The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(59)

Stevie nodded.

“And his father played a role in you coming back?”

“He told you?” Stevie asked.

“No one needed to tell me,” he said. “That wasn’t a tough one to work out. The sudden change of heart, your parents work for the man, the sudden flight back, the fact that there are no flights back at that time of night and that you probably wouldn’t fly anyway . . .”

Stevie let out a loud exhale.

“What did he give you?” Larry asked.

“A ride.”

“What else?”

“Nothing,” she said.

“What did he want from you?”

“Just . . . to be here. Because of David. I just wanted to come back.”

She wasn’t sure if she was saying this to Larry or herself. Larry let out a low noise.

“It’s not you,” he said. “Edward King is a son of a bitch and his son is a piece of work. . . .”

She got the sense that there was a lot more he could have said, but unlike a suspect who starts talking and can’t stop, Larry shut the valve.

“So Edward King gave you a chance to come back if you kept an eye on David. Now things become clearer.”

“David doesn’t know,” she said.

“Well, I’m not going to tell him that. This whole thing . . .”

He shook his head and cut himself off again.

“Could I see him, though?” she said. “He did just find his friend’s body.”

Larry let out a long sigh.

“He’s at the library,” he said. “They took him over there because there are too many people in the Great House. I’ll take you over, because of what happened tonight. But you need to remember, it’s not your job to protect David Eastman. I feel bad for the kid, I do. But it is not your job. Do you understand?”

“I know.”

“No,” he said, “I don’t think you do. Don’t follow someone into the dark, Stevie. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”

Stevie wasn’t exactly sure what that meant, but the general idea was clear enough.





16


THERE WAS A THICK, FECUND SMELL OF DROPPING LEAVES THAT NIGHT as Stevie and Larry made their way over to the library. Why was Ellingham always at its richest at times like this, heavy with the smell of earth and air, extreme in light and shade? Why did the Great House loom higher with its orange lit windows, where the party was wrapping up and the school still unaware that another of its company had been lost?

What was the problem with this place? Maybe Nate had a point, she thought, her footsteps hard and clear on the path. It was called Mount Hatchet. Maybe that was a sign. Don’t go there. Don’t blow a chunk of the face of this place and build your empire.

And don’t come looking for death and murder, Stevie, because you’ll find it.

She was definitely not warm enough in her vinyl coat, even with the heavy Ellingham fleece underneath. Her jeans were too thin. She had no scarf, so the cold tickled the back of her neck.

Ellie, wrapped in garbage bags, underground.

She could still smell it.

It. Her. It.

A few people trickled out of the Great House, still in costume.

Of course Ellie was dead.

Of course she’d been found on Halloween. Sealed in a tunnel.

It was distilled Ellingham, pure as one of the streams that ran down the mountain.

It would have been dark for Ellie. Absolutely dark. She wouldn’t have known where she was. She would have had to feel along those walls, going back and forth, looking for a way out. How long? For hours? Days? Crying. Probably hyperventilating. Stevie thought of the depths of her own panic—the world-ending feeling of nothing. Ellie would have panicked. She would have gone back and forth and back and forth and screamed. Banged. Scratched and clawed. The thirst and the hunger and the confusion would have set in. . . .

No. She had to keep these thoughts out. Paint over them with gloss and let them harden. She had a job to do now: find David, who had found Ellie.

The Ellingham library was quietly buzzing. Several security officers were there, talking to the local police. There were no police cars parked out on the oval—they must have taken the service road and parked out back to keep people from freaking out. Despite the activity, the library felt like an empty cathedral. It had that strange architectural property of trapping any wind that came in through the door and spinning it up in a soft vortex that had nowhere to go. The higher you went, air whistled through the elaborate wrought iron of the circular steps and balcony guards, and loose pages trembled, as if alive. The noise of the conversations below swirled all the way to the ceiling, smashing against the books. Stevie looked straight up, noticing for the first time the constellations painted on the blue ceiling. The stars were inside, closer.

Larry had a quiet word with one of the security people.

“He’s upstairs in one of the reading rooms,” he said to Stevie. “With a counselor. Let me see what’s going on.”

Stevie watched Larry wend his way up to the second floor and disappear into the stacks. He reappeared on the balcony a few minutes later and waved Stevie up. The iron rail of the staircase was cold, and each of her footsteps reverberated as she climbed. It seemed like the library didn’t like this interruption of its peaceful routine.