Free Last to Die by Tess Gerritsen Page B

first time all day, she felt free. Free of classes, of teachers watching her, of Briana’s taunts.
    She moved down the stone steps, sure of her footing in the bright moonlight. The lake lay ahead, where rippling water sparkled like sequins, calling to her. She started pulling up her T-shirt, eager to glide into that silky water.
    “You’re out again,” a voice said.
    Claire spun around to see the figure separate itself from the shadow of the trees. A figure she instantly recognized by the chunky silhouette. Will Yablonski moved into the moonlight, where she saw his chubby-cheeked face. She wondered if he knew that Briana whispered
great white whale
behind his back. That much Will and I have in common, she thought. We’re the uncool kids.
    “What are you doing out here?” she said.
    “I was looking through my telescope. But the moon’s come up now, so I packed up the scope for the night.” He pointed toward the lake. “That’s a really good spot over there, by the water. Just right for searching the sky.”
    “What are you looking for?”
    “A comet.”
    “Did you see it?”
    “No, I mean a
new
comet. One that’s never been reported. Amateurs find new ones all the time. There’s this guy named Don Machholz who found eleven of them, and he’s just an amateur like me . If I find one, I get to name it. Like Comet Kohoutek. Or Halley or Shoemaker-Levy.”
    “What would you call yours?”
    “Comet Neil Yablonski.”
    She laughed. “Like
that
has a ring to it.”
    “I don’t think it sounds so bad,” he said quietly. “It’s in memory of my dad.”
    She heard the sorrow in his voice and wished she hadn’t laughed. “Yeah, I guess that’d be pretty neat. Giving it your dad’s name,” she said. Even if
Comet Yablonski
did sound stupid.
    “I saw you a few nights ago,” he said. “What do
you
do out here?”
    “I can’t sleep.” She turned to look at the water and imagined swimming across lakes, across oceans. Dark water didn’t scare her; it made her feel alive, like a mermaid returning home. “I hardly sleep. Ever since …”
    “Do you get nightmares, too?” he asked.
    “I just don’t sleep. It’s because my brain’s all messed up.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I have this scar here, on my head, where the doctors sawed open my skull. They dug out pieces of the bullet and it damaged things inside. So I don’t sleep.”
    “People
have
to sleep or they die. How can you go without it?”
    “I just don’t sleep as much as everyone else. A few hours, that’s all.” She took a breath of the summer-scented wind. “Anyway, I like the nighttime. I like how quiet it is. How there are animals that you don’t see during the day, like owls and skunks. Sometimes I go walking in the woods, and I see their eyes.”
    “Do you remember me, Claire?”
    The question, asked so softly, made her turn to him in puzzlement. “I see you every day in class, Will.”
    “No, I mean do you remember me from somewhere else? Before we came to Evensong?”
    “I didn’t know you before.”
    “Are you sure?”
    She stared at him in the moonlight. Saw a big head with a moon-like face. That was the thing about Will, he was big all over, from his head to his enormous feet. Big and soft, like a marshmallow. “What are you talking about?”
    “When I first got here, when I saw you in the dining hall, I had this weird feeling. Like I met you before.”
    “I was living in Ithaca. Where were you?”
    “In New Hampshire. With my aunt and uncle.”
    “I’ve never been to New Hampshire.”
    He moved closer, so close that his big head eclipsed the rising moonlight. “And I used to live in Maryland. Two years ago, when my mom and dad were alive. Does that mean anything to you?”
    She shook her head. “I wouldn’t remember. I even have trouble remembering my own mom and dad. What their voices were like. Or how they laughed or smelled.”
    “That’s really sad. That you don’t remember them.”
    “I have photo