The Biker (Nightmare Hall) (13 page)

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, don’t you think it looks a little like Pruitt is under some kind of curse? Maybe Echo should stay away from him.”

Like I have a choice, Echo thought.

“A curse? Marilyn, come off it. Lots of people on campus knew Nancy and Gabriella. They were both popular. I still say Echo is safer with Pruitt around than she is alone. So don’t make her afraid of him.”

Echo laughed to herself. Too late. But she wasn’t afraid of him because of any curse. She was afraid of him because she knew, better than anyone, what he was capable of. Gabriella Stone hadn’t known that, or she would have let Pruitt have that slot on the debating team.

Then Deejay astounded Echo by saying, “Trixie, if you’re coming with us, you’d better fix your face. Your eyes are a mess.”

Echo lifted her head to stare. “You’re not still going to the mall, are you? After what’s happened?”

Wiping her eyes with a tissue, Trixie stood up and grabbed her purse, saying bitterly, “We’ll be a lot safer at the mall than we are here. I think you should come with us, Echo. You look too upset to stay here alone.”

But Echo wasn’t going anywhere. Gabriella Stone’s horrible death could have been prevented. There’d be no trips to the mall or anywhere else until the police had been clued in on the biker’s real identity.

As for checking the cars leaving campus, as Deejay said the police were doing, that was a complete waste of time. What were they looking for, anyway? Suppose they
did
stop Pruitt on his way off campus? First of all, he wouldn’t be on a motorcycle, he’d be driving his car. And second, you couldn’t tell by looking at Pruitt that he was a homicidal maniac. It didn’t show.

She felt like screaming when Trixie ran back into the bathroom at the last minute to repair her eye makeup. Would they
ever
leave?

“I really wish you’d stay away from Pruitt, Echo,” Marilyn said. The remark caught Echo off guard. She had never witnessed Marilyn defying Deejay or anyone else before. “I mean, I know he’s a friend of mine, sort of, but I keep thinking that he knew both those girls and now they’re dead.”

Before Echo could respond Ruthanne said sharply, “Marilyn, what are you getting at?”

Marilyn’s cheeks reddened. “Well, we don’t
know
who the Mad Biker is, right? So if we don’t know, we can’t know it’s not Pruitt for sure, can we?”

Ruthanne’s jaw dropped, and then her laughter filled the room. When she finally stopped laughing she gasped, “Pruitt? You think Aaron Pruitt is the Mad Biker, Marilyn? Oh, God, Deejay, Echo, have you ever heard anything so ridiculous? I mean, can you
imagine
him even sitting on a motorcycle? The image just does
not
compute, Marilyn. A curse, maybe, but the Mad Biker, Pruitt? Never!”

Watching Ruthanne burst into laughter again, Echo thought despairingly, that’s exactly the reaction I’d get from the police if I sent them to Pruitt’s room to check him out. One look and they’d hoot with laughter, just like Ruthanne. Unless I had airtight proof.

“Look,” Deejay said, “I don’t know
who
the Mad Biker is. All I know is, Echo is better off with Pruitt hanging around her than she is all alone.

“After all,” Deejay continued, “Gabriella Stone might still be alive if she hadn’t been running around campus all by herself. Doesn’t seem to me that it’s a good time for anyone to be alone. Echo has a habit of wandering around campus by herself. At least now she’ll be with Pruitt. He’s better than nothing.”

Wrong, Echo disagreed silently. Pruitt is so much
worse
than nothing!

Trixie emerged finally, and the four left, telling Echo they’d see her later. Unless I’m in jail or dead, Echo thought, both of which are possible. She gave them no more than four seconds before her fingers began jabbing at numbers on the telephone.

“The motorcycle you’re looking for in connection with the biker incidents in town and on campus,” she said in a strained but audible whisper when someone answered at the police station, “is hidden in one of the caves on the other side of the railroad bridge from campus. The cave closest to the top of the hill, in the middle. You’ll find that bike there. There’s other stuff, too. Hurry, hurry! Before someone else dies.”

Sweating profusely, her hands shaking, Echo replaced the receiver. The voice on the other end was still urging her to stay on the line.

