by Diane Hoh
The limp wrist had a pulse.
Dr. Stark was still alive.
But for how long?
Shea sank back on her haunches. And noticed then, the lamp and the copper paperweight, both lying on the floor above the professor’s head, a few papers scattered between them. If either the lamp or the paperweight had struck her, no wonder she was unconscious and bleeding. They were both very heavy.
Shea, moving in a stunned fog, got up then and reached for the telephone on the desk.
She gave the location and Dr. Stark’s name to the emergency services dispatcher. But when she was asked for her name, she gasped and slammed down the phone. It had suddenly occurred to her that she could not be found in this room.
She was almost certainly on that videotape. Dr. Stark had announced to the entire class that she had caught someone cheating and that she intended to share with them the incriminating evidence. And then Dr. Stark had been attacked somehow, probably hit on the back of the head with something heavy. The paperweight?
And here was Shea Fallon, one of the professor’s students and possibly the star of an incriminating videotape, standing in this room at the very moment when Dr. Stark lay unconscious and bleeding on the floor.
The trouble I was in five minutes ago, before I entered this office, Shea thought dismally, was nothing compared to the trouble I’ll be in if I’m found in this room now.
It wasn’t as if she could help the victim. What did she know about first aid? Nothing. The woman needed paramedics, a doctor, a nurse. Not a terrified, shaking basket-case.
I’ve done everything that I can, Shea told herself as she began a hasty retreat. I’ve called for help. They’ll come and find her and take care of her. I don’t need to be here when they come.
But at the last moment, she ran back into the smaller room and grabbed an old afghan from the back of the leather couch and tossed it over Dr. Stark. Didn’t people always do that in movies when someone was hurt?
She heard a siren shrieking in the distance, approaching Wilshire Hall.
Taking one last, guilty look at the body on the floor, Shea turned and ran from the room.
Chapter 4
TERRIFIED THAT SHE WOULD run into someone in the elevator or the halls, Shea took the fire stairs, two at a time, down to the first floor. She knew she must look frightening. Her skin had to be as white as marble, she was unsteady on her feet, her eyes bulging. They might not think much of it now … a fight with a boyfriend, a bad grade? … but later, when they heard about Dr. Stark, they’d put two and two together and get … well, what they’d get could spell disaster for Shea Fallon.
She laughed aloud, a cold, hollow sound echoing throughout the dim, deserted stairwell. As if she weren’t already swimming in disaster, and with no help from anyone. She’d done that all by herself.
But as long as no one had seen her running from Dr. Stark’s office this afternoon, there was still a remote chance that she wouldn’t drown.
Then she remembered the phone call at Vinnie’s. If someone knew about the stolen exam, her chances of getting out of this mess weren’t remote … they were nonexistent.
Still, as if it were a life preserver, she clung to a tiny shred of hope that the call hadn’t meant anything. She would cling to it tenaciously until every last trace of hope was gone.
I shouldn’t be thinking about myself now, she thought in disgust as she reached the outside rear door and heard the nearby wail of a siren. She waited at the door until the siren abruptly ceased and a door slammed, then another.
The help she had summoned for Dr. Stark had arrived.
Had they arrived in time?
She wouldn’t know that until later. How was she going to get through those minutes, maybe hours, until she knew for certain that the professor was okay? She wouldn’t even be able to ask anyone, at least not until the word got around campus.
That wouldn’t take long. News like that sailed around campus faster than a balloon escaping from a small child’s hand. Someone would hear the siren and run downstairs to see what was up. Soon the story would be sailing out over the tall, wide, brick buildings, over the Commons, the dorms, the stadium and the football field, over the huge white-pillared fraternity and sorority houses, until every person on campus had heard the story.
But the story won’t say how it happened, or why it happened, or even exactly what happened, Shea thought grimly as she slipped out of the rear door and hurried across campus toward Devereaux. No one, including me, knows the answers to any of those very important questions. Not yet.
“Hey, where’re you headed?”
