“I’m not going,” I said defiantly. “You can’t make me.”

He sighed and shook his head. “On the contrary, I can. Your parents entrusted me with your safety, as stipulated in their wills. As your primary guardian, it’s my responsibility to do what I think is best for your future.”

“But they hated you. Even when they were alive they wouldn’t let you see me. So how can you possibly think you know what’s best for me? You don’t know anything about me.”

“That may be the case,” he said quietly, “yet the fact still remains that I am your grandfather, and you are a minor. I know more about you than you know about yourself. Now, sit down. Please.”

I cringed and sank into my seat.

“Whether you like it or not, I am your legal guardian, and you’re going to Gottfried. Now, I’m going to speak plainly and clearly. You are not safe here, Renée.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your parents died. I don’t know why or how or by whom, but it certainly was not by natural causes.”

“But the police said—”

“The police believe that they both had some sort of heart attack. Do you think that’s true?”

“No.”

“Neither do I.”

“So … so what, then. You think someone murdered them? That someone chased them into the woods and killed them?”

My grandfather shook his head, his jowls quivering. “I don’t know, Renée. I only know that it wasn’t an accident. Which is why we have to leave.”

My mind raced through all of my options. I could run away, stay with Annie and her parents. Or I could just leave and never come back, live in a train like the boxcar children so my grandfather couldn’t find me. I had to talk to Annie. Maybe she could help me convince her mom to adopt me.

My grandfather must have sensed my dissent. “We depart tomorrow morning. I will physically place you in the car if necessary.”

“Tomorrow? I can’t leave tomorrow. What about my friends?”

Suddenly I didn’t care if there was some killer out there who wanted to chop me to pieces. I was staying, and I was going to find out what happened to my parents. “I’ll never go,” I said defiantly. “Not with you or your stupid butler.”

Dustin coughed in the corner of the room, but I didn’t care.

“We don’t have time for this,” my grandfather said. “The semester begins in a week. You should be grateful that Gottfried is letting you enroll this late. If it weren’t for my outstanding ties with the school, they probably wouldn’t have even considered you.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, angry tears stinging my eyes. “Why would I be safer in a different school? Why don’t we just go to the police?”

“The police were here; do you remember how helpful they were? Gottfried Academy is the safest place you could be right now. I’ve left a suitcase in the hallway outside your bedroom. Pack lightly. You won’t need much. The weather is different on the East Coast, and Gottfried enforces a strict dress code.” He eyed my shorts and tank top. “I daresay your current wardrobe will not do. We’ll find more appropriate attire when we land.”

I thought I had misheard him. “The East Coast?”

“Gottfried is on the western edge of Maine.”

I almost fell out of my chair. I expected Gottfried to be an hour, maybe two, away from Costa Rosa, but moving to Maine was different. I had never been to the East Coast before. The phrase alone conjured up images of stern, expressionless people dressed completely in black; of dark and unfathomably long winters. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the degrees of unhappiness I would experience if I had to move there.

“I can’t go!” I screamed. “I won’t—”

But my grandfather cut me off. “Do you think your parents would want you to stay here, wallowing in self-pity as you’ve been doing for the past week?” He gave me a cold look and shook his head. “No, they would want you to move on with your life. Which is exactly what you’re going to do.”

The conversation was over, and I stormed out of the room. I went upstairs and sat by the window, tears blurring my vision as I watched the heat rise off the pavement in the morning sun. It was unreal how much my life had changed in just one week. Both of my parents were dead, and I had no idea what was going to happen next. But I wasn’t scared. I was alive, and as I picked up the phone to dial Annie’s number, I closed my eyes and made a promise to my parents that I would never take that for granted again.

CHAPTER 2

Gottfried Academy

WHEN I TOLD ANNIE ABOUT GOTTFRIED Academy, she sounded more hysterical than I did. “But you can’t move! Who will be my best friend? Who will be your best friend? You can move in with me; we’ll be real sisters then, like we always wanted when we were little. You can move into the office.” It was exactly what I wanted her to say, but hearing it from her made me realize how unrealistic it was. Annie already had two younger brothers and a sister that her parents had to worry about, which was why they didn’t have any extra bedrooms or time. If my parents were alive, they would want me to be brave and independent. Running away or going to Annie’s house wouldn’t solve my problems. Where would I go when the only place I wanted to be was back in time? So after Annie’s monologue, I found myself in the unexpected position of reasoning with her.

“But where will your dad work?”

“In the kitchen. Or the living room. We’ll find space.”

I sighed. “I couldn’t do that,” I said. “And your mom is already so busy....”

“But what about school? And all of your friends? And Wes?”

I winced at the thought of leaving them all behind, but tried to convince myself that there was a reason why my parents had made my grandfather, instead of Annie’s mother, my legal guardian. “Maybe Maine won’t be that bad. If my parents went there it couldn’t be too horrible. Besides, we’ll talk every day, and I’ll come back on holidays and in the summer.” After a teary conversation, Annie and I made plans to meet one last time, that night at Baker’s Field.

I spent my last day in California packing and wandering around the house trying to remember its every detail—the way it always smelled faintly of bread, the plush feeling of the carpet beneath my toes, the creaky fifth stair. Eventually I found my way to the office, where my father’s papers were still scattered across his desk. Not ready to look at them, I pushed the documents aside and turned on the computer. First, I searched “heart attack,” trying to figure out what could have possibly been the cause of my parents’ deaths. When more than a million results popped up, I refined my search to “heart attack” and “gauze in mouth.” That was more reasonable, but the results were all about wisdom teeth or complications with dental procedures. And after trying “heart attack, gauze,” and “coins, double heart attack, gauze in mouth,” which yielded nothing except the suggestion, “Did you mean cost of double heath bar, gooey in mouth?” I gave up. Frustrated, I typed in “Gottfried Academy.”