Win, Lose, or Die

by Diane Hoh

  Nicki knew that if she hung up without saying she understood, neither one of them would have a moment’s rest. They had meant well, she knew that. They’d done it to protect their only child from a lifetime of nightmares.

  But their deception had been useless, after all. Because the nightmare had come to haunt her—here at Salem. Now, for the first time, she knew why.

  It was hard, not telling them what was going on on campus. But they couldn’t do anything about it, and she wasn’t yet willing to give up and go home. If she told them about Barb’s death and the paint episode, they’d whisk her out of the university so fast, her hair would curl.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” she said numbly. “It’s okay, really. If I didn’t want to hear the answer, I shouldn’t have asked the question.”

  “I still don’t understand why you did,” her father said. “Why now, after all this time?”

  “I had a nightmare about it,” she answered truthfully. She must have cried out the words, “I’m sorry” in her sleep because some small part of her knew, and had always known, the truth. That a child wouldn’t have screamed like that if there hadn’t been some serious damage.

  Hadn’t she always known, somewhere deep inside of her, that her father’s face wouldn’t have been so white if he’d found out nothing from the hospitals, and that the arguing, which she now realized had been over whether or not to tell her the truth, wasn’t just about moving? Hadn’t she known?

  She’d lied to herself just as much as they had lied to her.

  “Nicki,” her father said, “should we come up there? You don’t sound right. We shouldn’t have told you over the phone. But it was so long ago, I thought … well, I thought it would be all right.”

  It was long ago. But what her parents were forgetting was, for their daughter it might as well have happened today, because today was when she found out about it. It was old to them, because they’d known all this time. But it was new to her. New, and horrible.

  “Don’t be silly, dad,” she said, forcing her voice to stay steady. “I’m fine. I’m shocked, of course. Who wouldn’t be?” She did not want them driving up to Salem now. Not now. “But I’m okay with it. I promise I won’t blow it all out of proportion.” As if that were possible. As if that could ever be possible. What was the proper proportion for the kind of news she’d just received?

  It took her another ten minutes to convince them that she really was okay. They finally let her hang up.

  She felt sorry for them. All these years, they’d kept the whole awful business to themselves, probably always wondering if they’d done the right thing by not telling her.

  She shouldn’t judge them. Maybe they’d been right. She’d been such a mess then, again and again having to leave a place she loved, not sleeping or eating for weeks after they arrived in the new place, snapping at everyone, glaring at her parents with raw hatred. Until she began playing tennis again. Then things went back to normal, at least until it came time to pack again.

  So, maybe they’d known her better than she knew herself.

  She lay down on the bed, her hands over her eyes. Now that she knew, what was she supposed to do with this? What good did it do her to know?

  Someone knocked on the door.

  “Go away!” she called, not getting up.

  “No,” Pat’s voice answered. And Ginnie’s followed with, “Nicki, let us in. We’re worried about you.”

  Nicki sighed. They were trying to help. She got up and went to let them in.

  “We were really worried,” Pat said, dropping to the floor to sit. “You were acting so weird. Not that I blame you. You okay?”

  Ginnie sat beside Pat on the floor. “What’s up, Nicole?”

  She sat down on the bed. And then she told them. The whole, ugly story. If they were so shocked and disgusted that they hated her, she would just have to live with that. But she couldn’t keep something like this to herself. She couldn’t.

  When she had finished, Ginnie said, “No wonder you were so upset. Gee, Nicki, I’m really sorry. Sara would never have brought it up if she’d known you were involved.”

  “Not her fault,” Nicki said firmly. “I didn’t know it myself. I’m glad I know now. It explains a lot of things. I just don’t know what to do with it now that I know.”

  They were all silent for a bit, and then Ginnie asked, “The kid who was hit with the stone was from around here somewhere?”

  Nicki shrugged. “I guess so. New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania. Why?”

  “I know what she’s thinking,” Pat said. “She’s thinking about the ball with the paint in it, aren’t you, Ginnie?”

