The Hand on the Wall(43)

“The girl,” he said. “Alice.”

“George, I . . .”

“The girl. Is she alive?”

“I could never kill a kid, George. We didn’t even mean to kill the woman. And I never wanted you to get beat down. That was all Andy . . .”

“Where is she?”

“She’s alive,” Jerry said eagerly. “She’s alive. We left her with some people to watch her.”

“Where?”

“Up in the mountains, on the other side of the lake. The New York side. These people have a cabin up there. Nice people. Family people. We told them she was my sister’s kid and we were trying to keep her out of a bad situation. Nice people, George. We were just keeping her up there until we figured it all out.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere up there in the woods. Some cabin. I forget where.”

George punched Jerry in the side of the head.

“Jesus, George . . .” Jerry was sweating profusely, despite the cold.

“You kidnapped a girl and forgot where you left her? Here’s what I’m going to do in that case: I’m going to attach you to an anchor and throw you in the East River.”

“Jesus, George!”

“You remember where the cabin is,” George said calmly. “You think about it.”

“Maybe if I saw a map or something I could remember.”

George had prepared for this. He had a large selection of maps next to his seat, maps from all over the country. He was prepared to drive to California if he had to. He held them up.

“New York,” he said, unfolding the map. “Assume that I’m going to kill you. You can only improve your situation. Impress me. Look at this map. Tell me, where are we going?”





14


STEVIE STOOD IN THE DARK OF THE UPSTAIRS HALLWAY AND CONTEMPLATED how she had managed to ruin her life.

She had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. And so easily too! She had jumped right into that gaping maw. She had solved the case—she had done the impossible thing—and now, she was a freezing reject in a hallway, the world crashed, her limbs numb with sadness.

All the badness in the world swirled around her head. She had just pulled her last Ellingham stunt in staying here. Her parents would not only not let her come back here, they would likely never let her go anywhere again. They might take college money off the table, if they had any. Ellingham itself would probably tank her grades. She would go back to Pittsburgh and be hopelessly lost, stuck forever.

For what? The chance to spend a few nights in a snowstorm with someone who hated her.

And the Ellingham case? What if she was completely delusional? She had the tin—she had some concrete proof that the Truly Devious letter wasn’t connected to the kidnapping. That was something. But her other conclusions—they were all conjecture. And what did it matter, really? Maybe she could try to show that the letter had been written by two students. Was that worth throwing away her life?

She couldn’t stand in this hallway forever. She considered going to Nate’s room, but her troubles were too large. She could not explain the feeling of the world being swept away. She put one leaden foot in front of the other to get back to the stairs, half wishing she tumbled down them in the dark and broke her noncompliant legs and knocked herself out. But she didn’t really want that, because she held the rail and the wall and took the steps with care.

Maybe David would come out of his room and stand at the top of these steps, looking down at her, eyes soft and contrite. His hair would be standing up a bit from where he’d run his hands through it in despair at what he had just said. He would say something like, “Hey, why don’t you come back up.” And she would pause like she was considering it and then say . . .

Maybe the sun would get around to it and finally swallow the world.

Now she was standing in her own dark hallway, which felt even bleaker. She was too confused to cry, too broken to sleep, too lost to move. But there was a light on in the common room. Someone was awake. Stevie didn’t want to see anyone, but she also didn’t want to be alone. She was trapped in the hall, stuck in every space in between where she needed to be.

But you can’t stay in the hall forever. That’s not what halls are for. She made her way to the end and peered around the doorway and caught sight of the inhabitant. It was Hunter, wearing the fleece she had gotten for him that day in Burlington, huddled on the sofa, bent over a tablet. The room still smelled of old smoke, but the fire was out in the fireplace. He didn’t see her, and she considered backing away, but she couldn’t make up her mind about going forward or backward. She must have made a noise by accident, because Hunter looked up and jolted.

“Jesus!” he said, almost dropping the tablet.

It was a good look, probably, just her head poking around the corner, like a ghoul.

“Sorry! Sorry. Sorry, I . . .”

“It’s fine,” he said, recovering himself. “I’m not used to this place. Are you . . . okay?”

Stevie would sooner have dropped into the molten core of an erupting volcano more willingly than she would tell someone she was not okay. She nodded briskly.

“Can’t sleep,” she said.

She strode across the room like she had meant to be here all along and busied herself in the kitchen for a moment, filling the electric kettle to make herself a hot chocolate. She dumped two packages into a mug and looked at the pile of chocolate dust she intended to consume. Was this supposed to make up for something, this dust? Was it supposed to repair whatever in her that had ripped in two?