HEATHER

Heather shook her head, her thoughts racing. "Hold on," she said. "How do I know you're really who you say you are? I saw J. Q. King. He was dead. How can you be him?"

J. Q. King tugged at his beard impatiently. "There's no time for this. We really must go...."

"Wait," Heather cut in. "I need you to tell me before I can trust you."

J. Q. King eyed the stairs one last time, then sighed. "I am J. Q. King. The man you think is the real J. Q. King is a fake."

"How am I supposed to believe that?" Heather asked.

J. Q. King massaged the bridge of his nose. "I'm not going into detail. All you need to know is that you, me, everyone at PITY--we're all in danger."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Hear me out, Miss Heather. I knew it was dangerous for me to invite the students to Murray Mansion. But I also knew it was dangerous for them if I didn't."

"Wait a second," Heather said, holding up a hand. "Are you saying that we wouldn't have been safe if you hadn't invited us?"

"Yes."

"Oh really? We've had five attacks by a murderer already, and you were one of the victims!" Heather exclaimed.

J. Q. King closed his eyes impatiently. "Nevertheless, you are safer here. Trust me. And like I said, the man who died is not me."

"Then who is he?"

"A friend. I knew it would be risky to help you and the rest of the students. So he volunteered to step in and pose as me. That way, should anyone try to harm me, they would harm him instead."

Heather grimaced. "That's horrible!"

J. Q. King's eyes were dark. "I know. That's what I told him. But he wouldn't listen. He forcibly removed me to the woods and took my place in the mansion."

Heather frowned in thought. "Did he...look exactly like you, or something?"

"Not at first," J. Q. King answered. "He did later. The only difference was the eyes." He gestured at his face with two fingers. "He didn't have the time to fix that."

Heather studied his eyes closely for the first time. She had thought they looked different, but he had interrupted her before she could find out how. The J. Q. King that had died had blue eyes. This one's were amber.

"That's strange," Heather said. "A boy in an old scrapbook had eyes just like yours...."

J. Q. King frowned, his eyes turning away from her.

"Wait a second," Heather said. "You have a son, right? The boy from the photo album's  your son!"

J. Q. King cleared his throat and walked toward the stairs. "Well," he said, clearing his throat. "We should be going to the mansion now."

"Wait!" Heather said, running forward to stop him. "If you go back, everyone will freak out!"

J. Q. King didn't stop. "I don't care. The students are in danger. They need help."

Heather stepped in front of him. "I can help. Everyone's already losing their minds. They don't need you to push them over the edge."

J. Q. King shook his head. "You can't help. You know barely anything."

"Then tell me more," Heather said, raising her eyebrows.

J. Q. King sighed and shook his head. "I don't know...."

"If you really want to help us, we have to understand what's going on," Heather prompted.

J. Q. King reached up a pale hand to scratch the top of his head. Heather watched, holding her breath. He finally withdrew his hand, let out another deep sigh, and said, "I will tell you what you need to know."

Heather leaned forward in anticipation.

"Everything started years ago," J. Q. King began, "long before you and the other students were born. I had a friend, the one you thought was J. Q. King. He and I knew a man called Volpe Sornione. To him my friend and I were...business rivals. He despised us and we despised him."

Heather nodded, impatient to hear more.

"One year, we managed to block the progress of Volpe's business so much that it almost ruined him. He was so mad that he wanted to kill us both."

Heather grimaced. "That's a little extreme."

J. Q. King gave her a sharp look. "I am not going into details. He wanted to kill us. But he knew that if he harmed us directly, it would put him at a greater risk. So he decided to strike at us another way."

"What way?" Heather asked.

"Our families." A dark expression clouded his face. "My friend had his wife and two daughters, and I had my son."

"Louis," Heather added quietly.

"Yes, Louis," J. Q. King said, falling silent.

Heather grew impatient. "What happened?" she pressed.

J. Q. King turned his attention back to her. "He struck," he said, his voice subdued. "He killed my friend's wife and one of his daughters. Then he launched a truly twisted scheme, impossibly elaborate, just the way he likes it. Louis, my friend's surviving daughter, and you students were all caught up in it. As a result, my friend lost the last of his family and I...." His eyes wandered to stare off somewhere else. "I lost my son."

Heather followed the direction of his eyes to the faded picture on the wall. With some difficulty, she was able to look through the smudged and faded lines and see a boy with black hair and amber eyes. She wanted to say something, but she also knew she couldn't.

J. Q. King noticed her silence and gave her a small smile. "He's not gone for good, I think," he said softly. "Neither is the girl. My friend and I were trying to find them."

"And you're doing that...by bringing the students here to the mansion?" Heather asked.

He nodded.

Heather frowned in thought. J. Q. King had said that all the students were involved in the scheme against him, but she still didn't understand how bringing them to the mansion helped.

When she asked him, J. Q. King shook his head. "Too many details," he said. "Go without me. Go back to the mansion and tell them the story that I have told you. Promise them that I will do all I can, but warn them that Volpe is after them. He has already planted a spy in the mansion."

"The murderer?" Heather asked. "The thirteenth student?

"I'm afraid so. Tell them this and help them find the imposter."

"Hold on!" Heather exclaimed as a thought jumped into her mind. "Can't you just tell me everyone that you invited? Don't you know the kids that you sent letters to?"

J. Q. King shook his head and let out a heavy sigh. "I don't. It was my friend who found all of you and sent the invitations. I'm afraid that information died with him."

"Oh," Heather said.

