1. And Then There Were Ten

The rain had been falling for three days straight, turning the streets of Colbridge into black mirrors that reflected nothing but the bruised sky. Morris Dunn sat in his office—if you could call it that—a converted storage room above a Laundromat on Decker Street, where the perpetual smell of dryer sheets and someone else's lint clung to everything he owned.

His desk was a door laid across two filing cabinets. On it sat a bottle of bourbon he couldn't afford and a stack of bills he couldn't pay. The framed law degree from Colbridge University hung crooked on the wall, a relic from a life that had ended five years ago when Judge Hollis banged his gavel and the words "disbarment effective immediately" hit Morris like a physical blow.

The phone rang.

Morris let it ring four times before picking up. Old habits. Never seem too eager.

"Dunn Process Services," he said, the words tasting like ash.

"Morris Dunn." The voice on the other end was smooth as polished mahogany, with the kind of cultivated authority that came from generations of inherited wealth. "This is Victor Dunn. We're not related, though I'm sure you've checked."

Morris had, in fact, checked. When you shared a surname with one of the wealthiest industrialists in the state, you checked. The Dunn family owned half the shipping interests on the Colbridge River, a newspaper, three textile mills, and enough politicians to fill a small auditorium. Morris's branch of the Dunns had owned a failing hardware store in South Colbridge and a predisposition toward alcoholism.

"What can I do for you, Mr. Dunn?"

"I have a matter that requires discretion. And a certain... familiarity with the legal system's underbelly." A pause. "Your former reputation precedes you, Mr. Dunn. Before your unfortunate lapse in judgment, you were considered one of the sharpest prosecutors in this city."

Morris's hand tightened on the receiver. The "unfortunate lapse" was perjuring himself to convict Eleanor Voss of murdering her husband, a crime she almost certainly didn't commit. The evidence had been circumstantial, the witnesses unreliable, and Morris had been twenty-nine years old with a win rate he'd sell his soul to maintain. He'd sold something, all right. A year after the execution, new DNA evidence had exonerated her posthumously, and Morris's career had evaporated like morning fog.

"I don't practice law anymore, Mr. Dunn. I serve papers and track down people who don't want to be found."

"Precisely why I need you. Someone has been sending me... correspondence. Unsettling correspondence. I'd like you to look into it."

"What kind of correspondence?"

Instead of answering, Victor Dunn gave him an address on Sprague Island—the private enclave in the middle of the Colbridge River where the city's old money had built their summer estates a century ago. "I'm hosting a small gathering this weekend. Business associates, family. Come prepared to stay overnight. I'll have my man send over the materials this evening."

The line went dead before Morris could ask about payment, about details, about what the hell "unsettling correspondence" meant. He hung up and stared at the rain-streaked window, watching a delivery truck splash through a puddle and drench a woman on the sidewalk. She didn't even flinch. In Colbridge, you got used to being soaked.

The package arrived at seven that evening, delivered not by mail but by a uniformed chauffeur who handed over a thick manila envelope with the Dunn family crest embossed in gold. Inside, Morris found five thousand dollars in cash, a ferry ticket, and a stack of photocopied letters.

He read them twice.

The first letter was typewritten on cream-colored paper:

"Ten little soldier boys went out to dine; One choked his little self and then there were nine."

The second:

"Nine little soldier boys sat up very late; One overslept himself and then there were eight."

The third continued the pattern, and the fourth, and the fifth. By the sixth letter, the typeface had changed slightly—deliberately, Morris thought—and the verses had grown more personalized. Beneath the nursery rhyme lines, the sender had added notes in cramped, meticulous handwriting:

"Mr. Victor Dunn—which soldier boy will you be? The one who chokes on his own lies? The one who oversleeps into oblivion? Or perhaps the one who simply... vanishes?"

The references were unmistakable. Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None," originally published under its more infamous title. Ten strangers lured to an island, accused of past crimes, murdered one by one in accordance with a children's rhyme. Morris had read the novel in law school during a brief period when he'd fancied himself a literary man. The memory of it made his stomach turn.

He counted the letters again. Seven. Three more verses would complete the rhyme, and whoever was sending them seemed to be building toward something.

