“So what? That’s your evidence?”
“Why does he have Lexie’s number?”
That was it. That was all I could handle. It was more than I could handle. Each of them calling the other the traitor. Only one sane voice in all of it, a voice I remembered from a café closet. Was Colander a fake? Had he killed our father?
“James: we both know Lexie. You’re messed up. Both of you are. But you didn’t kill her father, and Lexie isn’t a spy.”
“Of course I didn’t kill her father!”
“But?” I said. I could hear it hanging between us.
James was thinking back to Espiranzo’s claim: “We don’t kill people.” Was it true? “But . . . you can’t ask me how I know this. I don’t actually know it.”
“But?”
“It’s possible . . . just possible Hildebrandt did.”
“We need Sherlock.”
“News alert: he’s in England. Besides, it would take forever to explain everything even if we could find him.”
“You just don’t like him.”
“He’s strange.”
“He’s brilliant.”
“He’s in England.”
“No. He’s here, James. He works at the Vanilla Bean.”
My brother and I entered a staring contest. He knew I wasn’t lying.
“If you don’t shut your mouth,” I said, “you’re going to catch flies in there.”
CHAPTER 57
LEXIE’S MEETING WITH COLANDER WAS PLANNED for late afternoon. I hurried to her dorm to head her off. Gone, her roommate told me.
In hopes she was somewhere on campus, I tried the Tuck Shop lounge, the common room, the mail room, and Main House.
It turned out a good thing that none of the students obeyed the academy’s cell phone rule. We all owned phones, we all carried them. The rule simply meant you didn’t use it in public, and you kept it silenced. Out of sight was out of mind. Only stupid use resulted in your phone being confiscated. My phone’s Find My Friends app put Lexie in the academy’s indoor tennis facility, a quarter mile from the varsity soccer field and the northernmost building on school property.
I texted James. Knowing he sometimes ignored texts, I left immediately for the tennis facility. James would have to catch up.
He did—riding shotgun in a groundskeeper golf cart being driven by the same peculiar man who’d been watching me at the Vanilla Bean.
“Meet Espiranzo,” James said, introducing me to the cart’s driver. “He knew Father. We can trust him.”
Espiranzo said nothing. The cart bumped along, drove down from the far end of the soccer field, and raced for the pale brown metal tennis facility with its domed blue metal roof. The cart jerked to a stop by a side door.
“Open the door quietly. You will not be seen. Stand still and wait for me.”
James climbed out. I thanked Espiranzo for the ride.
“You are welcome, Moria,” the man said, displaying what to me was an uncomfortable familiarity. He reached back for a black plastic case on the seat behind. “I’ll join you in a minute. James knows what to do.” His swarthy face offered an ominous look. He had something bad planned. That black case was part of his plan.
James carefully eased the door shut behind us. Voices—two voices, Lexie’s and a man’s—echoed faintly off the metal walls.
The facility housed six tennis courts wrapped in sections of a thick dark green plastic tarpaulin hung as a curtain to catch balls. James and I huddled. Besides serving as a backstop, the tarpaulin created a walkway so players could move court to court without disturbing play.
James motioned me forward with him. We walked silently and oh so slowly, because our body movement threatened to cause waves in the plastic walls and announce us.
“The thing is,” Lexie was saying, “at the time, I don’t know, it all seemed so normal. Not that any boy had asked to come to my house before. I don’t mean like that.”
James glanced back at me. Stunned to be hearing Lexie saying this, he also had a message of innocence intended for me. He was literally caught between the two of us. I looked away. I couldn’t stand to see my brother so stressed. His expression of innocence might have convinced others, but not his sister.
I saw Espiranzo’s back, creeping down the narrow corridor in the opposite direction. I wondered why. I wondered if I’d mistaken James’s looking at me. Had he been looking past me at Espiranzo? Was that look on his face the result of something he and Espiranzo had planned?
I made a face to show James my confusion.
He pumped his open palm. It said, Calm down.
