Page 137 of Hell Bent

Andy rolled his eyes. It wasn’t a look of contempt. There was something wild in the movement, like an animal caught in a trap, straining to get free.

Even so, his voice was reasonable. “It wasn’t a big deal to find them, to get them to let me in. I’ve spent most of my life at Yale, okay?” He jabbed a finger at Turner. “And don’t try to bring my dad into this. You said we were off the record.”

“I’m not going to get your dad jammed up. I’m trying to understand what happened here.” Turner studied Andy. “Talk to me about Charles II.”

“The … king?”

“Why did you open Marjorie Stephen’s Bible? Why Judges?”

Now Andy’s face flashed with anger. “She cost my father everything. And over what? Someone else’s mistake?”

Turner spread his hands as if he was just laying out the evidence. “My understanding is he was the person in charge of the lab. Oversight was his responsibility.”

“They went too far.”

“He has tenure. He isn’t out of a job.”

Andy laughed, a harsh, serrated sound. “He could have handled losing his job, but he became a joke. A study on honesty that used falsified data? He couldn’t show his face at conferences. He lost his reputation, his dignity. He was a laughingstock. You don’t … You don’t know what that was like for him. He doesn’t want to teach anymore. He doesn’t want to do anything anymore. It’s like a part of him died.”

“They judged him,” said Alex. “They signed the death warrant and as good as executed him. You wanted revenge.”

“I … did.”

“You wanted to humiliate them.”

“Yes.”

“Knock them down off their high horses.”

“Yes,” he hissed, the sound curling through the room.

“But you didn’t want to kill them.”

Andy looked surprised. “No. Of course not.”

Turner’s eyes narrowed. “But you did kill them.”

Andy nodded, then shook his head, as if he was a mystery to himself. “I did. He made it easy.”

“The ram?” Alex asked.

Andy’s eyelids fluttered rapidly. “He was kind.”

“Yeah?” Alex pushed.

“Easy to talk to. He … knew so much.”

“About what?”

Again Andy looked over his shoulder. “This town. The people here. He knew so many stories. He had all of the answers. But he wasn’t … He didn’t lord it over me, you know? He just wanted to help. To make things right. He was polite. A real—”

“Gentleman,” Alex finished for him. Cold sweat had broken out over her body, and she struggled not to shiver.

The ram told me. Alex thought of Darlington’s horns, curled back from his forehead, glowing behind the protection of the golden circle—his prison.

But maybe the circle had been an illusion. Maybe Darlington had let them believe it kept him at bay when it had been nothing more than fairy dust.

She had known there was something off about the crime scenes, elaborate stage sets steeped in New Haven lore. A game a demon might like to play.