Morris lit a cigarette and walked to the window. The rain had finally stopped, leaving the streets glistening and treacherous. Below, a man in a tattered overcoat was digging through the garbage cans behind the Laundromat. Morris watched him for a long moment, then pulled the blinds shut.

Five thousand dollars. His last case before the disbarment had earned him five thousand dollars, back when five thousand dollars meant something. Now it meant rent, it meant the collection agency that called every Tuesday, it meant not having to sell his father's watch—the last thing he owned that reminded him of a time before everything went wrong.

He took the ferry ticket out of the envelope and read the departure time. Six o'clock tomorrow evening. One night on Sprague Island, rubbing elbows with the kind of people who'd once called him "counselor" and now crossed the street when they saw him coming.

What the hell. He'd been drowning for five years. At least this was a more interesting way to sink.

The Sprague Island ferry was a relic from the 1920s, all polished brass and mahogany paneling, maintained by the Dunn family as a floating monument to their own permanence. Morris stood at the rail as the city skyline receded, the smokestacks and water towers of Colbridge shrinking against a sky that had turned the color of a healing bruise.

He was the only passenger on the evening crossing. The crew—a captain and two deckhands—ignored him entirely, which suited Morris fine. He'd dressed in his best suit, which meant it only had one stain instead of three, and he'd shaved for the first time in a week. The face in the mirror that morning had looked older than forty-three. The eyes had the hollow, watchful quality of a man who'd spent too long calculating the distance between who he'd been and who he'd become.

The island emerged from the river mist like something from a half-remembered dream. Victorian mansions dotted the shoreline, their windows glowing with warm yellow light. At the northern tip, visible even from the ferry, stood the Dunn estate: a sprawling Gothic Revival pile with turrets and gargoyles and a wrought-iron gate that looked capable of keeping out anything except bad intentions.

A valet met Morris at the dock and escorted him up a winding gravel path through manicured gardens that smelled of wet earth and roses. The mansion's interior was a museum of old money: oil paintings of dead Dunns staring down from the walls, Persian rugs thick enough to lose a shoe in, chandeliers that dripped crystal teardrops.

Victor Dunn was waiting in the library.

He was a tall man, silver-haired and angular, with the kind of patrician bearing that made you feel underdressed even when you weren't. He stood by the fireplace, holding a glass of something amber, and studied Morris with the cool appraisal of a man who'd spent his life evaluating assets.

"Mr. Dunn." Victor's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Thank you for coming."

"Your letters were persuasive." Morris took in the room: floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a globe that probably cost more than his annual income, and a dozen or so guests scattered across leather armchairs and velvet settees. "I assume these are the other invitees?"

"The gathering I mentioned. Business associates, legal counsel, family. All of whom have received similar correspondence to mine." Victor gestured to a woman in an emerald dress by the window. "My daughter, Elena. She's been quite disturbed by these letters."

Elena Dunn turned at the sound of her name. She was perhaps twenty-five, with dark hair pulled back severely from a pale face and eyes that held something Morris couldn't quite identify—something watchful and still, like a cat observing a bird it hadn't yet decided to kill.

"Mr. Dunn," she said, her voice cool and musical. "The famous prosecutor. Father has told me so much about you."

"Former prosecutor," Morris corrected. "And I doubt he told you the interesting parts."

A flicker of something crossed her face. Amusement, perhaps. Or recognition. "On the contrary. I find the interesting parts are the only ones worth knowing."

Victor cleared his throat. "I've assembled everyone here for the weekend. There are ten guests in total—nine, now that you've arrived. The letters began arriving three months ago, one each week. They've accelerated recently. The latest came yesterday, and I'm afraid it was quite specific."

He handed Morris a folded piece of paper. The eighth letter:

"Eight little soldier boys traveling in Devon; One said he'd stay there and then there were seven."

Below the rhyme, the cramped handwriting had added: "One will not leave this island. The ferry will not return. Choose carefully who you trust, Victor. The game begins at dinner."

Morris read it twice. "You think someone here is planning to act on these threats?"

