by Diane Hoh
Fury fueled her steps. Wasn’t it enough that someone was torturing her with menacing notes and phone calls? Wasn’t it enough that she was alone out there in the condo, without anyone around who cared about her? Wasn’t it enough that her best friend was lying flat on her back in a hospital bed? People like Trudy had no right suspecting her. No right at all!
Quit feeling sorry for yourself, she scolded herself. At least you’re walking on your own two feet, which is more than you can say for Gina.
After school, Tess went straight to the Medical Center, the heavy rain forcing her to drive slowly. On the way there, she passed The Boardwalk. It was almost deserted, with only a handful of cars in the huge parking lot. That couldn’t be because of the weather, she told herself, since most of the amusement park was covered. If anything, The Boardwalk was usually busier in bad weather, since it was one of the few places in town where kids could have fun without braving the elements.
Maybe the thing Mr. Giambone had feared was actually happening. Were people afraid to go near The Boardwalk now, after two serious accidents?
It was at that moment, as she turned a corner toward the Medical Center, that a new thought occurred to her. Maybe … maybe people being hurt wasn’t the point at all. Maybe the actual target was The Boardwalk itself! The amusement park was hurting for business. Could that have been the goal all along? To cripple The Boardwalk? Or … could the target be the board of directors? Dade, Joey, Sheree, and Gina all had something else in common besides being students at Santa Luisa High School. Their parents were all on the board of directors that ran The Boardwalk. And so was her father.
There were eight people on the board. Well, actually only seven since Doss Beecham’s father had been forced to resign. So far, four of them had received chilling phone calls summoning them to the Medical Center. Were the others soon to follow?
Pulling into a parking place on the street, she turned off the car’s engine and sat quietly behind the wheel, watching the rain slide down her windshield. Should she go to the police with these new theories? On what basis? She had no proof, no new evidence to show them. They were just guesses. They made sense, but she was still missing the one ingredient necessary to clinch her argument: a motive. She had absolutely no idea why someone would want to sabotage The Boardwalk. A disgruntled employee, maybe, seeking revenge? Someone who felt he’d been unfairly fired? How could she find out if there was someone like that?
The best place to seek out that kind of information would be, of course, from one of the members of the board. Like … like her father.
She would have to think about that.
Something else occurred to her. Gina! When Gina awakened, she would tell Chief Chalmers and everyone else that the saucer had indeed been missing. Then Chalmers would believe Tess, not only about the saucer, but about the note and the telephone call as well. He’d be convinced, then, that nothing had been accidental. He would know, as she did, that someone in Santa Luisa was deliberately doing these terrible things, and he’d finally do something to stop it.
Gina was the key right now. Because she could also tell Tess who else knew that Tess had taken Trilby home. Only one of those people would have hung the stuffed animal from the light fixture. And they had probably done the other horrible things, too. Excited by the possibility of Gina providing answers, Tess hurried into the Medical Center, not even noticing the pelting rain. Now if she could just talk Dr. Oliver into letting her see his patient.
And she did. Gina’s head was swathed in white gauze, tiny ringlets of dark hair escaping around the edges. Her cheeks were pale and gray, and her leg was held captive in the air by a torturous-looking pulley arrangement.
Relieved just to see her friend, Tess took a seat on a hard wooden chair beside Gina’s bed and took off her jacket. When she had made sure Gina was feeling better, Tess leaned forward slightly, anxious for some answers. “Gina, have you thought at all about how someone might have removed that saucer?”
Gina looked blank. “Saucer? What saucer?”
Tess’s heart sank. Oh, no. But she persisted. “You know. The one that was missing in the Funhouse. Someone took it out and left a hole. That’s what you fell through.”
Gina shifted uncomfortably in the bed. “Oh, gee, Tess, didn’t the doctor tell you? I don’t remember a single thing about yesterday. Not a minute of it! I don’t even remember going to the Funhouse. My mom says that’s where I got hurt, but it’s all a big blank to me. Does it matter? You look awfully worried. What’s going on?”
