“Including this house,” she says. “And he was here before you were, right?”

  “What are you saying?” Natalia asks.

  “We’re talking about the caterers messing with the food and our fellow students poisoning us. But Chief has access to everything. Anytime he wants.”

  “Sydney,” I say, “I’ve known Chief a long time.”

  “He is a cop,” Duffy says. “Some cops go rogue. Dude has a lot of power and access on this campus. Maybe he has a beef with Mr. Hyde. He didn’t seem too fond of Milo.”

  “Or maybe he just hates his job,” Natalia says. “Instead of being one of those people who goes in and shoots the place up, he just poisoned us.”

  Just that morning, Chief told me: A lot of people aren’t happy about the way things are going.

  “No,” I say. “No. That cellar is a minefield of garbage. I think we’ll find a better way than that. And accusing or suspecting Chief doesn’t help. Come on.”

  45

  AS WE MOVE TOWARD the front of the house, we stop at the dining room door so I can check on Emily.

  She sits at the table, sipping from the glass of water. The captain stands next to her.

  “Are you feeling better?” I ask.

  “She’s holding steady,” the captain says.

  “Emily?”

  “I’m okay. I—I think I’m okay. I haven’t puked or anything. Not yet.”

  “We’re going to check the second floor,” I say.

  The four of us trudge up the stairs. There are four bedrooms, so it’s easy enough for each of us to take one and check it.

  I enter the room where I was with Nicholas less than an hour earlier. I wish I could go back and change whatever occurred in the intervening time. I replay our conversation—the talk about fathers and legacies. And his promise to fund the 100 More Initiative. What becomes of that now? What becomes of any of it?

  Again I push the thought away. I’m now responsible for five students whose lives are in danger. I can only think about that.

  I go to the windows and check. Before I lean down, a wave of hope crests in my heart. Who on earth would nail shut windows on the second floor? And if they’re not nailed shut, we can easily open the ones that face the police, start waving or jumping up and down or hang a bedsheet out the window and be seen. Salvation is that close.

  Except the windows in Leander’s room are nailed shut as well. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make sure no one could get out of this house if they didn’t want them to.

  I return to the hallway and meet my three associates.

  “All nailed shut?” I ask.

  They nod in unison.

  “Every damn one,” Sydney says. “But we can see the cops from the ones that face the front. All we have to do is wave, and Chief will see us.”

  “I don’t think waving will do it,” Duffy says. “Maybe a sign. I don’t know. We’re pretty far. And the cops only seem to get close when somebody makes a break for it.”

  “The truth is,” I say, “the college takes this whole thing pretty seriously. And they give the Hyde family free rein to do as they please. They don’t want anyone disturbing the process. That means the cops too. Chief always stays far away after he locks the doors.”

  “Why does he stay so far away?” Sydney asks. “Is he happy to let us—”

  “Sydney, not that.”

  “What about the basement?” Duffy asks. “You said there’s a door, but more important—” Duffy makes shooing gestures at us. He wants us to go into Leander’s bedroom. “Can we?”

  “Duffy—”

  “Come on, come on,” he says.

  Pretty quickly, all four of us are moving into the room, and once we’re in, Duffy closes the door, locks it, and turns to face us.

  46

  DUFFY SPEAKS IN A lower voice than normal.

  “I didn’t really come up here because I thought we’d discover an unlocked window,” he says. “I figured once one was nailed shut, they all would be. I came up here because I wanted to talk about something.”

  The three of us stand across from him, waiting. Sydney shifts one step to her left, moving farther away from Duffy.

  “I don’t really care that much about the exam,” he says. “Like I said, I didn’t expect to win. Now, to be honest, I’m just worried about not dying.”

  “Do any of you feel sick?” I ask. “Stomach pain? Nausea? Anything?”

  Sydney and Natalia shake their heads.

  “See, that’s just it, boss,” Duffy says. “None of us are sick.”

  “Not yet,” Natalia says. “Just wait.”

  “So why is Emily sick?” Duffy asks.

  “Because it’s hitting her first, that’s why,” Sydney says. “Duffy, you and I went through the line last, so Emily and the captain and Natalia ate before us. This is getting really insane. I feel more trapped. Mr. Gaines, let’s get out of here. They can pump our stomachs or whatever. Okay? Just let’s get out of here.”

  Sydney moves for the door, but Duffy steps into her way. “Wait a minute—”

  “Duffy—”

  “Let her go,” Natalia says.

  “What if Emily’s not sick?” he asks.

  “You mean what if she’s not poisoned?” Natalia asks.

  “I mean she’s faking it,” Duffy says.

  “Duffy,” I say, “I don’t feel comfortable getting into accusations like this. We just need to work together and—”

  “No, seriously, just hear me out for a second. The captain knew all about the poison, like I said. He jumped right on it. As soon as Milo died, he said it was poison. He had training in it. And Emily clearly hates the Hyde family and all they stand for. That’s why that protestor said her name when they came running to the house.”

  “We don’t know that they said her name,” I say.

