The Silent Scream (17 page)

“You did all that stuff in the house,” Jess said, “and framed Milo. Why? No one even knew Giselle had been … killed. Or that you had anything to do with her death.”

“Sooner or later, someone would have found the letters and asked some questions. I knew they were here, so I came here, got a job, and started hunting. When Milo showed up, I knew I had the perfect patsy for a frame, because he’d known Giselle. She talked about him a lot. She felt bad because they weren’t friends anymore. As soon as I heard his name that first day on the front porch, I knew I was home free. How many guys named Milo can there be? Just to be sure, I asked him where he was from, and I wasn’t disappointed. So I snatched Cath’s essay and later planted it in Milo’s notebook. And I knew exactly where I’d plant the letters when I did find them. In Milo’s room.” Trucker grinned. “And it worked, didn’t it?”

“But you and Milo were in the cellar together. Didn’t he
see
you take the letters?”

“I was down there alone long enough to find the letters before Milo got there.”

“And he never sent you upstairs for soda, did he? You were setting him up, letting us know he was down there alone because you were already planning to hide the letters in his room.”

“Smart girl. But I didn’t have
all
the letters.
You
still had one.”

“If you’d killed me in the cellar,” Jess said, her voice shaking, “You
never
would have found the letter I had.”

“I intended to blow up the house and everything in it that night,” Trucker said, his own voice trembling with fury. “But
you
turned off the gas. You ruined my plan. And now,” his voice grew softer again as he began walking toward her, the wire in his hands, “you have to be punished for that. I’ll take care of Nightingale Hall and your precious friends later, when they’re all asleep in their beds.”

“They’ll come looking for me,” she protested, beginning to back away again. “They won’t go to bed if I’m not there.”

“Yeah, they will,” he said casually. “Because you’ll leave a note saying you and Ian have decided to make a night of it elsewhere.” He grinned. “They’ll believe that, of course, because
Ian
won’t be around, either. He’ll be here. With you.” His voice became cheerful, almost lilting. “I think watery graves are kind of romantic, don’t you?”

Jess searched wildly for another question and found one. “But if you loved her, how could you
kill
her, Trucker?”

His jaw clenched. “She wouldn’t come
with
me, stupid! I came all this way and then she said she didn’t
love
me, which I
knew
wasn’t true. It was this
place,
the people she lived with here, that turned her against me. I knew if she’d just come away with me and we were alone together, we’d get back to where we used to be. But she was so
stubborn.
” Trucker shook his head. “It wasn’t my fault. She
made
me lose my temper!”

“You strangled her and made it look like suicide.”

Trucker frowned. “Well, of
course
I made it look like suicide. What choice did I have?” And then, his eyes shining yellow like a wild animal’s in the glow of the flashlight in his pocket, he advanced upon her, the nasty-looking wire held out in front of him.

Jess knew she couldn’t outrun him. She could fight him, but he was heavier, stronger than she was. She had nothing in her hands but her high heels and although she glanced around frantically, she saw nothing she could use as a weapon.

Trembling violently with fear and frustration, she threw her heels at him. They bounced harmlessly off his chest and fell to the ground.

Trucker laughed and kept advancing.

When she tried later to explain what happened next, no matter how carefully she put it, it came out wrong. Because there wasn’t any way for it to come out
right
and still make sense.

One second, Trucker was almost upon her, the wicked wire necklace in his hands, and she knew she was about to die.

But in the next second, the wet photograph of Giselle ripped free of the rock holding it hostage, lifted itself up out of the babbling creek, and whooshed through the air to plaster itself across Trucker’s face. It molded itself to his features like a second skin, blinding him and effectively sealing off his air passages.

As Jess watched with her mouth open, her eyes wide in disbelief, Trucker dropped the wire circle to claw frantically at the sodden, smothering photograph. It remained firmly plastered to his face. His chest heaved in an effort to breathe. His feet staggered backward as he fought to escape the suffocating mask. When he fell, his hands still digging and scraping at the dripping wet picture of Giselle McKendrick forming a death mask over his face, he fell hard, backward, into the creek.

There was a loud, sharp crack as his head crashed into the round, smooth rock that had held the photograph prisoner only moments earlier.

Trucker’s feet thrashed in the water once, and then he lay still. The flashlight in his front jeans pocket cast its eerie yellow glow upward, illuminating, where his face should have been, an eight by ten glossy photograph of a beautiful blonde girl with bright blue eyes. She was smiling.

H
ER EYES FIXED ON
the photograph smiling up at her from Trucker’s lifeless body, Jess sank to her knees. “Thank you,” she whispered, “thank you, Giselle.”

A hand on her shoulder caused her to jump.

“Take it easy,” a voice behind her said. Ian bent to peer into her face. “You okay?” A streak of dried blood made a dark red circle on his forehead.

