Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

bending on her own. The tox screen turned up lysergic acid diethylamide.”
    Maura turned and stared at Sansone as she said, “That can’t be right.”
    “We still have to confirm it with HPLC-fluorescence, but it lookslike your Dr. Welliver was tripping out on LSD. Now, I know some shrinks consider it therapeutic. A way to open your mind to spiritual experiences, yada yada. But she was working in a school, for God’s sake. Dropping acid is not exactly role-model behavior.”
    Maura stood very still, the phone pressed so tightly to her ear she could hear her own pulse. “That fall from the roof …”
    “Very possibly a result of hallucinations. Or acute psychosis. You remember that CIA experiment years ago, when they gave some poor guy LSD and he jumped out the window? You can’t predict how a subject will react on the drug.”
    Maura thought about the stray crystals on the bathroom floor, scattered when someone had emptied the sugar bowl into the toilet.
Disposing of the evidence
.
    “… I’m going to have to reclassify this death as an accident. Not suicide,” said Dr. Owen. “Fall from a height after ingestion of hallucinogens.”
    “LSD can be synthesized,” cut in Maura.
    “Um, yeah. I suppose. Wasn’t it first isolated from some fungus grown on rye plants?”
    And who knows more about plants than Professor David Pasquantonio?
    “Oh my God,” Maura whispered.
    “Is there a problem?”
    “I have to go.” She hung up and turned to Sansone, who stood right beside her, his eyes filled with questions. “We can’t stay,” she said. “We have to get the children and leave
now
.”
    “Why? Maura, what’s changed?”
    “The killer,” she said. “He’s already inside the castle.”

THIRTY
 
    W HERE ARE THE OTHERS?” MAURA ASKED .
    Julian squinted at them from his doorway, eyes still dazed with sleep. He stood bare-chested, wearing only boxer shorts, his hair standing up in all directions. A sleepy teenager who clearly wanted only to crawl back into bed. Yawning, he rubbed his chin, where the first dark stubble of a beard had sprouted. “Aren’t they in bed?”
    “Will and Teddy and Claire aren’t in their rooms,” said Sansone.
    “They were there when I checked on them.”
    “When was that?”
    “I don’t know. Ten thirty, maybe.” Julian suddenly focused on the gun tucked into Sansone’s waistband, and he straightened in alarm. “What’s going on?”
    “Julian,” said Maura. “We need to find them now. And we need to be quiet about it.”
    “Hold on,” he said, ducking back into his room. A moment later he reemerged dressed in blue jeans and sneakers. With Bear at hisheels, he headed down the hall and stepped into Will and Teddy’s room.
    “I don’t get it,” he said, frowning at the empty beds. “The boys were both in here, already in their pajamas.”
    “They didn’t say anything about going out?”
    “They
know
they’re supposed to stay inside tonight. Especially tonight.” Julian spun around and headed across the hall. Maura and Sansone followed him into Claire’s room, where they all stood surveying the books spread haphazardly on the desk, the sweatshirt and dirty socks lying in a heap in the corner. Nothing alarming here, just the typical disorder of a teenager’s room. “It doesn’t make sense that they’d leave,” said Julian. “They’re not stupid.”
    Suddenly Maura was aware of how deep the silence was. As deep as the earth, as deep as the grave. If any other souls were in the castle, she could not hear them. She dreaded the thought of searching every room, every alcove and stairway, in a fortress that had already been breached by a killer.
    The dog’s whine startled her. She looked down at Bear, who returned the look with an eerie gleam of intelligence in his eyes. “He can help us search,” she said. “He just needs their scent.”
    “He’s not a bloodhound,” Julian pointed out.
    “But he is a dog, with a dog’s sense of smell. He can track them, if we make him understand what we’re searching for.” She glanced at the mound of Claire’s discarded clothes. “Give him a whiff of those,” she said. “Let’s see where he takes us.”
    Julian pulled a leash from his pocket, clipped it to Bear’s collar, and led him to the pile of dirty laundry. “Here, boy,” he urged. “Take a good sniff. That’s what Claire smells like. You know Claire, don’t you?” He cupped the dog’s enormous head in his hands and stared