The island had no name on any official map, but the locals who fished the gray waters beyond Ashwick Harbor called it Gallows Cay. A jagged outcropping of granite and wind-twisted pine, it rose from the sea like the broken spine of some ancient beast, its cliffs scarred by centuries of storms. At its summit stood a mansion built in the Gilded Age by a shipping magnate whose fortune had been built on rum and human misery, a sprawling pile of fieldstone and dark timber that had passed through a dozen owners before falling into the hands of a reclusive collector whose identity was shielded by a labyrinth of shell companies.
Voss learned all of this from the boatman who ferried him across the channel, a leather-skinned old man named Cormac who chewed tobacco and spoke in the clipped cadences of the outer islands.
“Nobody goes out there anymore,” Cormac said, his eyes fixed on the horizon. “Place has a bad reputation. The last owner, fellow name of Blackwood, used to host parties that lasted for days. Strange lights at night. Stranger sounds. Then one morning, the whole staff quit. Walked out and never came back. Place has been empty ever since.”
“When was this?”
“Ten years ago. Maybe twelve.” Cormac spat a stream of brown juice over the gunwale. “They say Blackwood still lives there, but I don’t believe it. Man would be a hundred years old by now. No, whatever’s on that island now, it ain’t human.”
The boat was a twenty-foot lobster skiff, its hull patched with fiberglass and its engine coughing like a consumptive. Voss sat in the stern, one hand gripping the gunwale, the other resting on the concealed holster beneath his jacket. He had left his badge behind, but he had not left his gun. The Caldwell ruling meant that any law-abiding citizen could carry a concealed firearm without a permit, and despite everything, Elias Voss was still, technically, a law-abiding citizen.
The mansion materialized out of the fog at dusk, its windows dark, its silhouette hunched against the evening sky like a crouching beast. A private dock extended from the base of the cliffs, its wooden pilings green with algae. A single speedboat was already moored there, its white hull gleaming in the fading light.
“That’ll be fifty dollars,” Cormac said.
Voss handed him the cash and stepped onto the dock. The wood creaked beneath his weight, a sound that echoed off the cliffs and died in the fog. He turned to ask Cormac how long he would wait, but the boatman was already pushing off, his skiff disappearing into the mist with an eagerness that bordered on panic.
He was alone.
The path to the mansion was a winding stone staircase cut into the cliff face, its steps worn smooth by a century of footsteps. Voss climbed slowly, his hand trailing along the rusted iron railing, his breath forming small clouds in the cold air. The fog thickened as he ascended, muffling the sound of the waves below, until the only thing he could hear was his own heartbeat and the distant cry of a gull.
At the top of the stairs, the mansion loomed before him. It was larger than it had appeared from the water—three stories of dark stone and leaded glass, with gables that jutted at odd angles and a tower that rose from the center like a finger pointed at the sky. The front door was oak, bound with iron straps, and it stood slightly ajar.
Voss pushed it open and stepped inside.
The entrance hall was a cathedral of shadows. A grand staircase curved upward into darkness, its banister carved with figures that writhed and twisted in the flickering light of a single candelabra that burned on a side table. The air smelled of dust, old velvet, and something else—something sharper, more recent. Gasoline. And beneath it, the faint, coppery tang of blood.
Voices drifted from a room to his left. He followed them through an arched doorway into what had once been a ballroom. The space was vast, its ceiling lost in shadow, its floor a checkerboard of black and white marble. At the center of the room, a long dining table had been set for ten. Crystal glasses gleamed. Silverware sparkled. And at each place setting, a small porcelain figurine stood—a soldier, a doctor, a judge, a businessman, each one different, each one painted with unsettling precision.
Seated around the table were nine people.
They turned as Voss entered, their faces a gallery of confusion, annoyance, and barely concealed fear. Some were dressed in evening wear, as if they had been invited to a formal dinner party. Others wore business suits, their ties loosened, their collars unbuttoned. One woman, a striking redhead in a green silk gown, was clutching a glass of wine like a weapon.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded a heavyset man at the head of the table. He had the florid complexion and expensive tailoring of someone accustomed to deference, and his voice carried the particular arrogance of old money. “We were told there would be ten guests. Are you number ten?”
“I wasn’t invited,” Voss said. “I’m here because someone is going to try to kill you tonight.”
