The Hand on the Wall(55)

“We don’t have any cots,” Charles said. “There are some rubberized floor covers that we use in the ballroom. That will take off the chill and make it a little less hard. But you will have to sleep on the floor. One or two of you can use the sofas and chairs. You all have to stay in this room or the main hall. No upstairs. No outside, obviously. I’m sorry for this, but it’s what we have to do. There’s food and drinks back in the faculty kitchen.”

They headed out of the room to let the group settle. The wall sconces were on halfway, bathing the room in soft light, just enough to see the way around the delicate French furniture.

“Everyone find a spot,” Pix said. “Make yourself comfortable. We’re going to be here for a while.”

Everyone began to pick through the pile of random bedding. There were enough blankets for everyone to have two each, but two wasn’t going to cut it, especially sleeping on the floor.

“Funnnnn,” Nate said in a low voice, picking up a pillow. “This is like being on one of those trips to Mount Everest. You know, the ones with the ten percent death rate and half the landmarks are frozen bodies.”

“There’s Wi-Fi,” Vi said. “That’s something.”

“Is it?” Nate asked.

David grabbed a blanket and set himself up on two chairs, pulled his blankets over himself, and kept reading. It wasn’t as dickish as taking the sofa. And yet, somehow, taking the slightly less dickish path felt even more dickish. Janelle and Vi once again looked at each other, then looked away, each setting up their nests in a different little nook around the low, ornamental tables full of Ellingham brochures.

“What is going on with those two?” Pix asked Stevie in a low voice.

“Nothing,” Stevie said. “I don’t know.”

Stevie opted for the floor behind the sofa. There was carpet there, and the sofa felt like a windbreak. Nate curled up in the corner. Hunter was left with the sofa, as being on the cold, hard floor would have been difficult on him.

Once the blankets were down, the room quickly divided into two camps: the people with the tablets and the people without them. Vi, Hunter, and David sat in proximity to each other and read, occasionally comparing notes. On the other side of the room, Stevie, Janelle, and Nate sat together and separate, each zoning into their own world. Janelle had her headphones on and was listening to something loud enough that the sound was seeping out. She was reading a book with a lot of mechanical diagrams in it. Everything in her manner said she was trying to block out what Vi was doing. Nate flicked between his book and his computer. Stevie even thought she saw him open up a file that looked like his book. She saw the word chapter at the top of a few pages as he scrolled down. Since Nate only wrote when forced to, this indicated pretty clearly what he thought of the situation.

Stevie was left to marinate in confusion and a light, undefined panic. If she could, she would have done nothing but stare at David. Her fingertips could still feel his hair, the muscles in his shoulders. Her lips remembered all the kisses. And the warmth—being next to someone like that.

He might as well have been across the ocean, not ten or fifteen feet away, behind a gilt-legged table and a rose-colored sofa.

As for working on the situation at hand, well, she had no privacy, and she needed privacy to think. She needed to pace and put stickies on walls and mumble to herself.

Maybe nothing was going on. Maybe Hayes and Ellie and Fenton had died in exactly the ways that everyone else thought. Accidents do happen, especially if you take bad chances. They were living proof of it right now. They had gambled with the weather and broken the rules, and now they were trapped here together.

She had to move around. The bathroom. She could go there.

Stevie got up, grabbed her backpack, and headed out into the hall. The bathrooms were behind the stairs, past the ballroom and Albert Ellingham’s office. Both of those grand doors were closed. She killed time brushing her teeth and washing her face, staring at herself in the mirror—her blond hair was overgrown now. The brown roots were showing. Her skin was chapped from the cold, and her lips were dry. She leaned into the sink, the same sink where the glitterati had come to touch up their lipstick and dry-heave all those years ago.

Maybe it was over. She had solved the case—in her mind—but her evidence was thin. She could go home, write it all up. Maybe post it online, see if it got traction on the boards. Show her work.

And it would all be over. What then?

She blew out a long exhale, picked up her things, and went back out.

David was waiting for her, sitting on one of the leather chairs out in the hall.

“Remember that favor I did for you?” he said. “I have something, if you want to see it.”

He held up his phone.

TO: [email protected]

Today at 9:18 a.m.

FROM: [email protected]

CC: [email protected]

Mr. Malloy,

I don’t see how that document is any of the senator’s business.

Regards,

Dr. J. Quinn

“She shut that down,” David said. “It’s kind of hot.”

“But!” Stevie said, her face flushed with blood. “She said that document. Which means there is a document. There is a document.”

“Sounds like it,” he said.

“Which means we need to see it. We can reply. I mean, Jim can reply. Jim should reply.”