Win, Lose, or Die

by Diane Hoh

  Hands grasped Nicki and shoved her toward the whirlpool.

  Chapter 9

  NICKI SCREAMED.

  For one awful moment she danced a deadly dance with the shadow of death. Then she heard the sound of footsteps in the hall. Heard the nurse calling, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  The shadowy figure hissed, turned, and ran out of a side door.

  Nicki fell to the floor on her stomach, one arm still outstretched, head lifted, eyes on the whirlpool. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry out, her voice completely paralyzed by what she had seen. It couldn’t have happened. It couldn’t have. No. No!

  The words “She was supposed to be you” rang in her head.

  “What happened to the lights?” the nurse cried in an annoyed voice as she burst into the room. She flipped on the light switch.

  Nicki, heard the nurse cry out, “Oh, no, oh, good Lord, no!”, heard her soft, white-shod footsteps rushing to the supply closet in the corner where she grabbed a mop and used the wooden handle to knock the plug free of the outlet. Then Nicki heard swishing, splashing sounds as the nurse hauled Barb’s lifeless body out of the water and laid her on the floor.

  “I told you, I told you,” the nurse muttered frantically as she bent to begin CPR on Barb, “I warned you about that radio …”

  Nicki pulled herself to a sitting position. “It wasn’t the radio,” she said numbly, uselessly. “It wasn’t the radio.”

  Everything became very confused then. The nurse, finding CPR futile, shouted to Nicki to call for help. But finding Nicki too upset to move, the nurse raced to a telephone, made some calls, ran back to Barb, began working on her again. Nicki sat on the floor watching with dull eyes.

  “She was supposed to be you …”

  Then other people came, Barb was taken away on a stretcher, and people in uniforms, police, Nicki thought, although she wasn’t sure of anything, began asking her questions. Speaking in a monotone, she answered their questions. It wasn’t the radio, she said. It was the hairdryer, she said. She said there was someone in the whirlpool room, and he had said Barb was supposed to be her. …

  She could hear a voice rambling on and on in that weird, deadened monotone and she wondered who it was that was talking so much in a dead voice. It couldn’t be Barb. Barb couldn’t talk. Barb was dead. Dead.

  No, no …

  After a while, the nurse asked who could she call to come and get Nicki, and it took Nicki a long time to think of Pat’s name.

  But she must have, because after another long while, Pat and Ginnie appeared in the doorway, tears of shock and horror on their faces, and took a speechless, shivering Nicki back to the dorm.

  Ginnie kept saying in an awed voice, “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.”

  They put Nicki to bed and slept on the floor of her room, with a chair propped up underneath the doorknob. They asked her no questions. Pat put an extra blanket on her because she couldn’t stop shaking, and Ginnie brought her a glass of water, which Nicki couldn’t drink.

  Nicki lay in bed with her eyes wide open, staring at nothing, long after the other two girls had fallen asleep.

  He was looking for you, her mind told her. Barb was supposed to be you.

  He’d be mad now. Madder than before. Because he hadn’t done what he’d set out to do. Kill Nicole Bledsoe.

  Why, why, why?

  What had she done to make someone want to kill her?

  “Aren’t you the one who had that racket dangling from her ceiling?” the security guard who had accompanied the Twin Falls police had asked her at the infirmary.

  Nicky had barely managed a nod.

  “Someone have it in for you?” he’d asked, taking out a small notepad and a pen. “You got a feud going with someone on campus?”

  A feud? Nicki tried to think. No, she wasn’t engaged in a feud. Except for Libby. And she didn’t hate Libby.

  Besides, Libby wouldn’t do something like this.

  Would she?

  When she had convinced the police that she had no idea who had dropped the hairdryer into the whirlpool, they gave up, saying they’d let her know what their investigation showed. They seemed so sure they’d learn all of the answers to all of her questions.

  As if that would bring Barb back.

  The infirmary, she thought, rolling over on her side and closing her eyes, was supposed to be where you went to get well. It was supposed to be a safe place. But it hadn’t been for Barb.

  If the infirmary wasn’t safe, what was?