J. Q. King left her to her thoughts for a moment. Then he put a hand on her shoulder and started pushing her up the stairs.

"Hey! What--" Heather exclaimed.

"You have no time to waste. You need to go back to the mansion and find the student who is working for Volpe."

"But what about Volpe?" Heather asked.

"He is not here yet," J. Q. King said. "But when he comes, I will be waiting for him. Your greatest concern is to find his spy. As soon as you do, all things can fall into place."

"What if they don't?"

J. Q. King shrugged. "They had better. If not, we might all be dead soon."

J. Q. King pointed Heather in the right direction, and she found her way back to the mansion with relative ease. As she walked quickly across the green lawn, her sense of purpose dulled. She couldn't be sure if the man was really J. Q. King, or if she'd just been hit on the head like Amanda, or if she'd had a dream like Madison. How could she know it was real?

Heather slowed down to reach into her pocket, pulling out the king playing card. She turned it over a few times. It would have to be all the proof she needed.

Heather burst through the huge doors and ran down the quiet hallways alone, her shadow looking strange in the candlelight. Although she might have been terrified of wandering around while there was a murderer in the mansion, she was more worried about how she would tell the other students everything.

She rubbed her finger on the card. One of the students doesn't belong, she thought with a gulp. How could she tell them that? She was almost to the library, and she wasn't even wondering how the students would react when they saw her after her disappearance. All she questioned was what J. Q. King had told her. If the students were involved in this, she thought, why don't we remember anything?

The noise that met Heather when she entered the library was enough to pull her out of her puzzling. "It's Heather!" somebody exclaimed. She couldn't tell who had said it, because all at once a chorus of surprised cries met her.

Heather looked around at the students, studying them in a way she never had before. One of these kids is a killer.

Her eyes fell on Lara, who was sitting in a chair and looked as if she had been crying. "Thank goodness you're okay!" she said, her voice trembling slightly. "When Amanda and I turned and saw you weren't there, we...."

"You scared us," Amanda said, walking over to Heather. Kathryn followed close behind, and Stewart watched from his place among the bookshelves.

"Where were you?" Kathryn asked.

Heather took a deep breath. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," she said.

"Tell us anyway," Kathryn prompted.

Heather's eyes shifted around the room, and she lowered her voice. "Everyone has to be listening."

Amanda raised her eyebrows slightly, while Kathryn cleared her throat. "Everyone, listen up!" she exclaimed in a voice that was loud enough to make anyone pay attention, even Star. She stopped in the middle of filing her nails to listen.

Kathryn nodded. "Heather has something important to tell us, and you need to listen. Is that clear?"

The students nodded slowly, and Kathryn sat down. "The floor is yours, Heather," she said.

Amanda also took a seat, leaving Heather alone by the door. She was afraid to meet anyone's gaze, afraid that she'd see the treachery in the face of the murderer. She was shaking.

"Well," she said, her voice catching in her throat. "J. Q. King is dead, right?"

The students didn't nod. They were too disturbed by the memory to do anything, but Star made a face like she was going to be sick.

Heather swallowed, but the lump in her throat was still there. "Well...." She paused. "He's not. I saw him in the forest."

The students stared at her. After what felt like forever, Kathryn stood up. "You saw him?" she repeated, her voice hushed.

Heather nodded.

As if the movement had cut the tension in the air, a few of the students broke from their silence. "What do you mean?" James demanded, rising to his feet. "How could he be alive?"

Amanda cocked an eyebrow at Heather. "It does seem strange."

"Strange?" Star exclaimed. "It's completely impossible!"

"Sorry to doubt you, Heather," Nathan said, "but we saw it with our own eyes. It's kind of hard to forget."

Heather nodded. "I know." She wasn't sure how to explain it, so she decided to just tell her story--the strange figure she had seen and followed, which had turned out to be a man, who turned out to be J. Q. King.

"The guy we thought was J. Q. King was actually another person. He pretended to be him to keep him out of danger, like a decoy."

"Why would J. Q. King need a decoy?" James asked.

Star rolled her eyes at him. "Really, James? The decoy is dead. That would have been J. Q. King if his buddy hadn't stepped in."

James was silenced.

Amanda took the opportunity to speak. "You say that you recognized the man in the forest as J. Q. King," she muttered, half to herself and half to Heather. "Does that mean the two of them look exactly the same?"

"Not exactly...." Heather trailed off. Her eyes went to Stewart. He had taken a step out from between the bookcases and had a questioning look on his face. When he saw that he had Heather's attention, he gestured to his eyes.

How does he know?

Heather was so stunned that she nearly forgot to answer. She stared at Stewart in confusion until he nodded his head, encouraging her to talk.

"Oh," Heather said. "Only their eyes were different. The decoy's were blue, and J. Q. King's are amber."

Her attention was caught again by a knowing nod from Stewart. Does he know everything?

"How do they look the same?" Amanda asked. "Are they identical twins?"

Heather shrugged. "I'm not sure. He didn't say."

Most of the students were silent now, mulling over the new information in their minds. But Amanda wasn't finished. "I Think James asked a good question," she said quickly. "Why did J. Q. King need protection? We all know what happened to the decoy, but why did it happen?"

Heather had been dreading a question like that. She took a deep breath and told the students the story J. Q. King had told her.

The students were shocked. The murderer was a student, and that student was working for another murderer? They were involved in something much bigger than they had thought. It was overwhelming. They didn't know what to do.

At least most of them didn't. Always thinking, Amanda turned to them held out her hands. "Okay everyone," she said. "Hand over your invitations. We need to see who really belongs here."