Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

saying. That we’re all one big happy
family
.”
    “It’s nice to believe that, don’t you think? That we’ll all look out for each other?”
    “Sure. And I believe in the Tooth Fairy. People don’t look out for each other. They only look out for themselves.”
    A beam of light flickered through the trees. She whirled around, spotted the approaching car, and instantly darted toward the nearest bush. Will followed her, moving like a noisy moose with his giant feet. He dropped down beside her.
    “Who’s arriving at this time of night?” he whispered.
    A dark sedan rolled to a stop in the courtyard, and a man stepped out, tall and lean as a panther. He paused beside his car and scanned the night, as though searching the darkness for what no one else could see. For one frantic instant Claire thought he was looking directly at her, and she ducked lower behind the bush, trying to hide from his all-seeing eyes.
    The school’s front door swung open, throwing light onto the courtyard, and Headmaster Gottfried Baum stood in the doorway. “Anthony!” Baum called out. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
    “These are disturbing developments.”
    “So it seems. Come, come. Your room’s ready, and there’s a meal waiting for you.”
    “I ate on the plane. We should get straight to the matter at hand.”
    “Of course. Dr. Welliver’s been monitoring the situation in Boston. She’s ready to intercede if necessary.”
    The front door swung shut. Claire rose to her feet, wondering who this strange visitor was. And why Headmaster Baum had sounded so nervous. “I’m going to check out his car,” she said.
    “Claire, no,” whispered Will.
    But she was already moving toward the sedan. The hood was still warm from the drive, the waxed surface gleaming under moonlight. She moved around the vehicle, her hand caressing the surface. She knew it was a Mercedes because of the hood ornament. Black, sleek, expensive. A rich man’s car.
    Locked, of course.
    “Who is he?” said Will. He’d finally found the courage to emerge from the bush and he now stood beside her.
    She looked up at the west wing, where a silhouette briefly appeared in a lit window. Then the curtains abruptly slid shut, cutting off her view.
    “We know his name is Anthony.”

NINE
 
    M AURA DID NOT SLEEP SOUNDLY THAT NIGHT .
    Perhaps it was the unfamiliar bed; perhaps it was the stillness of the place, a silence so deep that it seemed the night itself was holding its breath, waiting. When she awakened for the third time, the moon had risen and was shining directly in her window. She’d left the curtains open for fresh air, but now she climbed out of bed to close them against the glare. Pausing at the window, she looked down at the garden below. It was aglow in moonlight, the stone statues as luminous as ghosts.
    Did one of them just move?
    She stood clutching the drape, staring at statues that stood like chess pieces among the clipped hedges. Across that spectral landscape moved a slender figure with long silver-bright hair and limbs as graceful as a nymph’s. It was a girl, walking in the garden.
    In the hallway outside her door, footsteps creaked past. She heard men’s voices.
    “… We’re not sure whether the threat is real or imagined, but Dr. Welliver seems convinced.”
    “The police seem to have the situation in hand. All we can do is wait and see.”
    I know that voice
. Maura pulled on a bathrobe and opened her door. “Anthony,” she called out.
    Anthony Sansone turned to face her. Dressed in black, standing beside the much shorter Gottfried Baum, Sansone seemed a towering, almost sinister figure in that dimly lit hallway. She noticed his wrinkled clothes, the fatigue in his eyes, and understood that his journey here had been a long one.
    “I’m sorry if we woke you, Maura,” he said.
    “I had no idea you were coming to the school.”
    “Just a few issues to deal with.” He smiled, a wary smile that did not reach his eyes. She sensed a troubling tension in that hallway. She saw it in Gottfried Baum’s face, and in the cool distance with which Sansone now regarded her. He’d never been an openly warm man, and there had been times when she’d wondered if he even disliked her. Tonight that reserve was more impenetrable than ever.
    “I need to talk to you,” she said. “It’s about Julian.”
    “Of course. In the morning, maybe? I won’t be leaving until the afternoon.”
    “You’re here for such a short