Last Breath (5 page)

There they were, two strung-together plastic red hearts dangling like a small child’s mittens, on the door handle.

The engine roared again.

If she was going to do anything, she decided, she’d better do it quickly before he took off.

Impulsively, she rapped on the dark glass of the driver’s window.

Nothing happened.

She rapped again, more insistently this time.

Still no response.

Cassidy felt foolish, standing beside a car whose windows remained closed to her.

If he wasn’t going to acknowledge her, she might as well leave.

Shrugging, she turned away from the car to walk around the front of it and back to the curb to wait for the shuttle bus.

But as she moved, so did the car.

It moved slowly, quietly, inching forward almost imperceptibly, keeping apace of Cassidy’s steps, barring her way back to the curb.

She stopped, confused. What was he doing? She couldn’t walk around in front of the car when it was moving. Was he leaving? Maybe he wanted to leave, but was afraid of hitting her.

She stepped back, away from the car.

It stopped moving, its engine still murmuring quietly.

Well,
one
of us has to move, Cassidy thought impatiently, and strode forward.

The car slid forward, too, maintaining an effective barrier between her and the curb.

What kind of game was he playing?

Whatever it was, she didn’t like it. The sleet had increased, the tiny drops of ice stinging her cheeks, and she was cold. She hadn’t worn boots, and her toes, in black flats, were freezing.

Okay, if she couldn’t move around the front of the car to get to the curb, she’d go around the back way. What difference did it make?

As she turned, she heard the faint sound of another engine. When she looked up, she saw the yellow shuttle bus in the distance, aiming for the mall. Her ride back to campus. Her ride back to a nice, warm room and a robe and warm, dry socks on her icy toes.

All she had to do was get to the curb. There it was, a few feet away, on the other side of the black TransAm.

But…suddenly, she was afraid to move. What if he backed up just as she came around behind him? He’d hit her. Not hard, he wouldn’t be going fast enough for that. But still, the car was heavy, and made of metal. She wasn’t. Wouldn’t it hurt?

I’m being ridiculous, she told herself. He’s not going to run into me. Why would he? I haven’t done anything to him.

Making up her mind, she strode to the back of the car and was about to dash around behind it when the TransAm moved. Quickly. The driver gunned the engine and the car raced backward, brushing against Cassidy’s left shin as it did so, then screeching to a halt beside her.

Crying out in anger, Cassidy jumped out of the way. Shocked at how close a call it had been, she shouted, “That’s not funny! Stop it now, just stop it! Get
out
of my way!” Furious, she reached out and slammed a fist down on the trunk of the car. “Let me go!”

The car stayed where it was. The murmuring engine seemed to be laughing at her.

Cassidy glanced around her in frustration. No shoppers emerged from the mall, no cars pulled into or out of the parking lot, and the yellow shuttle bus had stopped some distance away to load or dislodge passengers. There was no one around to see her plight. And there was no one around to help.

She was alone and at war with a huge hunk of black metal and its invisible driver.

C
ASSIDY STOOD BESIDE THE
car, overwhelmed by helpless fury. Her knees began to shake, and she could feel the familiar tightening in her chest.

Don’t panic, don’t panic, she warned, clenching and unclenching her fists. Stay calm, you can’t afford to have an attack now. Stay
calm
! This is silly. The curb is right there, just a few feet away. And he’s
not
going to run over you. He’s just tormenting you. Someone will come out of the mall and scare him off. The shuttle bus is on its way. Relax, just relax.

But relaxing was impossible. She was cold and frightened and frustrated and furious. Why was he doing this? What possible reason could the eerie, invisible driver have for tormenting her?

She would have to stop shaking, pull herself together, and make an end run for the curb. Catch him off guard, race around the car when he was least expecting it.

So she forced herself to stand quietly, stilling her trembling limbs, for long, agonizing minutes. Didn’t move a muscle. Her ears strained for some sound of the approaching shuttle bus. The driver of the TransAm would see the bus in his rearview mirror, and he’d leave. He couldn’t keep up his torturous game with witnesses on the way.

