Last to Die

by Tess Gerritsen

  “Nevertheless, Teddy’s always welcome back at Evensong.”

  “You’ve spoken to Sansone about it?”

  “This afternoon.” Maura reached for the glass of wine, as though needing to fortify herself for this subject. “He made me an interesting offer, Jane.”

  “What kind of offer?”

  “To work for the Mephisto Society as a forensic consultant. And to be part of Evensong, where I could ‘shape young minds,’ as he put it.”

  Jane raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you think he’s really offering you something more personal?”

  “No, that’s exactly what he said. I have to judge him by his words. Not by my interpretation of those words.”

  “Jesus.” Jane sighed. “The two of you are dancing around each other like you’re both blind.”

  “If I weren’t blind, what exactly would I be seeing?”

  “That Sansone’s a much better choice for you than Daniel ever was.”

  Maura shook her head. “I don’t think I should be choosing any man right now. But I am considering his offer.”

  “You mean, leave the ME’s office? Leave Boston?”

  “Yes. That’s what it would mean.”

  The violin music soared to a high, sad note. A note that seemed to pierce straight to Jane’s chest. “You’re seriously thinking about it?”

  Maura reached for the CD remote and abruptly shut off the music. Silence hung, heavy as a velvet drape, between them. She looked around the living room at the white leather sofa, at the polished mahogany. “I don’t know what’s next for me, Jane.”

  Lights flared through the window, and Jane rose to peek through the curtains. “Unfortunately, I do know what’s next for you.”

  “What?”

  “TV van just pulled up. Damn hyenas can’t even wait for the press conference. They gotta show up on your doorstep.”

  “I’ve been told not to talk to them.”

  Jane turned with a frown. “Who told you that?”

  “I received a call half an hour ago. The governor’s office. They’re getting pressure from Washington to keep this under wraps.”

  “Too late. It’s already on CNN.”

  “That’s what I said to him.”

  “So you’re not gonna talk to the press at all?”

  “Do we have a choice?”

  “We always have a choice,” said Jane. “What do you want to do?”

  Maura rose from the sofa and went to stand beside Jane at the window. They both watched as a cameraman began to haul out equipment from the van, preparing for the invasion of Maura’s front lawn.

  “The easy choice,” said Maura, “is to simply tell them no comment.”

  “No one can force us to talk.”

  Maura mulled this over as they watched a second TV van arrive. “But isn’t that how all of this happened?” she asked. “Too many secrets. Too many people not telling the truth. When you shine a bright light, a secret loses all its power.”

  The way Nicholas Clock did with his video, thought Jane. Shining the light of truth had cost him his life. But it had saved his son.

  “You know, Maura, that’s exactly what you’re so good at. You shine a light, and you make the dead give up their secrets.”

  “The trouble is, the dead are the only relationships I seem to have. I need someone whose body temperature is a little warmer than ambient. I don’t think I’m going to find him in this city.”

  “I’d hate it if you left Boston.”

  “You have a family here, Jane. I don’t.”

  “If you want a family, I’ll give you my parents. Let them drive you crazy. And I’ll even throw in Frankie, so you can share the joy.”

  Maura laughed. “That particular joy is yours, and yours alone.”

  “The point is, a family doesn’t automatically make us happy. Doesn’t your work matter, too? And …” She paused. Added quietly: “And your friends?”

  On the street outside, yet another TV van pulled up, and they heard the sound of slamming vehicle doors.

  “Maura,” said Jane, “I haven’t been a good enough friend. I know that. I swear, I’ll do better next time.” She went to the coffee table for Maura’s wineglass, for her own bottle of beer. “So let’s drink to friends being friends.”

  Smiling, they clinked glass against bottle and sipped.

  Jane’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her purse and saw a Maine area code on the display. “Rizzoli,” she answered.

  “Detective, this is Dr. Stein, Eastern Maine Medical Center. I’m the neurologist taking care of Mr. Clock.”

  “Yes, we spoke the other day.”

