“We can’t give him the chance. Sam? Will you?” Thomas gestured to the door.
Sam repressed a small sigh and shuffled forward. Max fingered her knives impatiently. Her palms were sweating. Would that affect her ability to throw, if she had to? She thought of Evans’s toothy smile, and all of the stuff he’d written about them in the papers. She’d love to stake him straight through the head.
But she knew she could never really hurt someone, as much as she pretended. That’s why the thought of confronting Evans made her mouth go dry and her palms go wet. People thought she and Pippa and Thomas and Sam were the freaks. But the real freaks were people like Evans—people who could hide their true selves completely, as if all their lives they were wearing Halloween masks.
Sam leaned carefully into the building door. There was a click. He turned back to the others, a look of confusion on his face. “It’s unlocked.”
That made Max even more nervous. It was as if Evans was expecting them. And maybe he was.
Inside, the hall was dark and smelled like fresh paint. A narrow staircase led up to the second floor. Thomas took the lead. Pippa followed him, then Max, then Sam. Max could hear his quiet breathing in the dark and was comforted by it. The stairs squeaked awfully, and at any second she expected Evans to materialize from the darkness. But they reached the landing without incident and stood clustered in front of the door to 2A. There was not a rustle of sound from within. Evans must still be sleeping.
Sam leaned into the door. And once again, it opened at the slightest pressure of his hand, swinging inward with a faint groan. Sam looked bewildered. “This one’s unlocked, too,” he whispered.
Max’s heart was flapping like a salmon in her chest.
Inside Evans’s apartment, all of the curtains were drawn. It was as dark as night, especially after Thomas had eased the door shut behind them. Max had the sudden, frantic urge to run. Surely Evans would hear her heart drumming, and Sam’s rapid breathing, and the faint rustle of Pippa’s jacket.
But one second passed, then two. Nothing happened.
Gradually, Max’s eyes began to adjust, and she saw that it wasn’t completely dark. There was a faint light coming from the next room, as if there, a curtain had been left open a crack. They were standing, she saw, in a small kitchenette area. Directly ahead of them was a wooden table and beyond it, a partially open door.
Thomas was already moving toward it. As Max passed through the doorway, she felt Sam jostle her, but she was too afraid to speak out loud and tell him to watch out. The fear was everywhere now, like being squeezed inside a sweaty palm.
The next room was a study. Against the far wall were two windows. The curtains were parted a little, revealing a view of another apartment building and allowing a little daylight to penetrate. In front of the windows was a large desk, empty except for a silver letter opener. In front of the desk was an armchair.
And in the armchair, his back to them, was Bill Evans.
“Turn around.” Thomas reached out and turned on a lamp. Instantly, the colors of the room were revealed: Evans’s thatch of brown hair, the navy-blue curtains, the scarlet rug.
Evans didn’t move.
“Stop playing games,” Thomas said again. But still, Evans said nothing and remained facing the windows.
Sam lost patience. He crossed the room in two quick strides. “You heard what he said—”
The words died on his lips as he spun the chair around. Pippa screamed.
Evans’s eyes were open, and there was blood on his lips. He wasn’t breathing.
Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind them.
Max, Pippa, Thomas, and Sam whirled around. A very tall, very thin man was standing in the corner, where he had been concealed from view by the open door. His skin was an unhealthy gray, like the sky just before it rained, and his eyes, behind his glasses, a very pale blue. When he smiled, Max saw his teeth were unusually long and very yellow. He looked vaguely familiar, but Max couldn’t think where she had seen him.
“Hello, my children,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Who—who are you?” Pippa stammered.
“My name”—the man removed his hat with a flourish—“is Professor Rattigan.”
“Professor Rattigan,” Pippa repeated in a whisper. “We—we heard about you on the news.”
“You’re the crazy man who escaped from prison,” Max blurted out.
Professor Rattigan replaced his hat. “Yes and no. I did escape from prison. I am not, however, crazy.”
Max noticed Thomas glance quickly at the telephone on the table. But Professor Rattigan noticed, too.
“No use, Thomas, my boy,” he said cheerfully. “The line’s cut. I took care of that myself.”