Secret of the Sevens (12 page)

Twenty-two

I lie in bed, staring at the ceiling and dissecting the almost-kiss. What the hell is wrong with me? I've hooked up with a hundred girls at this school and I'm worked up over one almost-kiss? I roll over, punching the pillow into a different position.

I've got to be losing it. I'm crushing on Delaney Shanahan? The Proud Prude? The master at annoying me?

I toss and turn all night. By 6:00 a.m., I quit trying to sleep. Might as well not waste all this thinking on a girl. I haul a heaping bowl of cereal to the computer room and start researching the murder of Mary Singer. The articles all say that Mary's body was found without a helmet, although no one seemed to make a big deal out of it. I swallow my last Froot Loop and check my email before logging off. My pulse accelerates when a message pops up:

To: [email protected]
From: Number 7

The next clue is
around
where the last one was found.

Be wise. Utilize
all these lessons you learn,
for
columns
and
riddles
are there to discern.
Just be sure to do right
When it is your turn.

I've got bad news and GOOD NEWS
for your next clue.
Your founder was wise … indeed.
Are you?

Laney is still sleeping, but I'm too excited to wait for her. I jot a note on my napkin and slide it under her door:

Check email. Meet you there.

I bundle into my coat and bury my head deep inside my hood, blowing warm breath on my hands as I cross campus. The sky is dark and overcast. Naked trees tremble in the wind, while campus is barer than their branches.

When I get to Founders Hall, I head straight into the rotunda. A sleepy-looking custodian eyes me as he empties a garbage can, but no one else is stupid enough to be up this early on a Sunday. I check my watch like I'm meeting someone and mosey around the perimeter until I end up at the photograph of the Board of Directors.

Finally, the custodian pushes his cart through the door, and it slams behind him. I pull out my printout of the email and review the first part:

The next clue is
around
where the last one was found.

I'm standing between the painting of Mary Singer and the photo of the Singer Board of Directors. Okay, Number Seven, or whatever your name is, I'm back where the last clue was found. Is there something “around” this picture you want me to see?

My eyes circle the frames and the wall around the pictures, but nothing stands out. After a couple minutes, I give up and skip down to the next section of the email:

Be wise. Utilize
all these lessons you learn,
for
columns
and
riddles
are there to discern.

Just be sure to do right
when it is your turn.

Okay. Think, Talan.
The first part is easy—we need to use what we've learned so far from all these tests. But what does
be sure to do right when it is my turn
mean?

So what
have
we learned so far from these tests? My memory rewinds through our challenges—the messages hidden in the pictures … the half-clue poem that appeared when the letters were blacked out … the pediment proverb … the secret in the dedication plaque … all the way back to the first left-right-left poem that led us through the Singer underground.

The instant my brain makes the connection, energy buzzes through my body. I'm bouncing on the balls of my feet, looking at the doorway a few feet down from where I stand.

Be sure to do right, when it is your turn.
Like that very first poem, this one is also a play on words; it's directing me to go
right
at that
turn.

I turn right down the hallway and skim over the last section of the poem.

I've got bad news and GOOD NEWS
for your next clue.
Your founder was wise … indeed.
Are you?

Tucking the paper in my coat pocket, I scan the walls, floors and ceilings of the hallway, examining everything from the outlets to the fire extinguisher.

And finally … there it is—a framed newspaper article on the construction of Founders Hall. The paper is yellowed with age, but the title is clear as a billboard:
GOOD NEWS FOR SINGER ENTERPRISES MEANS GOOD NEWS FOR SINGER STUDENTS.

I've got bad news and GOOD NEWS
was my next clue. I guess I just found the good news.

I engross myself in the article, reading every letter and word, leaning forward until my nose almost touches the glass.

“Boo!” My heart detonates at the voice in my ear. I swing around, fist clenched and jaw set.

Delaney jumps back, her hands in the air. “I'm unarmed. Relax.”
She laughs and steps around me. “So what's up, Watson?”

My heart thunders under my sweatshirt. I cross my arms. “
Watson?
Please. While you were sleeping in with your stuffed dolphin, I was already up researching Mary Singer's obituary and solving the next riddle.” I repeat myself from last
night. “It's called sacrifice. It's one of the seven virtues, if you remember.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Laney rubs her hands together. “So I got the email. What'd you figure out?”

I peek out the end of the hallway, turn, and smile at her.

“I figured out that ‘do right when it's my turn' meant I was supposed to turn right into this corridor. And the clue about ‘bad news and good news' has something to do with this.” I point to the news article on the wall behind me. “I'm not sure about the ‘bad news' part, but this pretty much nails the ‘good news.'”