Shea was so lost in her own miserable thoughts, she stumbled and would have fallen if a hand hadn’t grabbed her elbow.
Sid. Sid Frye, Dinah’s boyfriend, smiling down at her with that sardonic grin, as if he knew exactly what she’d been up to.
She knew it was important to speak in a normal voice, act normally. It took every ounce of self-discipline she possessed. “Oh, hi, Sid. Thanks for the save. I guess I was out in space. I’m on my way back to the dorm.”
“I’m headed that way, too. I need to see Dinah. How’d you do on the exam?” His eyes were so dark, they reminded her of marbles. They had that same cold emptiness. What did warm, funny Dinah see in him?
Shea shrugged. “Okay, I guess.” Liar! But talking about Dr. Stark’s test might lead to talking about Dr. Stark herself, and Shea couldn’t do that. Not now. She might do something stupid and revealing, like burst into tears. Sid must have heard the siren, and he wasn’t stupid. He’d make the connection, sooner or later. “So,” she managed in a casual tone, “where are you and Dinah off to?”
“Did I say we were going anywhere? I just need to talk to her, that’s all. Any objections?”
He knew how Shea felt about him. Dinah had told him. And then had confessed to Shea, saying, “Sid doesn’t understand why. He’s never done anything to you.” True. But he treated her best friend as if he owned her, and that, Shea couldn’t forgive. It amazed her that Dinah tolerated it.
Ever since Dinah had told Sid how Shea felt about him, he’d continually baited Shea, trying to get a rise out of her. She’d thought for some time now that what he was hoping for was a full-blown argument, forcing Dinah to take sides. That was how sure he was that Dinah would choose him, leaving Shea out in the cold.
“No,” she said flatly. “Why would I object?” Fighting with Sid now was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Not with everything else crashing in around her.
Giving up, Sid said casually, “You hear the ambulance?”
“I heard a siren,” Shea said, thinking that the late-springtime sun was awfully hot. Its rays blinded her, made her think of an overhead light in a police station, glaring down upon a prisoner while interrogators urged him to confess. “I thought maybe it was a fire truck or the police. How do you know it was an ambulance?”
“Saw it. Passed me. It went to Wilshire.” His thin lips creased in a humorless smile. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that maybe some evil befell Brunhilda Stark. The gods are not that generous.”
Guess again, Shea thought, and willed herself not to shudder. Sid Frye was, by nature, a suspicious person. One wrong signal from her and his antennae would spring to attention.
She fell silent, then, no longer willing to make the effort to play it cool. She felt frail and frightened inside, and marvelled that Sid couldn’t see that. Her nerves were screaming. The soft, gentle rustle of the pale pink dogwood blossoms overhead set her teeth on edge, so that she was unable to respond to countless “Hi, Shea’s that came her way as they walked across the thick green grass toward Devereaux Hall.
By the time they reached the tall, red-brick dorm, she felt completely drained. When they got upstairs, she was going to take a long hot shower and try to pull herself together.
But when she got to her room, Dinah was waiting in the hall.
The minute Shea saw her face, she knew she was not going to have the luxury of w
aiting until she felt stronger to share the bad news about Dr. Stark. Dinah already knew. It was written all over her round, tanned face. Her dark brown eyes were wide with shock.
It’s bad, Shea thought as her heart slid into her shoes, it’s very bad.
“I just heard,” Dinah began, “Dr. Stark … she … she was attacked in her office. Someone cracked her on the head. She’s in the hospital. Not the infirmary.”
Shea knew what Dinah meant. Minor injuries were taken to the campus infirmary. So Dr. Stark’s head wound had been far more serious than it had looked.
Shea had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out, “No, it wasn’t that bad! There were just these two small places where her head was bleeding,” as if by denying the severity of the damage, she could also deny her part in it.
That thought surprised her. Her part in it? She had no part in what had happened to Dr. Stark. What a weird thing to think! She had tried to help the professor. Called the ambulance, tossed a blanket over her. That’s all she’d done.