  Nicki had no idea.

  She stayed in bed for four days. Police officers came and went, Deacon and Mel showed up every day, Pat and Ginnie constantly came to the room to check on her, telling her that all of campus was stunned.

  Nicki stayed in bed. She was waiting … waiting for a policeman to come and tell her they had arrested the madman who had killed Barb and that it was now safe to leave her room again.

  But they didn’t come.

  On the fourth day, Coach called.

  “We need you, Nicki. I understand that you’ve had a terrible shock. We all have. But staying in your room won’t make it go away. The best thing to do is deal with it, and the best way to do that is to go on with your own life. I don’t mean to sound hard-hearted. But you’re not doing Barb any good by staying in bed. I postponed the exhibition matches for one week. Can I expect you at practice this afternoon?”

  If I go out there, Nicki thought, staring down at the telephone in her hand, I’ll be killed. Like Barb. Because he was looking for me.

  But Coach was right. She couldn’t stay in her room forever. Life went on … for everyone except Barb Skinner.

  “Yes,” she said mechanically, “I’ll be there.”

  The atmosphere in the locker room later that day was nightmarish. People were snapping at each other, faces were grim, arms and legs moved sluggishly, in slow motion, as if they were weighted down.

  Nicki sat on a bench, staring at the floor. She didn’t speak to anyone.

  But at least she was there.

  When she returned to her room after practice, Deacon and Mel were sitting on the floor in the hall. They stood up when she approached. “Where have you been?” Mel asked irritably. “I can’t believe you went to practice, after what happened. Hasn’t it occurred to you that the person with the hairdryer was probably a jealous tennis player? That was the first thing we thought of.”

  Nicki shrugged. “You don’t know it was a tennis player. It could have been anyone.” Now, she was sorry she’d told them what Barb’s killer had said about finding the wrong person in the whirlpool. Of course they had jumped to the conclusion that it was someone on the team. She shouldn’t have said anything. “Look, I’m really tired,” she said, opening the door. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  Mel looked disappointed. She tossed her long, wavy hair and her lower lip jutted forth. “Oh, Nicki, you’re not going to go into hiding again, are you? I know it’s been a terrible week for you, but you need to get out and have some fun.”

  Why did people insist on telling her what she should do? “Not tonight. I can’t.” Nicki leaned against the wall. “My legs feel like Jell-O. I’m beat. Coach has decided to go ahead with the exhibition, so I’ve got a week of practice ahead of me. Sorry.”

  “If I’d got to the locker room sooner the other night,” Deacon said, “you’d never have gone to that whirlpool. I was coming to take you out to eat, but when I got there, Pat said you’d already gone to the whirlpool.”

  “Not your fault,” Nicki said. “Forget it.” If they didn’t leave in the next sixty seconds, she was going to fall asleep leaning against the door. “It’s not your job to protect me, Deacon. You’re not my bodyguard.”

  “Well, maybe you need one.”

  Maybe she did.

  “We’ll be there Sunday,” Mel said. “We wouldn’t miss it.”

  Deacon nodded. “And we will make our presence known! That’s a promise.”


  “Deacon,” Nicki warned, “please don’t get yourself thrown out, okay? I need all the support I can get, especially right now. Without you two there, who would cheer for me?” Besides, she’d feel safer knowing Deacon and Mel were among the spectators.

  “John,” Mel said. “John Silver. He’ll be there. And he likes you, I can tell. He’ll be rooting for you.”

  “Not after that sloppy joe fiasco,” Nicki reminded her.

  Mel shrugged. “John doesn’t hold a grudge. I do, but not him.” She peered closely at Nicki. “You like him, don’t you?”

  “I guess so. What’s not to like?”

  “And even if he is still mad,” Mel added as they reached the elevator, “he can’t stand Libby DeVoe, so he’ll be rooting for you, no matter what.”

  “Well, please don’t get yourselves tossed out of the dome,” Nicki said firmly. “It’s bad enough that I have to practice and play when all I really feel like doing is sleeping. If I have to do this, I want my friends there.”

