by John Saul
“That is such a crock!” Tim Kennedy countered. “And it was only one time I said that. One time!” He turned to Ryan. “We were out in Hyannis last summer, and if Matthews had kept his mouth shut, we coulda gone swimming right in front of—”
“You don’t even know if it was the right place,” Clay cut in. “And—”
“And nobody gives a rat’s ass,” Darren Bender pronounced, flopping down on Clay’s bed. “Father Laughlin sure doesn’t waste any time, does he?” he said, deciding he didn’t want to hear any more of the argument that had been going on between Clay and Tim since last summer. “Kip was here on Friday morning, and you’re here on Monday morning.”
“Kip?” Ryan repeated. “Is that who lived here?”
Suddenly the atmosphere in the room changed. “Yeah,” Tim Kennedy said, his voice oddly hollow.
Ryan frowned slightly. “What happened to him?”
The three boys glanced uneasily at each other, each of them waiting for someone else to speak first.
“I heard it might have been drugs,” Darren Bender finally said.
“It wasn’t drugs!” Clay Matthews instantly countered. “Kip didn’t do drugs, and you guys know it.”
“Then what do you think happened?” Tim demanded.
Clay’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. Nobody knows.”
“Nobody knows what?” Ryan asked. “What happened to him?”
Once again the other three boys glanced at each other, but this time it was Clay Matthews who broke the silence. “Kip died,” he said, his voice so quiet that Ryan thought he hadn’t heard the words right. But the expressions on Tim’s and Darren’s faces told him he had.
“What do you mean, ‘died’?” he asked, his eyes flicking from Clay to Darren and Tim, then back to Clay. “You mean, like, he got sick or something?”
“He killed someone,” Clay said, his voice still barely above a whisper. “Some woman. And the police shot him. But it doesn’t make any sense—Kip wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“How does anyone know what anyone’s gonna do?” Tim asked. “It’s like…”
But Ryan was no longer listening. What kind of school was St. Isaac’s? Even the worst of the kids at Dickinson had never gone out and just killed someone, at least not that he’d ever heard of. Then he remembered the people he and his mother had seen on the front steps this morning. They had to have been Kip’s parents. And suddenly he remembered the last words the man had spoken:
…gotta be nuts if you leave your son here…not a good place for kids…trust me on that.
Trust me on that.
Welcome to St. Isaac’s, Ryan thought. He hurt, he felt tired, and now it turned out he was taking the place of someone who was dead. And not just dead, but shot after he’d killed someone else.
Suddenly Ryan McIntyre just wanted to go home. There might not be the kind of threat from the Frankie Alitos of the world here, but after hearing what had happened to Kip Adamson, he wasn’t sure he would be any safer here than he’d been at Dickinson High after all.
CHAPTER 14
TERI MCINTYRE SIPPED HER glass of wine and finally began to relax on the couch. There had been a terrible hollowness in the house when she came home after work that afternoon—it was as if the house itself knew that not only was Ryan not home, but he wasn’t coming back, at least for several weeks.
The house felt worse than empty, worse than vacant.
It felt haunted. Haunted by the memories of Ryan and Bill and all the moments the three of them had shared under this roof.
She’d called Tom, and now he was sitting in the chair on the other side of the coffee table, and though the house still didn’t feel right, at least it felt a little better. “I’m trying to remember the last time I was alone here,” she said. “I think it was when Ryan went to hockey camp in Toronto. He was eleven, and it was the same year Bill was sent back to Kuwait.” She forced a wry smile she didn’t quite feel. “I’d forgotten how much I don’t like it. Always before, no matter where the army sent Bill, I still had Ryan. In ninety-one, when Bill went to Kuwait, Ryan was just a baby, but at least he was here. Now…” Her voice trailed off.
Tom moved from the chair to the sofa and put his arms around her. Let’s just enjoy some quiet time together,” he said, and pulled her close.
But the ghosts in the room were too real tonight. Ryan was only sixteen, and he should be living at home. She pulled away from Tom and picked up the remote from the coffee table, flicking the television on. “Let’s just watch the news, okay?” she said, suddenly wondering whether calling Tom had been the best idea. His company certainly helped fill the emptiness of the house, but now she had the distinct feeling he might be expecting to spend not just the evening with her, but the night as well.
The television flashed to life, and Gordy Adamson’s image filled the screen, his expression a mixture of grief and anger.
Teri gasped as she recognized the man she’d seen at St. Isaac’s that morning, and turned up the volume.
“Kip was a good boy,” Gordy was saying. “I know what the cops say happened, but that doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m not saying Kip was perfect—he was at St. Isaac’s for a reason. He was a teenager, you know? We thought sending him to St. Isaac’s would help him through those years. I guess we were wrong.”
Gordy’s face was replaced by a shot of the front entrance of St. Isaac’s Preparatory Academy, the same steps Teri and Ryan had walked up that morning.
“St. Isaac’s has been accepting at-risk youths since 1906,” the reporter said. “While this isn’t the first violent incident that has involved one of their students, it is the first that has ever resulted in a student’s death.”