She fell backward onto her bed, lay on her back staring up at the ceiling. She’d done it! She had actually done it. Not in time for Gabriella Stone. But maybe in time to keep someone else alive.

It wouldn’t be over when they found the bike, she knew that. The police didn’t have the notebook, and they hadn’t seen Pruitt’s reaction when she’d mentioned the name “Ross” to him. That would all have to wait. Let them find the bike first, and the mini-mechanic’s shop established in the cave. They’d check the fingerprints on the bike and, if there weren’t any on the bike because he’d been too careful, there would be prints on the tools or the canned goods, on
something
in the cave. Maybe he hadn’t had gloves on every time he lifted the face shield, and had left prints on the smoky-colored plastic. They would find prints somewhere in that cave, she was sure of it. Then they’d match the prints to Pruitt’s.

Once he’d been taken into custody, only then would she take the notebook to the police station, explain where she’d found it, and let
them
figure out what it all meant. Who
was
Ross, anyway?

With Pruitt in jail, she’d be safe, and so would everyone else.

But not Gabriella Stone. Or the others. It was too late for them.

Echo had intended to wait two hours before calling the police station back to see what they’d found out. But she only lasted an hour and forty-five minutes. Then she dialed.

Without giving her name, and lowering her voice to an unnatural croak, she told the officer who answered that she had called earlier and given an anonymous tip about the bike attacks. “I’m calling to see if the biker has been arrested,” she added. “If he has, I have more information for you.”

“Yeah, well I have some information for you,” the officer said harshly. “The next time you send police out on a wild goose chase, be prepared to spend some time in jail yourself! This whole community is in an uproar over those bike attacks, and we don’t have time to be scouring hillsides looking for phantom motorcycles.”

Echo was so upset she reverted to her own voice. “You didn’t find the cave? I
told
you exactly where it was!”

“Oh, we found it, all right, miss. But it was empty. Clean as a whistle. Nothing there. There
were
tire tracks on the hill, but they were too messed up to do us any good. Besides, they could have been made by anybody doing some off-road riding. Now don’t bother us again, okay, or I’ll have the call traced and we’ll come knocking on your door.”

Echo slammed the phone back into its cradle. She couldn’t believe it! Pruitt had emptied out the cave this morning? How was that possible?

She’d spooked him, that was obvious. By shredding the tires. Knowing that someone had been in the cave and found the bike had rattled him. So he’d gone back up there … when? Last night? This morning? Before or after he’d attacked Gabriella Stone? He’d moved everything?
Everything?

Her expression grim, Echo scooped up the black notebook and left the room.

She went straight to the police station in town.

E
CHO WAS VERY NERVOUS
on the shuttle bus ride to the police station in town. What if Pruitt was watching her? He could have seen her climb on the bus, might even have seen the black notebook in her hand and realized what it was. He’d follow the bus, be waiting for her when she stepped off.

And then what would he do?

The same thing he’d done to Gabriella Stone.

Echo shivered, and slumped deeper into the seat at the very back of the bus. Maybe she wouldn’t get off at the police station. Maybe she’d just keep sitting right here and let the bus take her all the way back to campus. Then she’d get off and dump the notebook into the nearest incinerator chute. When she found Pruitt, she’d tell him what she’d done, prove to him that she wasn’t going to fink on him. Then he’d get out of her life once and for all.

After all, it wasn’t Echo Glenn’s job to catch criminals.

But Echo immediately recognized the trouble with her little scenario. Pruitt wasn’t going to let her go, just like that, no matter what she did. He
liked
being seen on campus with her, pretending they were dating, and he wasn’t about to give that up.

She got off the bus at the police station. Her body was stiff with tension. Her fingers curled tightly around the edges of the black notebook.

The police station was busy. Echo was told to wait. She took a seat on a bench against one wall. Her stomach was churning, her head pounding, and the instinct to run while she still could kept tugging at her legs.

She was still sitting there, stiff and unmoving as a statue, when Liam McCullough walked into the station and took a seat beside her. Her stomach rolled over at the thought of being seen here by someone she knew. Liam knew Pruitt. What if he got to Pruitt before the police did and said, “Hey, Pruitt, guess who I ran into at the police station in town? That girl you’re dating, Echo Glenn.” Then what?