  Ginnie nodded.

  “And the whirlpool,” Pat said, “There’s the whirlpool thing, too. You did say, Nicki, that the hairdryer was meant for you.”

  Ginnie thought for a minute before saying to Nicki, “Maybe you ought to think about who you know that has trouble with one eye.”

  “But that’s crazy! It was six years ago. And no one even knew it was me,” Nicki insisted.

  “Sure, they did,” Pat argued. “You said your parents sent money, right? They had to send the checks, didn’t they? The kid could have seen the name on them. Or he could have found out some other way. But my guess is, he did find out.”

  Nicki thought about that. She knew people who wore contacts … Ginnie, Pat, Sara … But she didn’t know anyone who had only partial vision. Because, of course, someone like that wouldn’t be able to play tennis, would they? Might not even be able to watch a match, either. Or drive a car or play any sport that required peripheral vision, would probably even have difficulty reading.

  Maybe it wasn’t so crazy to think that someone wanted revenge for an accident that had taken place six years before.

  “You weren’t living around here,” Pat said, “so he couldn’t get at you. But now you’re here, and maybe he is, too. Maybe the person who got hit by that stone has been waiting all this time for you.”

  When Nicki pressed, “How would he even know I was here?” Ginnie reminded her that while she was at State, her name had been seen on the sports pages more than once. “Anyone in the area could have seen it.”

  At last they left. But soon another rap on her door startled her, pulling her out of her morbid thoughts.

  Why couldn’t people just leave her alone right now?

  She opened the door to Deacon and Mel.

  “Do you know anyone on campus named Gideon?” Nicki burst out before they’d even stepped inside the room. “Is there anyone in any of your classes whose last name is Gideon?”

  “Well, hi to you, too,” Deacon said, ambling past her to sink into her desk chair.

  Mel, flopping down on Nicki’s bed, said lazily, “What an unusual greeting. You’re so creative, Nicki.”

  “Well, do you?” Nicki demanded.

  They both shook their heads. “Not I,” Mel said, leaning back against the wall. “Why? Are you on a Gideon hunt? What’s a gideon, anyway? Is it like a holy grail?”

  Nicki was about to tell them when something stopped her. Pretending to be fumbling with the lock on her door, she kept her back to them as her mind raced. She didn’t know if her friends’ theory about revenge was valid or not. But it could be. And if it was, anyone on campus could be the grown-up Gideon child. Anyone. Deacon could be Terrence Gideon. How many guys in this world are named Deacon, anyway? He could have made up that name himself, so that no one, especially her, would know who he really was.

  Or … Mel could be Teresa Gideon.

  Wasn’t it, after all, pretty weird that they’d come along when she’d had that flat tire? As if … as if they’d been following her. As if they’d known all along that her tire was going to go flat. And although neither played tennis, they went to all the matches. Didn’t that show a love of the sport that could have come from playing the game as a child? Loving it as a child?

  If Mel was the adult Gideon child, Deacon could be helping her seek revenge, because they we
re friends.

  If the revenge theory wasn’t totally off the wall.

  She mumbled some lame excuse about her question, telling them to forget it, and they seemed to accept that.

  Her suspicions made her sick. She liked Deacon and Mel. And they had been friendly to her when almost no one else had been.

  But maybe, just maybe, they’d had an ulterior motive for their friendship.

  “Are you memorizing that lock?” Deacon asked drily. “They’re all pretty much the same, Nicki. No distinguishing characteristics to tell one from the other, as far as I know.”

  Funny he should mention that, because when she turned around, the first thing she intended to do was search their faces carefully, as surreptitiously as possible, for any sign that they’d ever ended up in a hospital emergency room in Forest Hills, New York, with blood streaming from an injured eye. Nicki wasn’t even sure what to look for. A small scar, maybe, around the eye area? A way of turning the head completely to look at something off to one side, instead of merely glancing in that direction as most people would do?

