The Final Step

by Ridley Pearson

  More interesting, he went about his solutions to these complications in a methodical, deliberate way. Criminal solutions, to be sure. Just as his installing the cameras and projectors into Hildebrandt’s apartment had been a criminal act. He justified this by thinking that complex problems required complex solutions.

  James switched the main screen to a live image inside Hildebrandt’s bedroom. The tubby man wore blue pajamas as he climbed into bed. He picked up a bedside book, clearly considered reading it, and set it back down, switching off the lights.

  As the room went dark, James switched views to a camera that read heat instead of light—an infrared camera. The furniture was hardly visible, while Hildebrandt’s shoulders and head glowed green.

  “That’s just plain spooky. What’s this all about?” Thorndyke asked. He was not the hottest flame in the fire.

  “My father . . . It wasn’t an accident. They killed him, and I think I know why, and I think I know who.”

  “Hildebrandt.”

  “I think so. I can’t prove it. Not yet. I have a plan to find out for sure. When I know for sure, that person’s gonna pay. You know? That doesn’t go unpunished.” James’s voice was a kind of wolf growl.

  “Good luck with that.”

  “Let me tell you something, Thorny. No matter how old you are, you have fears. Big ones. Small ones. Maybe snakes or spiders. Maybe you’re afraid of the dark or a headmaster. Everybody’s afraid of something.”

  “Girls freak me out.”

  “There you go! You’re about to see why I had Claudette put the projectors in Hildebrandt’s bedroom. You know Scrooge, and all that? Him seeing ghosts and getting all freaked out?”

  “Like the movie.”

  “It was a book first, Thorny, but yeah, like the movie. Seeing the ghosts.” He paused. “Thing is, Hildebrandt drinks a lot of wine at dinner. He drinks after dinner. He’s gotta be pretty much blotto by the time he goes to bed. That helps us.”

  “It does?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “I will?”

  “Check the hall. Make sure Cantell isn’t on patrol.” James motioned to the door.

  “He did the rounds. He’s not coming back.”

  “I said: check it.”

  Thorndyke obeyed. A moment later he told James the hall was empty and quiet.

  “Then here we go,” James said.

  “Go where?”

  “It’s an expression, dough ball. Grab that chair over there. You’re going to want to watch this.”

  CHAPTER 53

  “THIS IS LIKE WATCHING AMERICAN HORROR Story or something.”

  “Quiet, Thorny.” James was losing patience with his dimwitted friend. His finger hovered over the keyboard, twitching as if it rested on a trigger.

  “Having so many views is so cool.”

  “Thorny! I’m working here.”

  “Got it! Sorry.”

  Between the three displays, James had the infrared view of Hildebrandt’s dark bedroom, along with two different angles from the tiny security cameras. One looked across the bedroom. Another aimed toward the head of the bed.

  The first key he pressed triggered a small speaker Claudette had hidden behind an air grate. The next key played James’s voice slowed down to where it sounded like a bear farting. “M . . . ath . . . i . . . asssss.” James played the odd recording a second and third time. The man’s name groaned into the room.

  Hildebrandt snorted and sniffled.

  “Here we go,” James said, pressing another key. He loved this sense of control, like a video game but real life. Big Shot Mathias Hildebrandt in his pajamas, in his bedroom, with James playing the puppeteer. James smiled privately.

  On the bedroom wall facing Hildebrandt, a faint image of a man appeared. Faded and foggy, the faceless man swirled like cream poured into a cup of coffee. James tripped the key again. The image vanished. He triggered the sound.

  “M . . . ath . . . i . . . asssss.”

  “The voice of Christmas Past,” Thorndyke said.

  “If you can’t stay quiet, you’re out of here,” James said.

  “Sorry.”

  “M . . . ath . . . i . . . asssss.”

  Hildebrandt struggled to sit up. James turned on the projector once more, but only for an instant. He switched it off as Hildebrandt reached for the bedside light. Leaned back. “That’s it.”

  “What-a-ya mean?” Thorndyke exclaimed. “This is just getting good.”