Then she was dead.

“Hey,” Liam said casually. “What’s up? What are you doing here?”

She didn’t look at him. “Lost my wallet at the mall. Some kind soul found it and turned it in. I’m here to pick it up.” Considering the very real trouble she was already in, a small white lie seemed insignificant. He’d find out the truth about her soon enough. But not yet. Not yet. “What about you?”

“The cops want me to look at some mug shots of area bikers. I told them I didn’t see the guy’s face the other night at Johnny’s Place. He had a helmet on and a face shield. I wouldn’t know him if he walked right up to me and said hello. But they want me to look, anyway, so I said okay.” He glanced over at Echo. “They’re going to throw the book at the guy. And his partner won’t get off lightly, either.”

Echo raised her head. “His partner?”

“Yeah, you know. The guy who was with him. Or girl. Looked too skinny to me to be a guy. No shoulders. The officer I talked to said he’s as guilty as the biker. He should have tried to stop the guy.”

“How could anyone tell if he was trying to stop the driver or not?” Echo said a bit defensively. “Maybe he said not to do it and the biker just wouldn’t listen. Besides, no one died at Johnny’s Place. But two people died when he pushed that car over the cliff, and he was alone then. So I don’t think he has a partner.”

Liam shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. If the cops can prove there was a second person even one time, that person will hang right along with the biker.”

“But that’s not fair!” Echo cried. Her voice was shrill with anxiety and several policemen working in the area looked her way. “I mean,” she added more quietly, “it doesn’t seem fair that someone should be punished for things they weren’t involved in.”

“Guilt by association. The biker’s a maniac. Whoever was with him on that bike at Johnny’s Place should have known better.” Liam gingerly touched his injured wrist, still in its plaster cast. “Anyway, is it fair that Lily’s going to be paralyzed? Is it fair that Polk Malone and Nancy Becker won’t live to see twenty-one?” He turned his head again to look at Echo. “Maybe you should save your concern for them instead of worrying about either of those bikers.”

What frightened her now was knowing that Liam was only telling her what a police officer had told
him.
If he was quoting accurately, she wasn’t going to get any sympathy or understanding here. They were out to get the passenger on that bike in front of Johnny’s Place. If she told them what she knew, she wouldn’t just be giving them Pruitt. She’d be giving them Echo Glenn, too.

And while they might have a hard time believing that neatnik Pruitt was guilty, they wouldn’t have the same problem believing that she was.

She’d been crazy to think she could pull this off. As crazy as Pruitt.

“I just remembered,” she said breathlessly, jumping to her feet, “I have a dentist appointment in ten minutes.” She put a hand to her jaw. “I’ve got this tooth, it’s been killing me all day. I’ll just have to come back here later.”

“Do you want me to get your wallet and bring it to campus?” he called after her.

But she was already down the steps and out of the building.

When she was safely back in the dorm, she threw herself down on the bed and began a wrestling match with her conscience. She
had
to turn in Pruitt, before someone else died. It was risky, she knew. If they didn’t have enough to hold him and they let him go, he would know who had turned him in. And he’d kill her, just as he’d promised.

She didn’t want to die, but she didn’t want anyone else to die, either.

She was going to make herself crazy, going over it and over it. Especially when there didn’t seem to be any answer.

With shaking fingers, she picked up the phone and dialed the police station again. This time, she gave the officer who answered Pruitt’s name and address. “He’s the Mad Biker,” she said, and hung up.

She was too tired to do anything, too tired to think. She would just lie here and wait to see what happened.

For the first time in a very long time, Echo wished she had someone to talk to.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been so standoffish with Deejay, Ruthanne, and Marilyn. Even talking to Trixie might be better than wrestling with this horrible, terrifying disaster all by herself.

Well, maybe not. Echo made a face of distaste.

When a knock sounded suddenly on her door, she thought at first that it was the police, coming to tell her they’d arrested Pruitt. Then she realized the police had no reason to come to her room. They didn’t
know
she’d made that phone call. She hadn’t given her name.

“Echo? Are you in there?”

Liam. That was Liam McCullough’s voice. What was
he
doing here?

Echo got up and went to open the door.