The Vanishing Stair (Truly Devious #2)(70)

What if it was real? What if they were counting down to getting the Alice money? What if finding Alice was worth the fortune of a lifetime? Several lifetimes?

As this possibility spun in her brain, she noticed that Larry was coming out of the Great House and approaching in her direction. Then she realized he was walking right toward her, as if this was not an accident. His face was grave.

“I’d like to talk to you,” he said to Stevie. “Walk with me a little.”

He was wearing his red-and-black-checked flannel coat over his uniform. He motioned for her to walk around the back path, the one that led to the empty playing fields and the trees that blocked the river. They were starting to shed leaves, leaving jagged holes in their curtain. Larry was silent until they were about halfway into the field.

“Today is my last day here,” he said.

Stevie stopped cold.

“What?”

“My office is packed. After this, I’m going home. I won’t be back on campus. They have someone else coming in.”

Stevie felt like she had just taken a blow to the stomach.

“Why?” she said.

“My job is to keep everyone here safe. Two dead. That’s not keeping people safe. Which is why I have to go.”

“You can’t do that,” Stevie said. “They can’t. This isn’t your decision, is it?”

“It’s the right one,” he said. “No matter who made it.”

“But this isn’t your fault,” she said. “What happened to Hayes, what happened to Ellie . . .”

“Happened on my watch. Now listen . . . don’t worry about me.”

“We can start a protest!” Stevie said. “We can organize . . .”

“Stevie,” he said. “Listen. I need you to pay attention.”

Stevie gulped and became quiet, huddled in her red vinyl coat.

“I want you to be careful,” he said. “Don’t go off on your own on any investigations. It’s over. Leave it.”

“Investigations?” she said.

“Not the Ellingham stuff. I mean with Hayes, Ellie, all of that.”

There was a steady, warning look in his eye.

“What do you mean?” she said. “They were . . .”

“Accidents,” he said.

The wind snapped around them, coming up into Stevie’s coat.

“You’re saying they weren’t,” she said.

“No. I’m just saying that . . .” For the first time, Stevie saw Larry lost for words. He was reaching for a danger Stevie could not precisely see, but the form of it was faintly making itself known in the air, in the shade of the trees, and the changing temperatures. She had felt it several times, and now Larry was feeling it too.

“When you spoke at our orientation,” she said, “you said that people got stuck in tunnels before, sometimes for days. . . .”

“That never happened,” Larry said. “That’s just part of the pattern to get people to stay out of any hidden structures they might find, because we weren’t sure if there were any more out there. I want you to put my number into your phone. Now. Get your phone out.”

He waited until she produced her phone and added him.

“There’s no chance you’d go home, is there?” he said.

“Leave? Why? And no. But why? Tell me something.”

Larry paused for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he said. “And that’s what bothers me. Let’s just say I have a bad feeling and I want you to have that number. I want you to use it anytime you want, no matter what. Doesn’t matter when.”

He inhaled deeply through his nose. She could see the traces of pain on his face as he looked around, probably for the last time.

“They can’t do this to you,” she said again.

“This isn’t about me. But if you want to do something, you need to promise me you’ll take care of yourself and do as I said. Leave it all alone.”

Stevie felt her eyes burning and watering. Sometimes the wind made this happen. This was not one of those times.

“You promise?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “I promise.”

He nodded, and turned back in the direction of the Great House. Stevie’s brain continued ticking. The money issue and this development fused into one idea.

“Wait,” she called to him. “Can I ask you one favor? Can I get a ride?”





October 30, 1938, 1:00 p.m.


IT WAS FUNNY, REALLY, THAT THE RIDDLE HAD BEEN THE ANSWER.

Albert Ellingham sat in his office, listening to the ticking of the green marble clock on the mantelpiece. This clock had once belonged to Marie-Thérèse Louise, the princesse de Lamballe, and was said to have been a gift from her dear friend, Queen Marie-Antoinette. It was a fine clock, made of deep green Swedish marble run through with gold. While the woman who had gifted it and the woman who had owned it were both beheaded in the French Revolution, the clock lived on, keeping perfect time. He had purchased it in Switzerland around the time Alice was born. The antique dealer had told Albert Ellingham the clock’s history, how some of the princess’s belongings were removed from her house before the people raided it, how carriages full of art came over the border into Switzerland as the aristocracy in France were dying. He told tales of blood and heads on spikes and superior workmanship.