“We can’t have this conversation right here,” he warned them.
Jordan brought Abby down the path, away from the art building and toward a paved circular park area. A few academic buildings now lay between them and the scene of the crime.
“You don’t agree with me, I get that, Dan, but we know who killed Lara! And I know you think the whole town is wrapped up in this conspiracy, but it just . . . It’s just ridiculous!” She caught her breath, clasping her hands together and wringing them. “We don’t have any evidence that this goes further than the college.”
“What about Harry Cartwright? And the senator? What about the entire town throwing that insane carnival?” Dan replied hotly. “He was with the post office. The warden didn’t seem to have any trouble getting him to steal mail. That senator didn’t even flinch when they . . . when they hurt Micah.”
“But when we were searching around those houses, even Micah was worried about getting caught by the police, and he’s a Scarlet!”
Dan tapped his foot, anxious, hearing the sound of a distant fire engine grow closer and louder. “He was probably putting on an act for our benefit. . . .”
“But you were so sure we could trust him,” Jordan said slowly, watching Dan from under a severely arched brow. “It feels like we only have half the facts here, and . . . And as much as I think you might be right, Dan, it feels wrong to just disappear when we could at least try the police.”
“Because they did such a bang-up job over the summer!” Dan forced his voice back down from a shout. The Scarlets could be watching them right now. They probably were. Whoever killed Lara might be lurking around, watching them argue and enjoying every minute of it.
“Incompetence is not the same thing as corruption,” Abby pointed out. “I don’t know what else we can do. Lara was our way out.”
She pulled out her phone, and Dan could see the map application brighten her screen. “I’ll go alone, that’s fine. You two can stay here and try to figure out a miracle cure.”
Dan had to physically stop himself from swatting the phone out of her hands. She was already searching for directions to the police station.
“I’m going with you, Abs. I really don’t want you going there alone,” Jordan said, placing a light hand on her shoulder.
“I know this can work,” Dan stated, pleading now. “We’re so close to figuring it out. What Felix wanted us to see, what he wanted us to follow. And my vision! Maudire, he said there was a way to undo everything! He would know, right? We’re close.”
“Maybe we are.” Abby turned away, following the little trail marked out on her phone. “And we still will be after we do the right thing. We can both be right, Dan, and I’d rather base my decisions on reality rather than some vision.”
“Please, don’t go,” he said softly, but they were already walking down the path leading to town.
Abby glanced back at him, smiling sadly. Even when he tried, Dan couldn’t persuade his feet to follow.
A steady thrumming pain grew at the base of Dan’s neck. It was concern, he knew, concern that was turning into a physical ache.
“I’m not too proud,” he insisted. “I’m trusting my gut this time.”
Even if it was pride, he had to believe that this was the right choice. He watched Abby and Jordan disappear down the hill and stood there waiting, and waiting.
They’d turn around. They’d come to their senses. Any minute now they would race back up the hill. He could follow, maybe, at a distance, and make sure they weren’t ambushed by Scarlets.
Strangely, Dan felt most safe here, out in the open. At least here he would have a chance to run and get away. The skin on his face started to burn from the cold, so he walked, aimlessly at first but then with more purpose, an idea forming in his mind. He followed in the direction his friends had gone, taking the path that bisected campus and then plunged down the hill and through the town sprawled below. When he reached the hill he stopped and went left, eventually coming to the little graveyard where they had paused the first day back on campus.
The abandoned liquor bottle that had served as a frat boy’s pillow was still there, ice forming on the glass.
Dan sidestepped the low gate that closed off the cemetery and listened to the frosty grass crunch under his shoes. Even when he stopped and stood still his heart pounded. He couldn’t tear his thoughts away from Abby and Jordan. He was letting them get caught. He was letting them down.
But he stood by what he said to them: there had to be a way to reverse the hypnotism. If not, they had come back to the college and risked their lives all over again for nothing.
