The Cheater (13 page)

But why had he done it? Who was he?

Then Carter heard a familiar voice. “What's going on here? Where's my daughter?”

It was her father. Her parents were home.

“Here I am, Daddy!” she called. She ran to him and hugged him. Her mother leaned over to embrace her.

“Carter, what's happened?” she asked.

One of the police officers approached them. “Judge Phillips?” he said. “We're responding to a burglary call. Someone tripped the alarm in your basement door. We came as fast as we could. We heard someone scream, forced our way in, and found this man.” He pointed to the intruder. “He attacked your daughter.”

Carter's father held her tight. “Are you all right?” he asked her. “Did he hurt you?”

Carter shook her head.

Two officers began to lead the handcuffed intruder away. The judge stopped them.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “I want to get a look at this man.”

An officer beamed his flashlight on the intruder's face. The man glared angrily back at Judge Phillips, but didn't say a word.

“I recognize him,” said the judge. “I've seen pictures of him. He works for Henry Austin.”

Carter lifted her head. Henry Austin! What would he want with
me?

“We're taking him in for questioning now,
Judge,” said the police officer. “We'll call you if he tells us anything you should know.”

Before all the officers left, one went downstairs to reconnect the electricity. The lights flickered on. The TV blared out. Carter switched it off.

She sat on the couch with her parents. Her father kept his arm around her, comforting her.

“Daddy,” said Carter, “I don't understand. What was that guy doing here?”

“He's one of Henry Austin's thugs,” said her father. “I think he was using you to try to send me a message. He wanted to scare me into letting Henry Austin go free.”

Carter was confused. “What do you mean?”

“Austin's afraid the jury's going to convict him. He's trying to intimidate me—to get me to let him off. Honey, I'm truly sorry. I've often received threats. But it
never
occurred to me that anyone would ever come after you. You know I'd never intentionally put you in danger.”

Carter nodded. She understood a few things now, things that hadn't made sense before.

Her father was studying her throat with concern. “Are you sure you're all right, Carter? Your neck is very red.”

She raised her hand to her neck. It felt sore. But she didn't want to go to the hospital.

“It just hurts a little, Daddy,” she said. “But I do feel a little weak. I think I'll go upstairs and lie down.”

“All right, dear. I'll come up and check on you in a little while. I have to call the district attorney.”

Carter slowly climbed upstairs to her room and shut the door. She lay on top of her bed covers to think.

All along, she had assumed that it was Adam who put the bloody heart in her tennis bag. Now she felt sure that it hadn't been him at all. It had been this thug who worked for Henry Austin. Why else would he have said “Careful, or you'll break Daddy's heart” when he attacked her? And he had confessed to being the one who tried to run her off the road as well.

Henry Austin was trying to intimidate Daddy by scaring
me,
Carter thought. He was sending Daddy a message: let Austin go or your daughter is dead.

Normally Carter would have told her father about the terrible things happening to her, but since she thought Adam was doing everything she couldn't.

I even thought it was Adam attacking me tonight, Carter thought, shaking her head. How dense can you get!

A detective came to the Phillipses' house the next morning. Judge Phillips greeted him and took him into his study to talk.

An hour later the door to the study opened. The detective shook the judge's hand and left. Then the judge called his wife and daughter into the study to tell them what the police had said.

Mrs. Phillips was very upset. The judge tried to calm her.

“The police questioned the intruder very closely last night,” Judge Phillips said. “They got a lot of information from him, and they're holding him without bail. They assured me that we will all be perfectly safe now, and I believe them.”

He looked at his wife who sat sniffling in her chair. She didn't say a word. She just shook her head nervously.

The judge sighed.

“Did he admit that he was working for Henry Austin?” Carter asked.

Her father nodded. “And Austin knows he was caught. Now that the police are onto him, I don't think Austin will try any more intimidation. At this point, it would hurt his case, not help it.”

Carter's mother was still crying. She couldn't seem to calm down.

Carter watched her father as he took her mother's hand and held it warmly.

“Dear,” he said, “the trial is almost over. When it's over, all this craziness will stop. Please stop worrying. Everything will be all right. I promise.”

Mrs. Phillips stopped sniffling. She wiped her eyes and nodded.

“I trust you, dear,” she said. “I trust you.”

She climbed to her feet and made her way from the room. Carter watched her go. Then she stood up herself.

“Carter,” said her father, “if you need anything, I want you to know I'm here for you.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

She started out of the room, turning back toward her father as she shut the door. He took the gun out of his briefcase and put it back in the drawer.

That's why the gun wasn't there when I needed it, she thought. Daddy had it with him.

Slowly she began to feel safe. The thug was in jail. Adam was dead. The police hadn't questioned her about Adam's murder again. Things at school had calmed down. And she'd had no more mysterious telephone calls.

There was something else that made Carter feel better. Her father was making an obvious effort to reassure her that she was safe now. Although he was still very busy, he paid more attention to her. He made sure to ask her how she was feeling several times a day.

He feels guilty, Carter figured. After all, she'd been attacked because of his case. But Carter didn't care about her father's motives. She basked in his attention, and it did make her feel better.

It's really true, she thought happily. My life is going back to normal.

Three nights later Carter was studying in her room when the telephone rang. She answered it. “Hello?”