  Surely she’d be able to tell if one of them had less than full vision. Wouldn’t she?

  But although they were in her room for nearly half an hour, and although Mel was lounging off to Deacon’s left side, and although Nicki observed carefully, she saw no sign that either had impaired vision. When Deacon spoke to Mel, he didn’t turn his head completely, but simply glanced in her direction. It was harder to tell in Mel’s case, because both Nicki and Deacon were seated before her, which meant Mel didn’t have to glance sideways.

  The strain was getting to Nicki. She finally told them she was tired and needed to sleep.

  “I hate athletes,” Mel complained, standing up. “They’re no fun. Always in training, always sleeping or scarfing down carbohydrates, or practicing. We were going to go down and walk across the railroad bridge in the moonlight. Full moon, Nicki, shining down on the river. It’ll be really awesome. You sure you won’t come?”

  “That rickety old bridge behind campus? I thought that was off-limits, Mel. Unsafe. I was warned about that bridge when I first got here.” Going to the bridge this late at night seemed even odder to Nicki than most of Deacon and Mel’s activities. Or … was there some specific reason why they wanted Nicki to go with them to such a dangerous place?

  Nicki’s skin crawled. She tried to push the nasty thought away.

  Mel laughed. The long, heavy, silver earrings she was wearing jiggled precariously. “Off-limits? Nicki, what exactly does that mean? Will we be spanked and sent to our rooms if we’re caught? Given detention? Put on a diet of bread and water? Honestly, Nicki, life is too short to let people set limits for you. You should set your own.”

  Nicki felt herself flushing. She wasn’t anything like the two of them. Why were Deacon and Mel even interested in her? Wasn’t that suspicious? What were they doing becoming friends with her, anyway?

  Maybe she had made a mistake, asking them if they knew anyone named Gideon. Because if one of them was Terry Gideon, they knew now that Nicki suspected the connection between that night at Forest Hills and what was happening to her now at Salem.

  “Well, my own limits don’t include challenging a dangerous old railroad bridge,” Nicki said, moving to the door to open it. “Sorry.”

  Deacon hung back in the doorway as Mel left the room and began walking down the hall. “Sure you won’t join us in our nocturnal adventure?” he asked, reaching out to lightly trace a finger along Nicki’s cheek. “Could be interesting.”

  “I’m sure.” His hand was warm. So were his eyes, dark as the night. “But everyone was really nice at practice today, and I played better than I have since I got here. I don’t want to blow my new image by dragging into the dome too tired to return a serve.”

  His hand left her face and his eyes lost their warmth. “Right,” he said curtly. “What was I thinking? Your teammates have all treated you so splendidly, you certainly owe them a great debt. Wouldn’t want to disappoint them. They’d be crushed.”

  “Deacon …”

  But he was already striding away from the door, calling out to Mel.

  Nicki told herself that it probably meant nothing when Mel stopped and turned completely around at the sound of Deacon’s voice, instead of simply glancing over her shoulder as most people would have done. People, for instance, with full vision in both eyes.

  Mel was probably just being polite. Waiting for Deacon, instead of tossing a look over her shoulder to show that she’d heard while continuing to walk down the hallway.

  Even though one label Nicki would never have used for Mel was “polite.”

  Nicki closed the door and locked it.

  Chapter 14

  AFTER HOURS OF AGONIZED thought, Nicki decided to go to the security officer to tell him about Terrence or Teresa Gideon. When she had done that and suggested that he find out if someone by that name was on campus, she felt some sense of relief. She knew telling him didn’t make her safe. But at least, something was being done.

  Nothing threatening had happened since the paint episode. Nicki began to allow herself to hope that it was over. Whatever Barb’s killer had been trying to do, it hadn’t worked, and so he’d given up.

  She would almost convince herself. And then a cold tingling sensation up her spine would tell her that it wasn’t true. It wasn’t over. She wasn’t safe.