"I think someone here has been planning this for a very long time." Victor's voice had dropped to barely above a whisper. "Every person in this room has a secret, Mr. Dunn. Something they've done, something they've hidden. The letters allude to these secrets with alarming specificity. I've gathered us together not for a social occasion, but because I believe one of us is the author of these notes—and the others are potential victims."

"Or potential murderers," Elena added quietly.

Victor shot her a look but didn't contradict her.

Morris surveyed the room again, cataloging faces. A portly man with a red face and expensive cufflinks—banker, probably. A thin woman in tweed clutching a briefcase like a shield. A young couple whispering in a corner, the man's hand gripping the woman's wrist a little too tightly. An elderly gentleman with a hearing aid and the vacant smile of someone who'd stopped paying attention years ago. Two men in identical dark suits who might have been lawyers or might have been undertakers.

Ten people. One of them, if Victor was right, was a killer waiting for the right moment.

"I need to see the original letters," Morris said. "And I need to speak with everyone here, individually."

"Of course." Victor nodded toward a door at the far end of the library. "Use the study. I'll send them in one at a time. And Mr. Dunn?" He paused. "Whatever happened in your past—whatever mistakes you made—I trust they won't interfere with your work here."

Morris met his eyes. "Everyone has mistakes, Mr. Dunn. The trick is making sure they don't get you killed."

The interviews took three hours.

The portly man was Lawrence Whitmore, a bank president who'd been Victor's business partner for twenty years. He sweated profusely and denied receiving any letters, then admitted he'd gotten two but burned them. His secret, Morris gathered, involved some creative accounting that had ruined a dozen families during the recession.

The thin woman was Dr. Helena Cross, a psychiatrist who'd once treated members of the Dunn family. She was sharp, defensive, and refused to discuss her former patients. She'd received three letters, she said, and had no intention of showing them to anyone.

The young couple were Peter and Alice Vance, new money from the tech sector, eager to ingratiate themselves with the Dunn dynasty. Peter had received one letter. Alice had received none, which seemed to bother her more than she was willing to admit.

The elderly gentleman was Judge Mortimer Crane, retired. Morris recognized the name: Crane had presided over the Voss case before recusing himself due to a conflict of interest that had never been fully explained. The old man's hearing aid whistled faintly, and his answers were vague to the point of uselessness. He'd received a letter, he thought, though he couldn't remember what it said.

The two men in suits were brothers, Daniel and Frederick Holt, lawyers who handled the Dunn family's legal affairs. They'd each received multiple letters, they admitted, and had hired private security that hadn't done a damn bit of good.

And then there was Elena.

She came into the study last, closing the door behind her with a soft click. In the lamplight, her face seemed to shift between girlish and ancient, the shadows carving hollows beneath her cheekbones.

"You're not like the others," she said, settling into the chair across from his desk. "They're all so frightened. You just look tired."

"I've been tired for five years. It's less interesting than fear."

"What did you do? To lose your license, I mean." She leaned forward slightly. "Father told me the official version, but I'd rather hear yours."

Morris studied her for a long moment. There was something off about this girl, something that didn't quite fit the role of the wealthy industrialist's daughter. Her eyes were too knowing, her stillness too deliberate.

"I sent an innocent woman to death row," he said. "I knew the evidence was weak. I prosecuted anyway. She was executed, and a year later, someone else confessed."

"Do you regret it?"

The question hung in the air between them. Morris had answered it a thousand times—to the bar association, to reporters, to himself in the small hours of the morning. But something in her voice made him hesitate.

"I regret getting caught," he said finally. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

Elena smiled. It was a strange smile, sad and satisfied at the same time. "It's what I expected to hear. Honesty is so rare in this house. You might find it's a liability, Mr. Dunn. This family has a way of punishing the truthful."

Before he could respond, a gong sounded from somewhere deep in the mansion.

"Dinner is served," Elena said, rising. "I do hope you'll sit next to me. I have a feeling tonight is going to be... eventful."

The dining room was a cathedral of excess. A mahogany table long enough to seat twenty stretched beneath a vaulted ceiling painted with mythological scenes. Crystal goblets caught the candlelight and scattered it into rainbows. The place settings were arranged with military precision: ten chairs, ten plates, ten wine glasses, ten folded napkins shaped like swans.