Laney reads the title over twice and a grin swells across her face. “Nice work.”

“You mean ‘Nice work, Sherlock,' don't you?”

She rolls her eyes. “You haven't solved this one yet. You said yourself that you still need to figure out what the bad news is.”

While she pouts, I lean in close to the glass and skim the article once more, running my finger under the rows of writing as I read them.
And there it is.

“Found it,” I say. “Better luck next time, Watson.”

Laney hip-checks me out of the way and studies the picture. “Where? What is it?”

“Laney, ‘check the column along with the row.' Just like the earlier clue.”

Laney runs her finger down the first letter in each row and sounds out the message.
“What do you do when your family depends on your enemies?”

Her mouth falls open and she shuffles back a step. One hand rises to her parted lips as the other spreads like a fan across her breastbone. “Oh my God.”

I stare at the words in amazement and think back to the hidden tunnel. “Remember the message the Sevens left on the elevator door?
A prudent question is one half of wisdom
or something?
Do you think this is the prudent question they were referring to?”

She glances at me and flashes me a grin. “What I think is that you have a wicked good memory.”

The back of my neck grows warm, and it spreads to my ears and cheeks.

I turn back to the article. “But this news story contradicts what we've been told about the Board being murderers and liars,” I say. “Singer is quoted saying good things—that they made smart decisions that paid for the growth of the campus and student body, two things that were important to him and his wife.”

“They could be brilliant businessmen and still be liars and murderers,” Laney says. “I think that's what he means when he says ‘his family depends on his enemies.' He's asking what was he supposed to do? Our school and the kids he considered his family depended on the very people he suspected of killing his wife.”

“Wouldn't he be so angry that he wouldn't care? I mean, he thinks they killed his wife, who he obviously loved a lot. We're talking about murder here.”

“Unless he couldn't prove it,” she says. “Or he wasn't sure which of them was behind it. It's not like he could fire an entire Board of Directors, especially one that's that been so successful, based on a hunch or circumstantial evidence like his wife not wearing a helmet. I don't know much about business, but I'd imagine that could ruin a company's reputation and the value of its stock. Which basically means our school would be ruined too, since we're completely funded by Singer Enterprises. I'm guessing Mr. Singer needed to be dang sure he could prove who murdered his wife before he acted on it.”

“I can't imagine having to play normal around the scumbags who murdered the woman I loved. But I guess his school,
her
school
, was
on the line. What a shitty position to be put in. But you're right. If there was
obvious
evidence of foul play, the police would have gotten involved. Everyone always assumed Mary Singer died from a riding accident.”

Laney's eyes travel from the article to me. “So I wonder how Singer answered his prudent question then? What
do
you do when your family depends on your enemies to survive?”

I smile down at her. “You form a secret society of students to protect them.”

The hallway echoes with the sound of the door opening in the rotunda.

Laney whispers, “I guess we're done for now. I'll go out the front door and you wait a few minutes and leave through the back.”

I nod and we hightail it in opposite directions.

The minute I step outside, a voice stops me cold. “You there. Michaels. Not so fast.”

I'd know that annoying bark anywhere. I spin around and Headmaster Boyle glowers at me. The small boy standing next to him shrinks back a step.

“What are you doing at Founders Hall this time of the morning?” Boyle asks.

I flash him a bright smile to match my halo. “Research for a paper, sir.”

“Homework? You? At this hour of the day? And I suppose you want to sell me the marshland on South Rucker Road, too?”

No, but I wouldn't mind drowning you in it.
“I don't know what you mean, sir.”

“I mean, you're probably looking for trouble. Fortunately for you, I'm about to change all that.” Boyle puts his hand on the shoulder of the boy cowering next to him. “This,” Boyle says, “is Jack Dominguez.”

He's a cute kid, a bit scruffy with huge eyes and a tight-lipped frown. He's wearing oversized cowboy boots and his right hand clings to a Woody doll from that
Toy Story
movie.

“Hey, Jack.”

“You live in Canfield House, correct?” Boyle asks me. I nod and he says, “Jack is a new student moving into the Hampton House today. I need you to drop him off for me. I just got a call and his houseparents are handling a discipline emergency. I would do it myself, but I have a meeting in the Executive Building in five minutes.”

It's not that I don't like kids. I just don't know any. Don't know what they like or how they think or even if we share the same vocabulary.

“I can't,” I tell Boyle. “I have to—”

“No, Mr. Michaels,” he interrupts. “The only thing you
have
to do is what I tell you to do. Now take Jack straight to Hampton House. I'll call and let them know to expect you in fifteen minutes. Don't leave him until his houseparents dismiss you. Do I make myself clear?”