  Her mind bounced back and forth like a tennis ball, was she safe, wasn’t she, yes she was, no she wasn’t. In spite of her nerves being drawn as taut as the strings on her racket, she continued to play well at practice. Admiration for her skill grew among the team members. Now, when her towel was snatched and hidden while she was in the shower, her hairbrush dipped in liquid soap, she knew she was being welcomed in the usual way. Finally.

  If it had happened earlier, when she first arrived, she would have enjoyed it totally. It was harder now, knowing that while many of the team members had accepted her, there was still someone out there, somewhere, who hated her.

  The down side of doing so well at practice, and being accepted by the other players was, she was either too tired at night to go out with Deacon and Mel, or she had already made plans to eat with, and maybe hang out with afterward, people from the team and John Silver. Sometimes, Deacon and Mel arrived after practice to join Nicki and her new friends. But more often, they knew nothing about Nicki’s plans in time to join her. On those nights, they were either waiting impatiently for her in the hall when she returned to her room, or Deacon called after she was in bed to complain that she was avoiding them.

  Well, maybe she was. Because Deacon and Mel didn’t play tennis? Deacon had said he’d played, once upon a time, but no longer did. With the exception of Libby and her followers, Nicki felt safe now only with people who did play tennis, because that meant they had full vision in both eyes … and no reason to hate Nicole Bledsoe. The people she couldn’t be sure of were the ones who didn’t play. Deacon and Mel didn’t.

  Still, she missed Deacon, more than she’d expected to.

  She was pleased to notice that John and Ginnie were getting along well and spending a lot of time together. John was such a nice person. And Pat didn’t seem to mind their new closeness, probably because she was included in the larger group now and was as busy as Nicki.

  The security guard had called her on Wednesday to say there was no one named Gideon on the campus of Salem University, but added that he was still “looking into the matter.” “Could be someone living in Twin Falls, working, not going to school,” he had said in a matter-of-fact voice.

  Could be. But the killer certainly knew his way around campus.

  On Friday after practice, Coach Dietch called Nicki into her office to congratulate her on her performance during the week. “I knew I was right about you,” she said when Nicki had closed the door. “I really must thank John.”

  Nicki took a seat opposite Coach’s desk. “John?”

  “John Silver.” Coach gave Ni
cki an inquiring look. “Oh, didn’t you know? I’ve seen you talking to him at practice, so I assumed he’d told you. John is the one who told me about you. Said he’d seen you play and thought it would be worth my while to go up to State and take a look. John knows his tennis, so I went. And,” giving Nicki a smile, “John was right. As usual.”

  “John? John Silver told you about me?” Nicki thought about that. He hadn’t said a word, not even that first night when she’d told him about her full scholarship. John was responsible for that?

  She would have to thank him. Funny he’d never mentioned his part in her coming to Salem. But maybe he was shy about it.

  When Coach asked Nicki if she was “feeling better,” Nicki couldn’t answer honestly, “Yes.” She said instead, “As long as I’m playing okay, I’ll be all right.”

  That seemed to satisfy Coach, who never mentioned Barb.

  Nicki was grateful. She still couldn’t stand the thought of talking about the dead girl. Nothing anyone said could change the terrible facts.

  By the time she left the office, everyone else had already taken their showers. Nicki thought briefly of waiting until she got back to her room to take her own shower, and quickly decided against it. On a Friday night, the showers on her floor at Devereaux would be packed with partygoers. She’d have the showers all to herself.

  She regretted that decision the moment she stepped out of the shower and not only found herself alone in the locker room, but alone in the dark. Someone who hadn’t heard the water running must have thought everyone had gone, and had turned off all of the overhead fluorescent lights.

  I’ve been so careful not to be anywhere alone, Nicki thought uneasily. And now, here I am, alone in the dark, which is exactly where I don’t want to be.

  She tilted her head to listen for sounds, and heard none. No stealthy footsteps, no furtive breathing. She really was alone. So. …maybe she was okay.