  “Drunk or not, he’s not stupid. Too much and he’ll figure it out. Hitting him when he’s just waking up or fading out, that’s when he’s not clear enough to think right.”

  “But you want him terrified, right?”

  “A guy like him? Not likely. I want him . . . bothered, I’d guess you’d say. Upset. Wondering. Off balance. Preoccupied. Like it’s the night before exams.”

  “That’s the worst! I never sleep.”

  James couldn’t imagine Brett Thorndyke worrying about exams. “Bad sleep affects everything,” James said. “Lois always told me and Mo that. If he’s thinking clearly, we’ll never beat him. But if we can get under his skin . . .”

  “You’re mean, you know that?”

  James looked over at Thorndyke’s hulking frame, his deep-set eyes. Thorndyke could beat the snot out of James with ease, but it wasn’t going to happen, because James exerted authority over the guy. He glanced at the screen. Hildebrandt looked around the room, sipped some water, and once again reached for the bedside lamp.

  The room went dark.

  CHAPTER 54

  I SAT ON A LOG, PETTING THE SOFT GREEN MOSS that clung to its bark. Little yellow hairs stuck up from the moss like alien antennae, tickling my palm. The afternoon sunlight caught moisture or dust, or both, in the air, creating streamers of bright, heavenly light like something from a ceiling mural in a church. I was warm but not sweating. My best friend in the world sat next to me, smelling of deep-fat fry oil. Seen in profile in that particular light, he had a sharp and prominent beak of a nose, an exceedingly straight chin, and a long neck.

  “Thank you for coming,” I said.

  “I’ve told you before, Moria. We’re friends. It’s what friends do.”

  I was seriously interested in discussing what he meant by the word “friend.” Before I could find the strength, he saved me.

  “Did you know tree squirrels fake burying nuts and fruits to fool thieves?” he said. “They exaggerate their burying techniques to throw off birds and other squirrels.”

  “I did not.” He knew I did not. He was merely showing off. Sherlock nearly always started a conversation with the upper hand.

  “Native Americans took it as a symbol of trust, preparation, and thriftiness.”

  “Fascinating,” I mocked. “Moss was the first plant on the planet.”

  “It has no roots, stems, or flowers,” he said. “It attaches itself through rhizoids that may look like roots, but they are not.”

  “Another deception,” I said, “like the squirrels.”

  “You do catch on.”

  “I try,” I said. Sherlock didn’t make conversation. If he said something it was for a reason. With him, one either paid attention or was made a fool.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” I said, indicating the printout of the photograph that included various areas and enlargements of Ruby’s enhancement techniques. I’d emailed it to him the night before. “Hildebrandt.”

  “It would appear so. Yes. What do you want to bet this coincides with your father buying his first train pass?” Sherlock asked.

  “Mother didn’t run away, didn’t leave us,” I said, wondering if it could be true.

  For years, I’d struggled with her abandoning us. Cried. Gone without sleep. Ached. I was sure James had, too. Her leaving had hurt so deeply I could barely consider that it wasn’t true. Why would Father have lied about that? To defend himself? To protect us? To protect Mother? I felt off-balance and dizzy. How could half my life be a lie?


  “What we know and what we presume to know can end up a kind of braid that when woven together prevents us from seeing the truth of the thing.”

  “You’re saying I shouldn’t jump to conclusions.”

  “I am. Exactly that,” Sherlock said.

  “Father could have been hiding her. He might not have known Hildebrandt was looking on.”

  “One of ten or twenty possibilities.”

  “Am I being paranoid?”

  “You’re wounded. Did you know—?”

  “Not again!”

  “—that wounded animals will run miles with the herd, never showing their condition? They say it’s shock. Adrenaline. I’m guessing it’s more like the animal doesn’t even know it has been wounded, or, even if it’s hurt, it still has something to prove.”

  “If you have something to say, just say it, Lock.”

