wealth and reach similar to that of Henry Ford or William Randolph Hearst. Ellingham owned newspapers, a movie studio, and dozens of other interests. But his personal passion was for education. To this end, he built a school in the mountains of Vermont and moved there with his family. On April 13 of that year, while out on a pleasure drive, his wife, Iris, and daughter, Alice, were abducted from a country road outside of the estate. On the same day, a student from the academy, Dolores Epstein, also vanished. In the following months, both Dolores and Iris were found dead—Dolores half-buried in a field, and Iris in Lake Champlain. Alice was never recovered. She was only three years old at the time of her disappearance.

Her father dedicated himself entirely to finding his daughter, using his considerable resources on the effort. Dozens of private detectives were sent around the country and the world. A team of 150 secretaries went through the letters and tips that came in on a daily basis. The head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, took a personal interest in the case. All of this was to no avail. Albert Ellingham died on October 30, 1938, when his sailboat exploded on Lake Champlain, most likely a victim of anarchists. He had been targeted before and escaped. This time, he was not so lucky.

With the death of Albert Ellingham, some of the pressure to find Alice abated, but there have always been people looking for her. Several others came forward claiming to be Alice—all of these were found to be imposters. Alice Ellingham remained one of history’s famous missing persons, like Amelia Earhart or Jimmy Hoffa, presumed dead, but with a question mark. All that was ever accepted about the culprit was that they sent a note to Albert Ellingham in the weeks before the kidnapping, a teasing riddle that warned of the danger to come. The letter, which was made of cutout letters from newspapers and magazines, was signed Truly, Devious.

Decades passed without any furtherance of the case, and then, starting last September, events began to move very quickly. Ellingham once again became the scene of tragedy, when two students—Hayes Major and Element Walker—died in accidents on the school grounds. Soon after, an adjunct faculty member of the University of Vermont, Dr. Irene Fenton, died in a house fire in Burlington.

But one student did not believe these things were accidents. She believed they were related to the disappearance of Alice—or rather, to a rumored fortune that would go to anyone who found the missing girl, dead or alive. Ellingham student Stephanie Bell, working with the school’s former head of security, uncovered the body of a child in one of the walls. The child’s remains are currently undergoing testing.

Bell made other significant discoveries, including physical evidence that suggests that the Truly Devious letter, long assumed to have been the work of the Ellingham kidnappers, had nothing to do with the kidnapping at all and was, in fact, a poorly timed student prank. This breaks apart decades of assumptions about the crime.

While the results of the tests and investigations are still pending, and while Ellingham Academy remains closed while the property is secured, it seems that this case may not be so cold after all. And with this most recent discovery, maybe now the spirits are at rest up on Mount Morgan.

AUDIO REVEALS EDWARD KING KNEW OF BLACKMAIL PLANS

A BATT REPORT EXCLUSIVE

DECEMBER 5TH