The shot of the front door cut to one of Father Laughlin sitting at his desk, his hands folded somberly. “We don’t know why these things happen,” he said. “We do our best with these troubled teens, but unfortunately we are not infallible. There is evil in this world, and it sometimes overwhelms us no matter how hard we try. All of us mourn both these tragic deaths, and it is our intention at St. Isaac’s never to allow such a thing to happen again.”
“No motive has been attributed to Kip Adamson’s apparently random attack on Martha Kim,” the reporter intoned as the camera cut away from St. Isaac’s headmaster.
Feeling as if she’d just been struck by something she’d never seen coming at all, Teri snapped off the television, and turned to face Tom. “Did you know about this?” she demanded, her voice trembling.
Tom recoiled as reflexively as if she’d slapped him. “How could I know about this—I’ve been with you almost every minute since we got the call about Ryan being in the hospital. Neither of us have been watching the news.”
Teri’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You mean your friend didn’t even mention it when you talked to him?” It seemed utterly impossible.
But Tom shook his head. “Not a word. All he said was that he’d do what he could, and then he called to say there was an opening. That’s all I know.”
Teri stared at the darkened television. How was it possible? How could Tom’s friend not have told him? “A boy died to make a place for Ryan? And they didn’t even tell you?”
Tom held up his hands as if to fend off her words. “Wait a minute—there might have been half a dozen openings. I don’t know and you don’t know.”
But Teri only kept hearing the echo of Gordy Adamson’s voice as he’d warned her this morning. You gotta be nuts if you leave your son here. This is not a good place for kids. She gazed numbly at Tom. “What have I done?” she breathed. “How could I have left Ryan there without even asking what that man was talking about?”
“Teri—” Tom began, but Teri cut him off.
“I should go pick him up right now.”
“Now wait a minute,” Tom said, putting a hand on her arm, but this time not letting go when she tried to pull away. “Just slow down, take a breath, and let’s figure this out, all right?” When she seemed
to relax just a little, he went on. “The fact that one troubled boy went out and did a bad thing—a really terrible thing—doesn’t make St. Isaac’s a bad place,” Tom said. “You even heard that reporter say as much.”
“It was still a bad decision,” Teri sighed, the familiar feeling of approaching tears roughening her voice. “Bill wouldn’t have—”
“Bill’s not here,” Tom said gently, touching his forefinger to her lips. “You have to make the decisions now, and this one was for Ryan’s safety. Remember? Remember what happened to him at Dickinson?” Teri took a deep breath, exhaled. Of course she remembered. How could she ever forget what had happened? “There’s no way you could have kept him at Dickinson.”
She nodded—he was right, of course.
“Nothing bad is going to happen to Ryan at St. Isaac’s.” Tom soothed her. “He’s not—” He hesitated, searching for Kip Adamson’s name, then decided it didn’t matter. “He’s not that other boy, and what happened to that other boy isn’t going to happen to Ryan.” Once again Tom put his arms around her, and this time she didn’t resist, falling against his strong body, feeling his fingers gently stroking her hair.
She wasn’t sure if he was helping her or only making her life more complicated right now, but it didn’t matter.
Bill was gone forever, and now Ryan was away, too, and she suddenly felt terribly alone.
Alone, and uncertain, and wishing Ryan were back home where he belonged. It will be all right, she told herself. It will be, because it has to be.
Sofia Capelli sat on her bed, propped against the wall with all her pillows, the open history text on her lap completely ignored, even though she needed to study for tomorrow’s test. But how was she supposed to concentrate with Sister Mary David in the room, talking with her roommate as if there weren’t anyone else within a hundred miles, let alone ten feet away?
As far as Sofia was concerned, Melody Hunt had been going on about Kip Adamson’s death for at least a day too long, and she was pretty sure that even Sister Mary David thought it was time that she got at least a little bit past it. After all, it wasn’t as if Kip had been her boyfriend, or even close. In fact, Melody hadn’t even liked Kip. Why couldn’t she just get on with her life like Sofia and all the rest of the girls were doing? But Melody just kept asking “Why?”
As if someone was going to find an answer, which Sofia was pretty sure wasn’t going to happen.
Sofia had been just as shocked about what had happened to Kip, and had even talked with Sister Mary David about it herself. But then she’d decided there wasn’t anything she could do to change what had happened. Even more important to her than what Sister Mary David had said were a few simple words her grandmother had spoken when Sofia was only five: “No sense crying over spilt milk!” And while what had happened to Kip on Friday night was a lot worse than spilt milk—a whole lot worse—the point was still the same.
There was nothing she, or anybody else, could do about it. They all, including Melody, just had to accept it.
“I have to see to the rest of the girls,” Sister Mary David finally said in a tone that even Melody Hunt couldn’t argue with. “Talk this over with God tonight, and perhaps He will have answers for you that I just can’t provide.” Melody sniffed and blew her nose, nodding uncertainly. “And don’t you have a history test in the morning?” Sister Mary David added pointedly.
