by Diane Hoh
But staying close to the house didn’t help. The wind had picked up again, whistling eerily around the house, driving the rain straight at the trio as they ran to the woodbox.
There was no one there. No one standing at the box or near the box or behind the box. No Lynne.
“Here’s her flashlight,” Toni said, bending to pick it up. She flicked it on, and was rewarded with a faint but steady beam of light.
“Lynne?” Molloy raised one arm to shield her head from the blowing rain. “Lynne, where are you?”
There was no answer.
“Where did she go?” Toni’s voice was barely audible above the whistling wind.
“There!” Daisy cried suddenly, “there, on the ground.” She pointed, and Molloy and Toni’s eyes moved in that direction. Toni aimed the flashlight.
One very wet, very muddy, hot-pink sneaker lay on its side at the base of the woodbox.
But the girl who had been wearing that sneaker was gone.
Chapter 8
THEY’RE MINE NOW. I can’t let any of them go. Here they are, and here they’ll stay …forever.
Laying low and letting them leave unaware of my presence would have been impossible. I knew that all along, but when I heard them talking about building a fire, I knew then that they didn’t intend to leave any time soon. Planned to set up camp, did they? Like they owned the place. I had no choice. I couldn’t have stayed hidden and quiet all night long.
Suppose I had decided to spare them? There was no way I could let them build a fire. A fire! In July? The first person who noticed smoke coming from the chimney at Nightingale Hall would call 911 and this place would be surrounded by shrieking fire trucks and police cars in minutes.
I had to stop that girl. It was her own fault Stupid, stupid girl. She deserved what she got
This is my place! They have no right to waltz in here and take over, ruining things for me.
One down, three to go.
But first, I have to make sure they can’t get out. That’s crucial. Because now that their friend is missing, one of them is going to want to run for help.
I can’t let that happen.
I won’t.
Chapter 9
WHEN MOLLOY CALLED LYNNE’S name again, and then again, there was rising panic in her voice. Her shout disappeared into the darkness and wind and rain without reply.
No one said anything. They stood under the useless overhang, so lost in fear for their friend that they were completely unaware of the wind and the rain.
“She isn’t here” Daisy said. “How can she not be here? She has to be here.” She moved out from under the overhang then, her wet and filthy socks making a sloshing sound on the grass as she darted through the pouring rain from one bush to another, one bed of flowers to another, one tree to another, calling Lynne’s name.
“Daisy, come back!” Toni cried, tears of terror spilling from her eyes. “You don’t know what’s out there, please, come back! Oh, what is going on?” she wailed. “Where is Lynne?”
Daisy came back, her thin shoulders hunched against the rain. “She’s not out there.”
Molloy’s eyes returned to the woodbox. She took the flashlight from Toni and played it over the big, square wooden container. “What are those spots?” she said almost to herself, her voice quavering. “There, on the woodbox.” She took a step forward, reached out, touched one of the spots with the tip of a finger, held the finger under the flashlight, gasped when she saw the color. Red. Pale with rainwater, but still red. Recoiling in revulsion, she said softly, “It’s blood! It’s blood. Something horrible has happened to Lynne out here.”
“Blood?” Toni gasped. “Are you sure?” Frantically wiping her finger on the gray pants, Molloy nodded. Her face was the same color as the pants. “I never should have let her come out here alone.”
“It wasn’t just you,” Daisy said. “We let her go alone, too, because we didn’t want to get wet again.” She glanced at the dark spatters on the woodbox, and shivered. “An animal?” she said, her eyes returning to Molloy. “Do you think an animal attacked Lynne?”
“No.” Molloy was so cold, wet, and frightened, her teeth had begun to chatter. “Ernie said this place was close to campus. So we’re not out in the wilderness. There wouldn’t be any wild animals around.”
“Then what?” Toni asked breathlessly. “What happened to Lynne?”
“I don’t know.” Molloy glanced around fearfully and took several steps backward, toward the house. “I … I don’t know how to say this, except to say it. I’m … I’m starting to wonder if the ground really did give way under that boulder. Maybe … maybe someone gave it some help.”