But she heard nothing. What was taking the bus so long? When she felt that she couldn’t stand still another second without screaming, she turned her head to the right to see where the shuttle was. Her heart sank. The small yellow vehicle was still much too far away, and stationary. The driver was standing outside the bus, scraping at the windshield. Great. Couldn’t that have waited until he got to the mall?

Cassidy’s temper snapped. Enough! This was ridiculous. She had no idea why she was being held prisoner by the black TransAm, but it was going to end
now
. It was time for an end run. She would catch the driver by surprise and make it to the curb before he noticed that she’d moved.

She tried.

Taking another deep breath, she dashed forward, behind the car.

She almost made it. She was only inches from the safety of the curb when the TransAm suddenly careened backward with a roar. Its rear bumper slammed into her left ankle and foot, sending a shaft of pain up her leg.

The blow surprised and stunned her, but she didn’t stop. Instead, in one final, desperate lunge, she flung herself onto the curb, landing hard and pulling her legs in after her. She cried out as the palms of her hands and the right side of her face scraped against the cement.

With a triumphant honk of its horn, the TransAm jerked to a halt, gunned its engine, and then raced away with a screech of tires.

Cassidy roused herself enough to stare after the car, straining to read the license plate as the TransAm disappeared. But the plate was covered with mud. Deliberately? she wondered.

She lay there for a few minutes more, aware that a cold dampness was seeping through her slacks. And still the shuttle failed to arrive and dislodge riders to rush to her aid. Nor did the doors to the mall open and send forth shoppers to help her up from the curb. Cassidy felt as if the planet had been deserted, leaving only herself…and the black TransAm.

Afraid that the car would return, she pulled herself upright, conscious of a painful throbbing sensation in her left leg. Checking, she found a tear in her jeans that ran from her knee to her ankle. The exposed skin was torn and bleeding.

“It’s just a scratch,” she murmured, pulling the torn fabric together in a futile effort to cover the abrasion. Her tan raincoat was long, and would cover most of the rip.

She stood up, glancing over her shoulder to locate the shuttle bus. Still parked. But the driver was no longer standing outside. “It’ll be here in a minute,” she told herself in a shaky voice. “It’ll be here, and I’ll climb on and ride back to campus. I’ll take a nice, hot shower, put on my robe and a pair of warm, dry socks and crawl into bed and forget this ever happened.”

She knew that last part was a lie.

It felt like hours before the bus finally pulled up in front of her. Darkness was falling, and the temperature fell with it. Cassidy was shaking now not from fear, but from sheer cold. She had never been as glad to see anything as she was the squat, yellow bus when it finally skidded to a stop in front of her.

“Hey, wait for us!” she heard from behind her as she awkwardly made her way up the steps, one hand holding the raincoat firmly over the rip in her jeans. Turning, she saw Talia and Sophie running from the mall. “Hold the bus, Cassidy!”

Since the driver had already seen them, Cassidy moved down the aisle to take a seat at the back.

Talia and Sophie, packages in hand, their hair and jackets wet with sleet, joined her there a minute or two later.

“You must have been waiting for the bus
forever
, Cassidy. Look, I got a dress!” Sophie cried triumphantly. “You should see it, it’s beautiful…what happened to your leg, Cassidy? It’s bleeding!”

Cassidy had hoped the raincoat would keep them from noticing. But it wasn’t quite long enough. “I slipped and fell,” she fibbed. She was
not
going to tell them about the car. They hadn’t believed her about the car wash, and that wasn’t nearly as bizarre as what had just happened. They’d never believe that she’d been held “prisoner” by the very same car. “It’s slippery out there.”

Sophie nodded. “I almost fell, too. That cut looks pretty nasty. You’ve got a scrape on your cheek, too. Want to stop at the infirmary?”

“Don’t need to. It’s nothing. I’ll clean it up myself. What’d you buy?” She didn’t want to talk about her leg anymore. Didn’t want to think about it, either. That might not be so easy. She could picture the car, see the dark window glass hiding the driver, feel the blow to her legs as the TransAm raced backwards…

She didn’t hear a word Talia and Sophie said about their shopping.

