Then the track in my mind skips to another thought: They’re not children. Not really. One of them is quite likely a murderer. And I’m stuck in the house with them.

  “None of this makes any sense.”

  I rub my forehead and pace a little, moving back and forth in the parlor. Each step creaks on the floorboard. I feel cold and shiver like a fever is coming over me.

  “Why would anyone kill Nicholas?”

  “Why would anyone kill Milo?” Sydney asks.

  Someone clears their throat behind me. I’m not sure, but I think it’s one of the women.

  “What does that mean?” Sydney asks.

  “I’m not sure, but I think it means let’s not go down that road again,” the captain says.

  “What road?” Sydney asks.

  “Let’s stay focused,” I say. “I think we all know what we need to—”

  “No, really. What road?”

  Sydney’s height gives her an intimidating edge, her athletic body relaxed and prepared for battle at the same time. She cuts a warriorlike figure with all eyes on her, and my mind flashes back to a volleyball game I attended the year before. Sydney transformed into someone else on the court—she screamed at her opponents and her teammates. She preened and flexed after every winning point. She enjoyed destroying—and winning. And if what Duffy said about her formative years is true, she wasn’t afraid to use violence to solve her problems.

  “You mean you all think I killed Milo? Is that it? You all think we had a thing, so I killed him?”

  “You did have a thing with him, right?” Emily is making a statement more than asking a question.

  “How do you know that?”

  “It’s a small campus. And besides, it might be easier to count the women Milo didn’t have a thing with. I’m one, but I’m not really that into dudes.”

  “I’m definitely two,” Natalia says.

  I expect Sydney to push back at them, to continue her fierce defense against her peers. But she turns to me. Her eyes aren’t sad. They’re angry. Her brown irises look like hot coals.

  “Did you tell them about this? I thought what we talked about in the other room was private. Jesus. You’re a professor here. That’s like . . . doctor-patient confidentiality or whatever. You can’t just go and tell everybody while I’m going through the buffet line. And you totally misunderstood.”

  “Sydney, I didn’t say anything to anybody. And maybe you need to cool off. Would you like to—”

  “Cool off? I’m not going to cool off when someone attacks me. I fight.”

  “We know,” Emily says.

  “Why would I kill the guy giving out the scholarship?” Sydney asks.

  “I’d want to kill him if he creeped on me the way he did to you,” Emily says. “It was gross.”

  “So maybe you killed him,” Sydney says.

  “What did you two talk about?” the captain asks. “If it’s relevant to the case, we all need to know. We’re all stuck in here together. And one of us might be a murderer.”

  Sydney turns away from me and points at the captain. “Duffy was right. You knew all about the poison. You were all over that. Right? You wanted everybody to leave when Milo died. And you were the one who pointed out right away that Milo was the best student.”

  “We’re all aware of that,” Natalia says. “Allegedly, he’s the best student.”

  Sydney keeps going at the captain. “You wanted him gone. You wanted us all out of the way.”

  “Sydney,” the captain says, his voice strikingly calm, “you should be careful with your accusations.”

  “What else was it? Do you not like his politics? You’re a military guy. You probably hate his liberal views.”

  “Sydney, he was wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt,” the captain says. “I’m one of the few Black men at a predominantly white college, and I’m going to murder the guy in a BLM shirt? Let’s be real, okay?”

  “You hated the way he talked about the protestors when he said it was free speech. When you disagreed about the brick. You were, like, pissed. I saw it. It probably felt good to get rid of him.”

  “Sydney,” I say, “I know you’re upset. I know you cared about Milo a great deal. After you went to visit his body and talk to him . . .”

  “Visit and talk to him?” Emily asks. “What does that mean? He’s dead.” She shivers. “Ugh, this is getting really bizarre.”

  “You said something to Milo?” Duffy asks. “In the music room?”

  Sydney’s face flushes the color of blood. She’s back to staring at me, her eyes locked on mine like she’s hoping she can get me to catch on fire with the intensity of her glare. “Are there no goddamn secrets on this campus? It’s like living in a phone booth.”

  “What did you say to Milo?” Natalia asks. “We all just want to know what’s going on and how these two people ended up dead. We’re all in danger, and someone in here is a murderer, so if you know something that could help us, I think you need to share it.”

  Sydney’s fierce glare hits everyone. “No. I’m not. Some things are going to be private. I’m keeping my mouth shut.”

  “It’s better to just get all this out, Sydney,” the captain says. “I think if you know something, you should say it. You’ve accused me, but I have nothing to hide. Are you hiding something?”

  “Maybe she’s hiding something.” Sydney spins and points at Natalia. “You hated Milo. Fine, you weren’t a girl he slept with. Lucky you. At least I’ve lived a life. But you sure as hell hated the fact that he beat you in class. You’re hung up on him being a cheater, but isn’t that just what people say when they lose and want to discredit their opponent?”

  “Wow, words of profound wisdom from the volleyball court. I’ll tell you something—Milo was a cheater. All the time. In class and out, as I’m sure you know.”

  “That’s bullshit, Natalia.”

  “Maybe so, Sydney. Do you want to prove your point by punching me in the nose?”

