On the other hand, she was ten minutes late. Newton stopped what he was saying and peered out from under his wild eyebrows at her. Everyone else turned, too, and there was a lot of relief on their faces at any interruption. The blackboard was filled with notes about the steps required to dissect a frog. A big plastic cooler sat on the floor between rows of lab tables, the top removed, and dozens of dead frogs lay inside. Some of the other students already looked as green as the frogs.
“There is real time,” said Newton gravely, “and there is Francis Scott Key High I-don’t-care-about-science-class time, and then there is Dana Scully time.”
“Sorry,” she said.
“Not trying to escape today’s exercise in controlling the gag reflex, are we?” Newton held a scalpel and waggled it back and forth.
“No … no, just running late. Sorry, won’t happen again,” mumbled Dana as she hurried over to find a seat. Her regular lab partner wasn’t there today, but then he hadn’t been in the other day, either. The only person there who didn’t have a partner was a tall, thin, studious-looking boy with sandy-blond hair and intelligent green eyes. Ethan something, she thought. Dana felt herself turning lobster red as she climbed onto the stool beside him.
“Okay?” she asked.
“Be my guest.”
She caught a few mixed looks from the other students, but these were all sophomores like her. No seniors and probably no one close to Maisie. All her classmates would have heard would be secondhand rumors. So none of the looks were openly hostile. Small mercies.
Mr. Newton picked up a lecture in progress, explaining what they’d be looking for once they cut open their frogs. He seemed to enjoy his topic and was very animated. Then the frogs were handed out and the process began. The class became noisy with conversation and a lot of sounds of sickness and disgust.
“If you feel the need to vomit,” said Newton offhandedly, “please be so good as to use the trash can. Don’t puke on your frogs.”
“Can we puke on our lab partners?” asked one of the boys from the football team. He was an offensive fullback, and his partner was a wide receiver.
“Only if you want to clean it up,” said Newton. “But in my experience, if you throw up on someone, they will invariably reciprocate with enthusiasm.”
Everyone got a chuckle out of that, and the football players high-fived. Ethan leaned close to Dana and murmured, “Maybe I’m being harsh, but I don’t see a Nobel Prize for science in their futures.”
Dana turned away to hide a snort of laughter.
“Okay, my little Frankensteins and Frankensteinettes,” said Newton, “you may commence with the mad science. Please take your time, though. Science requires patience and attention to detail, not haste.”
Ethan and Dana set to work with equal amounts of care, interest, and diligence. That impressed Dana, because a lot of the guys in class were either trying to act macho, as if none of this bothered them, or hamming up how much they were going to vomit. Not Ethan. He had a quiet energy and a serious face. He wore steel-rimmed glasses, dress shirts, and Keds sneakers, and he pursed his lips while he worked, but there was no trace of unease or reluctance as he pinned the frog down and used a felt-tip pen to draw the pattern to guide their cuts.
He smiled at her. It was a nice smile, and he had very good teeth, except for a small chip on his left front tooth. He slid the scalpel over to her.
“Ladies first,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Why not? If you’re up to it.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? ’Cause I’m a girl?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “Um … no, because you missed Two-Suit explaining how it’s done.”
“It’s on the board,” she pointed out.
“Right. Sorry.”
Dana picked up the scalpel, glanced again at the notes and diagrams on the board, then placed the blade against the slack pale skin and made her cut. Ethan watched her make two lateral incisions at the throat and groin and then connect them with a long vertical cut. She set the scalpel down and peeled back the flaps to expose the internal organs.
“Wow. Nice job,” he said. “You ever do this before?”
“No.”
“You didn’t even nick anything inside.”
Dana glanced up at him, expecting there to be some kind of humor or condescension there, but Ethan simply looked impressed. “Thanks,” she said diffidently.
“No, I mean it,” said Ethan. “You missed the little film Two-Suit showed us, but you did it exactly right. You’re a natural.”
She noticed again that Ethan had a very nice smile.
Dana wanted to crawl under the table, because she was sure her cheeks were bright as red stoplights.
“Want me to take out the heart?” he asked, and in the weirdest way possible, on a day that was already beyond strange, that seemed like the nicest thing a boy had ever said to her.
I am totally out of my mind, she thought. But she was smiling as she handed over the scalpel.
CHAPTER 21
Craiger, Maryland
9:46 A.M.
“Did you hear a single word I said?” demanded the driver.
The man seated beside him had his seat tilted back and lay with his hat over his face. They had the engine off, which meant no air-conditioning, and even this early in the spring, the sun was hot. The windows were open and the passenger had clearly been dozing.
“Hey, Gerlach,” growled the driver. “I’m talking to you. Are you even listening?”
“No,” said the passenger.
“I said, there she is.”
The passenger, Malcolm Gerlach, did not remove the hat, did not sit up, did not bother to look.
“No,” he said.
“What do you mean, ‘no’? I can see her with my own eyes. She’s on the far side of the school quad, right near the—”
“It’s not her,” said Gerlach.
“Sure it is. Red hair, blue blouse.”
