by Diane Hoh
She’d worry about that when she got outside.
“Tia Maria,” Maxie said, willing her voice to remain perfectly steady, “could we take a break for a sec? I think that I forgot to lock the door when I let you in, and the rule now is that the door has to be locked at all times.” She forced a smile. “Since you know what’s been going on, I’m sure you’ll agree the rule makes sense, right?”
“Absolutely, hon.” The hand on the side of Maxie’s head didn’t ease. “But you did lock it. I saw you. So relax.”
“No, I …”
The hand tightened. “It’s locked.”
She knows, Maxie thought. She knows that I know. Now how am I going to get away from her?
The person behind her had made Cath fall off the fountain wall. She couldn’t have known that Cath wouldn’t be killed in that fall. And she had, by her own admission just now, done something with insecticide, whether the police had found evidence of that or not, that had sent many of Maxie’s friends to the hospital writhing in pain. Again, she couldn’t have known that they wouldn’t die. Maybe she had even been hoping that they would.
So, although Maxie didn’t add the word “alive” to her question, it was there, dancing around in her head, tormenting her, taunting her …
How am I going to get away from her alive?
Chapter 15
MAXIE’S MIND RACED ALONG with her frantic pulse. Where was everyone? It was almost six o’clock. Weren’t they coming back for dinner?
Maxie felt totally abandoned.
Think, think … make the hairdresser think she’s mistaken, that you really don’t know anything at all, you’re not suspicious … then she’ll let down her guard so you can get away before … before what? Don’t think about it.
“The police didn’t find any insecticide in the spaghetti we ate that night,” Maxie said, in a casual tone of voice that anyone would use in an ordinary, everyday conversation. It took great effort.
“Well, of course not,” Tia Maria’s voice boomed. “It wouldn’t be in the spaghetti, darlin’. Too easy to trace. Anyone with any brains would simply spray the stuff on the plates while they were sittin’ on the dining room table, before any food was on them. Then it’d get mixed in with what was eaten, but once the plates were washed, who’d know?”
Maxie’s heart fluttered. She had something concrete to take to the police now. If she ever got the chance to go to the police.
Tia Maria, hairbrush in hand, moved to Maxie’s left side.
The black cord from the hot rollers was still plugged in. It draped its way down from the top of the dresser to an electrical outlet near Maxie’s feet. And it was hanging between Maxie and the hairdresser, a thick black snake separating them.
The door out of the bedroom was to Maxie’s right.
“I mean,” Tia Maria amended, as if aware that she had said too much, “that’s how I figured someone did it. When Allie told me about it.”
Allie never told you about it, Maxie thought angrily, and with Tia Maria’s fingers still in her hair, she took a deep breath, let it out, and dove sideways, to her right, yelping in pain as several strands of hair were left in Tia Maria’s hand. She hit the floor ready to run, scrambling to her feet as an astonished Tia Maria yelled, “Hey!” and dove after her.
And tripped over the cord from the hot rollers.
Tia Maria was flung forward, thrown face-first into the hard wooden chair that Maxie, only a split-second before, had been sitting in.
Feet flying, Maxie ran. Out of the room, down the hall, down the stairs … no one there … sounds of footsteps on the stairs … chasing her … the feet behind her moved quickly for someone as big as the hairdresser …
To the front door, fumbling with the chain lock. Shouldn’t have slipped it back into place after letting the hairdresser in, too late now …
Behind her, the heavy feet, pounding, pounding too close … no time to open two locks … run, run!
Maxie ran into the dining room, slammed the swinging door shut behind her, thrust a heavy dining room chair against it. It wouldn’t stop the person who wasn’t Tia Maria, but it might slow her down.
Hide. Should hide. Back door has two locks on it, not enough time to unlatch both before heavy hands would be on her throat, choking the very life out of it … have to hide …
Where?
The sound of a heavy chair falling to the floor in the dining room, a hinge screaming in protest as the swinging door was flung open.
Right behind her, right behind her …
The pantry? No. No back door. No way out. She’d be trapped in there like an animal in a cage.
There! Beside the kitchen pantry door. The laundry chute. The small window swinging inward a foot up from the floor. Was she small enough to crawl in there? Yes.
If she threw herself in, willy-nilly, she’d fall, fall to the basement below. But if she didn’t break both legs, she could get out the basement door and run for help.
No time to think. Turn around crawl in quickly, backwards, try to slide down the chute slowly, carefully, maybe holding onto the sides. Was there anything to hold onto on the sides of the chute?
Maxie spun around, threw herself into the chute backwards, feet and legs hanging down behind her. But instead of letting herself fall, her hands fastened themselves onto the wooden frame at the top of the chute as the little door swung shut. She hung on for dear life, unwilling to let go and slide down into the darkness below.
She was hidden. If Tia Maria didn’t know about the laundry chute, she might not notice it. Maybe she’d give up, leave the house. Go away.
Be gone, Maxie thought giddily, be gone!
The telephone shrilled, once, twice, three times, four … Maxie yearned to crawl out and answer it, scream into it for help. But she didn’t dare.
Footsteps in the kitchen. Voice bellowing, “Where the hell are you, you little witch?”
Don’t look in here, Maxie prayed, don’t notice the chute, let your false eyelashes get in the way and don’t notice the chute. Her fingers ached from clinging to the narrow strip of molding. She would have to let go soon. If she could only hold on until she heard the footsteps leaving the kitchen, so the hairdresser wouldn’t hear her landing in the cellar and come looking for her there …
Suddenly, one foot, the left, felt colder than the right foot.