So, why did she feel so guilty?
“How do they know she was attacked?” Shea asked, staying where she was in the middle of the hall. If she moved closer, Dinah might see something in her face, in her eyes … “Maybe she just fell, hit her head on those big bookshelves behind her desk.”
Dinah shook her head. “I heard Dr. Stark was conscious when the emergency people got there. She told them something was missing. A heavy copper paperweight. The campus police think it was the weapon, and that the attacker took it with him. The Twin Falls police are being called in. Isn’t it awful?”
Shea almost blurted out, “That paperweight isn’t gone! It was there a few minutes ago, when I …” She stopped herself just in time. She felt dizzy with confusion. How could the paperweight be gone? It had been there … she had seen it. Now, it was gone?
Realizing what must have happened, she shuddered with fear. Dr. Stark’s attacker had returned to get the incriminating paperweight, probably only seconds after Shea had run from the office. She’d missed him by a hair.
“Fingerprints,” Sid said knowingly. “If that’s what she was hit with, there’d be fingerprints on it. That’s why the attacker took it.”
Fingerprints? Shea sucked in her breath. In her mind, she saw herself at Dr. Stark’s desk yesterday, saw the copper paperweight go flying, saw herself bending to pick it up, put it back where it belonged. There would be more than one set of fingerprints on that copper paperweight. One set would be hers.
And … as if that weren’t bad enough, she had cut her finger on a piece of paper. It had been bleeding when she picked up that copper cube. Had she left bloodstains? They would have dried by now, but didn’t the police have special tests they could conduct on an object for things like dried bloodstains? She was sure they did.
But now the paperweight was missing, anyway.
While Sid and Dinah talked around her, Shea tried to think. The office videotape would have the time and date on it. It would put her in Dr. Stark’s office yesterday afternoon. It would show her stealing a copy of the exam. If the police saw that tape, they’d think Dr. Stark had found her out and confronted her. They’d think she had a motive for using the paperweight as a weapon. If they found the paperweight, they’d compare the fingerprints. And they’d be convinced when the prints matched that she had … no, they couldn’t think that. They couldn’t. The only violent act Shea Fallon had committed in her entire life was killing a housefly at summer camp.
But the police didn’t know that.
She had to keep reminding herself that they didn’t have the paperweight.
Even if they did, hers wouldn’t be the only fingerprints on it. But … she was on the videotape.
Where was that tape? Did the police have it? If they did, they’d be knocking on her door any minute now.
“Let me know if you hear anything more,” Shea managed before she turned and made her way down the hall on legs that felt like wet rags.
She made it. Somehow, she remained upright all the way down the hall and into her room.
Tandy wasn’t there. Shea closed the door with a grateful, shaky sigh. The small, cluttered room had never seemed more welcoming. Here, she was safe. Here, she could crawl into bed and pull up the covers and shove out of her mind all thoughts of videotape and Dr. Stark and bio exams and paperweights and quarter-sized splotches of vivid red blood on the back of an unconscious skull.
It wasn’t easy. She did crawl into bed, she did pull up the covers and she did fight to clear her mind. But cruel images of the fallen professor, of a bloodied paperweight, of policemen wielding handcuffs knocking at the door of Devereaux Hall’s room 412 clung like barnacles until finally, nervous exhaustion banished them. Shea fell into a restless sleep.
She was awakened by the telephone’s ring. She struggled upward, fighting to clear her mind. What time was it? Why was she sleeping in her clothes?
The phone shrilled insistently.
“Tandy?” Shea said groggily.
No answer. Tandy wasn’t home …
Glancing at the clock on her bedside table, Shea saw the small hand resting on the five. Five o’clock! She’d slept the entire afternoon away.
Then she remembered. All of it. Why she had been napping in the middle of the day, something she never did. The professor … in the hospital … the exam … the videotape … the whole disastrous business washed over her, as if she were being bathed in black ink.