The silence that followed was absolute. Then the redhead laughed, a brittle, nervous sound. “Is this some kind of joke? Did Martin put you up to this?”
“I don’t know anyone named Martin. My name is Elias Voss. Until yesterday, I was a homicide detective with the Ashwick Police Department. I’ve spent the last three days investigating a series of murders committed by a man who calls himself The Author. He kills people and stages the crime scenes to look like scenes from classic literature. And he sent me a message this afternoon telling me that his next performance would take place on this island, tonight, with ten guests.”
The heavyset man’s face had gone pale. “That’s absurd. We were all invited by our host, Mr. Owen. He contacted each of us personally.”
“U.N. Owen,” Voss said. “Unknown. It’s a pseudonym from an Agatha Christie novel. In the book, ten strangers are lured to an island and murdered one by one. Their deaths correspond to a nursery rhyme. ‘Ten Little Soldiers.’ Each of them had committed a crime for which they were never punished. The host, who turns out to be one of the guests, executes them in the name of justice.”
He looked around the table, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. “Who are you people? Why were you brought here?”
The introductions came haltingly, each guest speaking as if the words were being dragged from them by force. There was Orson Thorne, the heavyset man, a real estate developer who had made a fortune buying up low-income housing and converting it into luxury condominiums. There was Dr. Helena Vance, a psychiatrist who had testified in dozens of criminal trials, her expert opinions helping to acquit defendants who later went on to commit violent crimes. There was Martin Cross, a former prosecutor turned defense attorney who had built his career on getting gun charges dismissed. There was Lillian Marsh, the redhead, a socialite and philanthropist whose charitable foundation had been accused of funneling money to extremist groups.
The list went on. Each guest had power. Each guest had influence. And each guest, Voss realized with growing unease, had some connection—direct or indirect—to the Caldwell ruling and its aftermath. They were architects of the system that The Author despised, the hidden hands that had shaped a world where guns flowed like water and blood ran in the streets.
“We need to leave,” said a thin man named Gerald Phelps, a former judge who had been impeached for accepting bribes from the Armament Rights League. “If what this detective says is true, we’re in danger.”
“The boat is gone,” Voss said. “I came with a ferryman, but he left immediately. And the speedboat at the dock—does it belong to any of you?”
Heads shook around the table. No one claimed it.
“Then we’re stranded. Someone deliberately cut us off from the mainland.”
“There must be a radio,” said Dr. Vance. “A telephone. Something.”
“I already checked,” said a young woman who had not yet spoken. She was in her late twenties, with dark hair cropped short and eyes that held a quiet, watchful intelligence. “The phone lines are cut. There’s a radio in the study, but it’s been smashed. And the front door is rigged with some kind of mechanism—I couldn’t open it.”
Voss turned to her. “Who are you?”
“Rowan Cole. I’m a journalist. I was invited by Mr. Owen to write a profile of his art collection.” She paused, her gaze steady. “I think I’m the only one here who actually believed that.”
“Cole,” Voss repeated. “Are you related to Nathan Cole?”
Rowan’s expression flickered. “He’s my younger brother. How do you know Nathan?”
“He’s involved in this. Tangentially. He sold a book to a campus bookstore—a book that ended up at the first murder scene.”
Before Rowan could respond, a sound cut through the ballroom. It was a recorded voice, crackling and distorted, emanating from speakers hidden somewhere in the shadows of the ceiling. The voice was calm, measured, almost gentle—a voice that might have belonged to a professor or a clergyman.
“Good evening, honored guests. Welcome to Gallows Cay. I am your host, and I have gathered you here tonight to participate in a story. Each of you has been chosen because you have committed a crime for which the law has failed to hold you accountable. Each of you has profited from the suffering of others, and each of you has been judged. Over the course of this evening, justice will be dispensed. There will be no escape. There will be no reprieve. The only question is the order in which you will die.”
The voice paused, as if savoring the silence that followed. Then it continued, softer now, almost intimate:
“Ten little soldier boys went out to dine. One choked his little self, and then there were nine.”
The recording clicked off. In the ringing silence that followed, Orson Thorne lunged for the door. He was faster than he looked, his bulk propelled by adrenaline and terror, and he reached the entrance hall before anyone could stop him. Voss heard the heavy oak door slam open, heard Thorne’s footsteps on the gravel path outside, heard him shouting for help into the fog.
And then he heard the scream.