Calm down? My stomach felt like a Vitamix.
Colander spoke too softly to be understood, or maybe my ears were ringing.
“I’m not trying to get James in trouble,” Lexie said. “I don’t mean it like that, but—”
“It’s fine. Have you two had a fight?” Colander asked. He said something like that. The distance and the steady whine in my ears didn’t help anything. In truth, the tennis facility was so cavernous, sound didn’t travel clearly. He could have been saying something about the “night,” or “light,” or “blue” instead of “two.” I wondered if I was inventing most of what I heard. Imagination can be a blessing and curse.
Lexie sounded like she was upset.
We were closing in on them.
I looked behind. Espiranzo had disappeared. That didn’t help me calm down.
James dared to peek out between two of the large curtains. He motioned up, suggesting Lexie and Colander were somehow above us. A viewing deck, I realized, as James led me to the end of the corridor, through a door, and upstairs. Our eyes reached floor level a few steps from the top. I saw Lexie’s flip-flops and Colander’s scuffed oxfords. I eked my head higher: their knees and waists and the edge of a table. Higher still, the back of Colander’s head, Lexie’s in partial profile. Her eyes darted. She saw us.
Colander watched her expression change. He was turning his head as James spoke.
“Stop, Lexie! He’s a fake.”
Colander stood. James and I surfaced.
“He’s not who he says he is. Has nothing to do with Interpol. He killed Father.”
Colander smirked. Lexie went pale. The air turned electric. I could see dust particles floating like spaceships. I could hear James’s breathing. Struggled to find my own.
“The guilty will say anything, Alexandria,” Colander said. “James is a desperate boy. What do you think, Alexandria? James the Innocent, or James the Member of a Secret Sect?”
“Think about it, Lexie!” James said. “How could he know that?”
“Because I’m a superintendent detective of an international police force, James. Do you really think lying is going to help your case any?”
“I met Superintendent Detective Colander, and he isn’t you. You aren’t him.”
“It’s true, Lexie,” I said, speaking for the first time. I had no idea if it was or wasn’t, only that I was trusting my brother more than this strange man. “James went to Boston to Interpol. This guy isn’t Superintendent Colander.”
“That’s interesting, Moria. Because I have identification,” Colander said. He reached into his suit coat. I expected a gun. He passed a thin wallet to Lexie.
“A forgery,” James said. “He’s a fake.”
“You’ve got it all figured out, don’t you, James?” Colander sounded like one of those teachers who thinks he knows everything. At that moment, I knew he was lying. It didn’t necessarily mean James was telling the truth, but I believed James.
James’s serve. “Mr. Lowry left me video. Don’t worry, I’ve made several copies. What you didn’t know was that Father hated heights.” I nodded, supporting my brother. “He would have never climbed that ladder. You faked his accident. You faked how he died.”
Lexie stepped away from Colander.
“You live in a fantasy world, James. Lexie just explained you were invol—”
“It’s true, Lex
ie! I looked at your father’s calendar. But that’s all I did. Anything else . . . that wasn’t me. But given how tight you are with Hildebrandt, you must already know that.”
“Me? I have never, ever spoken to that man. I never met that man,” Lexie said.
I knew it was the truth. James knew it was the truth.
Colander broke the silence. “The three of you are in big trouble. You will need to get yourselves lawyers. You will have to come with me.”
Again, the man reached into his suit coat.
“No, they will not.” Espiranzo stood at the top of the stairs behind Colander.
I heard a pop.
Colander’s suitcoat opened, revealing a gun.
I tackled James, rolled, and knocked Lexie’s legs out from under her. I had no idea how I’d done that.
Colander never touched his weapon.
He slouched, spun halfway around, and spilled off the chair.
A dart with a fuzzy blue tip stuck out of his back.
CHAPTER 58
I MAY HAVE FAINTED. I’M NOT EXACTLY SURE. Colander’s eyes remained partially open, his body still. Espiranzo had killed him. By association, I was an accomplice. I was going to jail for murder.
