Last to Die

know?”
    There was a sheepish sigh on the other end. “We really can’t explain how it happened. But when the nurse went into his room this afternoon to check his vital signs, his bed was empty, and the IV line was disconnected. We’ve spent the last four hours searching the hospital grounds, but we can’t find him.”
    “Four
hours
? He’s been missing that long?”
    “Maybe longer. We don’t know exactly when he left the room.”
    “Doctor, I’ll call you right back,” she cut in, and hung up. Immediately she dialed the Inigos’ residence. It rang once. Twice.
    “What’s going on, Jane?” Maura asked.
    “Nicholas Clock’s gone missing.”
    “
What?
” Maura stared at her. “I thought he was comatose.”
    On the phone, Nancy Inigo answered: “Hello?”
    “Is Teddy there?” Jane said.
    “Detective Rizzoli, is that you?”
    “Yes. And I’m concerned about Teddy. Where is he?”
    “He’s in his room. He came home after school and went straight upstairs. I was about to call him down for dinner.”
    “Please check on him for me. Right now.”
    Nancy Inigo’s footsteps creaked up the stairs as she asked Jane over the phone: “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
    “I don’t know. Not yet.”
    Jane heard Nancy knock on the door and call out: “Teddy, can I come in? Teddy?” A pause. Then an alarmed: “He’s not here!”
    “Search the house,” ordered Jane.
    “Wait. Wait, there’s a note here, on the bed. It’s Teddy’s handwriting.”
    “What does it say?”
    Over the phone, Jane heard the rustle of paper. “It’s addressed to you, Detective,” said Nancy. “It says,
Thank you. We’ll be fine now
. That’s all there is.”
    Thank you. We’ll be fine now
.
    Jane imagined Nicholas Clock, miraculously rising from his coma, untethering his own IV line, and walking out of the hospital. She pictured Teddy, placing the note on his bed before he slipped out of the Inigos’ house and disappeared into the night. Both of them knew exactly where they were going, because they were bound for the same destination: a future together, as father and son.
    “Do you have any idea what this note means?” asked Nancy.
    “Yes. I think I know exactly what it means,” Jane said softly, and hung up.
    “So Nicholas Clock is alive,” said Maura.
    “Not just alive. He finally has his son.” Jane gazed out the window at the TV news vans and the growing pack of reporters and cameramen. And even though she was smiling, the lights of all those vehicles suddenly blurred through her tears. She tipped her beer bottle in a toast to the night and whispered: “Here’s to you, Nicholas Clock.”
    Game over
.

BLOOD IS MORE easily washed away than memories, thought Claire. She stood in Dr. Welliver’s office, surveying the brand-new rugs and furniture. Sunlight gleamed on spotless surfaces, and the room smelled of fresh air and lemons. Through the open window she heard the laughter of students rowing on the lake. Saturday sounds. Looking around the room, it was hard to believe that anything terrible had ever happened here, so thoroughly had the school transformed it. But no amount of scrubbing could erase the images seared in Claire’s mind. She looked down at the pale green carpet, and superimposed on that pattern of vines and berries, she saw a dead man staring up at her. She turned toward the wall, and there was Nicholas Clock’s blood splattered across it. She looked at the desk and could still picture Justine’s body lying nearby, brought down by Detective Rizzoli’s gunshots. Everywhere she looked in this room, she saw bodies. The ghost of Dr. Welliver still lingered here as well, smiling across her desk, sipping her endless cups of tea.
    So many ghosts. Would she ever stop seeing them?
    “Claire, are you coming?”
    She turned to Will, who stood in the doorway. No longer did she see the pudgy, spotty Will; now she saw
her
Will, the boy whose last impulse when he thought they were going to die was to protect her. She wasn’t sure whether that was love, exactly; she wasn’t even sure what she felt about
him
. All she knew was that he’d done something no other boy had ever done for her, and that meant something. Maybe it meant everything.
    And he had beautiful eyes.
    She cast a final look around the room, said a silent goodbye to the ghosts, and nodded. “I’m coming.”
    Together they walked down the stairs and stepped outside, where their classmates were enjoying that bright