Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

fields in gold. Then the forest closed in, the trees suddenly so dense that it seemed night had instantly fallen. She drove for miles without passing any cars, and wondered if she’d taken a wrong turn. Here there were no houses, no driveways, not a single road sign to tell her whether she was headed in the right direction.
    She was ready to turn around when the road suddenly ended at a gate. On the archway above it was a single word, spelled in gracefully entwined letters: EVENSONG .
    She stepped out of her Lexus and frowned at the locked gate, which was flanked by massive stone pillars. She saw no intercom button, and the wrought-iron fence extended deep into the woods in both directions, as far as she could see. She pulled out her cell phone to call the school, but this deep in the forest she couldn’t get a signal. The silence of the woods magnified the ominous whine of a mosquito,and she slapped at the sudden sting on her cheek. Stared down at the alarming smear of blood. Other mosquitoes were closing in on her in a hungry, biting cloud. She was about to retreat into her car when she spotted the golf cart approaching on the other side of the gate.
    A familiar young woman stepped out of the golf cart and waved. In her early thirties, dressed in slim blue jeans and a green windbreaker, Lily Saul looked far healthier and happier than the last time Maura had seen her. Lily’s brown hair, pulled back in a loose ponytail, was now streaked with blond, and her cheeks had a healthy glow, so different from the pale, thin face that Maura remembered from that blood-splattered Christmas when they’d met during the course of a homicide investigation. Its violent conclusion had nearly claimed both their lives. But Lily Saul, who’d spent years running from demons both real and imagined, was a canny survivor, and judging by her happy smile Lily had finally outrun her nightmares.
    “We expected you here earlier, Dr. Isles,” said Lily. “I’m glad you made it before dark.”
    “I was afraid I’d have to climb this fence,” said Maura. “There’s no cell signal out here, and I couldn’t call anyone.”
    “Oh, we knew you’d arrived.” Lily punched in a code on the gate’s security keypad. “There are motion sensors all along this road. And you probably missed them, but there are cameras as well.”
    “That’s a lot of security for a school.”
    “It’s all about keeping our students safe. And you know how Anthony is about security. There’s never enough.” She met Maura’s gaze through the bars. “It’s not surprising he feels that way. When you consider what we’ve all been through.”
    Staring into Lily’s eyes, Maura realized the young woman’s nightmares had not entirely been laid to rest. The shadows still lingered.
    “It’s been nearly two years, Lily. Has anything else happened?”
    Lily pulled open the gate and said, ominously, “Not yet.”
    That was just the sort of statement that Anthony Sansone wouldmake. Crime left permanent scars on survivors like Sansone and Lily, both of them haunted by violent personal tragedies. For them, the world would always be a landscape riddled with danger.
    “Follow me,” said Lily as she climbed back into the golf cart. “The castle’s another few miles up the road.”
    “Don’t you need to close the gate?”
    “It will close automatically. If you need to leave, the keypad code this week is forty-five ninety-six, for both the gate and the school’s front door. The number changes every Monday, when we announce it at breakfast.”
    “So the students know it, too.”
    “Of course. The gate isn’t here to keep us in, Dr. Isles. It’s to keep the world
out
.”
    Maura climbed back into the Lexus, and as she drove past the twin pillars, the gate was already starting to swing shut. Despite Lily’s assurance that the gate wasn’t meant to lock her in, the wrought-iron bars made her think of a high-security prison. It brought back the sound of clanging metal and the sight of caged faces staring at her.
    Lily’s golf cart led her down a single-lane road carved through dense woods. In the gloom of those trees, a shockingly brilliant orange fungus stood out, clinging to the trunk of a venerable oak. High in the forest canopy, birds fluttered. A red squirrel perched on a branch, its tail twitching. This deep in the Maine woods, what other creatures would emerge once darkness fell?
    The forest gave way to open sky, and a lake stretched before her. In