  Deacon saluted as Nicki began to close the door. “Yes, ma’am. Whatever you say, ma’am. We promise.” Then he smiled at her, his dark eyes warm. “Get a good night’s sleep.”

  He didn’t say how she was supposed to do that when she kept seeing Barb, floating lifelessly in the whirlpool, her eyes staring emptily at the ceiling …

  That hairdryer had been meant for her. If she’d been in the whirlpool alone, as she’d originally thought she would be, and the intruder had come in, she would be dead now.

  Don’t think ifs, she told herself sternly. Ifs are nothing but trouble. Reality is bad enough, all by itself.

  Using the fierce concentration that she’d learned on the tennis courts, Nicki was finally able to shut out all the terrifying ifs and sleep.

  But sometime later, she jerked upright, crying out.

  “I threw the racket,” she said into her empty room, her voice dazed. “I threw it. I shouldn’t have. I didn’t mean to. I was sorry right away, but it was too late. It was my fault.”

  Her eyes flew open, but they were glazed with sleep. “I didn’t mean it,” she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  And as she lay back down, some lucid part of her sleep-fogged brain knew she wasn’t talking about Barb being mistaken for her in the whirlpool. She was talking about something else.

  But she had no idea what that something was.

  Chapter 10

  NICKI REMEMBERED HER NIGHTMARE when she awoke in the morning. In the dream, she had been sorry about something. Very sorry. She could still feel the terrible pang of regret that had stabbed her in the middle of the night, awakening her. But for what? She shook her head. Made herself let it go. After what had happened she was bound to have nightmares.

  The week passed quickly. The police had found no clues, no evidence leading to the identity of Barb’s assailant. No fingerprints, no footprints, no one had seen anyone running from the infirmary. But they would keep investigating.

  Lost in a fog of fear, Nicki went to classes and to practice, always with other people. The only time she spent alone was at the library, where she studied in the most secluded, shadowed corner she could find, trying to make herself invisible.

  Deacon and Mel teased and cajoled, trying to talk her into “having some fun,” but Nicki couldn’t. She was safer in her room, with the new lock firmly fastened and her desk chair thrust underneath the doorknob.

  “Nothing bad can happen when you’re with us,” Deacon argued.

  But Nicki knew that wasn’t true. Barb had been with someone when she died, hadn’t she? And it hadn’t done her any good at all.

  The morning of the exhibition, Pat asked if Nicki was nervous about her match with Libby.

  “No,” Nicki lied. She’d always felt that if you admitted you were nervous before a match, if you gave voice to the thought, the thought became reality and spoiled your game. She wasn’t willing to test that theory by telling the truth today. Besides, it wasn’t really the match she was nervous about. It was being in the dome, out there on the open tennis courts without protection. Anyone could be among the spectators. Anyone.

  There would be police there, she had been told. And university security guards. Everyone was looking for Barb’s killer.

  If only they’d found him before this exhibition.

  Pat and Nicki donned sweats over their whites, Pat wishing aloud that she’d had the money for a new set, and left the room.

  There didn’t seem to be anything else Nicki could do about her fear except ignore it. That would be easier if she concentrated on something else. So she concentrated on her match with Libby.

  Pat and Nicki joined John and Ginnie at their table for breakfast, and while they were eating, Deacon and Mel arrived. They seemed cool and standoffish to Nicki.

  Still annoyed because I won’t “go out and play” with them, she thought. Why couldn’t they understand that it was all she could do right now to put one foot in front of the other?

  No one talked about Barb. Nicki knew they all thought that would jinx the day. But their silence about the tragedy increased her feeling of disorientation. Barb had died, and here they all sat, eating and talking nervously about the exhibition, almost in the same way they would have if the horrible thing hadn’t happened.

  Scary.

  The dome was already beginning to fill up when they went in to begin their warm-up. It was another cloudy, cold day, and those who would ordinarily have spent Sunday afternoon outside were opting for the warmth and comfort of the heated dome.

  “It’s going to be full,” Pat observed as she and Nicki began lobbing balls back and forth. “The whole school will probably be here, so let’s not fall flat on our faces. We’d never hear the end of it.”