Speechless, she nodded. Footsteps crunched on the other side of her. When she looked up, Milo was standing there. Cath, Jon, and Linda, still in their Ball clothes, were behind him, their faces white with shock.

She hadn’t heard the crunch of tires on gravel.

“Oh, Milo,” Jess cried, “you came back! I’m so sorry we accused you.”

“It’s okay.” Milo knelt beside her. They all stared at the bizarre scene in the creek. “I knew it was him,” he said of Trucker. “We were the only two in the cellar with that trunk. I knew
I
hadn’t taken the letters. So last week, I went back home to do some investigating. When I described Trucker to Giselle’s father, he said it sounded exactly like the guy Giselle had been dating, who’d said his name was Brandon. McKendrick didn’t like the guy at all. He said he’d taken too much control over Giselle’s life at a time when she was especially vulnerable. Her father blames himself. Said if he’d been paying more attention …”

“But his wife was dying,” Jess murmured.

“Right. The only person to blame is Trucker.” Milo and Ian helped Jess to her feet. “I came back to straighten things out. But when I went upstairs, I heard Ian trying to break down the closet door with his feet. I’d just let him out when everyone else came home. You were the only one missing, Jess. And then Ian looked out an upstairs window and spotted the flashlight down at the creek.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Ian said, and Jess nodded numbly.

And then, just as they turned to leave, there was a sudden gust of wind. The soft whisper of wet paper pulled their attention back to the creek. They watched in shocked silence as Giselle’s photograph slowly peeled itself away from Trucker’s face, lifted itself up, and flew swiftly through the air, up the creekbed until it was out of sight.

When Jess could find her voice, she whispered, almost to herself, “She put the shadow on my wall, too, and the footprints in the hall leading to my room. She was trying to tell me …”

“What?” Ian asked. “What are you talking about?”

Jess smiled wearily. “Nothing. Never mind.” But silently, she added, “’Bye, Giselle. Rest in peace.”

Together, they all climbed back up the hill in silence, Ian holding Jess’s hand. When they reached the clearing behind Nightingale Hall, something in the air … a sudden, hushed stillness, stopped them in their tracks. They lifted their heads and listened.

And as they stood there, the big old brick house seemed to shudder, as if sighing heavily, and then settle back on its haunches peacefully.

When the air was still again, Milo said, “Giselle found justice, and the house is satisfied. It isn’t waiting anymore.”

No one laughed.

“Come on,” Jess said quietly. “We can go inside now.”

Diane Hoh (b. 1937) is a bestselling author of young-adult fiction. Born in Warren, Pennsylvania, Hoh grew up with eight siblings and parents who encouraged her love of reading from an early age. After high school, she spent a year at St. Bonaventure University before marrying and raising three children. She and her family moved often, finally settling in Austin, Texas.

Hoh sold two stories to
Young Miss
magazine, but did not attempt anything longer until her children were fully grown. She began her first novel,
Loving That O’Connor Boy
(1985), after seeing an ad in a publishing trade magazine requesting submissions for a line of young-adult fiction. Although the manuscript was initially rejected, Hoh kept writing, and she soon completed her second full-length novel,
Brian’s Girl
(1985). One year later, her publisher reversed course, buying both novels and launching Hoh’s career as a young-adult author.

After contributing novels to two popular series, Cheerleaders and the Girls of Canby Hall, Hoh found great success writing thrillers, beginning with
Funhouse
(1990), a Point Horror novel that became a national bestseller. Following its success, Hoh created the Nightmare Hall series, whose twenty-nine novels chronicle a university plagued by dark secrets. After concluding Nightmare Hall with 1995’s
The Voice in the Mirror
, Hoh wrote
Virus
(1996), which introduced the seven-volume Med Center series, which charts the challenges and mysteries of a hospital in Massachusetts.

In 1998, Hoh had a runaway hit with
Titanic: The Long Night
, a story of two couples—one rich, one poor—and their escape from the doomed ocean liner. That same year, Hoh released
Remembering the Titanic
, which picked up the story one year later. Together, the two were among Hoh’s most popular titles. She continues to live and write in Austin.

An eleven-year-old Hoh with her best friend, Margy Smith. Hoh’s favorite book that year was
Lad: A Dog
by Albert Payson Terhune.

A card from Hoh’s mother written upon the publication of her daughter’s first book. Says Hoh, “This meant everything to me. My mother was a passionate reader, as was my dad.”

Hoh and her mother in Ireland in 1985. Hoh recalls, “I kissed the Blarney Stone, which she said was redundant because I already had the ‘gift of gab.’ Later, I would use some of what we saw there in
Titanic: The Long Night
as Paddy, Brian, and Katie deported from Ireland.”