by Diane Hoh
“Okay, okay! Forget I said anything. See you!” And he turned on his heel and walked, head down, back to the restaurant and went inside.
Good. Who needed him? He could never understand how foolish she felt.
Because she had thought, just for that tiny, awful little second, that The Wizard had actually called to warn her not to doubt him.
Chapter 8
WHEN ALEX GOT BACK to the dorm, the sounds of some heavy-duty partying echoed from one of the rooms on her floor as she entered the hall.
The temptation to join the party was strong. Tired or not, she hated the thought of going back to an empty room again. All she had to do was knock on the door, and she’d be with other people. Maybe even having fun, who knew? She could forget about Julie’s face and Gabe’s injured legs and Marty being annoyed with her. She could push everything, including her battle with the tower wind, out of her mind, just for a little while, and have a good time. Wasn’t that what parties were for?
Alex hesitated in the hallway. If Marty found out she’d refused to stop at Vinnie’s with them and then had gone to a party instead, he’d be double-ticked.
Too bad. She hadn’t said she wanted to go home and go to bed. She’d only said she didn’t want to go into Vinnie’s. And that was the truth.
Alex marched straight over to the source of the party sounds and rapped sharply on the door.
It was opened by a short, pretty girl with blonde hair. Alex had seen her at parties. She was a friend of the Omega Phi redhead who’d been dating Bennett. The blonde girl’s name, Alex remembered, was Amber.
She let Alex in and handed her a brimming paper cup. “You’re Alex Edgar,” she said. “Aren’t you a friend of Bennett’s?”
Alex nodded. The room was thick with people, lounging, sitting. There didn’t seem to be a square inch of empty space.
“Poor Bennett,” Amber said. “He was really nuts about Shelley. But she doesn’t date non-athletes. Ever. I guess Bennett was really wrecked over it.”
“Doesn’t seem to be,” Alex said coolly. If Bennett was wrecked, she was positive he wouldn’t want Shelley and all of her friends to know it. “He was having fun tonight with Jenny Pierce.”
“Oh, the twin of that girl whose face was totalled.”
Alex winced at the remark. Turning away, she stepped carefully around reclining bodies sharing a huge bowl of pink popcorn, and went to the window. Squeezing between two people she didn’t know, she made a space for herself and stood looking out. The tower was directly across from her.
“Hey, Alex!” a girl named Jill from Alex’s math class called out, “You’re being antisocial. How’s Julie doing?”
Alex turned around and joined in the conversation and, after a while, the fun. When she next turned back to the window, she was surprised to see people on the sixth floor observation deck of the tower. They were directly in her line of vision. Two figures, moving about. Dancing? Maybe they’d taken a tape player up there and were dancing under the stars. How romantic. Cold, even without the wind, but romantic.
She couldn’t see who the couple was. Too far away, and the lights on the deck weren’t that bright. They wouldn’t be looking at the stars. If they were going to do that, they’d have gone higher up, maybe even to the eighteenth floor, where the bigger telescope was…the one that had saved her life.
One of the figures moved away from the other, waving its arms. It didn’t seem that they were dancing anymore.
Alex peered through the glass, ignoring the laughter and loud conversation behind her. There was something about the taller of the two figures…something familiar. The height? The build? The way it moved around the deck? Something….
Suddenly the shorter figure began to back away, slowly at first, his or her head turning from side to side as if looking for something. Then he began running from one side of the stone wall to the other, while the taller one remained in place with his back to the door leading from the tower.
Blocking it, Alex thought all of a sudden. The door is being blocked so the shorter one can’t get to it.
Why?
It looks like the shorter person is trying to run away, Alex thought, and realized instantly that that was exactly what was happening. The figure dashing frantically about on the observation deck was running from the taller one, who was blocking the only escape route.
But there’s nowhere to go, she thought next, leaning closer against the window. Her forehead gently bumped the glass. It felt cool, refreshing in such a hot, stuffy room. Why does he need to get away? The other person isn’t doing a thing…just standing there. Nothing scary about that.
So why was the other person running frantically around on the observation deck like a rat caught in a maze?
The taller figure began to move…slowly…toward the shorter one, who was rapidly backing up against the waist-high wall. When his back had collided with the stone and he could no longer move, his hands moved up and out, in a defensive posture. As if he knew a fight was coming.
Alex stood up straighter. What was going on? They definitely weren’t dancing, and they weren’t being romantic…were they just fooling around?
Alex didn’t know what to do. Call security? What if it was just two people horsing around? She’d feel like an idiot. And the two people, whoever they were, not to mention the security guard, would think she had nothing better to do than stand at a window and spy on other people.
But what if they weren’t just horsing around?
The shorter person now stood with his back against the stone wall, hands raised, as the taller person approached. There was something very odd about the figure, something Alex couldn’t place…what was it?
He looks like he’s laughing, Alex thought, and felt an enormous sense of relief. If he was laughing, there couldn’t really be anything wrong, could there? She’d been right not to race to the phone and call security. They were playing.
And then, with Alex still watching, the approaching figure reached the wall. His arms reached out, made contact, and, for a moment, seemed to be toying with the other person’s shirt.
