Dark Secrets 2: No Time to Die; The Deep End of Fear (14 page)

"Liza was only four years old," I protested. "She didn't understand the consequences."

"Liza took from me my greatest treasure!" Maggie cried out, then lowered her voice. "Last summer I took back. I wrote the note she thought Mike had sent. I knew Liza would slip out, even wait for him til I could be sure she and I were alone. Finally I had justice. Your parents and I were even, each left with one child. Then you came." She took a deep breath. "I liked you, Jenny. I felt… motherly toward you, when I didn't know who you were."

"We can work things out, Maggie," I said. "We can get help for you and me, for our families—"

"Don't you listen?" she exploded. "No one can help me! No one can end for me that night I watched you being helped down the ladder, watched you and Liza and the baby-sitter. I waited on the street, clutching Brian's little hand." Maggie's voice grew hysterical. "I watched and I waited for Melanie. I'm waiting still!"

The abrupt shift of the flashlight warned me. I pulled myself up one more rung, then felt the impact of her rushing against the ladder. I flung my hands upward, grasping the edge of the metal walk as the ladder was dragged out from beneath me. It crashed onto the stage.

"Flashlight, flashlight," Maggie called from below, like a small child calling a pet—or an adult totally unhinged. "Where are you, flashlight?"

High above her I dangled in darkness. My left hand was useless. I hung by my right. She found the light and shined it up at me. I pulled back my head to study the structure of the catwalk, a suspended strip of metal lace. My shadow flickered over it like a black moth.

"It's almost over, Jenny," Maggie said, her voice growing eerily soft. "Sooner or later, you will let go. Everyone lets go, except me."

There was a ridge along the catwalk's edge, the thin piece of metal my fingers grasped, then a large gap between that and a restraining bar. I knew I had to swing my legs onto the narrow walkway, but my right hand was slick with sweat. If I swung my body hard, my hand would slip off. I hung from one arm, looking down at Maggie.

"Sooner or later."

"Maggie, I'm begging you—"

I stopped midsentence. I had felt the catwalk vibrate. I grasped the metal harder, but my grip kept slipping. My hand rotated, my palm sliding past the thin ridge.

"Hold on, Jenny!"

Mike's voice. He must have climbed the wall rungs. His footsteps shook the catwalk.

The base of my fingers suddenly slid past the edge. I tried to tighten my grip, but felt the rim of the catwalk moving toward the tips of my fingers. I was hanging by the tips—I couldn't hold on. "Mike!"

A hand swooped down.

The theater went black.

I've fallen, I thought; I've blacked out. But Mike's fingers were wrapped tightly around my wrist. Maggie had turned off the flashlight.

"Other hand! Give me your other hand, Jenny!"

"Where are you? I can't see."

"Here. Right above you."

"I can't grip with this hand. I hurt it:"

"Hurt it where?"

"My wrist."

Mike's fingers groped for mine, then moved quickly and lightly past my injured wrist and halfway down my forearm. Now he gripped hard.

"I'm lying on my stomach," he said, "and have my feet hooked around the walk. I'm going to pull you up."

He tried, but it was impossible from that angle.

"I can swing my body, swing my feet," I told him, "if you hold on tight. Don't let go."

He grasped my arms so fiercely I knew I'd have bruises. I swung my legs and hips as if I were on a high bar, til I caught hold of the walk with my feet.

With Mike's help I clambered up the rest of the way.

He pulled me close and wrapped his arms tightly around me. I couldn't stop shaking.

"You're okay, Jen. I've got you."

I clung to him, burrowing my head into his chest. He reached with one hand to touch my face, then quickly put his arm around me again, as if he had sensed my panic when he let go. Instead of his hand, he used his cheek to smooth mine.

"I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"Where is she?" I whispered. "Where's Maggie?"

"Don't know," he answered quietly. "Stay still. Listen."

There was a long minute of silence, then a sudden banging noise.

"The door," I said. "She's at the door at the bottom of the steps. She can't get out that way. It's chained."

"Chained?"

"From the inside," I told him. "How did you get in?"

"I tried the doors, everything was locked, so I came through Walker's window."

"Did you cut the power?" I asked. No.

"Then someone else is in the building."

He was silent for a moment. "Brian?"

"I don't know."

"Stay here," Mike instructed and carefully disentangled himself from me. "I'll see what's up."

When he stood, I grabbed his ankle. "Oh, no, you don't. Not without me."

"It's safer here."

"It's safer two against one," I argued.

"It could be two against two."

