Last to Die

Lifted the barrel to her head.
    “Get back!
Get back!
” Teddy screamed at Maura. His hands were trembling, but his finger was already on the trigger as he aimed at Maura’s head. He yelled over his shoulder: “I’ll shoot her, Mr. Sansone. I swear I will!”
    Maura dropped to the floor again. Knelt there, stunned, as Sansone was shoved back into the room and forced to his knees beside her.
    “Is the dog secured, Teddy?” the gunman asked.
    “I tied him to the kitchen cabinet. He can’t get loose.”
    “Bind their hands. Do it quick,” the man said. “They’ll be getting here any minute, and we need to be ready.”
    “Traitor!” Claire spat out as Teddy unpeeled strips of duct tape and bound Sansone’s wrists behind his back. “We were your
friends
. How can you do this to us?”
    The boy ignored her as he moved on to Julian’s hands.
    “Teddy tricked us into coming down here,” Claire said to Maura. “Told us you were waiting for us, but it was all a trap.” She stared at the boy, her voice thick with disgust. Doomed as she was, the girl was fearless, even reckless. “It was you. It was
always
you. Hanging those
stupid
twig dolls.”
    Teddy peeled off another strip of tape and wound it tightly around Julian’s wrists. “Why would I do that?”
    “To scare us. To freak us out.”
    Teddy looked at her with frank surprise. “I didn’t do that, Claire. Those dolls were meant to scare
me
. To make
me
call for help.”
    “And Dr. Welliver, how could you do that to her?”
    A flash of regret registered in Teddy’s eyes. “It wasn’t supposed to kill her! It was just supposed to confuse her. She was working for
them
. Always watching me, waiting to see when I’d—”
    “Teddy,” the man snapped. “Remember what I taught you? What’s done is done, and we have to move on. So finish the job.”
    “Yes, sir,” the boy answered, cutting off another strip of tape. He wrapped it so tightly around Maura’s wrists that no amount of twisting or struggling would free her.
    “Good boy.” The man handed Teddy a pair of night-vision binoculars. “Now get up there and watch the courtyard. Tell me when they arrive, and how many there are.”
    “I want to stay with you.”
    “I need you out of the line of fire, Teddy.”
    “But I want to help!”
    “You’ve helped me enough.” The man laid his hand on the boy’s head. “Your job is on the roof. You’re my eyes.” He glanced down at his belt as an alarm beeped. “She’s reached the gate. Headset on, Teddy.
Go
.” He pushed the boy out of the room and followed him out.
    “I was your
friend
,” Claire screamed as the door swung shut. “I trusted you, Teddy!”
    They heard the padlock thud into place. Up in the kitchen Bear was still barking, still howling, but the door muffled the sound, made it seem as distant as a coyote’s cry.
    Maura stared at the closed door. “It was
Teddy
,” she murmured. “All this time, I never imagined …”
    “Because he’s just a kid,” was Claire’s bitter observation. “No one pays attention to us. No one gives us credit. Until we surprise you.” She looked up toward the ceiling. “They’re going to kill Detective Rizzoli.”
    “She’s not coming alone,” said Maura. “She told me she’s bringing people. People who know how to defend themselves.”
    “But they don’t know the castle like this man does. Teddy’s been letting him in after dark. He knows every room, every stairway. And he’s ready for them.”
    In the kitchen, Bear had stopped howling. Even he must have grasped the futility of their situation.
    Jane. It’s all up to you
.

THE CASTLE LOOKED abandoned.
    Jane and Frost pulled into the Evensong parking lot and stared up at dark windows, at the jagged rooftop looming against the starlit sky. There’d been no one to meet them at the gate, and no one had answered the phone when she’d called from the road half an hour ago, using the last weak blip of a cell signal. A black SUV pulled up beside them, and through the windows Jane saw the silhouettes of Carole and her two male associates. One was Denzel, the other was a buff and silent man with a shaved head. When they’d all stopped for gas an hour earlier, neither man had said a word; it was clear that Carole was running this show.
    “Something’s wrong,” Jane said. “We would’ve tripped the sensors on the road, so Maura’s got to know we’ve arrived. Where is everyone?”
    Frost glanced at Carole’s SUV.