Last to Die: A Rizzoli & Isles Novel

telling me about his classmates. He says that a number of them have lost family members to violence. Is this true?”
    Gottfried nodded. “For many of our students.”
    “Many? Or most?”
    He gave a conciliatory shrug. “Most.”
    “So this is a school for victims.”
    “Oh dear, not victims,” Dr. Welliver said. “We like to think of them as
survivors
. They come to us with special needs. And we know exactly how to help them.”
    “Is that why you’re here, Dr. Welliver? To address their emotional needs?”
    Dr. Welliver gave her an indulgent smile. “Most schools have counselors.”
    “But they don’t keep therapists on staff.”
    “True.” The psychologist looked around the table at her colleagues. “We’re proud to say we’re unique that way.”
    “Unique because you specialize in traumatized children.” She looked around the table. “In fact, you recruit them.”
    “Maura,” said Sansone, “child protective agencies around the country send children to us because we offer what other schools can’t. A sense of safety. A sense of order.”
    “And a sense of purpose? Is that what you’re really trying to instill?” She looked around the table at the six faces watching her. “You’re all members of the Mephisto Society. Aren’t you?”
    “Maybe we could try to stay on topic?” suggested Dr. Welliver. “And focus on what we do here at Evensong.”
    “I am talking about Evensong. About how you’re using this school to recruit soldiers for your organization’s paranoid mission.”
    “Paranoid?” Dr. Welliver gave a surprised laugh. “That’s hardly a diagnosis I’d make of anyone in this room.”
    “The Mephisto Society believes that evil is real. You believe that humanity itself is under attack, and your mission is to defend it.”
    “Is
that
what you think we’re doing here? Training demon hunters?” Welliver shook her head in amusement. “Trust me, our role is hardly metaphysical. We help children recover from violence and tragedy. We give them structure, safety, and a superb education. We prepare them for university or whatever their goals may be. You visited Professor Pasquantonio’s class yesterday. You saw how engaged the students are, even with a subject like botany.”
    “He was showing them poisonous plants.”
    “And that’s precisely why they were interested,” said Pasquantonio.
    “Because the subtext was murder? Which plants can be used to kill?”
    “That’s your interpretation. Others would call it a class on safety. How to recognize and avoid what could harm them.”
    “What else do you teach here? Ballistics? Blood splatters?”
    Pasquantonio shrugged. “Neither would be out of place in a physics class. What is your objection?”
    “My objection is that you’re using these children to advance your own agenda.”
    “Against violence? Against the evils that men do to one another?” Pasquantonio snorted. “You make it sound like we’re pushing drugs or training gangsters.”
    “We’re helping them heal, Dr. Isles,” Lily said. “We know what it’s like to be crime victims. We help them find purpose in their pain. Just as we do.”
    We know what it’s like
. Yes, Lily Saul would know; she’d lost her family to murder. And Sansone had lost his father to murder as well.
    Maura looked at the six faces and felt a chilling sense of comprehension. “You’ve all lost someone,” she said.
    Gottfried gave a mournful nod. “My wife,” he said. “A robbery in Berlin.”
    “My sister,” said Ms. Duplessis. “Raped and strangled in Detroit.”
    “My husband,” Dr. Welliver said softly, her head bowed. “Kidnapped and murdered in Buenos Aires.”
    Maura turned to Pasquantonio, who stared down in silence at the table. He did not answer the question; he didn’t need to. The answer was there, in his face. She suddenly thought of her own twin sister, murdered only a few years earlier. And Maura realized:
I belong in this circle. Like them, I mourn someone lost to violence
.
    “We understand these children,” said Dr. Welliver. “That’s why Evensong is the best place for them. Maybe the only place for them. Because they’re one of us. We are all one family.”
    “Of victims.”
    “Not victims. We’re the ones who
lived
.”
    “Your students may be survivors,” said Maura, “but they’re also just children. They can’t choose for themselves. They can’t object.”
    “Object to what?” said Dr. Welliver.
    “To joining this army