  “Very well. Your father removed your mother from your house for her safety and protection. There’s no evidence of applied force in the photo. It looks cooperative on your mother’s part. Hildebrandt either had something to do with causing the move, or at least had knowledge of it. We’ll never know if your father or Ralph was aware of the man spying from the vehicle across the street.”

  “Never say never.”

  “That is, your father isn’t going to tell us,” he said, showing no concern for my feelings whatsoever. “Nor Ralph.” Lock passed me a Boston transit map. He’d drawn a circle in yellow highlighter. It stopped where it reached water.

  “Far as I can tell,” Sherlock said, “judging by the cost of his credit card charge for the rail passes, he could have traveled anywhere inside the circle.”

  “So, all of Boston. Big help, Lock.”

  “An understandable, if incorrect reaction, Moria.”

  “Incorrect, how?”

  “Isn’t there some expression for missing the little thing because of the bigger one?”

  “I’m sure. There’s an expression for everything, Lock. We call them clichés.”

  “Focus, Moria.”

  “I’m missing something.”

  “You are,” Sherlock said.

  I studied the map. “OK. I get it. Sorry. It’s not about what’s inside the circle, it’s about what’s outside of it, which isn’t much.”

  “Go on.”

  “You said before that you buy a ticket by zones. The zones represent distance traveled. Father bought the farthest zone. So, like I said, it’s not that he could travel anywhere in Boston, it’s that he could only ride as far outside of Boston as your yellow circle.”

  “I do enjoy your company.”

  I bit back a smile. “It’s large. The circle is huge. We can’t search several hundred towns and villages for my mother. If she’s even alive. . . .”

  “No,” he said.

  “Why do you do this?” I asked.

  “Do what?”

  “Don’t give me that! You tease me. Test me, and my patience.”

  “A thing isn’t truly learned if it’s told. It has to be discovered.”

  “So, you’re my teacher? Ick!” I recoiled.

  “And you, mine.”

  “Really?”

  “No. But I thought you’d like hearing that,” Sherlock said.

  “I detest you!”

  “False.”

  “Double detest for you saying that.”

  “Double false.” He tapped the map in my lap. “Use your resources, your brain, your memory. Eyes open, Moria! You and James told me a story. A train ride? A town?”

  “Do you know how many times James and I have been on trains? In towns? Was it in Europe or the United States?”

  “Now who’s the snob?” asked the British snob.

  “United States, I’m thinking. Boston, I’m thinking.” Tired of his condescending expression, I lowered my eyes to the map.

  “Oh Godfrey!” I shouted, seeing the name of a town—Manchester-by-the-Sea—just inside the yellow ring he’d drawn. “James and I followed Father there.”

  “So you told me.”

  “There was another guy.”

  “Yes. Now think, Moria: What organization did that other man belong to? Probably?”

  I squinted my eyes shut. I remembered the beach. Gadwall Specialist Center, the huge institution up on a bluff. We’d lost track of Father inside that place. An awful place, I thought, my memories flooding back.

  “Who might have been keeping an eye on your father? Not to spy on him—as you and James thought—but to protect him?”

  “Oh, come on!” I grabbed his arm.

  “That’a girl,” he said.

  I could have punched him.

  CHAPTER 55

  SHUTTING OFF THE ALARM CLOCK, JAMES FELT fresh and excited despite the 4:00 a.m. glowing on the clock. Day two of James’s plan.

  James put in his earbuds and switched on the screens in the closet.

  Hildebrandt slept, a green blob of warmth on a black screen. James understood his plan was risky, maybe stupid. But the stagehand on his payroll had let him know the special set would be ready, and that a change in rehearsal schedule limited James’s use of the auditorium to just two nights.

  He had to risk it.

  James projected a piece of a home movie. It wasn’t clear who’d shot it. Ralph, maybe. It was one of those Mom-and-Dad-play-with-the-kids to show how normal the family is. Father had his Big Bad Wolf going, his face locked into this toothy growl, wide-open eyes, and stretched frown. To a six- or seven-year-old it was terrifying. Caught on grainy film, he looked mental. Like something from a horror movie where the guy creeps out of the dark basement and sneaks up on the woman doing the dishes with her back turned. Father the psycho killer.

