looking around, not really paying attention.
“Did you notice something strange about what Hayes said this morning?” Stevie asked.
Nate turned back.
“You mean about Hayes not knowing anything about the Monroeville Mall, the setting of Dawn of the Dead and a super-famous zombie thing? Yeah.”
Stevie was pleased at how quickly she and Nate seemed to link thoughts.
“What did you make of it?”
“I have no idea. The guy looks like he came out of a 3-D printer.”
“Nathaniel,” came a voice from above. Dr. Quinn looked over the rail. “You may come up.”
“You’ll be great,” Stevie said, putting as positive a look on her face as she could.
“Yeah, don’t do that,” Nate said.
“Fine. It’ll be horrible.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I guess I’ll see you at lunch or something.”
He settled his brown canvas backpack squarely on his shoulders and took the stairs like a man climbing up to the guillotine platform.
Larry watched this from his desk and stopped Stevie as she exited.
“Dr. Scott gave you a little tour?” he asked.
“Of the attic,” Stevie said.
Larry tipped his chair back and picked up a pen, holding it like a dart.
“And what did you think of it?”
“I think it’s the best place I’ve ever seen,” she said.
Larry’s expression never changed. His face was as stony and unmoving as the mountain they stood on.
“Good meeting otherwise?” he asked.
“I think there’s a lot to do,” Stevie said.
“You’ll be all right. They work you hard here, but no one ever died of it.”
“I guess if you do, you can just take the body out into the woods and bury it,” Stevie said, smiling.
Larry did not smile. His eyes crinkled just a bit at the corners in an expression Stevie could not read.
This was maybe the kind of place where you didn’t joke about the buried bodies.
April 14, 1936, 10:00 a.m.
LEONARD NAIR HOLMES WAS ACCUSTOMED TO GAPS IN THE CALENDAR, days that simply went away. Once, in 1928, he misplaced all of June. And he had no solid proof that 1931 ever existed. People told him it did—they showed him newspapers and everything—but you can’t believe everything you read.
So when Leo woke in his darkened room in Ellingham house that Tuesday morning, he went about his business after his nice, refreshing sleep. It was time to find breakfast. He scuffed out of his room in slippers and a tattered and overly long maroon silk robe that dragged behind, gathering dust. This was something, considering that Leo was well over six feet tall. He’d had the dressing gown made for a giant, all loose sleeves and big pockets and long drag. He made it as far as the landing before being scooped up by Flora Robinson, who pulled him to his room.
“Even if I wanted to, darling,” he said to her, “I’m going to need a grapefruit, four eggs, and about three ounces of gin before . . .”
She clapped a hand over his mouth and shut the door.
“What’s gotten into you?” he said, reaching his long-fingered hand into the dressing gown pocket to find his cigarette case.
“Leo! Iris and Alice have been kidnapped!”
Leo slowly raised his peaked black eyebrows and pulled a cigarette from the silver-and-jade case. He tapped it a few times on the side before putting it to his mouth. He patted his pockets. Finding nothing, Leo went to his bedstead and fumbled around for a moment, turning on the light and wincing. He dug through the pile of books and detritus, finally producing a battered box of matches to light his cigarette.
“They were taken when they went out for their drive yesterday, and there’s been a ransom call,” Flora said, keeping her voice low. “Albert brought George Marsh back. They’re feeding the staff a bull story about how she spent the night in Burlington with a friend, and they’re trying to keep the cops out of it for now. I know they did a drop last night that didn’t go well. The kidnappers took the money but they didn’t get Iris and Alice back. They asked for more money. Albert’s getting it now.”
Leo took a few long, lung-congesting draws to get his brain moving.
“Oh,” he said.
“Oh? That’s all you can say? They’ve been kidnapped.”
Leo pulled hard on the cigarette, producing a burn audible from across the room, stroked the beard he had developed while he was sleeping with a blue-fingernailed hand. He examined the edges of nail varnish for a moment.
“Have you cleaned up?” he said.
“I did what I could,” she replied. “For her. I went to her room as