  “I’m, uh, not exactly sure how to tell you this, but …”

  “He’s dead,” Jane said, already guessing the purpose of this call.

  “No! I mean … I don’t think so.”

  “How can you not know?”

  There was a sheepish sigh on the other end. “We really can’t explain how it happened. But when the nurse went into his room this afternoon to check his vital signs, his bed was empty, and the IV line was disconnected. We’ve spent the last four hours searching the hospital grounds, but we can’t find him.”

  “Four hours? He’s been missing that long?”

  “Maybe longer. We don’t know exactly when he left the room.”

  “Doctor, I’ll call you right back,” she cut in, and hung up. Immediately she dialed the Inigos’ residence. It rang once. Twice.

  “What’s going on, Jane?” Maura asked.

  “Nicholas Clock’s gone missing.”

  “What?” Maura stared at her. “I thought he was comatose.”

  On the phone, Nancy Inigo answered: “Hello?”

  “Is Teddy there?” Jane said.

  “Detective Rizzoli, is that you?”

  “Yes. And I’m concerned about Teddy. Where is he?”

  “He’s in his room. He came home after school and went straight upstairs. I was about to call him down for dinner.”

  “Please check on him for me. Right now.”

  Nancy Inigo’s footsteps creaked up the stairs as she asked Jane over the phone: “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet.”

  Jane heard Nancy knock on the door and call out: “Teddy, can I come in? Teddy?” A pause. Then an alarmed: “He’s not here!”

  “Search the house,” ordered Jane.

  “Wait. Wait, there’s a note here, on the bed. It’s Teddy’s handwriting.”

  “What does it say?”

  Over the phone, Jane heard the rustle of paper. “It’s addressed to you, Detective,” said Nancy. “It says, Thank you. We’ll be fine now. That’s all there is.”

  Thank you. We’ll be fine now.

  Jane imagined Nicholas Clock, miraculously rising from his coma, untethering his own IV line, and walking out of the hospital. She pictured Teddy, placing the note on his bed before he slipped out of the Inigos’ house and disappeared into the night. Both of them knew exactly where they were going, because they were bound for the same destination: a future together, as father and son.

  “Do you have any idea what this note means?” asked Nancy.

  “Yes. I think I know exactly what it means,” Jane said softly, and hung up.

  “So Nicholas Clock is alive,” said Maura.

  “Not just alive. He finally has his son.” Jane gazed out the window at the TV news vans and the growing pack of reporters and cameramen. And even though she was smiling, the lights of all those vehicles suddenly blurred through her tears. She tipped her beer bottle in a toast to the night and whispered: “Here’s to you, Nicholas Clock.”

  Game over.

  BLOOD IS MORE easily washed away than memories, thought Claire. She stood in Dr. Welliver’s office, surveying the brand-new rugs and furniture. Sunlight gleamed on spotless surfaces, and the room smelled of fresh air and lemons. Through the open window she heard the laughter of students rowing on the lake. Saturday sounds. Lookin
g around the room, it was hard to believe that anything terrible had ever happened here, so thoroughly had the school transformed it. But no amount of scrubbing could erase the images seared in Claire’s mind. She looked down at the pale green carpet, and superimposed on that pattern of vines and berries, she saw a dead man staring up at her. She turned toward the wall, and there was Nicholas Clock’s blood splattered across it. She looked at the desk and could still picture Justine’s body lying nearby, brought down by Detective Rizzoli’s gunshots. Everywhere she looked in this room, she saw bodies. The ghost of Dr. Welliver still lingered here as well, smiling across her desk, sipping her endless cups of tea.

  So many ghosts. Would she ever stop seeing them?

  “Claire, are you coming?”

  She turned to Will, who stood in the doorway. No longer did she see the pudgy, spotty Will; now she saw her Will, the boy whose last impulse when he thought they were going to die was to protect her. She wasn’t sure whether that was love, exactly; she wasn’t even sure what she felt about him. All she knew was that he’d done something no other boy had ever done for her, and that meant something. Maybe it meant everything.