Alex heard Jill calling to her and she flushed in embarrassment. She felt like a Peeping Tom.
And then, just as she was about to turn away from the window in disgust with herself, the taller figure lifted the other one and threw him up and over the side of the observation deck.
Chapter 9
ALEX SCREAMED. THE SOUND went unheard in a room raucous with music and laughter.
The figure that had been thrown off the deck arched up, up, and out into the air before beginning his rapid spiral downward. Arms and legs flailed wildly, grasping outward for something to stop his flight. Alex could feel his mouth opening, could hear, in her mind, his futile screams for help, help, help….
The figure slammed into the awning over the second floor deck and bounced off, arching up again before he made his final descent.
The arms and legs no longer flailed.
In her mind, Alex heard the awful thud when the figure slammed into the ground.
Then he lay still, arms and legs sprawled awkwardly.
People who had been walking across campus began running toward the unmoving figure.
Alex, so ill she could barely stand, sagged against the window. “Someone,” she whispered, “someone was thrown off the tower.”
No one heard her.
She took a deep, cleansing breath and whirled away from the window. No one was paying any attention. People were rummaging through a pile of CD’s in one corner of the room and people in the middle of the room were making a futile attempt to dance, and other people were lying on the floor tossing popcorn at each other, but no one was paying any attention to the fact that someone had just been thrown off the sixth-floor observation deck of the tower.
“Someone fell!” she screamed, and this time everyone stopped what they were doing and looked. “From the tower! Call an ambulance! Hurry!”
Then, as someone reached for the p
hone, Alex stumbled through the crowd to the door and ran out of the room.
Followed by Amber and Jill, Alex raced out of the building and to the tower.
A crowd had already gathered. Alex, her breath coming in ragged gasps, pushed her way through it. And saw Marty, kneeling on the ground beside…Kyle!
It was Kyle she had watched go off that tower. Kyle…
He was lying on his back, a spreading puddle of red covering the grass underneath his blond hair. He wasn’t moving, but…Alex’s eyes moved quickly to his chest…he was breathing.
Her knees gave, and she sank to the ground, close to Marty.
“He’s not dead,” Marty said quickly. He looked up, glancing around the crowd, and repeated, “He’s not dead.” Bennett and Gabe, who were close by, nodded. Jenny and Kiki, their faces a sickly yellow in the tower lights, stood next to them, crying, their hands over their mouths.
“Did he jump?” a voice in the crowd asked.
“No!” Alex cried, furious. “He didn’t!” She would have added then, “He was thrown over the side.” But even as someone said casually, “Well, people have jumped from there, you know,” sirens screamed, and Alex got to her feet. There was something she had to do.
Without a word to anyone, she turned and pushed back through the crowd, ignoring Marty’s shocked, “Alex? Where—?”
She ran to the tower entrance, praying it wouldn’t be locked.
It wasn’t. Yanking the heavy door open, she went inside and ran straight to the stairs. No time to wait for the elevator to the sixth floor. If the police came with the ambulance, as they probably would, they wouldn’t let anyone into the tower until they’d checked it out. They wouldn’t let her up there. And she had to see the place Kyle had fallen from, see it for herself, see if there was anything to tell her who had done this terrible thing.
The tower was deserted. It was late. The staircase was dimly lit, by only one small light at the top of each flight of stairs. Hardly enough to see by. It was cold in the stairwell, and silent. Her footsteps echoed so loudly on the stone steps, she was sure the people outside would hear and come to see what she was up to.
Third floor…fourth floor…out of breath…keep going…have to see if Kyle’s attacker left anything, anything at all…
Fifth floor, one more flight…ah! the door to the sixth floor.
She hesitated. He wouldn’t still be around, would he…Kyle’s attacker?
No. He would have left the moment he saw the crowd gathering. No one who had done what he’d done would hang around, waiting to be caught.
Alex hurried on.
So dark…no one around. Security guards? Where would they be? If they found her, they’d stop her. Maybe they’d even think she was somehow involved.
But they’d probably heard Kyle’s screams and had rushed outside. They’d be out there now, wanting to help.
Could anyone help Kyle now? There was…so much blood under his head and he lay there so quietly, so quietly….
Alex ran down the hall, searching for the entrance to the observation deck on the side facing Lester. Offices, offices, all empty now, all dark. The clickety-clack of her boot heels on the polished wood floor hurt her ears. She smelled cleaning fluid…where was the cleaning staff? On another floor?
Here! Here was the door she wanted. She pulled it open cautiously, in case she’d been wrong about Kyle’s attacker leaving, and was immediately assaulted by a gust of wind ripping at her face and hair.
But it died quickly, unlike the vicious evening wind up on the eighteenth floor.
There was no one on the deck. Nothing but a few tall potted plants.
Alex tried to think, to concentrate, as the heavy door slammed shut behind her. Where had the two figures been standing? She couldn’t remember. Think, think, think….
She ran to the edge of the wall and cautiously peered down. The crowd looked like miniature people, so far below her. A circling blue light on top of one vehicle below her, a similar light, this one red, on a larger vehicle. Police and ambulance. The police would be in the tower at any moment.