Dan had to smile, albeit ironically, at the gravestone near his feet. Just as he expected, the heavy roses of the Scarlet’s skull were laid on the grave of Roger L. Erickson. Erickson Dorm. He looked at the dates. This Mr. Erickson had died eighteen months ago. What had Micah said? Cal’s father was the dean? How much had the Scarlets gotten away with on campus because the dean had helped turn heads the other way? Beloved father, son, mentor . . .
“Bastard.”
He didn’t need to turn to know who was behind him.
“He really was. Nobody liked the guy, least of all me.”
A pair of familiar boat shoes sidled up next to Dan’s feet. Cal wasn’t wearing his red cape this time, just a thick sweater, corduroy trousers, and his expensive leather gloves. He sighed, longingly maybe, and then clucked his tongue.
Dan’s already drumming pulse raced harder. His chest throbbed as he considered his options. He was no athlete, and Cal looked strong and lean enough to run him down.
“I’m getting a call,” Cal said, drawing a phone out of his pocket. “Hello, officers? Yeah, you’re going to have two little morons showing up at the station soon. Be a peach and have them brought up the hill for us. You too. Bye-bye.”
“You’re the bastard,” Dan muttered.
“Probably,” Cal said casually.
“Call the police back, tell them to leave my friends alone.”
“Or what?” He laughed, tossing his reddish hair out of his eyes. “Your friends are going to end up docile as can be or dead, just like your buddy Micah.”
Dan flinched. Dead?
“How much of this is you being you, Cal, and how much of this is you ‘being docile’?”
That seemed to give Cal pause. He pushed both hands through his hair and sighed. His eyes grew cool and distant. “You know, that’s the least boring thing you’ve ever said to me. I almost wish I had an answer for you. I got an early start. Dad was in so deep. When you drink the Kool-Aid for as long as I have you can’t tell where your thoughts start and someone else’s begin.”
With his hand already in his pocket, Dan could easily reach his phone. He tried to punch in Abby’s speed dial number, hoping there would be enough juice left to get the call through. And then what? It would be too late. . . . Maybe if she got the call and heard them talking she would know to turn and run.
Dan heard the grass and gravel shift on the path behind them. More Scarlets, he assumed, but it was worse.
“You’ve done so well, Cal, just like our Felix. . . .” It was Professor Reyes. Dan turned to look at her, chilled by her serene smile.
He took off, trying to run and leap the cemetery fence, but Cal was too fast.
Once Cal had his iron grip on Dan’s arms, Dan stopped struggling and stared coolly at Professor Reyes. He had been headed for this moment, but now, facing her, he didn’t feel ready. She was dressed in a black cardigan and trousers, everything black except the gleaming red slice of agate on a chain around her neck. “Haven’t they all done so well, Daniel?”
“Dan,” he said sharply. “Felix . . . You put him up to it?”
“Of course I did.” She laughed, and it raked down his spine like sharp fingernails. “That boy doesn’t breathe unless he’s given permission.”
“Why are you doing this?” Dan whispered. His hands felt frozen, and Cal’s arms squeezed the breath out o
f his lungs. “Why don’t you just stop and leave us all alone?”
“You of all people should know I can’t do that.” She laughed again, tossing her head. “Now you’ll come with me and we’ll have a little talk. Felix has done his part, and so has Cal.” Grinning, Professor Reyes took one menacing step toward him. The stone around her neck flashed.
“Yes, my puppets have played their parts well,” she said, touching the stone around her throat lovingly, “and now they’re done. But your part to play, Daniel Crawford, is just beginning.”
He tried to throw his weight back against Cal; he bucked and jabbed his head back, but Cal anticipated his every move. Professor Reyes smiled, drawing a long syringe from her pants pocket. He smelled her heavy perfume, saw the greedy glint in her eye. The prick of the needle stung Dan’s arm before he could even scream.
He thought it would go better. The method was refined. . . . How could he have blundered now, when he felt so secure in his techniques? But what was done was done. There was no reason to dwell on failure.