That’s when I saw the fallen man’s chest moving.
“He’s alive,” I said.
“Of course he’s alive! We must move him quickly,” said Espiranzo, slipping the dart gun into his belt. “Help me get him on my back,” he instructed my brother. As the two dealt with Colander, I’m not sure if Lexie or I ever moved. Espiranzo bore the man on his back in a fireman carry. He descended the stairs. “I’m going to need you to get the door.”
“I’m sorry I looked at your father’s calendar, Lexie,” James said. “I don’t know if it had anything to do with . . . but whatever . . . I should never have done it.”
“You used me. You’ll go to jail.”
“I don’t understand how Hildebrandt had your phone number, but he did.”
“I have never spoken to him.”
“I saw it on a notepad. I’ve been watching him. He made a call. Your line went to voicemail at the same time.”
She said something she shouldn’t have. Roughly translated, it said James was the same as the business end of a horse.
Obviously, I couldn’t hear James thinking. But if I’d been able to it would have gone something like: “If she’s telling the truth, and I think she is, then how did Hildebrandt get her number? Why would he have wanted her number? Moria wouldn’t have given it. I didn’t. So . . . ?” He spoke for real. “The video,” he said. “Hildebrandt . . . and . . . oh, Helena, Montana. Lois spoke to him when he was leaving our house that night. Remember the two of them at the door?”
“Lois?” I said. “What are you saying? Our Lois?”
“When I got the gold—”
“You what?” I said.
“Lois knew about the gold. Don’t you see?”
“See?” I said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Espiranzo called for someone to get the door.
We all took off at once.
CHAPTER 59
THERE WE WERE IN HARD AUDITORIUM, LEXIE, James, Claudette, and I. Espiranzo, too. Despite it being night outside, the tall windows were covered in thick blackout material. A cube—a room—occupied the stage. Bland inside, with gray walls and a single light fixture. Colander sat in a chair, his hands tied tightly to a ring on a table bolted to the floor. James and Espiranzo moved the final wall into place, at which point the only view on the inside was over three flat-panel screens set up on a collapsible table, where Claudette was already working with video and audio equipment.
“What is this?” Lexie whispered into my ear. James had warned us not to talk, not to say a word.
I shrugged, having no idea what James was up to, or how he’d arranged all this. His mention of Father’s gold came to mind. I was not in the best of moods.
With the final wall in place, Espiranzo entered the room through the door. Lexie and I watched it all on one of the three flat-panel screens. The groundskeeper stuck Colander with a hypodermic and gave him a shot. Espiranzo left the room.
Five minutes passed. Maybe ten. Colander coughed and came awake. He sipped from a straw in the plastic water bottle left for him.
“You have . . . disappointed me.” It was not a voice I knew. I startled. I hate to say it, but I was comforted when I realized Claudette was doing something at the computer to play the man’s voice. Listening carefully, I could tell the words had been patched together, but even the way the voice rose and fell made it sound so realistic. The groggy Colander wouldn’t hear us.
“Moriarty,” the voice said.
“That’s Hildebrandt,” Lexie whispered.
“I thought you’d never spoken to him,” I whispered back.
“I haven’t,” she said.
James shot us a look. We shut up.
“We had a deal,” Colander said, like a man only half awake. He spilled some water trying for another drink. “Where am I?”
I knew how to recognize when my brother relaxed. I had the feeling he’d expected Colander to know this room. The fact that the man didn’t seemed to help my brother.
“Moriarty,” Hildebrandt’s recorded voice said. It sounded slightly different than the last time. “These are dangerous times for us all.”
Lexie nudged me, cupped my ear, her words warm. “I’ll bet that’s from some speech he gave. Cut and paste. You see?” I didn’t see a thing, except James’s silhouette and, on the monitor, Colander tied to the table. “Claudette’s using his speeches and stuff to make up whatever she wants him to say. When James is pointing to the table like that, I think he’s showing her what line to play. It’s like the movies!”
