The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(58)

“Pix said Vi could come over to the yurt too, if that’s all right with you. I’d just really like to see them.”

“Sure,” Stevie said. “Of course.”

Nate nodded absently.

“David found her. They took him over to the Great House.”

The blue door creaked open and Larry came inside in his red-and-black fleece coat, his walkie-talkie buzzing on his hip. He surveyed the group at the table.

“We’re going to take you over to the yurt now. We haven’t told the school at large yet. Some people are still at the party. I’d ask you, if you don’t mind, not to spread this. I know Vi Harper-Tomo has permission to come over. But please don’t text this to anyone.”

“We won’t,” Janelle said.

Larry’s focus landed on Stevie. He was reading her. She tried to shut herself, as loud and cleanly as shutting a book.

But people aren’t books, unfortunately.

The group made its way into the night, the two officers flanking them. The night was cold and still as glass, with only a sliver of a moon. Vi met them halfway, with the head of Juno House as an escort.

“What’s going on?” they said. “Are you okay?”

They looked at Janelle closely, then thumbed away the tears under her eyes.

“We’ll talk over there,” Janelle said. “I’m okay. We just have to go.”

Nate put on his headphones and lowered his head. He was checking out of the situation. Stevie wasn’t sure which one of them led this movement, but it seemed that she and Larry were at a different pace than the others, and a fractionally different trajectory, until they were on their own little path together. Either he wanted to talk to her or she subconsciously had to talk to him. Whatever the case, it was something she could not bear to hold in. As they passed the conference of statue heads, Stevie came to a stop. Larry nodded to the others to keep going. He leaned against one of the plinths and examined her.

“You need to talk?” he said.

“I was down there,” she replied.

“I know.”

He held up a fake mustache. It must have come off when she was making out with David. She had forgotten she had been wearing it.

“What you need to do, right now, is tell me the truth.”

Stevie dug into her pocket and pulled out the fragment of trash bag. She handed it to Larry.

“I found this on the floor down there.”

“What were you doing, Stevie?” he said. “I told you. No tunnels.”

“Fenton—Dr. Fenton—thought there was a tunnel. I looked. I found it. It was homework, sort of. I didn’t know Ellie was there. I had no idea she was there. It was just a tunnel. I didn’t want to go in. But he went inside.”

“David.”

Stevie nodded.

“I had to follow him. I thought he might . . . I don’t know.”

“Did you find anything besides this, aside from . . . ?”

Larry held up the fragment of garbage bag. Stevie shook her head.

“There was . . . a smell.”

“The first time you experience that, you never forget it. You can get used to it, to dealing with it, but it’s hard.”

“Did she just get stuck down there?” Stevie asked. “When she left the Great House that night?”

“That would be my guess,” Larry said. “We tracked up to the other end of the passage. We had no idea it was there. Goes to a hatch in the Great House basement floor that blends in with the other stones. She went in, something blocked her way out.”

Stevie’s mind immediately went to the Edgar Allan Poe story, “The Cask of Amontillado,” about a murderer who lures his victim down to a vault, who is then shackled to the wall and bricked in. The horror of it was too much. Stevie inhaled the cool, clean air greedily. The smell was still there, molecules of it, clinging to the inside of her nose, her skin, her mind.

“What do I do?” Stevie said. “Do you have to tell the police I was there?”

Larry put his hand on his leg and tapped one finger. Then he inhaled deeply and let out a long sigh.

“Nate?” he asked.

“Nate didn’t go down,” Stevie said.

“He’s not as stupid as the two of you.”

“He told us not to go. He stayed at the top in case something happened.”

“Definitely not as stupid,” Larry said. “All right. This is about finding and reporting an accident victim. Technically, it sounds like David was the one who found her. You can’t report something you didn’t see.” This was wrong, but Stevie made no correction. “If anything changes, then you step forward. You do it at once. You don’t go in any tunnel here ever again, for any reason. You follow every rule down to the letter.”

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“Don’t thank me. This isn’t about thanks. It sounds like you tried to follow someone who was doing something stupid, even if that meant doing something stupid yourself. I know enough about David Eastman to know he would jump in without looking. He’ll be all right, no matter what happens. I think you know why.”

Out of all the things that had happened, this was the one that made Stevie freeze.

“You’ve met his father,” Larry said. It wasn’t a question.