"All the more reason." I reached for his hand, pulled myself up, then grasped the restraining bar.

We climbed down the wall rungs, then tiptoed to the steps and paused to listen.

"I want you to stay behind me," Mike whispered. No way.

"Don't be heroic, Jenny. We just want to get out."

"Heroic? I'm faster and don't want to get stuck behind you."

He swallowed a laugh, then pulled me back against him. "If we get out of here alive, you've got a date for a race.

I wondered if he thought I was as brave as I pretended. "Did you leave Walker's door open?"

"That's what we're shooting for."

When we reached the bottom of the steps, we crept side by side down the hall. My ears strained to pick up movement. We had to be close to the turn, I thought, close to Walker's office. I prayed no one had shut and locked the door. Finally my hands touched the corner of the hall.

"Almost there," I whispered.

Just as we reached the office door, something fell, something in Maggie's office.

Mike pushed me from behind. "Go, Jen! Go!"

I rushed through Walker's office toward the open window. Mike shoved me through and I pulled him out after me. We sprang to our feet, ready to run, then heard commotion inside the building. Maggie screamed. The blinds in her window were flattened against the glass, as if something had crashed against them. Mike and I waited, holding on to each other, shivering.

After a long moment the shades swung inward ominously, the weight no longer pressing on them. They were pulled up and Arthur peered out. He opened the window, his face shining in the pale light, a dark streak on his cheek.

"I'm all finished," he announced.

Mike's arms tightened around me.

"All done. There's no reason to be afraid."

Mike walked backward, away from the building, pull ing me with him.

"I won't hurt you. It was her I had to kill," Arthur said. "She took what was mine. She killed the girl and pretended to be me. You understand, don't you?

The watch and the bridge, they were mine. It's not right to take a man's identity. I had to kill her to get myself back."

He rubbed his cheek as he spoke, then studied the blood that had come off on his fingers, sniffing it, rubbing one finger against another. I thought I was going to throw up.

Gazing at us again, Arthur appeared relaxed, almost cheerful, as if a huge burden had been lifted from his shoulders. "You run along and call the police," he said. "I'll turn the electricity back on."

Chapter 19

The campus security office was small and smelled of Chinese carryout. I sat on a bench between Mike and Tomas, my wrist packed in ice. Walker stood by a window with a noisy air conditioner, his arms folded over his chest, his eyes puffy and bloodshot. Paul crouched in the corner of the paneled office, leaning against the wall, like a person folded up on himself.

According to Tomas, Mike had returned to the Student Union not long after I left with the sandwich for Maggie. He asked Tomas where I was, then raced off to the theater. When time elapsed and he didn't return, Tomas told Walker he was worried. On their way to Stoddard, they met up with Paul. The three of them found us outside Maggie's window, just after Arthur told us to call the police.

While Walker called on his cell phone, Paul climbed through the window to talk to Arthur, whom he had befriended. Paul had suspected from the beginning that Liza's murderer was someone who knew her and had sought the custodian's help in drawing out the killer by haunting the theater. He'd never guessed that as much as Arthur was helping him, he was helping Arthur find the person who had "taken"

Arthur's identity. The haunting had succeeded in unnerving Maggie, precipitating her arguments with Brian, arguments that revealed to the eavesdropping Arthur that Maggie was the murderer.

Paul confirmed for us that Maggie was dead. Maybe he wasn't into violence as much as he wanted everyone to think: it was he who threw up, not me.

The police did not allow anyone else to enter the building. But they wanted to interview all of us, which was why we were gathered at the security office.

Arthur was being held separately for the FBI. He had cut the power and chained the doors, planning to kill Maggie that night, realizing too late that I had returned to the building. He explained carefully to the police and us that while he had "killed" Maggie, he had "murdered" only four people. In his deranged mind, Maggie's death was a form of justice, a way of erasing Liza's death from his list. Since Maggie's death "didn't count," he didn't need to kill her beneath a bridge.

The police were still seeking Brian. When security went to fetch him at the Student Union, he wasn't there. I kept tell ing myself that Brian didn't realize his mother had killed Liza til it was too late. If he had, he would never have told her who I was; he wouldn't have betrayed me like that.

But in my heart I knew otherwise. He had probed to find out what I remembered of the fire because he knew that the fire was his mother's motive for murder; he was trying to discover if I had pieced together the puzzle.

The door to the office opened and Brian walked in with a police officer. All of us looked up. None of us knew what to say.

Brian glanced around. "This is a happy-looking group."

