The Bone House (9 page)

    When
her roommate kept typing on her laptop without responding, Amy nudged the girl
with her shoulder. 'Hey, look at this.'

    Katie
Monroe glanced away from the screen impatiently. 'What? I've got to get this
article done. I need to email it to the paper by three o'clock.'

    'Yeah,
but check this out,' Amy insisted.

    She
held out her iPhone to her friend, who squinted at the online news feed. After
reading the first couple lines of the story, she took the phone from Amy's hand
and scrolled to the next paragraph. 'Wow. Is that where we were?'

    'Yes,
that was our hotel. A girl was murdered there last night.'

    Katie
blew the bangs out of her eyes with a quick puff of breath. 'It says here she
was drinking on the beach in the middle of the night. Jeez, not smart.'

    'It
still sucks.'

    'Of
course it does. Life sucks.'

    Katie
handed back the phone and returned to the document on her laptop. Amy wanted to
talk more, but when her roommate was writing, you didn't interrupt her. Amy
reclined her head against the musty foam of her seat cushion and stared into
space down the dimly lit aisle of the bus. Her body jolted with the bumps of
the road. Her eyes felt heavy, but she couldn't sleep, unlike most of the other
girls, who were draped over the seats. It had been an adrenaline-packed week,
and she hadn't come down to earth yet. Her dance ensemble from Green Bay had
taken first runner-up in the competition - almost the winners, but not quite.
She figured they would nail the prize next year, because the hotshot team from
Louisville that beat them would be losing most of its first-string girls when
they graduated in June.

    Amy
was a junior. One more year to go.

    She
tried to clear her mind, but the image of the girl dead on the beach outside their
Naples hotel intruded on her brain. That was who Amy was. She was a psychology
major, always analyzing people and trying to figure out what made them tick.
When she thought about the girl, she imagined the world through her eyes,
seeing the empty stretch of Gulf sand. Here was a teenager four years younger
than Amy was, alone, assaulted, killed. Katie was right; it was dumb to go off
by the water and drink in the middle of the night. But Amy had done stupid
things too.

    'Hey.'
Her roommate waved a hand in front of Amy's face, breaking her trance. 'You
OK?'

    'Yeah.'

    'You
still thinking about it?'

    'Yeah.'

    'You
can't take on the whole world's problems, you know,' she chided her.

    'I
know.'

    'So
knock it off.'

    Katie
was the reporter, who looked at the world like a black-and- white encyclopedia
of facts. Amy was the eye candy with the soft center, the one who felt too
much, laughed too much, and cried too much. She secretly believed that her
roommate would make a better therapist than she would herself, because Katie
didn't let people get to her. She kept her distance, cool and objective. Amy
dove in head first.

    'She
was from Wisconsin,' Amy said.

    'Who?'
Katie asked, dragging her eyes away from her article. She'd tugged along with
the team to write about the competition for the Green Bay newspaper. It made
for a free spring break trip, with the

    paper
picking up the hotel tab and her parents not worrying about what they didn't
know.

    'The girl.
Glory Fischer. The one who was killed. She was from Wisconsin.'

    'OK.'

    'Door
County,' Amy added. 'That's not even an hour away from us.'

    'Where
are you going with this?'

    'I
don't know.'

    'Did
you know her? Was she on one of the dance teams from the other schools?'

    Amy
shook her head. 'No.'

    'Then
what's up with you?'

    'It's
just a feeling.'

    Amy
took out her phone again and ran a Google search to see if any other newspapers
had picked up the story. She saw that the Milwaukee paper had already filed a
report on the murder. Local girl killed on vacation - that was big news back
home. The
Journal Sentinel
reporter had tracked down a yearbook photo of
Glory Fischer that was posted with the article. Amy stared at the dead girl's
face, and her sense of unease grew. She told herself that she'd made a mistake
and that she was confusing Glory with someone else, but she didn't think so.

    Glory
was the girl she'd seen. The one Gary was talking to. She'd seen them together
that Friday night.

    'What's
wrong?' Katie asked.

    'I
recognize her,' Amy said.

    'The
girl who was killed?'

    'I
saw her. I remember her from the hotel.'

    Katie
looked dubious. She grabbed Amy's phone again and eyed Glory's picture herself.
'Are you sure? Yearbook pictures make everybody look like everybody else.'

    'I
know, but I think it was her.'

    Katie
closed the cover of her laptop and shifted in her seat so she was sideways. She
pulled her skinny legs underneath her. She was medium height and lean compared
to Amy, who had a big-boned, muscular frame. Katie poked Amy in the shoulder.

    'OK,
so you saw her. I know it's creepy.'

    'It's
not just that. It's who I saw her with.' 'Who?'

    Amy
opened her mouth and closed it. Her eyes darted around the bus to see if he was
nearby, and her full pink lips sank into a frown. 'This is crazy. I must be
wrong.'

    'Come
on, you're freaking me out, Ames.'

    'It's
nothing,' Amy insisted. 'Write your article.'

    'Tell
me.'

    'There's
nothing to tell. I'm a dork.'

    'You
think that's news to me? Spill it. What did you see?'

    'Forget
it. You've got a deadline. I'm going to sleep.' Amy gave her it hollow smile.