It took a few moments for that frightening thought to sink in. When it had, Daisy and Toni, their terror-stricken eyes scanning the dark emptiness surrounding the house, took their own steps backward.
“You think there’s someone out here?” Toni whispered, her hand on Molloy’s sweater sleeve. “Someone who hurt Lynnie? Why would someone hurt her? Or push a boulder down on top of us? We don’t even know anyone around here. Except Ernie.”
“I don’t know.” Three pair of eyes frantically scanned the darkness even as their feet continued to move backward, toward the porch. “But if Lynne hurt herself on the woodbox somehow, she wouldn’t run off. She’d come back inside the house.”
“Maybe she did.” Daisy’s head turned toward the house. “Maybe we just didn’t hear her. If she hurt herself, cut her hand or something, she could have come straight inside and into that bedroom to look for a Band-Aid. Let’s go inside and look.”
“I think we should get away from here,” Toni said urgently. “She’s not in the house. We would have heard her come in.”
Molloy spoke softly, quietly, firmly. “We can’t leave now, not with Lynne missing. We can’t just abandon her. She has to be around here somewhere.” She glanced around again, although she could see nothing. “If we’re right about that boulder being pushed down the hill on top of us, we shouldn’t even be out here. I think we’d better get back inside, right this second. We can decide what to do once we’re safe in the house … with the door locked.”
Toni pulled back. “I think we should go for help,” she said stubbornly.
Daisy whirled on her. “How far do you think we’d get before the same thing that happened to Lynne happened to us?”
Toni looked stunned. “Don’t say it like that, Daisy. We don’t know what happened to Lynne.”
Daisy’s eyes flew to the dark spots on the woodbox. “Well, if she’s not in the house, we’ll know it wasn’t anything good, won’t we?” she snapped and, grabbing Toni’s elbow, yanked her forward. “We are going inside and you’re coming with us. Before you disappear, too.”
Although what they all really wanted to do when they were safely inside the house was conduct an immediate search for their missing friend, Daisy insisted they take some precautions first. They closed the back door, but could only slip the chain in place. The lock required a key they didn’t have. With the aid of the flashlight, Daisy found a roll of duct tape in a kitchen drawer and for want of anything better, taped a frying pan over the hole in the window. “If there is someone out there,” she said, staring at her crude handiwork, “and he punches the frying pan out of that hole, we will be able to hear it.”
While Daisy was working on the door, Molloy searched the kitchen drawers and was rewarded when her fingers encountered a brand-new package of batteries, the proper size for the flashlight. She hurriedly inserted them, switched the light on, and the kitchen came to life.
If they hadn’t been frantic about their missing friend, they would have cheered.
Still, it would be easier to look for her now.
Then, walking very quietly and very close together, their clothes dripping a wet trail on the floor as they went, they made their way from room to room, searching for Lynne. The darkness was broken only by the yellow glow of the revitalized flashlight.
There was n
o sign of their missing friend on the first floor. On the second and third floors, the rooms were neat but vacant. Molloy found herself scrutinizing the white floor tile in the bathrooms for telltale drops of blood. There were none. Bitter disappointment washed over her. Instead of being relieved that Lynne wasn’t standing at the sink bandaging a cut hand, Molloy felt cold fingers of fear clutching at her throat, making it hard for her to swallow. Lynne hadn’t been in any of the bedrooms, and now she wasn’t in any of the bathrooms, either. Molloy didn’t want to think about what that meant, but she had to.
Molloy saw her own fear reflected in Toni’s eyes. “She isn’t here,” Toni said softly. “She’s not What’s happened to her?”
“There’s still the attic,” Daisy said, reaching for the knob on a wooden door at one end of the third floor hall. “Maybe she went up there looking for dry clothes. It’s an attic. It’ll have clothes, right?” She waved the dripping hem of her wine velvet dress. “We could all use something dry to wear, so we might as well check it out.”
“She wouldn’t have come up here alone, would she?” Toni asked. But she followed close behind Daisy and Molloy as they made their way up the narrow staircase, calling out Lynne’s name as they went.