Suite 56A at the Quad had never seemed so welcoming, a hot shower so comforting, her white terrycloth robe so luxurious, a pair of thick white socks so soft. The scrape on her leg, once it had been washed and disinfected, was less serious than it had looked. But it hurt, and her ankle had discolored and was beginning to swell. She could only hope it wasn’t worse by morning. She didn’t want to miss any more classes.

Although she felt totally drained and yearned to nestle into her bed, she took a few minutes to quickly type out a letter to Misstery, asking them to play at the dance. When she had signed and addressed the letter and sealed the envelope, she put it on a small stack of other envelopes waiting to be mailed. Someone would take them to the campus post office early the next morning.

That done, she crawled into bed. I’m lucky my leg wasn’t broken, she thought as she snuggled under her comforter. Why would someone want to break my leg? Scare me half to death? Why would someone
do
that?

She had no idea.

It wasn’t until, feeling completely warm and safe, she was slipping over the edge of consciousness into a deep, dreamless sleep that she remembered the psych paper. She hadn’t done it. Bruin would be expecting it, and it wouldn’t be forthcoming.

Unwilling to drag herself out of a warm bed to struggle through the assignment, Cassidy burrowed deeper into the covers, telling herself it wasn’t her fault, anyway. It was Travis’s. She’d finished the paper when she was supposed to. It wasn’t her fault he’d lost it. If he really had.

She’d just have to tell Bruin she hadn’t finished it yet. After what had just happened to her, the paper didn’t seem all that important.

Willing herself to ignore the painful throbbing in her left leg, Cassidy gave herself over to the luxury of sleep.

She awoke the following morning to a quiet, empty suite. The others had gone off to breakfast without her?

At first, Cassidy was hurt by the realization. They always ate breakfast together on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays because they shared the nine o’clock psych class. Why hadn’t they waited for her?

Talia and Sophie had seen her leg when it looked its worst last night. They’d probably decided that she wouldn’t be going to classes today, and had told Ann about the injury.

But I told them I was fine, Cassidy thought, annoyed. She glanced at her alarm clock. It was only eight o’clock. She had time to dress and even eat, if she wanted to, before class. She could catch up with the others if she hurried.

Hurrying, she quickly discovered, was out of the question. Her leg was too stiff and sore. And she had wasted ten precious minutes hunting for her wristwatch, which she always left on her nightstand. It wasn’t there. And it wasn’t in the bathroom, where she thought she might have left it when she was cleaning the wound on her leg.

She finally gave up, aware of passing minutes. She’d have to look for it later. By the time she left the room, dressed in warm wool slacks and a heavy sweater, the clock on her nightstand read eight-fifty. She was cutting it pretty close. Class started at nine, and Bruin hated tardiness. Arriving late wouldn’t help when she had to explain that she didn’t have the assignment.

Since her roommates hadn’t returned, Cassidy guessed they had taken their books with them to breakfast. Sometimes they did, to save time. She’d be walking to class alone this morning.

She tried again to hurry. But it was hopeless with her leg so stiff and swollen. She hated walking into a classroom after everyone else was seated, but it was going to happen this morning. What a way to start a new week!

As it turned out, she didn’t have to walk into the classroom at all. Because when she arrived at the psych 101 room, the door was open and everyone was coming out.

“Has class been cancelled?” Cassidy asked the first person she saw, who happened to be Travis McVey. Classes were occasionally cancelled for various reasons: a professor’s illness, unusually bad weather, an important seminar that required a teacher’s attendance.

“Cancelled?” Travis frowned down at her. “No. It’s over. Where were you?”

“Over? It can’t be over.” Cassidy glanced down at her wrist, and realized she wasn’t wearing her watch. “It’s only nine o’clock.”

“It’s
ten
o’clock,” Ann said, arriving at Travis’s side. Sawyer, flanked by Talia and Sophie, was right behind her. “You’re an hour late.”

“That’s crazy,” Cassidy said, feeling heat rise in her cheeks. “I checked my clock. It said eight o’clock when I woke up. Not nine. Eight.”

Ann shook her head. “
We
got up at eight. Sophie said you hurt your leg last night and probably wouldn’t be going to class, so we decided to let you sleep.”

“It was
eight
o’clock,” Cassidy insisted stubbornly. “I
know
how to tell time.”