Beside him, the young woman was frail still, recovering. A thick blanket was wrapped around her shoulders. He wanted no secrets where his methods were concerned. This was the price they—he—paid for perfection. For control.
“Look at them, Caroline,” he said. She was staring at her feet, not at the long wooden boxes laid out on the grass. Behind them, the manse lay silent, the stones darker and colder under the heavy-bottomed clouds. Mist swirled around the foundation, trickling down the garden toward them.
The women would go into the ground in the backyard. The cemetery was too risky, his influence not yet secure at the college or with the town administrators.
“Look at them,” he repeated, more sternly this time.
Caroline lifted her head. The very top of it was shaved bald, the beginnings of dark stubble peeking through like a newly seeded patch of earth. Wispy black hair clung to the back of her neck. The stitches over her skull were still pink and raw. Her surgery had gone flawlessly. The others . . . It was too bad. He should have performed the surgeries first instead of wasting time with their drug regimen.
Ah well, he thought, lesson learned. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
“We will simply have to practice,” he said with a sigh. “The spike technique is far subtler, but demands a defter hand than I have developed.”
Caroline gazed up at him, still unwilling to look at the boxes going into the ground.
“There was so much blood,” she whispered. Her hands were balled up in the blanket, and there they began to tremble. “So much blood.”
She was right, of course. Head wounds always were so confoundedly messy.
“Now, now, Caroline, don’t be vulgar. If you would like to discuss the procedures we can, but we will do so scientifically and with none of these theatrics.”
He rested a fatherly hand on her shoulder.
“I will teach you. We will practice together! Won’t that be fun? I’m sure you’ll prove a worthy student.”
Dan woke with his head swirling. It took him a moment to remember the graveyard, the professor, the syringe. . . .
He tried to sit up, but his head pounded so hard he almost vomited. His tongue felt swollen and dry, his throat parched. Slowly, he peeled his eyes open. Even half-drugged and groggy, Dan recognized the dusty shelves and the smell of a moldering foundation. File cabinets . . . A sprawling wooden desk . . . He was back in the warden’s office.
Brookline.
He expected to be bound, but there was nothing holding him down this time. Someone had shoved him into the warden’s old office chair. When he stood, his muscles ached as if he had been beaten to a pulp. Skull-shaped candles flickered on every surface, red wax bubbling over dishes, running down the file cabinets, and cooling there. Brookline had been closed down to students, but Professor Reyes still used it for the senior psychology majors in her seminar.
“Good, you’re awake again.” She stepped through the warden’s glass-paned office door and left it open. Her sober black clothing was gone, replaced with a Scarlet’s robe.
“Again?” Dan croaked, touching his burning throat.
“Mmhm. We roused you just long enough to make sure the hypnotism took.” She smiled at him, showing the wide gap between her two front teeth. “And good news! It did.”
Adrenaline shot through his body in a panicked jolt. He touched his nose, his forehead. “You didn’t . . .”
“Oh, no. Not yet.” She nodded to a tray of medical instruments on the desk in front of him. He recognized the spike from the night before. “That comes later.”
“Why later?” Dan had to stall her. Maybe he could distract her long enough to go for the spike. She wasn’t very big; he might be able to overpower her. “Why wait?”
“Because the process can be . . . unpredictable, and you have information I need now, before your brain might get turned to a puddle of goo.” She smirked and pointed to the chair he had just risen from. “Have a seat, Daniel, so we can talk like civilized adults.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, summoning every last ounce of strength to grab the spike and lunge for her.
He had almost closed his hand around it when she said, “You will not touch that, Daniel.”
It was as if he had put the spike through his own head, pain lancing through his skull and down his spine until he did exactly as she said. He couldn’t move, couldn’t make his body obey his thoughts and commands.
“Now would you like to sit?” she asked calmly. Professor Reyes dropped into a chair across the desk with an impatient little sigh.
“What did you do to me?”
