“We have to cooperate with the family, Troy. You know that. If they want to pick certain students . . . If they want us to tell them what we know about their personal lives, we do. Or people find out. Professors. Advisers. It’s a lucrative scholarship. The family needs to know that the student values it.”

  “Damn, Grace. It’s like they’re lab rats.”

  A coughing fit seizes me. I bend over, place my hands on my knees until it passes. Chief pats me on the back, repeats his offer to take me to the hospital.

  I attempt to speak and can’t. The words won’t come without coughs. Chief walks off to one of the police cars, comes back with a fresh bottle of water. “Here.”

  I guzzle it. It cools like rain in the desert.

  When I can speak again, I say, “Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  “Listen,” I say, straightening up. “These deaths. They happened hours apart. First Milo and then Nicholas.”

  “What’s your point?” Grace asks.

  “Why did it happen that way? If you’re Emily and you want to kill Nicholas, why do it first thing in the morning or in the middle of the day and then stay until now and burn the house down? Something doesn’t add up—”

  Chief’s phone starts to wail on his hip.

  Not ringing. An alarm. He uses his thumb to silence it and smiles wryly. “Four o’clock. The time I’d be opening Hyde House and letting you all out in a normal year.” He sighs, the sound carrying the weight of all the day’s losses.

  “It’s a tragedy any way we cut it,” Grace says.

  A police car slowly rolls up, stopping fifty feet away from us. An officer climbs out and comes toward the chief, her thumbs hooked in her belt. “Chief?”

  “What is it?”

  “I found that student,” she says, jerking her thumb toward the car. “The one who was unaccounted for.”

  “Natalia?” I say.

  “That’s her. She was on one of the footpaths, just wandering around. She said she was coming back here. I’m not sure.”

  “Did she say anything?” Chief asks.

  “Is she hurt?” Grace asks.

  “She’s okay. She says she wants to talk to Vice President Gaines. And only Vice President Gaines.”

  Chief looks over. “What do you know about this, Troy? Do you have reason to suspect her of something?”

  “No—I mean . . .” Suspect her? The pills? The xenophobic note about her? The running away? Her hatred of Milo? “Can I talk to her?”

  Chief nods, and the cop goes to the car to get Natalia. “Do you think Natalia and Emily were working together? Maybe Natalia is with these protestors too?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s take this slow, Chief,” Grace says. “The kid’s scared.”

  “Troy, you said things didn’t quite add up,” he says. “The gap between the deaths. Could Natalia have killed someone as well?”

  Natalia stares at Hyde House, her mouth slightly open. The flames reflect off her dark eyes. “What happened?”

  “Emily—”

  Chief cuts me off. “What do you know, Natalia? Why did you run? Are you and Emily friends?”

  Natalia looks at me, then at Chief. “I ran because I was scared. Because I’m undocumented, and I thought I was going to be reported. To the police.”

  “We don’t care about that, Natalia,” Grace says.

  She goes on. “But I really was coming back because . . . well, I wasn’t sure where to go. And I was worried about everyone getting out.”

  “Did you do something?” Chief asks. “We heard you had pills crushed into a powder. What were those for?”

  She swallows hard. “I told them why.”

  “Did you hurt Milo Reed? Or Nicholas Hyde? It’s better if you just tell us the truth now. Get it all out. We can try to help you, but only if you tell the truth as soon as possible.”

  “Natalia,” I say, “what did you want to tell me?”

  She looks at the house again. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t. I ran because I was scared.”

  “But the pills,” Chief says. “Did you do something with them?”

  She repeats herself. “I didn’t do anything. I don’t know why anybody died.”

  Grace’s phone buzzes. She makes a face and reaches into her pocket. The chief looks down at his phone.

  “Shit,” Grace says. “We’re all getting alerts. The news is spreading. I need to get in touch with the board. We need to put out a statement of some kind. No, no, not that. I need to call Milo’s parents. I have to do that first. Then Mr. Hyde’s next of kin if he has one. I think there are some cousins somewhere. . . .”

  “President Chan?” Chief raises his phone.

  “Chief, will you help me coordinate with the authorities from town? I don’t want to step on any toes about how they handle things, but we have to tell Milo’s family about—”

  “Grace? Troy?” Chief says. “You both need to see this.”

  74

  I CHECK MY OWN phone.

  Grace says the alert comes from Twitter. It takes me a moment to understand, but months ago, I set the alert to notify me whenever Nicholas Hyde tweeted. It made sense at the time as a way to keep abreast of what he—and the Hyde family—was thinking and doing.