Tess sank back in her chair, crushed with disappointment. Gina had been her only hope. Everything would have been so simple if only Gina had remembered seeing the missing saucer.
“I guess,” she said slowly, “that means you don’t remember if you told anyone I was taking Trilby home with me, right?”
Gina nodded gingerly. “I didn’t even remember that you had,” she admitted. “How is she?”
Well, she’s not hanging from the light fixture, Tess almost said. But didn’t. Because she realized she couldn’t tell Gina any of the frightening things that had happened. Not now. Not until she was out of that bed and back in her own home again. Gina had enough to worry about. “She’s fine. She’s good company. Can I keep her until you get back home?”
“Sure. She probably loves all the attention. She doesn’t get much at our house. Too much competition.”
In spite of her depression and disappointment, Tess laughed, and changed the subject to a safer topic. They were discussing their teacher Mr. Dart’s habit of teasing Gina, when Guy Joe arrived with Beak and Sam. Trudy and Candace walked in a few minutes later. All were soaked, their hair and clothes dripping.
“You all look like drowned rats,” Gina said with a smile. “And how did you get in here? The rule is no more than two visitors at a time.” Her dark eyes registered disappointment, Tess noticed, when she realized Doss wasn’t with them. “If Nurse Nasty finds you in here, you’ll be sorry. I swear that woman chuckles with glee every time she gives me a shot. She must have majored in torture tactics instead of nursing.”
While they all joked about the nurse, Tess watched them. Not one of them looked like the sort of cruel person who could even pretend to hang a cat.
But what about the absent Doss? He would have had more opportunity than anyone else to cause trouble at The Boardwalk. And he had a motive: he might be bitter that his family had lost all of their money while the others still had theirs. The board of directors had fired Mr. Beecham because of his drinking, and the man had really fallen apart after that. Doss might be angry about that.
Angry enough to take Dade Lewis’s life?
Maybe.
Her eyes shifted to Beak. Charming, funny Beak, who had once replaced a kettle of soup in the cafeteria with a pot of glue. Had poured a thick layer of honey into every pair of track shoes worn by his teammates, had tied two dozen aluminum cans to the back of a school bus, and had once come to American history class on stilts.
But the things that had happened on The Boardwalk weren’t funny, and not even Beak could possibly think so. If he’d done those things, then he wasn’t who she thought he was.
But right now, she wasn’t sure who anybody was.
A moment later Doss arrived, standing awkwardly in the doorway until Gina called to him. A very tall nurse was standing right behind him, her mouth pursed in disapproval as her eyes surveyed the crowd.
“Oh-oh,” Gina whispered loudly, “that’s her! Florence Frightingale!”
In less than two seconds, the nurse had cleared the room of all but Doss and Tess, the two people Gina had asked to remain as her “legal” visitors.
“The rest of you am-scray now,” the nurse said in a no-nonsense voice. “This is no recreation room. Run along.”
They did. But as Beak straightened up after kissing Gina on the cheek, his eyes landed on Doss, standing beside Gina’s bed. Tess saw the resentment in that look and wondered if she’d made a mistake dismissing Beak a
s nothing more than a practical joker. That was clearly anger in his eyes. It was gone almost immediately, but she didn’t think she’d forget it quickly.
There was a moment of awkward silence after they’d all left. Then Gina, holding one of Doss’s hands in her own, smiled at Tess and said, “You are going to Trudy’s party, aren’t you?”
“No, I aren’t,” Tess answered. “I’m not going near The Boardwalk. I think the place is cursed.”
“Oh, come on, Tess!” Gina tried to sit up in bed but was defeated by the cumbersome pulley. “I want Doss to go and have a good time, and he says he won’t unless you’re there.” Another smile. “He feels more comfortable with you than he does with the other guys.”
Well, that was a surprise! Or did Doss really want her there, on The Boardwalk Saturday night, for nasty little reasons of his own?