“What I do to everyone who can’t be civilized and controlled. Now sit.” She reached up and pushed back the hood on her robe, then calmly pulled off her own hair. It was a wig, Dan realized, and underneath he could see that her hair had never quite grown around the scars from her lobotomy.
Not knowing what else to do, Dan sat down, eyes lingering on the tray of tools.
“You won’t be able to hurt me, you know,” she said lightly. “You’re under my control now.”
Dan’s mind raced. There had to be a way out of this. There had to be a way to gain control of his mind again. “You don’t have to do this. You can let me go.” She hardly seemed to be listening. Dan hurried on. “You can’t blame yourself, Caroline. He took over everything—he took over a fraternity, he took over the Scarlets, then you and the college. You never had a chance. He kidnapped you and turned you into one of his puppets. You’re a victim here, not a villain.”
Caroline hesitated, her lower lip quivering. Then she laughed, hard, so hard a little spray of spit landed on her robe. “Nice try. Very stirring speech. But I’m afraid you’re wrong, Daniel. I am not a victim, I most certainly am the villain. I haven’t gotten to choose much in my life but this much I choose: I am the villain.” She turned slightly in her chair and called through the open office door, “You can bring them in now.”
It was a sadly familiar sight. Abby and Jordan were brought in, strapped again to gurneys. Cal was the one to wheel them in, one at a time. When they were all inside the office, Cal stood to one side, sneering arrogantly at Dan.
“Your friends are much better when they’re tied up, yes? So much more docile.”
Abby and Jordan were awake, both of them struggling against the fasteners holding them down. Dan watched, miserable, as Cal collapsed the legs and wheels on the gurneys and propped them up vertically against the wall. His friends cried out, now facing him directly, both of them as tightly bound as mummies.
“Why don’t you just hypnotize them, too?” Dan muttered.
“What makes you think I haven’t?” Professor Reyes stood and walked over to Jordan, looking up him and down with plain disinterest. “Actually, I haven’t, but our friend the Sculptor did. Or is he Felix? Or is he the Sculptor?” She laughed—cackled—and Dan shot up out of the chair, only to feel that same horrible burning sear through his head.
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“The nightmares . . . the voices . . . You really had no idea?” Professor Reyes tsk-tsked him playfully. “He had you down there in that operating theater all to himself. Armed with my knowledge, it was only natural for him to have a little fun. He isn’t very skilled, though. He couldn’t control you. But I can.”
“Leave them out of this,” Dan said, clutching the edge of the warden’s desk. The heat of the candles in the room was overbearing. Sweaty, faint, he dropped back down into the chair. “You said you wanted information, fine. I’ll give it to you.”
Professor Reyes nodded to Cal, who went obediently to the desk and picked up the spike and mallet. Then he retreated to Jordan’s side and Dan felt his skin prickle with fear.
“I bet you want the notes,” Dan said, trying to keep her attention away from Jordan. “I don’t know where they are.”
“But you read them,” she said, showing her teeth. It couldn’t be called a smile.
“Yes, I read them.”
“I so hoped you would. I bet you thought you were so clever, figuring out the coordinates, finding all the crumbs I laid out for you. The notes were there for you, and you being of his blood . . . I knew you would understand them better than I ever could. One piece was always missing. You see him, don’t you? In dreams, in real life . . . You see the warden. You can see what others cannot, Daniel. That was why it had to be you. I couldn’t very well dig up Maudire and question him myself, could I?” Her mouth twisted viciously as she said it. Caroline pulled on the necklace around her neck and it came free in her hand, then she leaned onto the desk and dangled it in front of Dan, letting it swing gently back and forth. He couldn’t help but look at it and feel a strange urge to never take his eyes away.
“Felix led you right to it. I led you right to it. The carnival, the photos . . . If I could just trigger the right memories, I knew you would give me the answer. Maudire was the one who told you about the password. So simple. So unbelievably simple. Why hadn’t I thought of that? You found it, didn’t you? You know the word that undoes all his programming, all his work. . . .” She picked up one hand from the desk and slammed it back down. Dan shot back in his seat, shaking.