SA:What’s your thought on the missing student?

GM: Wrong place, wrong time, most likely. I’ve looked through her school files. Good kid. Real smart. One of the brightest here. But she liked to find places to hide and read. I heard you found a book of hers in the observatory?

SA:That’s right. We did.

GM: Damn. Poor kid.

SA:What was your assessment of the letter that came in on April eighth? The one that we’ve been calling the Truly Devious letter.

GM: Mackenzie handles all the correspondence. He shows me the ones he thinks are trouble.

SA:But he didn’t show you this letter until after the kidnapping?

GM: It was a busy weekend. I think there wasn’t time. By the time I saw that letter, the thing was under way. Mackenzie’s always on top of things. It’s just too bad he didn’t tell me. Not that it would have changed anything.

SA:What do you mean?

GM: I mean that it’s hard to get Albert Ellingham to change his plans. Like this place, for example. You see exactly what I see. The advantage and disadvantage of this place is its location. On one hand, it’s hard to get to, so it’s not going to be the target of spontaneous crime. You have to really make an effort to come here, and then you have to make a bigger effort to get away. But, as we’ve found out, the disadvantage is that there are many places to ambush and many ways to escape.

SA:Surely, as someone who foiled a bomb plot on Albert Ellingham once before, this occurred to you?

GM: It worried me to death. I talked about it with Albert. I suggested getting more men up here to guard the place. He said no.

SA:Why?

GM: His words, “It’s not conducive to playful learning.” His words.

SA:So he went without the necessary security?

GM: Listen. There’s something you need to understand about Albert Ellingham. He’s a great man. No one I admire more, aside from J. Edgar Hoover himself. But he thinks he’s invincible. He thinks he can do anything. Because in his experience, he can. He made all of his own money. Everything he has—his newspapers and movie studio and the rest—he built from nothing. The guy was a newsie as a kid, lived on the street, didn’t have two pennies to rub together. Man’s a genius. But he thinks nothing can touch him. I don’t think he keeps me around because he thinks I actually help—I think he sees me like a lucky rabbit’s foot. I saved him from that bomb, but he saw it as luck and he took me along. I’m grateful. But he believes his will is enough. Something like this was always bound to happen. I knew it. You can see it. It was always bound to happen.

[Interview terminated 6:10 p.m.]

* * *

22

THE ELLINGHAM COACH SYSTEM WAS BACK IN EFFECT THE NEXT DAY on a special schedule to allow students and parents to meet.

There were two stops—the rest stop and Burlington. Stevie had arranged to meet her parents at the rest stop. She waited for the coach with a number of other people. To settle herself, she had her earbuds in and her podcasts on.

And she was settled, until David sidled up next to her. He was not dressed in his normal David gear of wrecked jeans and some old T-shirt. He had on a crisp blue fitted dress shirt, one that tapered elegantly down to a pair of well-cut black pants. He even wore black dress shoes. Everything about his appearance was crisp and tailored and showed off his slender, muscular frame. All of this was capped off by a slim-fitting black coat.

Stevie had limited experience with guys in dress clothes. (Suited detectives on TV didn’t count.) David was showing his plumage, and it stirred feelings in Stevie that were physically agitating.

“I hope you get the job,” Stevie said, looking away from him. “I think they really need you up in corporate accounting.”

“Is that a deduction?” he said. “Get it? Accounting joke and detective joke.”

“Where are you meeting your parents?”

“I’m not,” he said, pushing his hands deep in the pockets of his long black coat. “They are safely far away. I’m just getting the hell out of Dodge.”

“So why the . . .”

“I like to look nice when I go to see His Majesty, the Burger King. And where will you be going?”

“To eat. And hopefully coming back to school if my parents don’t think this place is full of deranged liberals that let people get murdered, which is sort of what they are currently thinking.”

The coach pulled up and Stevie and David got in. Stevie sat by the window, and David plopped down next to her.

“So,” he said, “you want to talk?”

“About what?”

“About the other night?”

Most of the other people in the coach—not that there were many—were talking or listening to something already. But this was still public. Stevie felt herself break into a cold sweat.

“Is there a reason you’re doing this?” she asked.

“I just want to know. I like learning. That’s why I’m an Ellingham student. Learning is fun. Learning is a game.”

“How serious are they about the policy regarding using violent language with another student?” she asked.

Her palms were starting to sweat. And her forehead. And her feet? What the hell was that? Why was the human body such a jerk? Why did it flood you with hormones and sexy feelings and also flop sweat?

“Deadly,” he said sternly.

“Look,” she said, “I have enough to worry about. My parents are probably going to pull me out of school tonight, so . . .”

“Life finds a way,” he said. “Didn’t you learn anything from Jurassic Park?”

He rested his head back and put a large set of over-ear headphones on and left Stevie to think that one over.

The coach made its way back on the path past the farmyards and the maple-candy stores and the glassblowers and the Ben & Jerry’s signs, back to I-89, and all the way to the rest stop where Stevie’s parents waited now, next to their maroon minivan, bundled tight.

David stood to let her go by, and then he continued right off the coach. She thought he was just taking extreme steps to make room for her, but he remained off the coach and followed her right to her parents.

“I’m David,” he said, extending his hand. “David Eastman.”

Why was David introducing himself to her parents?

“Nice to meet you, David,” her mother said. “Are you meeting your family here?”

“No. Stevie said I could maybe ride into Burlington with you? If that’s no trouble. If it is, I can just catch the coach when it comes by again.”

Stevie saw the light come on in her parents’ eyes. They looked from David to Stevie and back to David again, and they liked what they saw. Stevie felt the ground moving away from her feet.

“Of course not!” her mom said. “You’ll come with us.”

“We’re going to get something to eat,” her father said. “If you’d like to come.”

Stevie couldn’t move. Her body had gone rigid. David, don’t, David, it’s not a joke, David . . .

“Sure,” he said with a smile. “If it’s not a bother?”

“Oh, it’s no bother,” her dad said.

She saw David take in the EDWARD KING sticker on the back of the minivan. He gave her a sideways look, then went to the back door of her family’s car and opened it.