Melody nodded again, sniffed one last time, and put her handkerchief back in her pocket. Sofia held up her textbook as if to tell the nun that she had been trying to study for the past hour and that they’d been distracting her.
Just then, Sofia’s cell phone vibrated under her thigh, and she silently thanked whoever might be the patron saint of cell phones for her having had the presence of mind to turn the ringer off.
“Then I’ll leave you both to your studying,” Sister Mary David said. “Good night and God bless.”
“Good night, Sister,” the two girls said in unison.
When the nun was gone, Melody went into the bathroom to wash her face, giving Sofia just enough time to check her cell phone.
A text message from Darren Bender asking if he could see her. She slipped the phone back under her leg just as Melody came back out of the bathroom.
“I’m going to the library,” Melody said. “I’ll be back in an hour.”
Though Sofia was just a little bit jealous of Melody’s grades, she certainly wasn’t interested in spending the time required to achieve them. While Melody went to the library to study alone for at least an hour every night, in addition to doing the homework assignments in their room, Sofia had much more interesting things planned for the same hour.
Melody packed her book bag and left.
Sofia waited until she was sure Melody wasn’t coming back for anything, then dug out her cell phone.
Smiling to herself, she sent Darren a quick message: We’ve got an hour.
CHAPTER 15
HE AWOKE AS the energy around him began to change. He could feel it, almost smell it in the air.
Someone was coming.
He sat up in the corner, and rubbed his hands over his eyes, oblivious to both the grit on his palms and the slime of broken pimples that coated his face. The important thing was to erase the last vestiges of the indolent sleep that had stolen so many hours of his time.
Time that could be far better spent than in allowing this useless body to rest.
He searched the darkness around him, but saw no more of his prison than a pinhole of light at the door.
They thought the darkness would terrify him, but they were wrong. The darkness was his friend.
The darkness gave him shelter.
The darkness made him invisible.
He knew far more than they thought; saw everything despite the darkness. He needed no eyes, no ears, nor any other senses. Merely by being still and feeling the rise and fall of energies around him, he understood his surroundings.
Now he tingled with the rising energy, as happened every day.
Or was it night?
It didn’t matter.
All that mattered was that someone was coming.
Someone was coming, and bringing an opportunity for escape. If he was smart. If he did the right thing.
But so far, he had failed.
The first failure had surprised him. It should have been simple; nothing more then manipulating his own energy, focusing it on the pinhole of light that would lead to freedom. Yet when he’d made the attempt to ooze through the tiny hole like so much smoke, he’d failed.
Failed!
The human body, apparently, was a far more formidable prison than the chamber in which it dwelt.
The answer, of course, was obvious: he would simply take the human body with him.
But he had failed to manipulate the machinery of the lock on the door as miserably as he had failed to escape the human body.
Thus, he must manipulate the approaching personality.
He felt the rise in energy again, then heard footsteps through the ears of the body he inhabited.
A metallic screech erupted as the pinhole of light suddenly expanded into a blinding rectangle. The brilliance of the light slashed through the body’s eyes and into its brain, and it reflexively jerked back, slamming into the wall.
“Time for dinner,” a soft voice—a female voice—said.
He struggled to recover—why hadn’t he guarded himself against the light?
Be human, he told himself. Be what she thinks you are. He crept forward toward the slot in the door through which the female on the other side was bringing the food tray. “Hello?” he said, barely able to use the voice that was so rusted from disuse that it emerged as little more than a faint croaking sound.
There was silence, then the human beyond the blinding rectangle spoke. “So you’ve decided to speak.”
A toehold!
“Please,” he said, searching for the words—the human words—that would make her open the door.
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br /> “Here’s your dinner,” she said, and slid a tray through the rectangular opening.
“I—I need something,” he said softly, quietly, gently, taking the tray. What would make this human use the keys that would open his prison?
“Oh? What do you need?”
“A doctor,” he said.
Again there was silence, and he could feel her indecision. Once again he tried to focus his energy, tried to reach into her mind to bend her to his will, but once again the body in which he was imprisoned held him back. Even before she spoke he knew what she would say.
“I don’t think so,” she sighed, with just enough uncertainty to give him hope.
“No, wait, please,” he said, as she began to close the slot.
She stopped.
“I need something.”
“What do you need?” she asked.
“You,” he whispered. “I need to touch you. To feel you. To put my hands in your—”
She slammed the rectangle closed, and he heard her footsteps as she walked quickly away.
Furious, he hurled the tray of food across the room, then smashed his fist against the door, only barely aware of the pain that shot up the arm.
How long would it be before he got another opportunity?
Panic began to build.
He had to get out of here!
Brushing the searing pain in the wounded hand aside, as if it were no more than an annoying fly buzzing around him, he began moving his fingers over the stone walls, exploring every contour of his prison that he could reach. But he already knew every stone, knew every one of their personalities, knew the texture of every seam of the mortar that held them together. He knew the lichen that grew there—knew it all—yet once again he began going over it all once more, feeling everything, examining everything, with only the pinhole of light to help him see.
Everything he touched was exactly the same as the last time he’d touched it, and with every second his frustration grew.
