Chapter 20
I went back to Dewitt that night.
It was after four a.m., cloudy and starless. The gothic tower loomed against the muddy dark.
I wouldn’t be taking the easy route up this time, those generous handholds of cut stone. My objective was the hard sciences wing, with its shallow window casings and new mortar. My wounded hand flexed tenderly. The stitches were protected by a half-finger climbing glove, but this was going to hurt.
I started up.
It was slow, careful going. Between moves, I reached for the bag at the small of my back, chalk for my ungloved right hand. I felt the exact moment when the first stitch pulled free—reluctantly at first, then with a snap.
At the next hold, I felt a trickle of blood inside the glove. The pain would keep me alert, at least. I’d lain in bed from midnight till three a.m., trying to sleep off my drinks with Jayden. But the image of an explosion, a spectacle, kept me awake.
It didn’t matter that Peter had hidden so much of his Helshire life from me; I still understood him. In that improv the word bomb had made its way to my lips. Part of me had always known how the chapel had burned.
As I passed the third floor, my right hand started cramping. I’d been overusing it, protecting the stitches on my left. Waiting another week might’ve been wise—but I couldn’t let a bomb dusted with Morton DNA sit around unattended any longer.
The sliver of window I’d left open was only one floor up. I shifted my weight to my left foot, pushed off, and grabbed a casing with my right hand. My feet swung, skidding on brick, until they found purchase and pushed me up.
I was not falling tonight.
The floor in the new wing was linoleum, which squeaked as I dropped from the windowsill. The hallway stretched in both directions, rows of identical doors with small glass windows.
I tried a random door with the Medeco key. It didn’t open, but the blade of the key slipped easily in and out.
The same kind of lock.
Through the little windows I glimpsed rows of sinks and burners. The chemistry department occupied floors four through six.
I made my way along the hallway, door by door. This floor had eleven classrooms, three supply closets, four offices.
The key fit none of them.
I climbed the stairs to five and started again. More offices than classrooms here, including the head of department’s. Nothing clicked.
On the sixth floor were the labs proper and two large supply closets. The key fit nothing, but someone had left one of the labs unlocked. Inside, the drawers held shiny equipment and cleaning supplies. No nitrates or other volatiles. The smaller key I’d found didn’t fit the few locked cabinets.
I went down to the third floor—bio classrooms and labs. I tried all the doors anyway.
It was almost five in the morning.
I made my way back up, trying every door a second time. Then I explored the other wings, searching for stray chemistry labs or supply closets. I tried the key in the stretches of hallway assigned to astronomy and geology. Nothing.
In the physics wing, the blade stopped fitting altogether. The locks were older here.
Uncle Wolfie’s voice was sounding in my head.
There is no drama. There is no bomb.
I found myself on the seventh floor, trying the door to the Physics Lounge.
It didn’t fit at all. But the door was unlocked.
Inside, the couches smelled as they had the night of Peter’s death—like dust and mushrooms. One of the antique reading lamps had been left on, and a ball-and-stick molecule beside it cast a crooked shadow on the wall.
The window I’d climbed though that night was cracked open, letting in a wisp of cool April breeze.
I sat down.
“Where did you hide your little toy, Peter?” I asked the empty room.
He’d dangled below that window, stalwart, silent, until his fingers had given up. My own fingers were sore from trying the key, and my left hand throbbed, sticky with blood inside its glove.
I still had the ground floor to search, and probably a basement, but my eyes were starting to swim. In a few hours I had to face Forensic Accounting.
I stood up, closed the window, and headed for the stairs.
Last semester, Peter’s only class in Dewitt had been Intro to Biology. There could be volatiles in the bio labs—ether, maybe, for anesthetizing animals. Or something poisonous, if my cousin had been exploring a new aesthetic.
I went down to the ground-floor bio wing, and tried the key in every door: classrooms, offices, closets.
Nothing.
I heard a jingling of keys. The custodians were here.
I walked quickly away from the old tower, toward the bio wing exit. But those doors were chained shut. I had to sneak back to the tower, or hide somewhere until the building opened to students.
Something was rolling down the hallway, getting closer. It made a sloshing sound, a wringer bucket on wheels. I descended to the basement.
It was dark here. No dawn creeping through the windows, no glow from exit lights. Nothing but the red eyes of smoke detectors on the ceiling.
I moved carefully, in silence, back toward the central stairs. Once the custodians had dispersed, I could leave through the main entrance.
But then I heard something—and froze, the hairs on my neck prickling.
The sound came again. A gentle squeak from behind one of the doors, stirring memories from childhood.
A few steps closer, I closed my eyes. The rustle of paper, another squeak.
I took out Peter’s key.
It slipped into the lock—and turned.
As the door eased open, a familiar smell washed over me. Loose hay. Aspen shavings. A tinge of ammonia.
In the darkness, ears twitched.
“Rabbit,” I said.