  And he had beautiful eyes.

  She cast a final look around the room, said a silent goodbye to the ghosts, and nodded. “I’m coming.”

  Together they walked down the stairs and stepped outside, where their classmates were enjoying that bright Saturday, splashing in the lake, lolling on the grass. Shooting arrows at the targets that Mr. Roman had set up that morning. Claire and Will headed up the path they both knew well now, a path that brought them up the hillside, winding through the trees across lichen-covered boulders, past scrubby juniper bushes. They came to the stone steps and climbed to the terrace, and the circle of thirteen boulders.

  The others were waiting. She saw the usual faces: Julian and Bruno, Arthur and Lester. On that fair morning, a chorus of birds sang in the trees, and Bear the dog dozed on a sun-warmed rock. She went to the edge of the terrace and looked down at the castle’s jagged rooftop. It seemed to rise from the valley below like an ancient mountain range. Evensong. Home.

  Julian said. “I now call to order this meeting of the Jackals.”

  Claire turned and joined the circle.

  After more than two decades as a writer, what I’ve come to value most are the enduring friendships I’ve made in this business, and a writer could have no better friends than my terrific literary agent, Meg Ruley, and my superb editor, Linda Marrow. Through thick and thin, you’ve been there for me, and I tip my martini glass to you both! Thanks also to Gina Centrello, Libby McGuire, and Larry Finlay for believing in me through the years, to Sharon Propson for making book tours such a pleasure, to Jane Berkey and Peggy Gordijn for infallibly spot-on guidance, and to Angie Horejsi for her wit and wisdom.

  In researching Last to Die, I relied on trusted sources for my information. Thanks to my son Adam for his expertise on firearms, to Peggy Maher, Enidia Santiago-Arce, and their wonderful colleagues at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for patiently answering this old Trekkie’s questions, and to Bob Gleason and Tom Doherty for so generously including me on that spectacularly fun field trip.

  Most of all, I thank my husband, Jacob. After all these years, you’re still the one.

  Wondering what to read next?

  ‘Quite simply the best debut novel I’ve ever read’

  Tess Gerritsen

  The bedroom is strange. Unfamiliar. I don’t know where I am, how I came to be here. I don’t know how I’m going to get home.

  I have spent the night here. I was woken by a woman’s voice – at first I thought she was in bed with me, but then realized she was reading the news and I was hearing a radio alarm – and when I opened my eyes I found myself here. In this room I don’t recognize.

  My eyes adjust and I look around in the near dark. A dressing gown hangs off the back of the wardrobe door – suitable for a woman, but someone much older than I am – and some dark-coloured trousers are folded neatly over the back of a chair at the dressing table, but I can make out little else. The alarm clock looks complicated, but I find a button and manage to silence it.

  It is then that I hear a juddering intake of breath behind me and realize I am not alone. I turn round. I see an expanse of skin and dark hair, flecked with white. A man. He has his left arm outside the covers and there is a gold band on the third finger of the hand. I suppress a groan. So this one is not only old and grey, I think, but also married. Not only have I screwed a married man, but I have done so in what I am guessing is his home, in the bed he must usually share with his wife. I lie back to gather myself. I ought to be ashamed.

  I wonder where the wife is. Do I need to worry about her arriving back at any moment? I imagine her standing on the other side of the room, screaming, calling me a slut. A medusa. A mass of snakes. I wonder how I will defend myself, if she does appear. The guy in the bed doesn’t seem concerned, though. He has turned over and snores on.

  I lie as still as possible. Usually I can remember how I get into situations like this, but not today. There must have been a party, or a trip to a bar or a club. I must have been pretty wasted. Wasted enough that I don’t remember anything at all. Wasted enough to have gone home with a man with a wedding ring and hairs on his back.

