“Rich kids,” Edith said.

“Not at all!” Giles said, clearly stung. “That’s not the issue. The issue is the intelligence of the child, the child’s potential.” He paused. “And being poor isn’t a virtue. Some parents don’t deserve to have children. My own didn’t. My birth parents, I mean.”

Graydon stayed silent. Giles rarely talked about the years before he came to live with Emma and Graydon. Graydon hadn’t been sure that Giles remembered his childhood before he was brought to this house, forty years ago-a thin, bruised, frightened six-year-old.

“I think quite often,” Giles said, “of what my life would have been like if you hadn’t taken me in.” He paused, and seemed to shake off his mood. “You gave a fortune to your children, all to help them become better members of this society than they might have been on their own. But instead of going broke, the family is wealthier today than it was when you and Mom began. Because you offered those children a way to make the most of their potential, and they gave back to the family.”

“What concerns me, Giles,” Graydon said, “is that we are only catering to the best and the brightest these days. The late bloomer, the child of average ability, the child who needs extra help-those children seem no longer to be welcomed at the academy.”

“Dad, as great as our resources are, they aren’t unlimited. We have to focus.” He glanced at his watch.

“I promise I won’t keep you much longer,” Graydon said. “And since you seem to have the support of other members of the advisory board-Dexter, Nelson, Roy, and the others-I’m not going to interfere with how you run the school. I simply wanted to ensure that you understood my position.”

Giles stood. “You know I respect you, Dad. I promise I’ll try to work something out that will make you happy.”

“Oh, I’m happy with you, son.” He also stood, and hugged Giles.

Giles was almost to the door when Graydon said, “Oh, one other thing…”

Giles looked back over his shoulder. “Yes?”

“About Caleb, Richard’s son.”

He saw Giles’s back stiffen, and the color drain from his face. “Yes?”

“I understand that one reason Richard stopped having contact with us a few years ago is that he felt pressure to send Caleb to the academy.”

Giles shot a quick, angry look at Edith, then said, “I gave up trying to talk Richard into that a long time ago. Caleb is in a public high school now, where I’m sure he’s getting an inadequate education, but that was Richard’s choice to make.”

“Edith,” Graydon said, “why would Giles think you told me something about that?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I always figured Richard simply got tired of Nelson mooning over his wife.”

Giles said, “I don’t have time for an old maid’s nasty remarks,” and left.

Edith smiled and went back to her magazine.

CHAPTER 3

Tuesday, May 9

1:25 P.M.

LAS PIERNAS

CALEB was in his chemistry class, believing at that moment that his biggest problem was how to keep his friends from guessing that he was getting an A in this subject. And every other class he was taking. Thankfully, his brother Mason let Caleb hang out with him just enough to keep Caleb’s friends in awe. Mason was an artist and a musician in a popular local band, and five years older than Caleb. Caleb never let on that Mason was as strict and protective of him as his parents were.

He saw Mrs. Thorndike’s gaze fall upon him, and knew she would call on him and that he’d either have to answer or feign ignorance, when a skinny redheaded girl came into the room.

The girl stiffened at the smell the room got from the experiments, then glanced around until she saw Caleb.

“Yes?” Mrs. Thorndike said testily, drawing the girl’s attention from him-for which he was grateful, because it had been an unsettling look. A look of pity-but why? The girl handed his teacher a slip of paper, glanced at Caleb again, blushed, and hurried out of the room.

Mrs. Thorndike read the note, then walked over to Caleb and quietly told him that he needed to report to the office.

“Don’t stop anywhere along the way,” she said.

He was puzzled but grabbed his backpack even as his friends laughed and hooted and made remarks like “Yes, Fletcher!” as if he had achieved something great.

“Shut up, you idiots!” Mrs. Thorndike told them sharply, which wasn’t like her at all, and everyone fell silent, probably more out of shock than desire to obey.

ALL the time he walked across the campus, he argued with himself. He had done nothing wrong, had nothing to worry about. It was probably just Mom coming by to give him an assignment he’d left at home. Or asking him to stay home this afternoon and watch Jenny, his three-year-old sister. Or, to loan her his car, because hers wouldn’t start.

Then he remembered the way that redheaded girl looked at him.

Just a mistake, he told himself. He didn’t get called to the office. It just never happened.

Don’t stop anywhere along the way.

Why did Mrs. Thorndike say that?

THE moment he stepped through the door, the people in the office were giving him pitying looks. He went cold. Mr. Rogers, the principal-students hummed “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” behind his back-met him at the front desk and asked him to come back with him to his office, please.

“What’s wrong?”

“You’re not in trouble, Caleb.”

Caleb didn’t feel much relieved by that. When he got to the interior office, the principal opened the door but didn’t go into the room with him. Two men waited there. One was a stranger, who stood just inside the door. The other was seated, and Caleb recognized him immediately, although his presence only increased Caleb’s puzzlement.

What was Uncle Nelson doing here?

In the next instant, he saw that Uncle Nelson was crying-sobbing, really. That made Caleb feel kind of dizzy. It was like seeing your house on someone else’s street-familiar, but out of place.

“What is it?” he heard himself ask.

“Are you Caleb Fletcher?” the other man said.

Caleb turned to look at him. He was tall. Taller than Caleb, who was five-eleven and still growing. The man had short brown hair and regarded Caleb steadily from gray-green eyes. He was as calm as Uncle Nelson was upset. Something in his calmness quieted the riot of questions and anxieties in Caleb’s head.

“Yes, I’m Caleb. Who are you?”

“I’m Detective Frank Harriman. I’m with the Las Piernas Police Department. Why don’t you have a seat?”

“No thanks.” His palms were sweating, and he felt an urgent desire to escape the room, because he knew that whatever was coming wasn’t going to be good. He found himself watching this big cop, waiting, somehow knowing the answers would come from him.

Harriman said quietly, “I’m so sorry, Caleb. There’s no easy way to tell you this. Your father died at his studio this morning.”

His voice was calm and sincere, but the words made no sense.

“Died?” Caleb said, thinking back to breakfast early this morning, his dad alive and well. No. He wasn’t dead.

Mistake. Mistake. Mistake.

“Murdered!” Uncle Nelson choked out.

“What?” Caleb felt the room spin. “No-there’s some mistake-”

“Your dad and Jenny, too!” Uncle Nelson said.

“Jenny…?” None of this made sense.

Harriman quickly said, “Your sister is missing, so it is far too early to jump to any conclusions about what has happened to her.”

Caleb’s mind rapidly issued refusals, denying that any of this could be true. He made himself ask, “What happened to my dad?”

“Some sick fuck beat him to death!” Uncle Nelson shouted.

Caleb got that dizzy feeling again. Beat him to death? No…Think of something else! Why was Uncle Nelson here, and not his mom? Oh, she must be telling Mason. Or looking for Jenny…