  The result was that Nicholas tweeted so much—and such distasteful—content that I turned the notification off.

  But now, today, four hours after he died on the floor of the parlor in Hyde House, Nicholas is still tweeting. Has someone hacked his account? Is it an assistant? An employee?

  “Sweet Jesus,” Chief says.

  I start to read, squinting to make out the text on my phone.

  It’s a thread.

  By the time you read this, I will be dead. And the process, carried out by my family for one hundred fifty-two years, will be complete. Truly complete.

  As the result of a series of bad investments I have made since gaining control of my family’s fortune, we are now bankrupt. A company teetering on the brink of financial ruin when I took the reins has now completely fallen. And it can’t get up. I’m just glad my dad and especially my mom aren’t here to see it.

  I decided to end my life where my family’s life—and fortune—began. Hyde House. And just to save the coroner a little time—it’s an extract of an Aconitum plant. Ingested during teatime. I decided to get it out of the way at the beginning of the process today.

  “What’s an Aconitum plant?” Grace asks.

  “Monkshood,” Chief says. “Wolfsbane. It grows around here. It’s highly lethal. People are using it for suicide more and more.”

  “Could you easily dilute it in tea?” I ask.

  “Yup.”

  I don’t know if the college will go on with the process after my death or not. I hope you don’t. It’s not worth it with no money for the awards.

  I apologize to my few remaining family members, my few friends, the employees of the Hyde Corporation, the board of Hyde College, and anyone else I’ve hurt or offended. I also apologize to my substance abuse counselors and sponsors. This is my fault, not yours.

  My family had a glorious run that stretched from the late nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. But that torch is now extinguished. Farewell!

  The events of the day run through my mind again. This time through the lens of Nicholas’s tweetstorm . . .

  Nicholas and Milo standing next to each other and talking about climbing during teatime. Demonstrating grips and techniques. Their cups placed down on the table next to each other’s . . .

  Nicholas referring to himself as the big bad wolf . . .

  Nicholas so distraught over Milo’s death . . .

  Nicholas sitting alone upstairs . . .

  Nicholas distraught over his mother’s death . . .

  Nicholas promising me the moon and the stars for the 100 More Initiative when he knew there was no money for it . . .

  Nicholas insisting we all stay, thereby delivering a giant middle finger to his family’s signature event . . .

  Nicholas going upstairs after the toast, glass of bourbon still in his hand, claiming to look for the briefcase, which was sitting in the dining room . . .

  Is that where he drank the poison? By himself upstairs, away from everyone else so another accident wouldn’t happen?

  And collapsed in the parlor right after that . . .

  A cop runs over. “Chief, they just pulled down Major Hyde and Lancer. They’re trying to drag them out into the highway and block traffic.”

  “Aw, hell. Call the state police for more backup.”

  We all turn and watch Hyde House burn.

  “What are we going to do, Troy?” Grace asks. “If the Hyde family has no money, then the school has no money either.”

  “I was going to tell you that I wanted to give up my position and go back to teaching.”

  “We might all be looking for new positions.”

  Sydney comes over and stands next to Natalia. Sydney asks, “Did you all see these tweets?”

  “We did,” I say.

  “Are they true?” Natalia asks.

  “We believe so.”

  “Wow.”

  We stand, watching the flames lift toward the sky.

  “So is there, like, no scholarship either?” Sydney asks. “No job or loan forgiveness?”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think there is. We can try to figure something out, but . . . it’s not looking very promising. I’m sorry. I know you both went through a lot today.”

  The silence draws out, fills with the crackling of the flames, the sound of timber snapping and glass shattering.

  “I just wanted to say something, Mr. Gaines.”

  “What’s that, Natalia?” I ask.

  “I just wanted to thank you for . . . you know, for everything you did for me. Really, for everyone inside the house. You did your level best to take care of us and make sure everything went okay. And you tried to give us all a fair shot.”

  Is it corny to say that her words reach me deep down inside? That my eyes mist—and not because of the smoke and the burning?

  “Thank you, Natalia. I appreciate that.”

  “Same goes for me,” Sydney says. “I’m glad you were there for us. And you were so understanding and stuff.”

  “I’m sorry the day went so poorly.”

  “I’m sorry too,” Sydney says. She looks at me, her mouth pressed into a tight line.

  “Did you want something else?” I ask.

  She shifts her weight a little, then says, “My mom says she’s probably going to sue the college because of everything we went through today. Her boyfriend is going to go to the media.”

  “Do what you have to do,” Grace says.