It was not a scream of fear. It was a scream of agony, raw and primal, cut short by a wet, choking sound that Voss recognized with sickening clarity. He ran into the entrance hall, the other guests crowding behind him, and found Orson Thorne sprawled on the gravel path just outside the door.
Thorne was clutching his throat, his face purple, his eyes bulging. His mouth was open, his tongue swollen and black, and a thin trickle of foam ran down his chin. He convulsed once, twice, and then went still.
“Don’t touch him,” Voss ordered, kneeling beside the body. He examined Thorne’s face, his hands, the glass that had shattered on the gravel beside him. “He drank something. The glass was at his place setting. Did anyone see him drink before he ran?”
“He took a sip of wine when we sat down,” said Rowan. “We all did. But nothing happened to the rest of us.”
“Then his glass was poisoned. Specifically his.” Voss stood, his mind racing. “The killer is here. He’s one of the guests. He has to be—just like in the book.”
The accusations began immediately, a cacophony of fear and suspicion. Martin Cross pointed at Dr. Vance. Dr. Vance pointed at Gerald Phelps. Lillian Marsh backed away from all of them, her wine glass trembling in her hand. Only Rowan remained calm, her journalistic instincts overriding her terror.
“The nursery rhyme,” she said. “Ten little soldier boys went out to dine. One choked his little self. Thorne choked. He’s already following the pattern.”
“We need to search the house,” Voss said. “Find the killer before he strikes again. And we need to keep everyone together. No one goes anywhere alone.”
But the mansion was vast, a warren of corridors and hidden passages that seemed designed to confuse and disorient. The search turned up nothing but dust and shadows. The kitchen was empty, its cupboards bare except for the ingredients for the dinner that had been laid out. The bedrooms upstairs were musty and abandoned, their sheets yellowed with age. The tower room at the top of the spiral staircase was locked, its door reinforced with steel, its lock a modern electronic keypad that gleamed incongruously against the ancient wood.
“He’s in there,” said Martin Cross, his voice trembling. “The killer. He’s hiding in that room.”
“We don’t know that,” Voss said. But his hand moved to his holster, his fingers brushing the grip of his pistol.
The recorded voice returned as they stood in the corridor, emanating from speakers that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once. It was calm, unhurried, almost amused:
“Nine little soldier boys sat up very late. One overslept himself, and then there were eight.”
They found Dr. Helena Vance in the library twenty minutes later. She was seated in a leather armchair, a book open in her lap, a hypodermic needle still protruding from her arm. Her eyes were closed, her expression peaceful. The book was a volume of Shakespeare’s tragedies, opened to Macbeth.
Voss checked her pulse. There was none.
“She must have been drugged,” he said. “The needle wasn’t self-administered. Someone injected her, then staged the scene.”
“But we were all together,” Lillian Marsh protested. “We were searching the house. No one was alone.”
“Someone was,” Rowan said quietly. “When we split up to check the bedrooms. We were all alone for at least five minutes.”
The realization settled over the group like a shroud. Any one of them could be the killer. The host, the judge, the executioner—hidden among the guests, wearing a mask of fear that was indistinguishable from the real thing.
Voss looked at the bodies: Thorne on the gravel path, Vance in the armchair. Two down. Eight to go, if you counted the killer among the living. And the night was still young.
“We need to barricade ourselves in one room,” he said. “The ballroom. It has only two entrances. We can watch both of them until morning.”
But even as he spoke, he knew it was a futile gesture. The Author had planned this performance with meticulous care. The mansion was his stage, the guests his actors, and the script had already been written. The only question was whether any of them would survive to read the final page.
As they retreated to the ballroom, Voss caught Rowan’s eye. She was watching him with an expression he couldn’t read—curiosity, perhaps, or something deeper. Something that looked almost like recognition.
“You’re not just a detective,” she said, her voice low enough that the others couldn’t hear. “You’re part of this. He wanted you here. Why?”
Voss didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Because the truth was something he had not yet admitted to himself: that he had come to this island not just to stop The Author, but to understand him. That somewhere in the dark architecture of this nightmare, he sensed a logic that spoke to something broken inside himself.
The recorded voice returned one final time before midnight, filling the ballroom with its gentle, terrible cadence:
“Eight little soldier boys traveling in Devon. One said he’d stay there, and then there were seven.”
The chandelier above them flickered, and somewhere in the depths of the mansion, a door slammed shut.
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