She turned to face the deck, and felt sick again. Why would someone throw sweet Kyle to his death? Kyle had never hurt anyone. He couldn’t. It wasn’t in him. On the football field, maybe, but nowhere else.
And it was death that Kyle’s attacker had intended. No question about that. You didn’t toss a person from a sixth story and expect him to get up and walk away with a few harmless bruises and maybe a scrape or two.
Conscious of each passing minute, Alex scoured every inch of the stone deck, aided only by yellow lights on the deck roof.
Nothing. She found nothing.
Remembering what she had witnessed, replaying it in her mind, she tried to follow every step that Kyle and his enemy had taken.
Still finding nothing, she stopped and leaned against the wall, beside a tall potted plant, its fernlike branches swaying in the wind. One soft, delicate branch brushed against her cheek. She slapped it away impatiently.
A departing siren’s wail told her time was running out. Kyle was on his way to the hospital. The police would be on their way up here. They’d make her leave the deck, and she hadn’t found a thing that would help identify the person who had hurt Kyle.
The feathery branch tickled her cheek again. Frustrated by her disappointing search, she swatted at the greenery so hard the stem broke and fell into the base with a faint whooshing sound.
Alex’s eyes guiltily followed its descent. And saw, at the base of the plant, something gleaming in the weak yellow lights. Something small…and golden.
She reached down and picked it up.
A tiny, gold football, with a small golden hoop in the center so that it could be worn on a chain.
Alex stared at the tiny charm, rolling it in the palm of her hand. How long had it been hiding in the pot? It wasn’t dirty. Couldn’t have been in there very long.
Of course, anyone could have dropped it. Anyone. At any time. Not necessarily on this particular Saturday night.
Or…Kyle himself could have lost it, when he was racing back and forth on the deck, trying to find a way out.
Imagining how frightened he must have been, Alex closed her eyes in pain. He must have known something terrible was about to happen to him, or he wouldn’t have been moving so frantically. But he couldn’t possibly have imagined how terrible, could he?
Just then, a security guard arrived, followed by two Twin Falls policemen in uniform. They immediately demanded to know what she was doing on the deck.
She told them. She told them everything she’d seen. Then she gave them the football charm, telling them where she’d found it. One of the policemen took it from her and dropped it into a plastic bag he took from his pocket.
“It wasn’t an accident?” he said. “You actually saw someone throw the victim off this deck? Are you sure? Where were you at the time?”
“I’m positive.” Alex pointed to Lester. “I was over there. At a party. In that room with all the lights on.” She could see people moving around in Amber’s room. The light over there was much brighter than the deck lighting.
“Anyone know you saw this?” the policeman asked her in a casual voice.
“Oh, sure,” Alex said, thinking at first that he wanted to corroborate her story. “Everyone who was at the party knows I saw it happen.”
“Hmm. Might want to tell them to keep it to themselves,” he said in that same casual tone, and his partner nodded emphatically.
And then Alex got it. Her stomach rose up to meet her throat. Oh, God, she’d been a witness to a crime, and everyone at the party knew it! They’d tell other people, and those people would tell more people, and soon everyone on campus would know that she’d seen what happened to Kyle. Including…
Including the person who had committed the crime.
“Which window, exactly, was it?” the policeman asked her. “Where you were standing, I mean. Can you point it out?”
“Yes. T
he party’s still going on.” Amber’s guests hadn’t been as rattled by Kyle’s tragedy as Alex had. She led the two policemen to the edge of the deck and pointed out the window. As they watched, a girl came to the window and looked down upon the Commons, perhaps checking to see if things had returned to normal.
Alex could see her clearly. Long, blonde hair, a green shirt…it was Amber. And if Amber was identifiable from the sixth floor deck…
Alex gasped in horror.
Chapter 10
IT WAS A STRICKEN Alex who finally breathed in disbelief, “But I can see Amber from here! I can even tell what color her hair is!” She turned toward the officers. “I couldn’t see who was over here. It never occurred to me that anyone could have seen me!”
“Lighting’s better over there,” the older policeman said.
Alex took a shaky step backward. “But…but that means…that means he saw me watching! And,” she ran a hand through her shoulder-length dark hair, “I’ve got this white streak in my hair, I’ve had it forever, no one else on campus has it, if he could see that, he…he…”
“You don’t know that he saw you at all,” the policeman said. “The way you told it, his attention was pretty much focused on the victim. He’d have had to turn and look sideways, at that building, to see you standing there. Did you see him do that at any time?”
Alex thought for a minute. No, she didn’t think he had turned. Wouldn’t she remember if he had turned and looked at her? The thought gave her chills.
“We’ll check out the party guests,” she was told, “tell them mum’s the word about what you saw. And you keep it to yourself, understand? Until we know more, I would suggest you tell no one. No one.”
Alex nodded silently.
The policemen walked her back to her dorm. On the sixth floor, she pointed out Amber’s room, and they left in search of party guests.
But first, they told her to lock her door.
She locked it with shaking hands.
There was a note from Jenny on the bathroom mirror. She had gone to the hospital, with Marty, Bennett, Gabe, and Kiki, to find out how Kyle was.