Gerlach removed the hat and looked up. He was thin, with an ascetic face, pale blue eyes, and dark red hair. He did not look through the window but instead fixed his gaze on the driver. “You’re new, kid, so I’m going to cut you a little bit of slack, capisce?”
“Kid? You’re, like, five years older than me. Who you calling—?”
“Shhh. Just listen,” said Gerlach, his voice mild. “The girl you’re looking at is the sister, Melissa. Older, two inches taller, and with curly red hair. She’s seventeen. She doesn’t look like her sister at all. Not if you bothered to study the surveillance photos. There’s a reason we take them from different angles and distances, you know. It’s so you cats can spot a target from any distance, day or night, rain or shine. And here you are, misidentifying a mark and disturbing my beauty sleep. You are dangerously close to making me cranky. Remember that TV show with the guy who turned green and smashed things? Remember the line about how you wouldn’t like him when he’s angry? Yeah, it’s like that with me, too. And what makes me angry? Jocks with more biceps than brains and who don’t know how to do their job, even when the job is to sit in a car and look for a girl you have thirty photos of.”
The driver ground his teeth for a moment. This was his first shift, having taken over from the regular wheelman. The regular guy had eaten some bad shrimp rolls and couldn’t get five steps away from a bathroom. The driver, whose name was Matt, had been warned about this passenger—been told that he was eccentric and that he was a jerk. He was warned that the man was dangerous, too, though no one said exactly how. Matt was six-two and had a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do. He was used to being the one who people walked softly around. The guy riding shotgun was a stick figure who didn’t look like he could punch his way out of a damp paper bag. And here he was, giving him lip.
Matt opened his mouth to say something, but Gerlach turned his head and smiled.
It was the wrong kind of smile.
It was a dark smile. The shape of the mouth was too happy for the m
oment they were both in. The teeth were wet. The eyes no longer looked green, as they had before, but now seemed black, as if the pupils had expanded to consume the color of the irises. Everything about that man suddenly seemed to whisper promises of awful things. The passenger raised a finger and twitched it back and forth.
“Now would not be the best time to see which of us dogs has the best bite,” Gerlach said quietly.
Matt sat there, his mouth still open, but his body did not want to move. It was as if his muscles rebelled against the possibility of taking any action at all. His throat was complicit in the rebellion and pushed no breath out to form words of any kind.
“You get this one warning, and then we go to a different place,” said Gerlach. “Am I making myself clear? Just a nod will be fine.”
Matt nodded.
“Good dog,” said Gerlach. He placed his hat back over his face. “Now keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Look at all those cute little schoolgirls over there. Enjoy the eye candy, but bear in mind that you really don’t want to wake me again until you see the right one.”
A few moments later, there was the sound of a soft, buzzing snore.
Matt swallowed hard.
If the other driver was feeling better tomorrow, then he was going to hand this gig back to him. Maybe he’d put in a transfer, too. Somewhere far away from here. One of the Dakotas, perhaps.
He took a tissue from his pocket and used it to blot cold sweat from his eyes.
CHAPTER 22
Francis Scott Key Regional High School
11:28 A.M.
Although it was a double-period class, Dana was sorry it was over. Science calmed her. As they began cleaning their lab tables in preparation for the end of class, Ethan said, “That was cool.”
She nodded. “It was fun.”
“Cutting up a frog and messing around with its internal organs with a cute redhead,” he said as she placed the scalpel in the autoclave. “Who knew that’s how today was gonna go?”
The word cute hung like a flare between them, and she tried not to look at it. From his expression, it was clear he hadn’t realized he’d said it or didn’t know how a comment like that could land. He was all business.
Dana opened and closed her mouth eight times, but at no point did she have a comment that would have come out in coherent English. She became intensely interested in cleaning the worktable with spray disinfectant.
“What do you have next?” he asked.
“The world’s earliest and stupidest lunch period,” she said quickly.
“Oh, cool. Me too. Want to go together?”
She stared at him. “What?”
“Lunch?”
“What?” she repeated.
“You know, where they feed us really bad food that is, I’m positive, where all these dead frogs end up. Yummy.” He grinned at her. Then his grin faded. “Earth calling Dana.”
“Yes,” she said. “Frogs. Delicious.”
Ethan laughed. “You’re a little bit weird. Anyone ever tell you that?”
“I—”
“Weird is good. Come on, grab your books. We want to get those frogs while they’re still kicking.”
He slung his book bag over his shoulder and headed for the door. Dana took a long moment remembering what legs were for and how to use them. She asked out loud, “What just happened?”
There wasn’t anyone to answer that question, so she followed Ethan out into the hall. They were immediately washed away by the tide of students going to classes, but Dana and Ethan managed to steer themselves in the direction of the lunchroom. Conversation along the way was impossible, though, and they didn’t talk much through the process of shuffling along the line of stainless-steel steam tables. Ethan broke the silence when it was their turn to make a selection.
“Oh, goody,” he said. “We have orange glob, green glob, and brown glop. What’s your preference?”
“Is that Salisbury steak?” asked Dana, pointing to the brown stuff.
“Only theoretically. I’m not convinced it has any origins in nature.”