Nothing answered them but the sound of rain hitting the roof.
The attic, smelling faintly musty with a hint of lavender, was breathtakingly hot. The small, squat windows set low in one wall were closed, and the air was stale. The large space was crammed full of old furniture, boxes, and trunks, and there was a door set into one wall.
Daisy stalked over to it and yanked it open. “Lynne? Are you in there?” She yanked on a chain hanging from the low ceiling inside the closet. “There are clothes in here,” she called over her shoulder. “In garment bags. We’ll find something, we’ll change, and then we’ll retrace our steps, only we’ll look harder this time. I still think Lynne’s in the house somewhere.”
“I don’t,” Toni said almost in a whisper.
Molloy didn’t, either. But saying aloud that Lynne had not come back inside the house would mean that Lynne hadn’t been able to come back inside the house. That was such a totally revolting thought that Molloy couldn’t bring herself to voice it. Giving voice to it would have granted it harsh reality.
Not yet, she told herself, choking back panic, not yet. I can’t.
Daisy began yanking clothes from hangers in the garment bags, tossing them out of the closet. “Pick what you want,” she muttered from the closet depths, “but hurry up! We don’t want Lynne to come back inside and find us missing.”
Toni rolled her eyes and whispered to Molloy, “I never thought of Daisy as being the least bit unrealistic, but right now she sounds like Lynne just went out for a nice little walk around the block.”
“C’mon, Toni, let’s just find some dry clothes.”
Molloy had just dumped her soaked clothing in a heap on the wooden floor and slipped into an antique, very yellowed white blouse with long sleeves and a high collar and a long black skirt, when the pounding began. “What was that? Did you hear that?”
“What was what?” Daisy emerged from the closet. “I couldn’t find anything to wear. And all I hear is rain. Sounds like it’s going to hammer itself right through the roof, doesn’t it?”
Molloy continued to listen. “Maybe that’s what I heard. No, there it is again. Listen!”
Toni was tying the belt around the waist of a faded navy and yellow print dress. It was at least three sizes too big for her. She lifted her head to listen and, a moment later, said, “That’s not the rain. It’s … it’s real hammering.” She frowned. “It sounds awfully close.”
They stood close together, listening in silence. Daisy aimed the flashlight at the stairs, as if she expected the source of the hammering to be revealed there.
“Lynne!” Toni cried, her face lighting up. “It must be Lynne hammering! She came back in to start the fire and the damper on the fireplace is stuck. She’s pounding on it with something to get it open.” She grabbed at Molloy’s wrist. “Come on, let’s get down there, before she thinks we’re missing.”
“It’s not Lynne,” Daisy said curtly. “She would have come looking for us before she’d try to start a fire. It’s a loose shutter banging in the wind, that’s all. And nobody’s going anywhere until I’ve found something dry to wear. I’m so drenched I’m surprised I haven’t sprouted scales.”
Molloy and Toni looked uncertain, “It doesn’t sound like a loose shutter,” Toni said.
“Sure, it does. And as far as I’m concerned, it can bang itself silly. I only have two things on my mind: finding Lynne, and finding some dry clothes.”
“I guess it does sound a little like a flapping shutter,” Molloy said as Daisy moved to a large, antique trunk sitting against one wall.
“No, it doesn’t,” Toni disagreed. “It sounds like hammering. But I know it couldn’t be, because we’re all up here, and Lynne wouldn’t be down there with a hammer and nails, so I guess it has to be a loose shutter.” But she didn’t look convinced.
“Hurry up, Daisy!” Molloy chided as Daisy fumbled with the lock on the trunk. “Maybe Toni’s right. Maybe we just missed Lynne somehow and she’s been in the house the whole time. This is a huge house. There could even be a back staircase somewhere. She could have been going in one direction while we were going in another. We’ll all be cracking up when we get downstairs. I mean,” she added with false brightness because she really didn’t believe a word she was saying, “wouldn’t that be hilarious?”
Just then, Daisy got the trunk open and lifted the lid.