  “They did,” Natalia says. “It was clear as day.”

  “I agree with Natalia about that,” Sydney says.

  I decline to point out that Natalia and Sydney were ready to come to blows in the wake of Nicholas’s death. Now they seem to be joining Duffy in an accusation against the captain and Emily. Strange bedfellows.

  “Why would the captain want to kill Milo or Nicholas?” I ask.

  “The captain researched everything,” Sydney says. “He would have known Milo was the best student. And you have to admit, the captain is pretty desperate to win.”

  “Okay,” I say, “you’ve made a case for why each one of them would possibly want to kill one of the two victims downstairs. But you haven’t come close to convincing me that one of them killed both. Hell, Natalia brought up the war-criminal thing against Major Hyde.”

  Natalia appears taken aback for a moment, like she can’t formulate an answer to my very logical point. Then she says, “I only brought up the war-criminal thing because I was curious. Genuinely curious. I was a history major when I started school here. I wish I still was, but my parents told me I needed to do something more practical if I was going to stay at Hyde, so I switched to biology. But the history of this region interests me, so I asked about the war.”

  “And Milo,” Sydney says. Her voice cracks a little when she says his name. “You hate him, Natalia. And you were talking to Mr. Hyde before the exam. You seemed kind of pissed. What was that all about?”

  Natalia tucks her chin to her chest and takes a step back. “Well . . . nothing. We were just— It was nothing. I just explained something to him. Clarified something from earlier.”

  “I think they’re working together,” Duffy says. “Like Sydney pointed out, the captain said he did reconnaissance on everyone before he came here today. He could have gotten in touch with Emily and worked something out. A plan. They each get rid of someone they want to get rid of.”

  “But if they got caught . . .” I say. “Is it worth it?”

  “For a hundred thousand dollars in loan forgiveness and tuition and a job?” Sydney asks. “That could be worth it.”

  “If you kill Mr. Hyde, you might not get anything,” I say.

  “Emily doesn’t care about all that,” Duffy says. “You heard her say she doesn’t want the job. So she pretends to be sick to make us think she’s not guilty. Who knows what she and the captain are down there planning right now?”

  I step forward, trying to stop Duffy from going any further. “Okay, I don’t like the way this is going. We need to get back downstairs, which is what we said we were going to do, and we need to regroup. And everything needs to be about the safety of all of us. The police will figure out what happened in here today once we’re out.”

  “But listen—”

  “No, I won’t.” I start for the door.

  Duffy remains in front of it. I don’t doubt his willingness to block me. “Just hear me out. They’re killers, okay? Do you know the danger we’re in here? That’s why I came upstairs.”

  “Duffy, please.”

  “Can we hear what I have to say, Mr. Gaines?” Duffy asks. “We’re in deep shit from those two.”

  Someone pounds against the closed bedroom door.

  And I mean pounds. Three thudding knocks that make everybody jump—including me.

  Duffy moves away from the door and gets behind me, making me the person closest to whoever is on the other side. And I obviously know who it is.

  He knocks again three more times.

  “Sir?”

  “Come in,” I say.

  The knob rattles, but the door doesn’t open.

  “I locked it,” Duffy says. “I knew someone would try to get in.”

  “Sir? What’s going on in there?”

  “Just a minute.” I go over and turn the lock. Before I can open the door, it swings inward, pushed by the captain. It brushes past my face, just missing me, and reminds me of the brick that almost smacked me earlier in the morning.

  The captain stands there, one hand on his hip, the other holding the book, his body filling the doorway like a superhero. And Emily stands behind him, her eyebrows pushed together behind her glasses in confusion and concern. She rests one hand on her stomach, but some color has returned to her face. She’s up and looking better.

  The captain runs his eyes over each of us. “I don’t understand why you all are up here with the door locked. Did you find out if any of the windows open?”

  “They’re all nailed shut, Captain,” I say.

  “Then why are you all in here?” Emily asks. “Locked in?”

  “We were just talking,” Sydney says.

  “Oh, just talking?”

  “We were trying to figure a way out of the house,” I say. “All the windows are nailed shut on both floors. And both doors are locked from the outside. So that’s where we stand.”

  “I could have told you that before you came up here,” the captain says. “I think you knew it too, sir. Which doesn’t answer the question of why the four of you were inside this room upstairs with the door locked. Talking about something that apparently you didn’t want Emily and me to know about.”

  “That’s not it, Captain,” I say. “The two of you said you wanted to finish the exam. No matter what. And we were trying to figure out how to get out of the house. That’s all.”

  The captain is nodding, a smile growing across his face. “Well, we’ve been standing out here longer than you realized. And what we heard is a discussion about how all of you are in deep shit because of the two of us. Does that ring any bells?”

  47

  THE ROOM SHRINKS.

  Small and close.

  And of course, our way out of it is blocked. The captain cuts an imposing figure.

  “You were spying on us?” Natalia says, her voice rising.