But there were only nine people at the table.

Morris counted twice. Victor Dunn at the head, Elena to his right, Whitmore, Dr. Cross, the Vances, Judge Crane, the Holt brothers. And himself, seated between Elena and an empty chair.

"I thought you said there were ten of us," Morris said quietly.

Victor's face had gone pale. "There should be. My business manager, Harold Finch, was supposed to join us. He arrived this morning."

"Perhaps he's feeling unwell," Dr. Cross suggested.

"Perhaps." Victor gestured to one of the servants. "Check Mr. Finch's room. Tell him dinner is being served."

The servant returned five minutes later, his face ashen.

"Mr. Finch is not in his room, sir. His bed hasn't been slept in. And we found this on his pillow."

He held out a small porcelain figurine—a soldier boy, painted in intricate detail, lying on its side with a red mark across its throat.

The dining room erupted into chaos. Peter Vance's wife began to cry. Lawrence Whitmore demanded to know what the hell was going on. Dr. Cross called for everyone to remain calm, her professional training kicking in even as her hands trembled. The Holt brothers exchanged glances that Morris couldn't read, and Judge Crane kept saying, "What? What's happened?" while his hearing aid whistled its useless song.

Morris pushed back from the table and strode to the servant. "Where's Finch's room?"

"Third floor, sir. The east wing."

"Show me."

The room was at the end of a long corridor lined with portraits of dead Dunns. Morris's footsteps echoed on the hardwood, a lonely sound that seemed to announce his arrival to no one in particular. The door was unlocked. The room inside was immaculate—bed made, curtains drawn, a leather suitcase sitting unopened on the luggage rack.

And on the pillow: another note, this one handwritten in the same cramped script as the letters.

"Nine little soldier boys sat up very late; One fell asleep and then there were eight. Mr. Finch kept very late hours indeed. He had so many secrets to hide. But secrets are heavy things, aren't they? Heavy enough to stop a heart."

Morris read it twice, then folded it carefully and put it in his pocket. He searched the room, the bathroom, the closet. Nothing. No sign of a struggle, no indication of where Finch had gone.

Downstairs, the dining room had descended into accusations. Whitmore was shouting at Victor, demanding to leave. Alice Vance was still crying, her husband's attempts to comfort her growing increasingly desperate. The Holt brothers had cornered a servant and were grilling him about the island's security arrangements.

"We need to call the police," Dr. Cross said, her voice cutting through the chaos.

"The phone lines are down," Victor replied, his composure cracking at the edges. "I tried to call the mainland after the servant found the figurine. There's no connection."

"The ferry, then. We can take the ferry."

"The ferry crew returns to Colbridge after the last crossing. They won't be back until morning." Victor looked around the room, his eyes landing on Morris. "We're trapped here. All of us."

Morris felt a cold certainty settle in his chest. The ferry crew. The phone lines. The figurine. The note. This wasn't a threat anymore. It was a performance.

And the first act had just ended.

He turned to the group, raising his voice just enough to cut through the noise. "Listen to me. Everyone needs to stay together. No one goes anywhere alone. We search the house, room by room, until we find Finch or some evidence of what happened to him."

"And who put you in charge?" Whitmore demanded.

"Five thousand dollars and a ferry ticket," Morris said flatly. "Mr. Dunn hired me to investigate these letters. As of right now, I'm the closest thing to law enforcement on this island. Unless anyone else has a better suggestion?"

No one did.

They searched the mansion for two hours. The library, the study, the kitchen, the servants' quarters, the wine cellar, the attic. They called Finch's name until their voices went hoarse. They found nothing.

It was almost midnight when Morris stepped out onto the back terrace, needing air that didn't smell like candle wax and fear. The river was a black void beyond the gardens, the lights of Colbridge a distant constellation on the horizon. The rain had started again, a fine mist that clung to his skin like sweat.

He heard footsteps behind him and turned to find Elena, a silk shawl wrapped around her shoulders, her dark hair beaded with moisture.

"You're not searching with the others," he observed.