  “Cool,” Sydney says.

  “What happened to that book I handed you, Chief?”

  “Oh.” He looks around, turning his body one way and then the other. “I set it down on the edge of the driveway over there.”

  I walk over and pick it up. Its cover feels warm to the touch from the sun, the black leather having absorbed the heat.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Grace asks.

  “Is it true there’s only one copy?” I ask.

  “That’s right.”

  “So . . . I mean, if this were to happen to . . .” I walk toward the fire.

  “Troy, you shouldn’t. Let’s think about this. And all its ramifications.”

  I look back, the heat brushing my face. “Is there enough money somewhere to at least give these five—or, I guess, four—students their fellowships? Five thousand each?”

  Sydney and Natalia look from me to President Chan. She meets the students’ eyes and then turns to me. “I think we can do that.”

  “Great.” I move closer to the fire, holding the book out. The heat washes over me in waves. “We could write our own rules for the future, right? I mean, if this book were to go away. And maybe the Hyde family with it.”

  “There might not be a Hyde College if that happened, Troy. At least not the one we know now.”

  “Maybe there shouldn’t be. Or maybe if it can start over and become something else, it should. Think of the college changing in that way as . . . collateral damage. A consequence of doing the right thing and getting the Hyde Corporation and family out of our lives.”

  “Troy, stop.”

  I get as close as I can, so close I think my skin might blister. I heave the bylaws into the fire. The black book disappears into the hellish orange wall, never to be seen again.

  I back up, join the others. We watch a few minutes longer. The roof of Hyde House collapses. Within fifteen minutes, the entire structure is burned to the ground.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks once again to all the talented folks at Berkley. I want to give special thanks to Loren Jaggers, Jin Yu, and Bridget O’Toole, who have worked tirelessly and creatively for so many years on behalf of my books. And thanks to Eileen Carey for the amazing cover design.

  Thanks to Kara Thurmond for her web prowess. Thanks to David Hale Smith for his wisdom. Thanks to Tracy Bernstein for guiding the book to the finish line. And big thanks to Ann-Marie Nieves and everyone at Get Red PR for their endless efforts.

  Massive thanks to Laney Katz Becker for years of loyal friendship, wise counsel, and psychological support.

  Big, big thanks to my editor, the wonderful Danielle Perez, for her attention, thoughtfulness, and patience.

  Special thanks as always to my friends, family, readers, and fellow writers.

  And thanks to Molly McCaffrey for everything.

  READERS GUIDE

  THE FINALISTS

  DAVID BELL

  QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

  At the beginning of the book, Troy speaks to the president of the college on the phone. Why is it so important for this day to go off without a hitch?

  While everyone waits outside Hyde House, we are introduced to the students who will participate in the exam. Does the group seem like a typical cross section of today’s college students?

  What is your first impression of Nicholas Hyde when he shows up late? Do you understand his motivations throughout the novel?

  When the day begins, the six students have to agree to be locked in Hyde House all day. Why do you think they are willing to go to such great lengths to win the scholarship? Have you ever done anything out of character in order to achieve a goal?

  When someone dies in the house, there is a debate about whether to stay and finish the exam. Do you understand why some people wanted to stay to finish?

  What did you think about Nicholas’s background? Did you sympathize with him, given his history?

  At various points in the book, suspicion falls upon each of the students. Did you suspect any of the students more than you suspected others?

  What was your reaction when you learned how the students were chosen?

  Some of the students feel hostile toward the Hyde family due to their wealth and privilege. Does someone’s wealth affect how you feel about him or her?

  Two characters behave heroically at the end. Did the behavior of either of those characters surprise you?

  What do you think of Troy’s character arc in the novel? Why and how has he changed?

  Photo by Glen Rose Photography

  DAVID BELL is a USA Today bestselling, award-winning author whose work has been translated into multiple foreign languages. He’s currently a professor of English at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky. He received an MA in creative writing from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and a PhD in American literature and creative writing from the University of Cincinnati. His previous novels include Kill All Your Darlings, The Request, Layover, Somebody’s Daughter, and Cemetery Girl.

  CONNECT ONLINE

  DavidBellNovels.com

  DavidBellNovels

  DavidBellNovels

  DavidBellNovels

  What’s next on

  your reading list?

  Discover your next

  great read!

  Get personalized book picks and up-to-date news about this author.

  Sign up now.

  _140374773_

 

 

  David Bell, The Finalists

 

 

  Thank you for reading books on GrayCity.Net
Share this book with friends