"Where were you?" Walker asked. "I left you with our students. You were supposed to be in charge."

"I was in charge," Brian replied lightly, "until I went home. I had a few things to take care of."

He slipped his hands in his pockets and casually rested one shoulder against the wall, looking as relaxed as a guy waiting for his pizza order. It was as if none of this horrid situation shocked him. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was about his mother, but his coolness quelled my sympathy.

Mike spoke up suddenly: "What did you do with the boat?"

"What boat?" Brian replied.

"The rowboat your mother signed out the day Liza was killed."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I think you do," Mike countered. "When Jenny told me Liza had been murdered beneath the pavilion, I wondered how her body could have been transported to the bridge without leaving a trail of blood. Then I realized that if a boat was floated in the shallow water close to the pavilion, a body could be carried out to it, even dragged. The blood left behind would be washed out by the tide. The boat, of course, would be stained."

A small smile curled the corners of Brian's mouth.

"I remembered that just before Liza died your mother had asked me how to sign out a boat from the college. During the movie tonight I met my friend who runs the boathouse. We checked the records as well as every boat in the yard and on the docks. The boat your mother signed out had been signed in by someone, but it was missing, probably has been since that night, which leads me to ask—where did you sink it?"

Brian shrugged his shoulders and spread his hands. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

The local police officer who had escorted Brian and had been listening attentively to our conversation cocked his head.

"What about Liza's bracelet?" I asked. "You urged me to search Paul's room. Did you plant it there? You had time when you returned our lunch trays."

He smiled but said nothing.

"And the fire alarm," I added.

"I'll take credit for that," Brian said agreeably.

Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of a state trooper.

"Here's your ride," the local officer said
to
Brian. "I don't know what kind of games you're playing, Mr. Jones, but I suggest you don't play too hard til you meet with a lawyer. You told police that your mother came to you after the murder, and you helped her transport the body by boat. As for the fire alarm, we know who set it off, a local juvenile, not you."

"Just having a little fun with my friends," Brian replied, smiling. Then he turned to me, his eyes alight with amusement. "You look so amazed, Jenny. I told you at the beginning, I'm a better actor than Walker thinks." He flicked a glance at Walker. "Much better. Come visit me in L.A."

A campus security guard brought me back from Easton Hospital at two a.m. with my wrist in a cast and sling. The door to Drama House was open and I let myself in. Walker emerged from the common room, greeted me, then eyed the cast.

"Broken?"

"Yup."

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked exhausted, and his eyes, which had cleared before I left campus, had become red and puffy again.

"I'm sorry, Jenny."

"I'm sorry, too. Maggie was a very good friend toyou."

He nodded, pressing his lips together several times before he could speak. "Your parents are on their way home from London. They caught the early flight out and will be here around one p.m. our time. I've contacted everyone else's parents and told them I'm closing camp." He gestured toward the doorway of the common room. "Everyone is upset. I told those who didn't want to sleep in their own rooms to bring a pillow and blanket here. The kids saved a sofa for you, but sleep wherever you can get comfortable. Did the doctor give you some painkillers?"

Yes.

He followed me into the common room and sat in a chair with three cups of coffee next to it, where I guessed he was spending the night. Mike, Tomas, and Shawna were asleep on the floor in front of an empty sofa. Paul was sleeping in the corner of the room, curled on his side, his knees drawn up. Keri lay a few feet away from him.

I carefully stepped around the various sleepers til I reached Mike, then knelt and touched his cheek. "Thank you," I said softly, though I knew he didn't hear me.

Turning toward Tomas, I smiled when I saw he was sleeping with his backpack, one of his sketchbooks on top. I took it and returned to Walker.

"I'm going to my room."

"Good girl," he replied, as if I were a child. "You'll rest better there."

"Would you let Tomas know I have one of his books?"

Walker nodded. We said good night and I went straight to my room.

Without turning on the lights, I closed the door behind me and carried the sketchpad over to the window seat. Making myself comfortable there, I opened the book and studied Tomas's newest drawings, dark silky pencil lines on moon-bright pages, sketches of the bridge, the gazebo, and the pavilion. I closed my eyes and let my mind wander. The scenes Tomas had drawn slowly evolved into real scenes, a stretch of tall grass, the concrete bridge, dark wood pilings, the wide creek. A blue gleam surrounded the images, but I felt no fear. The breeze was gentle and the creek lapped peacefully. "I know you are here," I whispered to my sister. "You'll always be with me in my heart.

But sleep now, Liza. Sweet dreams now. Sweet dreams only for you and me."