Page 115 of What Boys Learn

It’s the first time he’s mentioned sailing at all. I guess he must own a boat, same way he owns the Jag, which would be nice. He starts to tell me about the history of some institution for the insane, going back over 150 years, but he must notice my eyelids getting heavy because he laughs and says, “It’s just history. The same story, told over and over. Just remember, it’s better to be the jailer than the jailed. It’s a good thing I met you when I did, Benjamin.”

He’s standing in the doorway and he reaches for the light switch, which makes an extra-loud thunk when he pushes it, because the house is so old.

“Tomorrow will be more fun than today was, I promise. No mistakes this time.” He wags his finger at me again. “You’re going to like sailing. It’s a great way to meet girls.”

42

ABBY

Ihad to wait twenty minutes for the final bell to ring before I could hurry to the hallway outside the school chapel, and there it was: a large framed portrait of Harper McKibben with her birth and death dates: 2003–2017.Always in our hearts.

I’d seen the photo of Harper on a news site, and I knew she went to a Catholic school, but I hadn’t made the connection. She wasn’t just a North Shore girl. She went to school here. Right here.

Down the hall from the chapel, I rapped at the door of Sister Lucretia’s secretary, a young woman who looked up with an eager-to-please smile, wiping a spot of mustard from her cheek as I entered.

“Weird question, Raquel, but you probably know I’m a candidate for the fall position, and if I get it, Sister Lucretia said there was a chance I’d get to move into the Grove faculty house that Curtis Campbell is vacating. She even said I might be able to move in early?”

Raquel was still chewing, so I pressed on nervously.

“I know he had a dog. And I have allergies, so I might need to deep clean the place first if he lived there, what—three, four years?”

Raquel set down her sandwich.

“Dr. Campbell was here way longer than that. He came here a year after I did. After his wife passed away.” She closed her eyes for a moment, thinking. “So, fall of 2017.”

“Fall of 2017,” I repeated back. “Poor Dr. Campbell I didn’t realize he’d lost his wife.”

“And daughter. Drowning accident on Lake Michigan.”

I must have managed to mask my shock well because Raquel calmly continued, “But I don’t think you need to worry about the allergy problem. He’s never had a dog. There are rules against that.”

Were we even talking about the same Dr. Campbell?No dog?That was the least of it. Dead wife. Dead daughter. Dead student—Harper McKibben, only weeks later.

“You don’t look well.”

“That was the other thing I came to tell you,” I said, taking a big step back. I could feel heat flashing across my cheeks, my whole body struggling to stay calm while I thought about everything Curtis had said about his ex-wife—the one he’d supposedly visited a week ago—and the daughter who was close to Benjamin’s age.

“It might be flu.” I fanned my face.

“Do you need to lie down? Sister Lucretia has a couch.” She pointed to an open doorway. “She’s in a meeting with the cafeteria staff. She won’t mind.”

“Maybe for a minute.”

“And Professor Rosso,” Raquel called after me, “you should know that the Grove house can’t be cleaned just yet. Dr. Campbell still left a few things behind. But once it’s completely empty, we’ll let you know—ifyou get the position, I mean.”

Three minutes on Sister Lucretia’s hard modern couch, with my head between my knees, were all that I needed.

Wife and daughter dead.

Grove student killed just after he came to teach here, only weeks after his wife and daughter died.

Former patient, Christopher Weber, dead following a car accident, responsible for Sidney’s and Izzy’s deaths.

It could all be coincidence. It could be bad luck, or the sort of thing that only seems like luck but has logic behind it. Curtis counseled and studied psychopathic criminals. Maybe one of those criminals did something to his wife and daughter, to get back at him for an undesirable diagnosis or damning testimony in court. Maybe one of those criminals visited Curtis at his office and crossed paths with Harper, who attended school just down the road, and who recognized him later, and trusted him to give her a ride.

And Weber, who died up in Wisconsin? Maybe it wasn’t a random drunk driver. Maybe it was another patient who was jealous of the attention Curtis had paid him.

None of it was Curtis’s fault, possibly, but it didn’t explain the endless lies.