Truly Devious (Truly Devious #1) - Maureen Johnson Page 0,118

switched on the radio and settled down at his office table. He was looking forward to the Mercury Theatre program. They had done some very good shows recently, productions of Sherlock Holmes and Around the World in 80 Days. The program was one of the highlights of Robert’s week.

Just as the music played and the announcer said, “We take you now to Grover’s Mills, New Jersey . . .” the telephone rang. Robert put down his napkin, turned down the radio volume, and answered it.

“Robert Mackenzie,” he said, wiping a touch of creamed spinach from the corner of his mouth.

“This is Sergeant Arnold.” His voice was breathless and almost breaking. “Can you confirm, Albert Ellingham, his boat . . . he took the boat out.”

“Yes, hours ago,” Robert replied. “With George Marsh.”

“He hasn’t returned yet?”

“No,” Robert said. “He said he would likely stay in Burlington. What’s going on?”

“There were reports of a boat going down off South Hero . . . ,” the sergeant said. “An explosion . . .”

There was a hollow sound in Robert’s ear, a feeling of falling, of many things converging to a point as he listened to the following words and low drum of the radio and the sound of his own heart echoing through the halls of his body. He would later say that he felt like he was floating up to the ceiling, looking down on the room for a moment.

He would always remember the strange conversation he’d had with Albert Ellingham that day. His Riddle of the Sphinx. The command to enjoy.

It was like Ellingham knew that that was his day to die.

The riddle would run through Robert’s head for the rest of his life, but he never did figure out the solution.

30

IT HAD BEEN A LONG NIGHT.

The residents of Minerva had to stay out of the house while the police went through it. There were some rooms in the Great House reserved for when faculty or guests were snowed in. Janelle and Nate took these. David was in the faculty lounge on the sofa. Stevie sat awake, watchful on the massive staircase for hours and hours, her brain echoing with facts and riddles.

Always on a staircase but never on a stair. But she was always on a stair. All night on a stair.

She watched police and security come in and out, and Charles and Dr. Quinn and the school lawyer. A search was made of the property, but little could be done in the dark. The woods were dark and deep. There was talk of bears but not of moose.

Still, no moose.

A window was found propped open in the basement and a pile of boxes beneath it. Gone, gone, gone. Up the mountain. Down the mountain. Around the mountain. Who knew?

So Stevie sat in the throbbing heart of the Great House, once again the scene of a search in the night. In the wobbling version of reality playing in her tired and overextended brain, Stevie ran through the events of the last few weeks, finally settling on the message she had seen on her wall a few nights before Hayes died. Riddle, riddle, on the wall . . .

So many riddles.

She rubbed her hands over her face and covered it for a while. She nodded off like that for an unknown period of time, until she was awoken by a cup of coffee being held out to her.

“Not sure if you want to sleep like that,” Larry said. “There’s a cot in the security office and more sofas upstairs.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“Sometimes it’s not about what you want.”

Stevie shook her head. “Did you find her?” she asked.

“It’s getting light now. The chopper is coming in.”

“Can I go outside? Get some air?”

Larry rocked back on his heels.

“Just stay right out where I can see you from the front,” he said.

So Stevie took her coffee and sat on the wet grass of the green and stared at the Great House and stopped thinking for a while. Dawn broke over Ellingham Academy in a swirl of rose pink going into a bloodless blue. Stevie watched the newly risen sun come up over the Great House like a celestial game of peekaboo. She wasn’t out there that long before she saw someone else come out the front door.

David made his way over in his easy, loping walk, his hands jammed into his pockets. He dropped down next to her and said nothing.

There is something about early mornings that changes your perceptions subtly. The light