His olive skin flushed with embarrassment. “Hey,” he told Gina lightly, “don’t talk about me as if I’m not here, okay? I don’t want to go to that party without you, anyway.”
“Neither do I,” Tess agreed.
“Yeah, I know.” Gina smiled up at Doss. “But the thing is, I have this problem.” She pointed to her airborne leg. “The doctor says the only way I can leave here by Saturday is if I go without my leg. And I hate to do that. I like this leg.” She grinned. “You might even say I’m attached to it.”
Her visitors groaned.
“Okay, okay, so I’m no Robin Williams. Listen, I really want you guys to go to that party. Please? I know Trudy’s a royal pain sometimes, but it’s her birthday. Her parents are busy that night and without us, Trudy won’t have any celebration at all. I can’t go, but you two can. C’mon. For me?”
“That’s not fair!” Tess protested. “You’re in the hospital. You’re hurt. People have to do what you ask or they’ll feel like slime. Can’t you ask me something easier, like taking a chem test for you or giving every pet in your house a bath?”
“Sam’s going,” Gina said slyly.
Tess knew her face was as red as Doss’s had been a moment earlier. “Like I said, ask me to do something easier.”
But Gina looked so disappointed. Tess reminded herself that Gina wouldn’t be in a hospital bed if Tess had gone looking for her own key case. And Tess couldn’t very well explain that her reluctance to attend the party was based on fear, without telling Gina about the hanging cat and the phone call. She knew she couldn’t do that.
“Okay, okay, I’ll go.” She glared at Gina with mock anger. “Now I suppose you’ll demand that I have a good time. Well, sorry, but that’s too much to ask.”
“Promise me you’ll try to have a good time.”
“Absolutely not.” Tess stood up. She was beginning to feel like a third wheel. “I won’t promise that. I’ll go, but that’s all you’re getting from me. See you tomorrow.”
Gina and Doss were smiling at each other when Tess left the room.
Maybe they were smiling because they didn’t realize that something awful could happen at that party. Well, Gina didn’t, anyway. Tess wasn’t that sure about Doss. He might very well know that something awful was going to happen. She hoped not. Because Gina was falling for him, that was clear as crystal, and she didn’t want to see Gina hurt any more than she already had been.
It was still raining hard, and her car was a block away. With only her blue windbreaker for protection, she was soaked through when she reached the car. She was still using her extra set of car keys on a small gold ring. They were harder to find in her shoulder bag than the larger key case, and she was concentrating on locating them when she stepped in a puddle of chilly water that soaked her feet to the ankles. Looking down in dismay, her eyes were distracted by something far more disturbing.
The left front tire directly opposite her feet was no longer doughnut-shaped. It was as flat as a deflated balloon.
Groaning, Tess’s eyes went immediately to the rear tire. It, too, was completely flat.
A feeling of dread rising within her, she sloshed around the rear of the car to the other side. And sagged against the door as her eyes focused on two more thoroughly deflated tires.
One fiat tire would have annoyed her, especially in such lousy weather. Two would have surprised her, although she supposed that sort of thing happened sometimes.
But four flat tires was an unmistakable message.
Her breathing was shallow as she bent in the rain to examine first one tire, then the others, more carefully. She found exactly what she had feared she would find.
All four tires had been deliberately slashed.
Chapter 17
HA, HA, HA. SHREDDED TIRES. Now her car won’t go!
I think she knows I’ve been following her. Keeps looking over her shoulder. Reminds me of a deer I saw once when my dad made me go hunting with him. It knew we were after it. I felt sorry for it. But I don’t feel sorry for Tess. Why should I?
Lila decided to give up her baby for adoption. I knew it was coming, but it still made me angry when I got to that entry.
I don’t know what else to do. I’m so tired. And Buddy’s right. I can’t provide what a baby needs. I’ve tried and tried to think of a way, but there is none.
He keeps telling me how much these people want a baby of their own. Doesn’t that mean they’ll love it and care for it? I hope so.