  I fold back the covers as gently as I can and sit on the edge of the bed. First, I need to use the bathroom. I ignore the slippers at my feet – after all, fucking the husband is one thing, but I could never wear another woman’s shoes – and creep barefoot on to the landing. I am aware of my nakedness, fearful of choosing the wrong door, of stumbling on a lodger, a teenage son. Relieved, I see the bathroom door is ajar and go in, locking it behind me.

  I sit, use the toilet, then flush it and turn to wash my hands. I reach for the soap, but something is wrong. At first I can’t work out what it is, but then I see it. The hand gripping the soap does not look like mine. The skin is wrinkled, the nails are unpolished and bitten to the quick and, like the man in the bed I have just left, the third finger wears a plain, gold wedding ring.

  I stare for a moment, then wiggle my fingers. The fingers of the hand holding the soap move also. I gasp, and the soap thuds into the sink. I look up at the mirror.

  The face I see looking back at me is not my own. The hair has no volume and is cut much shorter than I wear it, the skin on the cheeks and under the chin sags, the lips are thin, the mouth turned down. I cry out, a wordless gasp that would turn into a shriek of shock were I to let it, and then notice the eyes. The skin around them is lined, yes, but despite everything else I can see that they are mine. The person in the mirror is me, but I am twenty years too old. Twenty-five. More.

  This isn’t possible. Beginning to shake, I grip the edge of the sink. Another scream starts to rise in my chest and this one erupts as a strangled gasp. I step back, away from the mirror, and it is then that I see them. Photographs. Taped to the wall, to the mirror itself. Pictures, interspersed with yellow pieces of gummed paper, felt-tip notes, damp and curling.

  I choose one at random. Christine, it says, and an arrow points to a photograph of me – this new me, this old me – in which I am sitting on a bench on a quayside, next to a man. The name seems familiar, but only distantly so, as if I am having to make an effort to believe that it is mine. In the photograph we are both smiling at the camera, holding hands. He is handsome, attractive, and when I look closely I can see that it is the same man I slept with, the one I left in the bed. The word Ben is written beneath it, and next to it Your husband.

  I gasp, and rip it off the wall. No, I think. No! It can’t be … I scan the rest of the pictures. They are all of me, and him. In one I am wearing an ugly dress and unwrapping a present, in another both of us wear matching weatherproof jackets and stand in front of a waterfall as a small dog sniffs at our feet. Next to it is a picture of me sitting beside him, sipping a glass of orange juice, wearing the dressing gown I have seen in the bedroom next door.

 
I step back further, until I feel cold tiles against my back. It is then I get the glimmer that I associate with memory. As my mind tries to settle on it, it flutters away, like ashes caught in a breeze, and I realize that in my life there is a then, a before, though before what I cannot say, and there is a now, and there is nothing between the two but a long, silent emptiness that has led me here, to me and him, in this house.

  I go back into the bedroom. I still have the picture in my hand – the one of me and the man I had woken up with – and I hold it in front of me.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I say. I am screaming; tears run down my face. The man is sitting up in bed, his eyes half closed. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I’m your husband,’ he says. His face is sleepy, without a trace of annoyance. He does not look at my naked body. ‘We’ve been married for years.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say. I want to run, but there is nowhere to go. ‘“Married for years”? What do you mean?’

  He stands up. ‘Here,’ he says, and passes me the dressing gown, waiting while I put it on. He is wearing pyjama trousers that are too big for him, a white vest. He reminds me of my father.

  ‘We got married in nineteen eighty-five,’ he says. ‘Twenty-two years ago. You—’

  ‘What—?’ I feel the blood drain from my face, the room begin to spin. A clock ticks, somewhere in the house, and it sounds as loud as a hammer. ‘But—’ He takes a step towards me. ‘How—?’

  ‘Christine, you’re forty-seven now,’ he says. I look at him, this stranger who is smiling at me. I don’t want to believe him, don’t want even to hear what he’s saying, but he carries on. ‘You had an accident,’ he says. ‘A bad accident. You suffered head injuries. You have problems remembering things.’