“Mission Improbable,” I said.
“You. Moriarty. Why?” Hildebrandt said. James had to be counting on Colander being zonked from the dart. Stringing words together like that made them sound slightly awkward. Who spoke in one-word comments?
“You know why,” Colander said. He sounded more cautious, more careful. Threatening. I wondered if the drug was wearing off.
There was too long of a pause. I could see something was wrong. Claudette worked the keyboard furiously. On the screen, Colander looked around at the room all the more carefully. “Where am I?”
“Tell me,” Hildebrandt’s voice said.
“Why be such a coward? Show yourself.” Colander craned his neck to look into a large mirror on the wall. He tried for the water again. This time he could be heard sniffing before he took a sip. “I know you’re on the other side. Come in here if you want to talk to me.”
“Tell me,” Hildebrandt repeated.
“You tell me: What day is it? What time is it?”
James appeared to panic. Colander was testing him. James pointed down at the list between him and Claudette.
“Go ahead.” Hildebrandt’s voice. Pause. “Moriarty.” Pause. “Tell me. Or. I’ll tear your throat out. Squish you like a bug.”
“I should have known better,” Colander said, “than to trust you. ‘Common interest,’ you said. ‘Serves us both equally.’ Bulldog. That’s all I can say!”
“We have a problem,” Hildebrandt’s voice said.
“Maybe you do. My problem is your problem now. You have failed to keep your word. Hands off, you said. Yet, here I am.”
“Moriarty.”
Colander huffed. “Day and time.” He sat back. “Do whatever you’re going to do.”
A red flashlight beam signaled from behind us. Its presence meant one thing: trouble coming.
It all happened so quickly. Espiranzo appeared onstage, a gun or the tranquilizing gun in hand, aimed at the side wall of the stage set. James or Claudette, or maybe both, hitting switches that shut down the screens and stage lights. The auditorium went pitch black. All but the light that seeped out at the edges of the constructed box onstage.
A voice from behind us said, “Don’t shoot.
Gag him!” Espiranzo moved.
Lexie tugged me to the floor, my head dizzy. Didn’t I know that voice? We lay down flat between the rows of seats.
A narrowly focused sterile-white penlight beam appeared on the floor of the aisle I faced. It moved quickly toward the stage. All I glimpsed was a pair of shoes and pants. Strange, given my reaction. I might as well have been bitten by a snake. My blood ran hot, frying my brain. Emotion surged through me chemically, a brightly burning ball racing through hollow limbs. It settled into my stomach. I wanted to throw up, to be rid of it. I wanted it out of my chest. Out of my body. If it stayed inside it would tear me apart. I had to scream or cry or shout or stand up or kick. I lacked all control. The venom filled me.
I knew those shoes.
CHAPTER 60
“HIDE. NOW!”
I knew that voice.
I stood. James stood. We were both noticeably shaking.
Ralph, our old driver, our protector, a man who was supposed to be dead, whose funeral I’d attended, shined the flashlight onto me, and then James. “I will explain to you both. I promise. For now, there’s no time. Hide backstage. Not here. All of you! Hurry!”
Maybe it was because I was so stunned to see a man who’d died in a car wreck. Maybe it was the years of conditioning—Ralph was always telling me and James what to do, and we obeyed him like he was our father. Maybe it was love and relief and joy. I told Lexie to get up. James and Claudette hurried onto the stage. I ran into the aisle, wanting to hug Ralph, but he moved away, toward the auditorium doors. As Lexie and I climbed the short steps to the stage we could hear Ralph speaking beyond the auditorium doors.
The next muffled voice belonged to Crudgeon, and, after that, Mrs. Furman.
James burst from the backstage darkness, running past where I hid toward the front of the auditorium. Lexie grabbed my arm, preventing me from joining him. She and Claudette pulled me past a second line of curtains to where props and large pieces of sets were stacked. We crawled into one.
The Final Step Page 16