But anyway, it’s too late now. I’ve signed the adoption papers. I pray I did the right thing …
I knew, somehow, that she didn’t.
Chapter 18
STARING AT THE SHREDDED tires on her car didn’t make them suddenly inflate, so Tess straightened up and looked around her, her heart thudding in her chest. Someone had done this deliberately.
Sagging against the useless car, her wet hair and clothes clinging to her she thought, Gina had a lot of visitors tonight. Every single one of them knows this is my car. Someone I know—one of my friends—is after me and I have no idea why. The thought made Tess feel sick. She heard the whisper again. “You’ll have to be punished … soon.”
What should she do now? Call the police? She’d have to tell them who she suspected, the whole long list of names. She couldn’t do that. She had no proof. They’d never believe that any child of one of The Boardwalk’s directors, the most powerful people in town, was responsible for all the turmoil.
Which child was it?
And why were they hurting people in Santa Luisa?
She was stranded. How was she going to get home? Any minute now, Doss Beecham would leave the hospital and find Tess stranded out here. Although she wasn’t sure he was the one, that thought made her more nervous than the slashed tires. All she knew was that she wanted to get home, out of the rain, where she could think straight.
Turning, she hurried away from the car and out into the road leading up the hill toward The Shadows.
Halfway up the hill, misery overtook her with full force. She was alone in the dark and the wind and the rain and she was frightened. Where was the tire-slasher now?
Was he watching her? Tess glanced around nervously. The hill and the woods on either side seemed deserted. But were they? Wouldn’t the sound of footsteps be muffled by the wind and the rain?
Realizing just how vulnerable she was, walking out in the open up the main road, she decided it would be safer to take a shortcut through the woods. It would be muddier, and therefore slower, than the paved road, but the thick woods might provide some shelter from the weather, and at least she wouldn’t feel like a walking target. Out in plain sight on the road, she might as well have a bull’s-eye painted on the back of her blue windbreaker.
The thick, tall trees did provide some protection from the torrents of rain spilling out of the sky, but she had no flashlight with her and couldn’t see very well. Fortunately, there was a path, and although the mud and deepening puddles prevented her from hurrying, she did feel a little safer in the woods.
The heavy rain had softened the earth beneath her feet into a soggy goo. Walking was difficult. Sh
e slid as often as she stepped safely. Low-hanging branches she couldn’t see in the darkness jumped out at her, snagging her hair, scratching her face. Several times she hit low spots in the path and sank up to her ankles in cold water and mud. The mud clung to her feet like glue, making her sodden shoes feel as if they were encased in cement. But she struggled on, because she had no choice.
The first couple of times she heard a noise behind her she told herself it was her imagination. The next time she heard it—a soft, padding sound—she told herself it was probably a small animal, a raccoon or a possum. But when the sound came again an uncomfortable feeling began to rise in her throat.
She was not alone in the woods. Someone was following her. The tire-slasher?
She stopped to listen intently. A fluttering sound in the trees overhead reminded her that bats had recently been reported in the area. The reports had frightened her, but Sam had dismissed her fears by saying, “It’s not like you make a habit of wandering around outside after dark.”
Well, no, not usually. Only when all four tires on her car had been slashed.
There! The sound came again, close enough to be heard distinctly. And it was footsteps, she was sure of it. It was an exact echo of the plodding, slogging, dragging-through-the-mud sound she herself was making.
Panicking, she tried to hurry. Her heart was pounding so thunderously in her chest she was sure her pursuer could hear it. But she couldn’t quiet her terror.
The sound behind her drew closer. Soft, soft …
Frantic, and sobbing quietly, she tried desperately to run. But her skirt, sweater, and jacket, completely saturated with water, weighed on her like a suit of solid lead. And her feet were imprisoned in a thick coat of gooey mud. Every step she took was a struggle, requiring enormous effort. Running was impossible.
“Te-ess! Oh, Te-ess!”