  Sydney’s mouth drops open like a trapdoor falling. “Are you for real? You’re going to throw in my face that I punched a bully?”

  “And we all know you tried to murder one of your high school teachers and went to jail,” Emily says.

  “She what?” the captain says.

  Sydney’s face turns the color of a setting sun. “Oh, that’s so low. That’s so fucking wrong to say.” She moves toward Emily.

  “We’re not going to do this,” I say, stepping between them. “We’re not going to lose our minds.” My hands shake, and I hope they don’t notice. “Okay? We don’t need to be saying things we’re going to regret. There’s one thing that has to stay true here. We’re all in this together. And we need to think about what we want to do next—and I say we focus on getting the hell out of here.”

  38

  I WANT TO LEAVE the room.

  The tension is thick, a fog blinding each of us. We’re irrational, desperate, growing capable of doing anything.

  Nicholas’s head is tilted back slightly, the sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. A trickle of foam runs down his pale cheek. His long fingers—dirty nails and all—clutch at nothing.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say. “Back to the dining room.”

  “Are we going to leave him like this?” Emily asks. “He’s kind of a jerk and everything, but he is a human being.”

  “Maybe it’s more important than ever not to disturb the crime scene,” Natalia says. “I’ve watched Law and Order too. It’s a nice break from studying.”

  “I think you’re right,” Emily says. “We agreed to move Milo, but this is really getting crazy.”

  But even if we leave the room, I can’t bear the thought of those sightless eyes staring at the ceiling. We put Milo on a couch and covered him up. Somehow it felt more dignified, more respectful. To just leave Nicholas on the floor . . .

  I crouch down next to him, reach out with my fingers, and press on his eyelids. They close, and that helps a little.

  “Here, sir.”

  The captain takes his suit coat off and drapes it over the upper half of Nicholas’s body, covering him from the top of the head to the waist. We can’t see the gray skin, the smashed nose. The foam trickling from the mouth.

  “I think that’s better,” he says.

  “It is. Much. Even though I can’t forget what’s underneath.”

  “As I get older,” the captain says, “I guess I just feel like that’s all we do. Cover up our fear of death.”

  “I want everyone in the dining room,” I say. “We’ll make an exit strategy there. But nobody eat or drink anything else, okay? No more food. No snacks. No tea or Pappy. Okay? There’s buttermilk pie in the kitchen, but we’re just going to have to forget it. In fact . . .”

  While the students file into the dining room, I walk to the back of the house to the kitchen. The buffet remains, and plenty of food is left. I open the refrigerator that sits in an alcove in the kitchen. It’s almost empty except for the two pies. I take them out, pull the Saran Wrap off the top, and sniff.

  Nothing. Except they both smell so good they make my mouth water. I know the pies aren’t baked on campus. For purposes of the process, the campus dining services use a bakery in town—one that’s been in existence almost as long as the college. And they claim to use the same recipe Major Hyde’s mother, Clydette Hyde, used back in the nineteenth century. It sounds like bullshit, to be honest. But a lot of things are starting to sound like bullshit to my ears.

  I throw both pies in the trash can. Then I lean close to each of the serving dishes on the counter. I smell the food. The tangy sauce for the rabbit. The freshness of the beans. The buttery grits. Nothing odd or out of place. The only discordant note in the bouquet comes from the Sterno flames underneath, the ones keeping the food hot.

  Could there have been an accidental poisoning? Something from the Sterno?

  Did some of the toxic lighter fluid make its way into the food?

  But how could that affect only two people and not all of us?

  Especially since Milo and Nicholas are the two people who didn’t partake of the buffet. The rest of us did. So if they were poisoned—and we don’t know that for sure—the poison came from something besides this food.

  I bend down and blow out the Sterno flames. The burned wicks smell like birthday candles, which reminds me that Rebecca, my oldest, turned sixteen two weeks earlier. Sixteen? How is it even possible? She’s going to start to drive, so insurance will cost more. And our worries will increase. Robyn turns fourteen this summer, and she’ll be driving soon as well. Do we buy another car for them to share? Does Rachel transition from part-time to full-time at work? And that’s not getting into Rita’s braces.

  All of these decisions—and more—wait for me outside of this house.

  I walk over to the wooden back door—one that leads to a small patio and an old firepit that rarely gets used and then the woods. I tug on the knob.

  Locked.

  Even though it’s locked—and I know it’s locked—I tug and tug like a manic idiot. But I know the door won’t open.

  It’s a two-way lock, one that requires a key to open from either side. A dead bolt.

  There’s no key in sight.

  I leave the kitchen and walk toward the front of the house. I know I’m on a hopeless mission—it all feels hopeless—but I decide to try. Just to set my own mind at ease. Just to . . . just to try to find a fast solution.

  As I pass the dining room, someone steps into the hallway.

  “Sir? If I may—”

  “Just wait, Captain.”

  “Do you need help checking the perimeter?”

  “Just stay with the group. I’ll be right back.”

  I go to the front door, the one I heard Chief lock after he stepped outside. It’s the same as the back door. Dead bolt. Two-sided. I tug to no avail.