And instead of laughing at the thought of thinking that Lynne was missing when she’d been in the house the whole time, Daisy stumbled backward, her hands flew to her mouth, and she let out a high, piercing scream.
The scream hung in the musty air under the low-hanging attic rafters as Toni and Molloy, their cheekbones white with fear, ran to Daisy’s side.
“Don’t look,” Daisy gasped, her hands still at her mouth, “don’t, it’s horrible!”
But their eyes were already on the contents of the trunk.
Tom moaned, and clutched at Daisy for support.
“Oh, no,” Molloy breathed, “no.”
Inside the trunk, curled up peacefully on a thick pile of neatly folded blankets, lay Lynne Grossman, Her eyes were closed. Her short, dark hair and her clothes were still wet and had created a dark, damp spot encircling her on the pile of bedding. She was wearing only one hot-pink, very muddy sneaker.
She was lying so still, her features so calm and composed, that it would have looked as if she were merely taking a quick catnap except for one significant, sickening detail.
There was a large, ugly wound on Lynne Grossman’s right temple.
Chapter 10
SO THEY FOUND HER. That scream was loud enough to make the grass stop growing.
It doesn’t matter. It’s not like I was planning to let them leave, anyway. So who are they going to tell about their friend being stuffed into a trunk in the attic? No one.
It’s not my fault. Because if they hadn’t heard or seen anything while they were in the house, I could have let them go. They wouldn’t have had anything to tell anyone about this place, except that it was creepy.
But after the chair fell, I could just hear one of them saying to the police, “Well, officer, now that you mention a murder, I do remember hearing a noise when we were inside Nightmare Hall. It sounded like someone upstairs had dropped something on the floor. So maybe you should check the place out.”
There’s just no way I can let them go.
I’d better finish what I’m doing here. It’s going faster than I’d expected. Good thing, because any second now, someone will come racing down those steps to see if the phone is working yet, so they can call an ambulance for their surprise package in the trunk.
Just a few more nails …
Chapter 11
AT TEN MINUTES AFTER nine, Ernie Dodd called
the state police to see if any accidents had been reported on the highway between Briscoe and Twin Falls.
The answer was negative, with a follow-up of, “No accidents because most of that highway’s closed, due to flooding. We’ve been warning people since seven o’clock this evening to stay off the road.
“Wouldn’t be too many people out there tonight, anyway,” the officer added. “What with a killer on the loose. I figure most people around here have their doors and windows locked up tight right about now. The guy’s going to be looking for a safe haven, and he’ll take it wherever he can find it, even if that means breaking in.” He uttered a short, humorless laugh. “What’s breaking and entering compared to murder, right?”
“Right,” Ernie agreed. But he was thinking that Molloy and Lynne, Daisy and Toni wouldn’t know about the murder. Unless they’d heard it on the car radio before they’d travelled very far. If they had, maybe that news, combined with the bad weather, had led them to postpone their trip for at least a day. If it had, Molloy would be home now.
Gearing up his courage, Ernie went to the phone again. This time, he was greeted by a sporadic dial tone. There was a lot of static on the line, and he wasn’t sure how long it would be operational. Consoling himself with the thought that the only reason he hadn’t heard from Molloy was the state of the telephone lines, he dialed her home phone number.
Her mother’s voice was cool, as he had known it would be. “Yes, of course, they left on time. I tried to talk them into waiting until tomorrow so the weather would be better, but my daughter never listens to me.”
If she did, Ernie heard, she wouldn’t be dating someone like Ernie Dodd.
“Why? What’s wrong?” Mrs. Book added anxiously. “Aren’t they there yet? Oh, heavens, they would have to be there by now.”
Ernie didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to worry Molloy’s parents, but he couldn’t very well lie and say Molloy was there when she wasn’t. “I just found out that the highway is closed,” he said, “so they can’t get through. They’ve had to stop somewhere and wait for the water to go down.” He knew that sounded as if he’d actually heard from Molloy. Well, so what? There wasn’t anything the Books could do if Molloy was stuck somewhere because of high water. Let them think she was safe for now.