She groaned aloud, and reached for the phone.
“Hello, there,” a voice whispered.
That voice. The one from Vinnie’s.
Shea sagged back against the bed pillow. Oh, no. Not this, not now.
“I thought you might like to know what I’ve done for you,” the oily whisper breathed in her ear. “I mean, what’s the point of doing something great for someone if they don’t even know about it?”
“I can’t hear you very well,” Shea said, finding her voice. “Who is this? And what are you talking about? What did you do for me?”
“That’s not important. What’s important is that I did you a huge favor, and you should be grateful.”
Shea sat up again. She strained to identify the muffled whisper, but failed. She could hardly hear it, let alone give it a face. “Tell me what you did for me,” she said.
“Say please,” the whisper commanded coyly.
“Well, you’re the one who wanted to tell me!” Shea shouted, losing her patience. “I don’t care whether you tell me or not!”
“Oh, chill out,” the whisper admonished. “You’re not being very nice. After all, I’m saving you from a nasty experience. Haven’t you ever seen any prison movies?”
A vision of the professor’s bloodied red-brown hair flashed before Shea’s eyes. “Just tell me,” she snapped. “Or I’m hanging up.”
They both knew she wouldn’t do that. Not now.
“Well, pay attention then,” the whisperer said, “Because I’m only going to say this once. You never can tell who might be listening. So open your ears, Shea.”
Shea held her breath and pressed her ear so close to the receiver it felt like it was a part of her body. “I’m listening,” she said then. “What did you do for me? What?”
The whisper wafted through the telephone line like a foul smell and, without increasing in volume, enunciated each word slowly and distinctly.
“I stole the videotape and the paperweight for you.”
Chapter 5
STUNNED BY THE REVELATION, Shea was unable to think straight. “What … what did you say?”
“You heard me. You know, you’re very photogenic, Shea. Have you ever thought of a career in movies?”
Bluff, Shea’s mind warned her. You can’t be sure he’s telling the truth. Her hand gripped the receiver so tightly, her knuckles went bone-white. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she blustered.
“Oh, of course you do. I’m talking about the tape Dr. Stark had in her videocame
ra. The one that shows you making a copy of the exam. You must have been frantic when she said she had that film. I don’t blame you. I’ll bet you never dreamed when you came to Salem that you might not make it through your first year without being expelled.”
True. So true. Tears of shame filled Shea’s eyes. “Are you going to give it to me?” she asked shakily. “Are you going to give me that tape?”
“Well, of course. You’re its star. So you should have it.”
She knew then that it wasn’t going to be that easy. He wasn’t going to just hand it over. He was going to make her pay.
Her voice hardened. “How much?” she demanded.
“Why, Shea, did I say one word about money?”
“How much!” she repeated, her eyes closed, waiting for the axe to fall, lopping off her future. What was the going rate for a future these days? And what did she do if the price was more than she could pay? Then what?
“Why don’t we meet and talk about it? I hate conducting business over the phone.”
Shea stared at the receiver in her hand. Meet? He wanted to talk to her in person? Then she’d know who he was. Didn’t he care? If he had attacked Dr. Stark, what he’d done was much worse than what she’d done. Wasn’t he afraid she’d tell?
“By the way, Shea, just in case you’re interested, I wasn’t stupid, like you. I didn’t leave any fingerprints. The only prints on that paperweight are from your delicate little hands. You might want to keep that in mind.”
Shea sagged back against the wall. That’s why he wasn’t afraid to meet with her. He knew she couldn’t afford to tell. The incriminating evidence only pointed to her.
He was clearly in charge here.
But … was it safe to meet with someone who would do what he was doing? Blackmail, wasn’t that what it was? Who knew what he was capable of? Someone had attacked Dr. Stark. It was crazy to meet with him alone.
As if she had a choice.
Her tears were tears of frustration now. She’d done one stupid thing, and now she had to risk meeting with a blackmailer … would it ever end?