“Guess who, Carter? It's me. Sheila.”

“Sheila—” Carter was too stunned to say anything else. Her sense of security melted away like ice in a fire.

“I need some money, Carter,” Sheila said. “Five hundred dollars ought to do it.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?” Carter asked. “Why would I give you money?”

“Don't play innocent. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You paid Adam to keep quiet, and now you're going to pay me.”

“What? Why should I?”

“I'll tell you why. Because I know everything—I know all about you and Adam. Adam told me everything. Most of all, I know
you
killed him.”

Carter's heart stopped. “I—I—”

“That's all right, Carter. Don't bother trying to deny it. I was the one who found Adam's body. I was the one who called the police. I know you killed him. And I've got proof.”

P
roof that Carter killed Adam? What proof could Sheila have?

Carter had to know.

“What are you talking about?” she asked Sheila in a trembling voice.

Sheila laughed. “No, Carter. It's not that easy. I don't give anything away for free. But don't worry—I won't hurt you as long as you meet me tomorrow night. Right behind Adam's house. At the edge of the Fear Street woods. And bring the money.”

“Where am I going to get five hundred dollars?”

“You'll find a way. You always did before.”

Carter swallowed hard. Sheila really did know everything.

“You give me the money,” Sheila said, “and I'll give you the proof.”

She hung up. Carter was left holding the receiver in a daze.

So much for things going back to normal. Her life was about to be smashed to bits again.

She hated the thought of seeing Sheila alone. She dreaded going back to Adam's house and dredging up all those awful memories.

But she had no choice. She had to find out what proof Sheila had—and she
had
to get it back.

Carter looked around her room, wondering where she was going to get the money. She had already sold all her valuable jewelry—and that had only brought half the amount Sheila wanted. What could she do?

Frantically, she dug through her closet. Clothes, shoes—nice things, but nothing that could command five hundred dollars on short notice. Her mother had a fur coat…. No, she told herself firmly. No. I can't take Mother's things, or Daddy's. They would never forgive me. This is my own problem and I've got to solve it myself.

She tried to concentrate, to see her room with fresh eyes, not to miss a single valuable possibility.

Suppose a thief broke in here, she thought. What would he steal?

Her eyes fell on her sound system—the CD player, amplifier, record turntable, and tape player. Of course.

It was a very expensive system, given to her by her parents for her sixteenth birthday. Even used, it might be worth a lot.

But her father would definitely notice its disappearance. How could she explain it?

I'll tell them it was distracting me from studying, she thought. I'll say I was spending too much time listening to music.

She imagined her father's grave face nodding in approval as she told him this.

Yes, she thought. That might work.

The next day she packed the whole system in a box and hoisted it into the trunk of her car. She drove to Marvin's Bargains, a store that bought and sold used electronic gear.

She lugged the box inside. The store was nothing more than a big warehouse, filled with used stereos, computers, appliances, even old records and tapes.

A middle-aged man in jeans and a vest looked the system over.

“How long have you had this?” he asked her.

“Just a year,” she answered. She pulled a slip of paper from her pocket. “See, here's the receipt. My parents bought it a year ago.” She was glad she'd remembered to dig out the receipt from her parents' files.

Please like it, she begged him silently. Please like it a
lot.

“Everything working okay?”

She nodded vigorously. “Like a dream. It's the greatest, really.”

“So why are you selling it?”

She hesitated. “Um, family emergency,” she said. “I need the money.”

He accepted this, and offered her three hundred dollars for it.

“Please,” she pleaded. “I've got to have five hundred. I won't leave here unless you give me five hundred dollars.”

The man looked at her in surprise.

“Look,” Carter went on, holding the bill of sale under his nose. “Look how much my father paid for it. Only a year ago! You're getting a bargain.”

He looked at the receipt again, and frowned. “Well, all right. I'll give you five hundred for it.”

“Thank you!” Carter wanted to hug him, but she flashed him a happy smile instead.

That night she drove slowly down Fear Street. It was a dark, moonless night of long, shifting shadows, and Fear Street was even creepier than usual. The old Simon Fear Mansion loomed before her like a burned-out hulk. In the misty air, steam rose up from the remains of the house, so that it seemed to have burned just that day. Carter knew the mansion had burned years ago, but she felt as if something were alive in the ruins, some ghastly spirit that affected the whole street.

After tonight, Carter vowed, I'm never setting foot on this street again.

She passed the ruined mansion and parked her car a few doors away from Adam's house. Then she walked quickly to the house, her sneakers thudding nearly as loudly as her heart.

The windows were dark. No car in the driveway. No one home.

Carter felt a twinge of guilt as she passed the front door. A black wreath hung on it.

She crept through the yard, around the weed-strewn side of the house, and into the woods behind it. The Fear Street cemetery, she knew, lay nearby. Carter wondered if Adam had been buried there. Shuddering, she pushed the thought from her mind.

The mist grew thicker in the woods. Carter could see only a few feet in front of her. The trees became hulking, dark shapes, oozing moisture.

There was no breeze, no movement, no sign of life anywhere. Just the drip, drip of dew falling from the trees onto the mossy ground.

“Sheila?” Carter called softly.

No answer.

Carter shivered inside her jacket and leaned against a tree. She had the money in her pocket. All she could do was wait.