  “M . . . ath . . . i . . . asssss.” Then again, slightly louder, as James caused the video to repeat: Father’s face unseen, then turning quickly and looking right into the lens. Spooky.

  “M . . . ath . . . i . . . asssss.”

  Hildebrandt seemed to levitate off the bed. He looked like a kitty cat in the cartoons where all the hair sticks out. He seemed to lift off the mattress and land before screaming as he tried to sit up. His elbow gave way, dumping his face into the pillow.

  James shut off the projection, but kept recording.

  Hildebrandt spit out a series of bad words. Angry words. He screamed. “I’ll tear your throat out! Squish you like a bug!”

  James couldn’t have written it better than that. He had it recorded! All he needed now was to get the file to Claudette. Along with the other recordings he’d already provided, he hoped that would do it.

  Two birds with one stone, he thought, pushing his chair back and crossing his hands over his head in a brief and long overdue sense of victory.

  CHAPTER 56

  BEING TAKEN BY THE ARM UNEXPECTEDLY AND hurled into the Main House might have made another girl scream. Not me. I had James for an older brother. His form of communication often involved a push or a shove, a tug on my hair, a clamp on my arm.

  We ended up in the World Literature classroom. The two of us, a few minutes before dinner. James knew the route I took between the dorms and the common room. I was a victim of my own routine. Stupid me.

  Not wanting to give him any sense of control over me, I pretended as if this were the most ordinary way to meet up with my brother.

  “What is it? I’m hungry.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “My staggering brain power requires nutrition,” I said.

  “He’s a fake. Colander’s a fake.”

  I shuddered inside as James recounted his visit to Boston that resulted in the discovery of the lie. I thought I might faint. Superintendent Detective Colander of Interpol, the man who had detained my brother and me, the man who seemed to pop up like a whack-a-mole, the man who’d interrogated me in the Vanilla Bean only days before asking for my help with my brother. This brother. The boy sitting in front of me. Had James gone off his rocker as the detective had implied? Who was I to believe? More impor
tantly, whom to trust?

  Having no control over my breathing meant I didn’t speak.

  “I have a plan,” James said. “It’s complicated. Dangerous, I suppose. Risky, to be sure. I need you. He’ll be less suspicious of you. Way more less suspicious. And there’s this. A peace offering.”

  James dug into his pocket and produced the leather string holding Sherlock’s master key.

  I reached for the leather necklace. It was there, where it belonged. “I don’t understand,” I grunted.

  “Without this,” he said. “Mo, this key changed everything. Everything. I know where Hildebrandt lives. I’ve been watching him.”

  I pulled the key out of my shirt to show it to him. As I did, I remembered him handing it to me in the pool after it had torn off. “You switched it,” I said, my heart clenched. “You stole it from me without even asking!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry?” I needed CPR.

  “There’s so much to tell you.”

  I nodded angrily. “I’m listening!”

  “I think it could be Colander who Father let into the house. A detective, right? He’d have to let him in, I think. If he did, that means Colander killed Father.”

  I slumped into one of the classroom’s rolling chairs.

  “At least,” James said, “I think it’s possible. I can’t prove anything. Not yet. That’s why I need you.”

  Lexie! I thought. I’d sent a group text for her and Colander to meet. “Me? I need the truth, James. What were you doing in Lexie’s father’s office?” It just came out. I knew that look. I knew my brother. Guilt! “Oh, James.” My eyes sprouted tears. My chest felt clawed open.

  “Did Lexie tell you that? She and Hildebrandt . . .”

  I couldn’t hear this. I covered my ears. I heard it anyway, muffled and like from another person. “I know she talks to Hildebrandt, and she lies about it.”

  I shook my head violently.

  “Why would she do that? I have proof, Mo.” He found the notepaper rubbing in his back pocket. It was smudged, but I saw the outline of numbers and letters. Familiar numbers and letters. “I took that from Hildebrandt’s place. That’s Lexie’s number.”