"I don't think we'll find him. Alive, I mean." She came to stand beside him at the railing. "Harold Finch wasn't a good man, Mr. Dunn. None of us are. That's the point, isn't it? The rhyme? Ten little soldier boys, each one guilty of something."

"You seem remarkably calm about all this."

"I've had time to prepare. The letters have been coming for months, remember. I've had ample opportunity to consider what it means to be on this island with someone who wants us dead." She tilted her head, studying him in the darkness. "Have you considered your own guilt, Mr. Dunn? Your own secrets?"

Morris didn't answer.

"Eleanor Voss," Elena said softly. "She had a daughter, you know. A little girl, eight years old when her mother was taken away. She was there in the courtroom. She watched you argue for the death penalty. She watched the jury deliberate for less than two hours. She watched her mother being led away in handcuffs."

The cold certainty in Morris's chest spread until it felt like ice in his veins. "How do you know that?"

"I make it my business to know things about the people my father invites into our home." Elena smiled again—that same sad, satisfied smile she'd worn in the study. "I know about Lawrence Whitmore's fraudulent loans. I know about Dr. Cross's unauthorized experiments on her patients. I know about Judge Crane's bribes and the Holt brothers' shell corporations. I know about Peter Vance's embezzlement and his wife's affair with one of the board members."

She turned to face him fully, and in the dim light, her eyes seemed to hold a depth that hadn't been there before. Something ancient. Something patient.

"Everyone on this island deserves what's coming to them, Mr. Dunn. Including you. Especially you."

Before Morris could respond, a scream tore through the night.

It came from inside the mansion—high and shrill and abruptly cut off. Morris ran, Elena close behind him, through the terrace doors and down the corridor toward the sound. The others were emerging from various rooms, faces white with terror, voices overlapping in a cacophony of fear.

They found Dr. Cross in the library, standing over the leather armchair where Judge Crane had been dozing earlier. The old man was still there, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. He looked peaceful. He looked asleep.

But he wasn't breathing.

On the table beside him sat another porcelain soldier boy. This one was holding a tiny hypodermic needle.

Morris picked up the note that had been tucked beneath the figurine:

"Nine little soldier boys, one fell asleep and stayed that way. Sweet dreams, Your Honor. May your nightmares be kinder than your judgments."

He read it aloud, his voice steady despite the tremor in his hands. When he finished, the room was silent except for Alice Vance's quiet, hysterical sobbing.

"Two," Morris said. "Finch and now Crane. Two of us are dead, and we're trapped on this island until morning."

He looked around the room, meeting each pair of eyes in turn. Victor, pale and rigid. Whitmore, sweating and defensive. Dr. Cross, professionally composed but shaking. The Holt brothers, conferring in low whispers. Peter and Alice Vance, clinging to each other like shipwreck survivors. Elena, standing in the doorway with her shawl pulled tight.

And himself. The disgraced prosecutor. The man who'd sent an innocent woman to die.

"Someone in this room is the killer," Morris said. "Someone in this room knows exactly what's happening. And unless we figure out who it is before the ferry returns tomorrow morning..."

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to.

Outside, the rain intensified, drumming against the windows like impatient fingers. The river churned around the island, cutting them off from the world. And somewhere in the mansion, Morris was certain, the killer was already planning the next verse.

The rhyme had nine verses left.

They were eight people.

And in the pocket of Morris's jacket, folded small and hidden from view, was something he hadn't shown anyone—something he'd found in Finch's room, tucked behind the headboard where no one else had thought to look. A slip of paper with a single line of type:

"Check the guest list. One of you isn't supposed to be here. One of you was never invited at all."

He should share it with the others. He knew he should. It was evidence. It was a clue. It might save lives.

But the slip of paper was typed on the same cream-colored stationery as the letters, which meant it had been left there deliberately—left for someone to find, someone who might use it or misuse it or reveal it at exactly the wrong moment.

Morris looked at Elena, who was watching him with those dark, knowing eyes, and decided to keep the slip of paper to himself.

In a house full of secrets, knowledge was the only currency that mattered. And Morris Dunn, who'd spent five years paying for his mistakes, wasn't ready to go bankrupt just yet.

The grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight. Somewhere upstairs, a floorboard creaked.

And the long night was only beginning.