  I remember what Chief told me that morning. He made sure all the doors and windows were locked after he let the dining staff in.

  And he locked the front door when he left.

  I go back to the dining room, where the students are gathered around the table.

  Sydney and Duffy sit on one side, Natalia and Emily on the other.

  The captain stands at the head, holding Nicholas’s magic book of bylaws. But he’s not reading it.

  They look up when I enter. Faces ashen, eyes haunted. Like they’ve emerged from the aftermath of a bombing or shooting. Terrified. Fear hangs over the room like a toxic cloud, a smothering presence.

  “Maybe I’m a fool for trying, but I wanted to make sure the doors were really locked. But they are. So it’s time for us to find another way to get out.”

  39

  “THESE WINDOWS . . .” I’M THINKING out loud. “So many things are falling apart in this house. . . . How secure can the locks on the windows be?”

  “What are you saying?” Duffy asks.

  Hope quickly rises in my chest. I see a path forward, a way to keep everyone safe.

  “My house here in Bluefield is about fifty years old. It still has the original windows, which isn’t much fun when it gets cold in the winter. But the windows aren’t that secure. The locks are flimsy or don’t work at all. They’re pretty easy to get through. So I’m wondering if the locks are the same here.”

  “About that, sir,” the captain says. “The locks. And getting out of here.”

  “What about it?” I ask.

  “I understand this is a distressing situation,” he says. “That’s why I want to make sure we’re intentional about what we do.”

  “ ‘Intentional’?”

  I look around, wondering if anyone else in the group will say anything. No one speaks up. Sydney sits with her arms folded across her chest, her face still flushed. Duffy taps his finger against the chair arm. On the other side, Emily starts to clean her glasses with a ragged-looking tissue. She squints as she does so. And Natalia shifts in her chair like she’s uncomfortable.

  “Two people are dead, Captain,” I say. “Two. And we don’t know why. It’s possible—and I’m not accusing anyone—but it’s possible, maybe even likely, that someone in this room is a killer. I think we need to leave the house and let the authorities take control of the situation. It’s beyond what any of us can handle.”

  “Okay, sir, I hear you. And I respect your authority and position, and I don’t mean to question it. And even though I don’t show it all the time, I’m upset by this loss of life. I am. But I do want to know something before we leave here.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We all heard what Mr. Hyde said several times during the day. He kept reminding us that if anybody left, they were disqualified. And if we all left and the scholarship wasn’t given today, then the money went away forever. So if we decide to leave now, all of us, what happens to the scholarship? I can only speak for myself, but I still want to have a chance to win it. This scholarship is the ticket to a better life for me and my family.”

  “Are you all wondering about this?” I ask.

  “Not me,” Sydney says. “I want to go. This is, like, crazy now. And I’m tired of the shit people are talking.”

  “Duffy?” I ask.

  “I’ve got to be honest, boss. I’m a little scared. I mean, shit. Do we still get the five-thousand-dollar fellowship if we leave now? I know we all get five just for getting selected to come here today. To be honest, I never expected to win, so that five would really help me.”

  I turn to the left. “Natalia? Emily?”

  “I really need the scholarship,” Natalia says. “Desperately. The whole thing. I’m under a lot of pressure to graduate and get into medical school. I just don’t know. . . .”

  “I’m staying to the end,” Emily says. “But the captain brought up a good point while you were out of the room.”

  “What’s that?” I ask, looking over at the captain, who is still holding the bylaws.

  The captain taps the book with his index finger. He seems like a guy who should always be wearing a suit, not just the tie and a nice shirt.

  “The question I have is, what happens to the money now? I did a little reconnaissance when I was selected for this opportunity. I learned in the military that you always want to know your enemy well. Sun Tzu.”

  “Your enemy?” Sydney asks. “Are we your enemies? And you think I killed somebody.”

  “Yeah, Captain,” Duffy says. “I don’t like the way you’re talking about us.”

  “Fair enough. ‘Opponent’ might be a better word,” the captain says. “Okay? But I looked into Mr. Hyde and his company as well. There’s a lot of information out there. But the key thing that applies to this situation right now is that Nicholas Hyde is the sole surviving heir to the Hyde family fortune. He’s it. And I mean he’s really it. Over the years, the Hyde family hasn’t been that fruitful or good at multiplying. For the last few generations, each family has had only one child. So there aren’t any cousins or anything. Distant relations, sure. But pretty much everything belongs to Nicholas Hyde. It all rests on him.”

  “It’s like a Dickens novel,” Emily says.

  “Or Downton Abbey,” Duffy says.

  “What’s your point, Captain?” I ask. “And how does it relate to the danger we’re in?”

  “My point, sir, is that we have to figure out what becomes of the money if Nicholas Hyde is dead. Is there even a scholarship to compete for if he’s deceased?”

  I scratch my head. I hate to say it, but I’ve been thinking the same thing. It’s terrible to think this way when two people are dead. And instead of thinking only about them, I’m thinking about how their deaths—specifically Nicholas’s death—affect my job. If he is the only heir to the Hyde fortune, and he’s dead, what happens to it all? What happens to the college?