“I’ll have that.”
The matron behind the counter was bored, indifferent, and unspeaking. She ladled the meat onto an improbably heavy ceramic plate, added overcooked diced green beans and a splot of lumpy white starch.
“Thanks,” said Dana, but the matron gave her the kind of look a butcher would give a fatted calf, and then turned away.
“Let’s flee,” said Ethan, and they took their trays to a far corner of the crowded lunchroom. Dana was sure everyone was looking at her, but she focused on where she was going and did not look back. They had one end of a table to themselves and the other was piled high with boxes of flyers for the spring charity fund drive.
As they settled down to address the challenge of eating that food with some semblance of appetite, Ethan said, “So … you see ghosts.”
Dana nearly stabbed her face with a forkful of meat. She stopped, slapped her fork down, and glared at him.
“So that’s what this is all about?” she demanded. “That’s just great.”
Ethan leaned back, hands up. “Whoa! Sorry,” he said quickly. “I wasn’t trying to start something.” He picked up his napkin and reached out to dab gravy from her cheek. “Really sorry.”
“I’m serious. Is that what this ‘oh, hey, let’s pretend we’re friends and have lunch together’ is all for?” she demanded. “You acting all nice to me just so you could ambush me with a question like that?”
“No,” he said firmly. “It’s not. I said I’m sorry twice, and I’ll keep saying it if that helps. Look, Dana, I’m not real good at talking to girls, and you scare the crap out of me.”
She blinked at him. “I scare you? Why? Because of what happened yesterday?”
His cheeks turned red and his eyes kept sliding away from hers and then flicking back. “Well … no, not really.”
“Then why? Because I’m the new girl and I’m a navy brat and I’m weird and—”
“No,” he insisted, his color deepening. He gave her a funny look. “It’s because I … well, I guess I’ve never really had a conversation with a girl as pretty as you.”
“Oh, please. That’s crap and you know it. I saw you talking with Corky Capriotti the other day.”
“Corky’s my cousin,” he said. “We grew up together. Ew.”
“Oh.”
They looked at each other.
“If it will help,” he said, “I’m willing to crawl on out of here and just see you in class.”
She said nothing.
“Or I could go out and come back in and we can pretend that the world’s most awkward conversation never happened.”
She said nothing.
“Or you could stab me with your fork,” he said. “Anything will work. Just give me a game plan here.”
She looked down and was surprised to see that she had picked up her fork again and was holding it in a clenched fist.
“Eat your mystery meat,” she mumbled, and they ate in silence for several minutes.
“Sorry,” Ethan said again.
She nodded. “Me too.”
“Why are you sorry?” he asked.
“For making you team up with a major weirdo.”
Ethan sat back and studied her. “Why would you say something like that?”
She avoided his eyes. “Pretty much because everyone thinks I’m weird. They can’t all be wrong.”
“Big whoop. So you’re not normal,” he said. “Who cares? I mean, why care what anyone else thinks? You’re smart and you don’t try to be popular, and you don’t hang with a clique.”
“You mean I’m basically a loner and an outcast.”
Ethan smiled. “I prefer to think of you as an individual.”
“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “you’re a little weird, too.”
“Takes one to know one,” he said. They ate.
“Why’d you ask me about seeing Maisie’s ghost?” asked Dana.
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“Clumsy way to start a conversation?” he suggested.
“No, seriously.”
Ethan shrugged. “I … guess I’m interested in what happened to Maisie.”
“Did you know her?”
“Only by name,” he said. “But she’s not the first—”
“To die, I know. Five, right? That’s what I heard.”
“Right. So … do you think it’s true?”
Dana frowned. “Do I think what’s true? What are you talking about?”
“The five dead teens.”
“What about them? Oh, do you mean do I think they were all taking drugs?”
“No,” said Ethan in a low, intense voice. “Do you think they were all murdered?”
CHAPTER 23
Francis Scott Key Regional High School
12:01 P.M.
“Murdered?” cried Dana, so loud two teens at another table turned to look. Ethan faked a laugh.
“Yeah,” he said loud enough for them to hear, “we murdered that lab project. Easy A, easy A.”
The other students lost interest, and Ethan bent even closer to Dana and hissed at her. “Why don’t you say it a little louder? Pretty sure my deaf grandfather back in Philadelphia didn’t hear you.”
She jabbed her fork in his direction. “Why don’t you give a person some warning before you say something like that?”
“I thought that’s what we were talking about,” he fired back.
“No, we were not talking about that,” snapped Dana. “We were talking about teens getting high and wrecking their cars. We were not having any kind of discussion in which ‘murder’ was even a topic. What’s wrong with you?”
Ethan sat back and pursed his lips for a moment, working it through. “Okay,” he said after a moment, “maybe I didn’t read you right.”
“You think?”
“Sorry. It’s just that I think there’s something very wrong happening in Craiger.”
“Yes. People our own age are dying.”
“And you’re seeing their ghosts. My sister’s friend Meghan was there, and she heard what you told Mrs. Frazer. You said you saw Maisie bleed like she was stabbed.”
Dana said nothing.