  Libby arrived, walking into the dome as if, Nicki thought, it had been built especially for her. Carla and Nancy were right behind her, one carrying Libby’s ball cans and fresh towels, the other Libby’s rackets, still in their cases.

  “That,” Pat said drily, “is so Libby will have her hands free to wave to her adoring public. See?” Libby was waving to the spectators, with both hands. “She looks like one of those beauty queens riding in the back of a convertible in a parade, doesn’t she?”

  She did.

  Nicki tried, and failed, to laugh. Barb should have been with Libby’s entourage. But she wasn’t. And never would be again.

  Suddenly, Nicki wanted to beat Libby. More than anything. All of the confusion and terror and anger of the past week rose inside her and turned into a scalding anger against Libby. She had never wanted to beat anyone as intensely as she wanted to beat Libby. She didn’t like the feeling, didn’t like the anger brewing inside of her. It felt … dangerous, as if it might make her lose control. She couldn’t win if she lost control.

  But there it was, a fierce, urgent need to win, as if by doing so she could somehow erase the horror of the past week.

  She tried reminding herself that it was the game, and the playing of it that mattered, not the opponent. Her father had taught her that.

  But, glancing over at Libby, preening before the crowd, Nicki decided that even her father would make an exception in Libby’s case. This time, it was the opponent that mattered.

  Soon the matches began. Ginnie played first, against Nancy Drew.

  “Ginnie’s so sharp,” Pat said as she and Nicki watched Ginnie’s exhibition game battle from the sidelines. “She’s fast, and she concentrates totally. No distractions—wish I could do that.”

  Although the match was exciting and resulted in a suspenseful tiebreaker, which Ginnie had to struggle to win, it was hard for Nicki to pay attention, knowing that she and Libby were up next.

  I’m ready, she told herself firmly. Ready as I’ll ever be.

  She had scanned the stands a thousand times, looking for … what? For someone who looked as if he might be insane enough to electrocute someone in a whirlpool? What would that kind of person look like?

  She had no idea. />
  She saw nothing out of the ordinary in the stands, although Deacon and Mel waved frantically every time she turned their way.

  Students were acting as linesmen and referees, and John was going to act as ball person. A new can of balls was in place at his feet, under the bench.

  “Relax,” John cautioned as Nancy Drew went down to defeat and Nicki jumped to her feet.

  “Easy for you to say,” Nicki said drily. “I’d relax, too, if I could trade places with you.”

  As Libby ran out onto the court, waving at the crowd, her short, white skirt flying, Pat came up to Nicki and whispered, “You can take her. Forget about everything else, and relax, like John said. Staying cool is important.”

  “I know.” Inhaling deeply and exhaling, Nicki took the balls that John handed her, clenched her racket handle, and strode out onto the court.

  Libby sent her a sickeningly sweet smile from the opposite side of the net.

  Right, Nicki thought grimly, and stretched up her arm to serve.

  It was a grueling contest, the longest of the day. Libby DeVoe and Nicki Bledsoe were well-matched. Coach Dietch watched from the sidelines approvingly as the girls played their hearts out.

  It seemed to Nicki that every time she pulled ahead, every time the pulse in her throat pounded, telling her that she might actually beat Libby, she double-faulted on her serve, or Libby sent a smashing return that no athlete in the world could have reached without breaking some bones. Time after time, Libby would assume a stance that should have meant a vigorous smash across the net. Time after time, Nicki would run to the back of the court to meet it, and would see a gentle lob that she had to race to the net to catch.

  She became so lost in the match that she was scarcely aware of the spectators. She knew they were there, but they didn’t matter. Only Libby mattered, only Libby’s killer serve and murderous forehand.

  Only winning mattered.

  But every once in a while, when her concentration faltered momentarily, she would become aware of shouts from the sidelines. Those shouts, those voices, she knew, shouldn’t have been breaking the silence during play. Tennis spectators were extraordinarily polite. They knew the rules. It wasn’t like football, where people yelled constantly. But there had to be a couple of people in the bleachers who either didn’t know that, or chose to ignore it.