    She
waited until her roommate was typing again, and then she closed her eyes. Her blond
curls splashed across her face. She tried to convince herself that she was
being stupid. She wasn't sure of anything; she'd made a mistake. Or if she
hadn't made a mistake, maybe it didn't mean anything at all. What she'd seen,
what she'd heard, was a misunderstanding.

    She
breathed slowly in and out. She was certain she wouldn't be able to sleep, but
the vibrations and noise worked on her brain like 11 drug. Glory Fischer went
away. The bus went away. She was back at school in Green Bay.

    In her
dream, Amy practiced a dance routine, solo, in the center of the gymnasium,
moving to the beat of a song by Kristina DeBarge. She knew her moves were
feline and sexy, and she wished she had a crowd to admire her, but the gym was
almost deserted. She could see only one person in the uppermost row of the
bleachers, almost invisible in the shadows, and she realized it was her old
dance teacher from high school in Chicago. Hilary Bradley. She hadn't seen
Hilary in years, but she looked the same, still pretty and confident, exactly
the kind of woman Amy wanted to become. Hilary waved at her and cheered.

    Seeing
Hilary made Amy want to hit every step, to show off how good she was. She
wanted to dazzle her and make her proud. Instead, she felt her body lose the
rhythm of the music. Every motion felt awkward and clumsy. It was as if she
couldn't remember dancing before in her life, as if her mind had erased every
move she'd ever learned. She stuttered. Tripped. Stopped. Her face grew hot and
red with embarrassment. She stood in the center of the lacquered floor, frozen.

    The
music ended. The gym had an echoing silence. She stared up at Hilary and wanted
to shout an apology to her for failing, but Hilary was gone. The bleachers were
empty.

    She
heard sarcastic clapping, slow and mean. She realized someone else was with her
in the gym. She wasn't alone.

    It
was him. Her coach. Gary Jensen.

    Gary
walked toward her. He wore a black turtleneck and gray slacks. His black dress shoes
tapped on the floor. He smiled at her, but his smile was like the snarl of a
wolf. She heard herself begin to explain and ask for another chance, but he
said nothing at all. He came up to her until he was so close that she smelled
burnt coffee on his breath, and then, still smiling, he wrapped both hands
firmly around her neck and began to choke her. His fingers were strong. Amy
struggled. Pushed back. Fought. She tried to scream and couldn't. She waved at
the bleachers, but no one was there to rescue her. Amy sucked for breath and
found nothing. Her eyes closed.

    Then
they opened.

    Amy
awoke with a start, lurching forward, her heart racing. She was back on the
bus, which rattled on as if nothing had happened while she was gone. Outside,
she saw highway signs for Nashville. She'd been asleep for almost two hours.
The other girls on the bus were still sleeping, too, their tousled heads
dipping off the seats into the aisles. Beside her, Katie dozed, her article
finished, her laptop closed and packed away.

    Amy
cupped her hands over her face. The dream had unnerved her.

    'You
OK?'

    Amy
jumped as a hand touched her arm. She looked up and saw Gary Jensen standing
over her, and she recoiled. He smiled at her, and it was the same hideous smile
from her dream. His hand on her bare skin was warm. She had to remind herself
that it wasn't real. He hadn't been trying to kill her a moment ago.

    'Oh,'
she said. 'Oh, yeah, I'm fine. Bad dream.'

    'Take
it easy, Amy,' he said. 'We'll be stopping for a break soon.'

    'Good.'

    'Great
job in Florida. You were a star.'

    'Thanks,'
she said.

    Gary
winked. He continued toward the front of the bus, and she watched him go. She
wondered if he knew how much she disliked him. He'd been the dance coach and a
physical education instructor at Green Bay ever since she'd arrived at the
school three years ago from her high school in Highland Park. He knew his
stuff, and as a coach he had an eye for what worked and what didn't in their
routines. But that wasn't the only thing he had an eye for. The girls on the
team all talked about it in the locker room. The coach was a flirt. A lech. He
was in his middle forties, widowed, with a head of thinning brown hair that she
knew he colored. He biked. He stayed in shape, and he made sure everyone knew
it with his tight shirts and jeans. He was the kind of teacher who never made
an overt pass, because the university frowned on teacher-student relationships,
but you got the signal in his attitude and his grin. She'd felt the come-on
when she was a freshman in the way he looked at her and touched her. If you
wanted more, he had more to give.

    Gary
sat down near the driver and glanced back down the dark aisle of the bus and
saw Amy watching him. Something in her expression obviously made him
uncomfortable. Normally, she had warm blue eyes and an easy, infectious laugh,
but not now. He looked as if he were about to come toward her again, with a
question on his lips. Instead, he turned away and sank into his seat.

    'What
is it?'

    Amy
glanced at her roommate, who had awakened and was staring at her.
It's
nothing,
Amy told herself.

    But
she didn't think it was nothing.

    'I
saw Gary talking to the girl who was killed,' she murmured.

    'Gary?
Are you sure? When?'

    'Last
night. Late, around eleven o'clock. I saw them on the terrace of the hotel. At
first, I thought it was one of the Green Bay girls, but then I realized it
wasn't.'

    'Did
you hear what they were talking about?'

    'No,
but Glory looked upset.' Amy shook her head. 'If it was really her. I just
don't know.'

    'All
the coaches talk to the girls from different schools,' Katie reminded her.

    'But
this is Gary.'

    'I
know you don't like him, but that doesn't mean anything. I profiled him in the paper
last year. He didn't seem like such a bad guy.'