But what was the plan—destroy the tick farm, along with its inhabitants? Wipe out the Arachnid Ecology class? Burn down the whole science wing?
In the peculiar logic of Mister Fluffernutter, the only true kill was overkill. Quick and painless for the victim, an indelible memory for everyone else. Peter had wanted a disaster for Helshire, for the legacies, for my family.
Slay the rabbits, spare no one.
I’d done right, following Grandmother’s orders.
Moving the device had to wait, until I was fresh and the sun was down again. I placed it back in the air vent, easing it deep into the darkness, the dried apples in front.
The cover closed smoothly, locked tight.
When I stood up, the rabbits looked at me.
What if I’d disturbed something in the room? What if the device was discovered before I came back?
My brain reeled a little. The FBI, Homeland, the whole counterterrorism apparatus would descend. Someone might reconsider the lack of chalk dust in Peter’s pockets.
I knelt again, took the incendiary out, and wiped it down for fingerprints, mine and Peter’s. Also the bag of dried apples, the cover for the air vent, the padlock.
I spent the next twenty minutes wiping the rest of the room—the cages, the desk and chair, the doorknobs, inside and out.
Then I thought about the rest of Dewitt. One set of matching fingerprints on at least a hundred door handles—mine. My heart began to accelerate.
We Mortons rarely flinch at the kill, but there is a condition that sometimes paralyzes us. It’s called cleanup panic, a danger of our perfectionism.
I sat in the chair and used Aunt Veronica’s calming method: measured breathing, closed eyes, softly chanting the major arterial groups.
“Coronary, carotid, vertebral, iliac, femoral, subclavian…”
Peter’s device had been hidden for weeks, maybe months. His secret would keep another day or two. And if it was found, the FBI wouldn’t be dusting door handles four floors away, or the window sash of the Physics Lounge.
I was in control.
It was half past seven by the time I walked out the main entrance. By then, the Hellions on their way into morning classes didn’t give me a second glance.
There was no time to nap before Forensic Accounting, but as Grandmother Elizabeth always said:
If you can’t do something on zero sleep, then you don’t know how to do it.
22
Junior year continued without further disarray.
Caroline Belmont returned from emergency leave. Her family’s fortunes had stabilized. My mother had been wrong—any conflict between us and the Lindqvists was purely on aesthetic grounds.
My final project for Accounting came into focus: a freeport in Geneva, the largest in the world. It held more than a million works of art—a thousand by Picasso alone—hundreds of luxury cars, countless bottles of wine. All of it unseen, undrunk, untaxed, stateless, perhaps never to emerge. A collection curated by capital itself.
Like any other art museum, it was full of loot. A Modigliani stolen by the Nazis, a Roman sarcophagus plundered by the Mafia, a host of artifacts put into storage by ISIS. My project’s theme was modernity and antiquity, curated by the intricate math of money laundering.
Ms. Delicato gave me an A.
When I sent the paper to Garrett, he texted:Oh, good, you know this stuff. Haven’t done taxes yet.
My days in No Drama met with misfortune: Uncle Wolfie called me “Ms. Morton,” and Jayden took my deception personally. Thereafter, he dragged me into arguments, confrontations, and drama onstage. The result was my first C at Helshire.
I’d never been good at pretend.
I continued my research on Hiromi Kennedy, tracking her sales, following her socials. Her robots were strange and clumsy, full of twitching, mismatched parts. The titles she gave them—An Increase of UnfortunateAttention,Helplessness in the Face of Your Vehemence—suited machines with no purpose.