  “No,” Emily says. “We came up to see what was taking so long. You were trying to find a window that opened so someone could leave. It shouldn’t take as long as it did, since we’re all in trouble here. When you didn’t come back down, we decided to come up and see what was happening.”

  “These doors don’t suppress much sound,” the captain says. He raps the knuckles of his free hand against the wood.

  “Are you feeling better, Emily?” I ask, Duffy’s theory stuck in my brain.

  “I feel a little better,” she says. “Yes.”

  “You look better,” Natalia says. “So . . . maybe you weren’t poisoned?”

  “Sir, there’s something I think we need to make clear right now. I’ve been going through these bylaws while you all were up here. They’re extensive, and they cover pretty much everything that could possibly happen.”

  “Murder?” Duffy asks. “Do they cover murder?”

  “Well, not in so many words. But there is some interesting information in here.” The captain opens the book, the spine resting in the palm of his left hand. “The Hyde family was prepared for a lot of things. I admire them for that. Maybe being forged by the Civil War made them aware of how quickly things could go wrong. But I noticed something earlier, sir. When Mr. Hyde asked you to sit in on the interviews, you acted surprised. Like you’d never heard of such a thing.”

  “I never did it in the previous years,” I say. “Mr. Hyde’s father was in charge then, and he really ran the show efficiently. And the person in this job before me never did it either.”

  “That may be so,” the captain says. “But there is a provision in here that relates. At some point, they must have imagined today’s events playing out in some way. Not necessarily murder, but the presiding member of the Hyde family becoming incapacitated. Right?”

  I can tell where he’s going. “They had to have some kind of backup plan.”

  “Exactly. In fact, it’s interesting. It looks like that provision of the bylaws was added in 1921. Which is right after a pandemic.”

  “The Spanish flu,” Duffy says.

  “Not Spanish flu,” Natalia says. “Please.”

  “Well, what was it, then?”

  “Just flu,” she says. “Influenza.”

  “Anyway,” the captain says, “look here. They added a provision that says that if the presiding member of the Hyde family becomes incapacitated for any reason, then the college’s liaison has the full force and authority that would have been invested in the member of the family. That means, sir, that you can decide who wins the scholarship. You can do the interviews and read the exams and decide.”

  The captain’s words make me feel a lot better. He and Emily still block the doorway, which seems strange, and the air in the room gets stuffier, like we’re in a steam room.

  “Okay, then,” I say. “That helps a lot, Captain. I’m glad you dug into all that. If that’s the case and I have the full authority of the presiding member of the Hyde family, I’m going to use that authority. I say we go, and later on we can sort out what to do about the scholarship. And like I said, I’ll do everything in my power to make sure one of the five of you gets it.”

  Sydney’s face brightens. She raises her hand like we’re in class. “Wait a minute. I just thought of something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “What if we just did this?” she says. “It seems like the fairest solution. What if we leave and then we split the scholarship five ways? Each of us gets twenty percent of our senior tuition. Each of us gets twenty thousand dollars of loan forgiveness. And then the job . . . Well, someone could take it. It doesn’t have to be me. I don’t care.”

  Duffy snaps his fingers. “That’s a great idea. I could go along with that. Then everybody gets something.”

  No one else responds. The captain is staring at the book of bylaws. Emily stands behind him, taking an interest in a faded painting on the wall that appears to show a fox hunt.

  Duffy turns. “Natalia, what about you? Would you split it five ways?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I was kind of hoping to get the whole thing. That’s what we showed up to do. And I think I have a good shot at it.”

  “I agree,” Emily says from the hallway, looking away from the fox hunt. “One person should win. I don’t want to share. I earned my way in here, and I want to win.”

  “Earned your way in?” Sydney asks. “How did you do that? I thought it was, like, based on need.”

  “It is based on need,” I say. “They take students who have a certain amount of need and academic achievement, and then, as far as I know, they randomly select you. So it could have been six other students in here competing just as easily as it was the six of you.”

  “So it’s random,” Sydney says. “Just like Hyde down there was born rich and we weren’t. So why not undermine that? Say the hell with it. Split the money among all of us and screw the Hydes.”

  “We don’t know if that can happen,” I say. “No one can promise that.”

  “And I understand what you’re saying, Sydney,” the captain says. “I really do. I probably would have thought the same thing when I was twenty-one. I was pretty crazy back then before I went into the army. Partying. Drinking. I didn’t own a damn thing. But I wised up. Got straightened out. And now . . . I have a family. And a lot to live for. That’s why I need all that prize money if I can get it.”

  “So just because you’ve struggled and been through it, you think the rest of us have to suffer too?” Sydney asks.

  “I’m not close to being through the struggle. We never are.”

  I want to head off the conversation and steer it back in the direction it needs to go. “We’re going to leave. That’s it.”

  “Not so fast, sir.” The captain has his index finger in the air. “I found something else in the bylaws that relates directly to your role in all of this. And it casts everything in a new light.”

  48

  THE CAPTAIN HAS MANAGED to seize everyone’s attention. He’s ready to make a pronouncement like Moses coming down from the mount.