Maxie glanced over her shoulder, kicking the left foot upward at the same time.
Oh, no, it was bare! No white terrycloth slipper. Had the slipper dropped off while she was hanging there? Or had it … had it dropped off when she was climbing into the chute? Was it even now lying just outside the little swinging door, screaming her location to her hunter?
Please, she prayed, tears of terror gathering in her eyes, please let that slipper be down in the cellar where no one can see it.
No such luck. “Gotcha!” a voice boomed from only inches beyond the chute’s door, telling Maxie the slipper was not in the cellar. It had just been discovered in the kitchen, pointing the way to her hiding place.
Maxie stopped breathing, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t. The blood in her veins stopped rushing as if it had been dammed somewhere in her body. Let go an inner voice ordered, let go! Drop to the basement, take your chances on a broken leg or ankle, and do it now!
But her fingers were frozen in place.
The door swung inward, slapping into her face. A large, strong hand reached in and grabbed her wrist.
She screamed.
And, as if in answer to her scream, a car door slammed outside. Then another. Footsteps on the cement walk outside, voices … talking, laughing.
The hand on her wrist froze.
Feet shuffled backward uncertainly.
Then, a muffled oath, the hand on her wrist flew away, the swinging chute door dropped back into place, and feet scuttled away, toward the back door.
The sound of the back door opening and closing came at exactly the same moment as the wonderful sound of the front door
opening, and afterward Maxie couldn’t have said which sound was more welcome to her ears.
The phony Tia Maria was gone.
Her friends were home.
She was safe.
She could crawl from the chute into the kitchen, tell her story, call the police … she was safe.
And even as she thought that, her fingers, numb from holding onto the thin wooden molding, released their grip.
By the time she realized what was happening, it was too late.
Her hands slid free of the doorframe and her body slid, feet first, down the long wooden chute like a child on a playground toy, to the hard basement floor waiting below.
Chapter 16
RELAX YOUR LEGS RIGHT now, an inner voice commanded as Maxie whizzed down the laundry chute, or the bones will shatter when you land. Pretend you’ve fainted.
Obeying, Maxie went limp.
Just in time. Although she flew out onto the basement’s cold stone floor and landed in a heap, there were no sharp cracking sounds as she hit. There was only her own sudden yipe of pain as her left ankle twisted cruelly sideways beneath her.
She lay perfectly still in the darkness, her breath coming in short, painful gasps.
She wasn’t dead.
She wasn’t even unconscious.
And none of her bones hurt enough to be broken, although the ankle was iffy.
Above her in the kitchen, she heard voices.
The relief she felt was overwhelming, turning her body to jelly. She would call to them and they would come to rescue her.
Maxie opened her mouth to shout and at that precise moment a red-hot pain shot up her leg from the ankle to the hip. The pain was so intense, she gasped. Although she fought against the ensuing wave of dizziness that assailed her, it was too strong for her. With her mouth still open to shout, and a look of dismay on her face, she slid into unconsciousness.
When she awoke, she was in her own bed, in her own room, and she was surrounded by people. They were all there, looking down upon her with concern: Erica, Tinker, Candie, Mildred, Chloe …
As she opened her eyes, they began bombarding her with questions. Mildred wanted to know what had happened in her room, why the chair was tipped over, the hot rollers spilled across the floor, and was she all right? Erica and Tinker wanted to know what she’d been doing in the basement and was she all right? And Chloe asked her what her slipper was doing in the kitchen and was she all right?
“Something is very wrong with that ankle,” Mildred said sternly. “I’ve called a doctor and he’s agreed to come here to see you. I don’t want any more ambulances rushing up to our door if it’s not absolutely necessary.” She peered down at Maxie. “You don’t have a really bad headache or anything, do you?”
“No, no headache.” Maxie tried to sit up, but the pain in her ankle stopped her. “And I don’t think my ankle’s broken. I didn’t hear anything snap when I fell out of the laundry chute.”
“The laundry chute?” Mildred looked blank.
“Mrs. B.,” Maxie said wearily, “I think you’d better call the police.”
She really couldn’t tell the officers very much. Underneath the thick glasses and the weird cranberry-colored hair and the layers of makeup, “Tia Maria” could have been anyone. Anyone at all.
Well …not just anyone. “She knew about the things that have been going on here at the house,” Maxie told the officer armed with a notebook. “Not that many people know the details, but she did. And she said there was insecticide in what we ate that night, but according to her, it was on the plates, not in the food.”
“You keep saying ‘she’,” one of the officers said. “You’re sure it was a woman?”
Maxie thought for a moment. The doctor had given her something for the pain in her ankle, which had turned out not to be broken, but badly sprained. The painkiller was strong, and she was exhausted, and it was hard to think clearly. “Yeah, I guess,” she said drowsily. “She was pretty big. I guess it could have been a guy.”
“Well, you get some rest,” the same officer said kindly. “Tomorrow we’ll want a list of everyone you girls might have told about the previous incidents. We’ll check those people out.”
When they had gone and Tinker, Erica, and Candie had settled on Tinker’s bed to keep Maxie company until she fell asleep, they discussed who had known about Tia Maria and who they’d told about the nasty goings-on at the house.
Maxie struggled to think clearly. Brendan and Jenna knew what had happened, of course, because she’d told them. Had she also told them about Tia Maria? She thought that she had, although it was hard to remember now.
Candie, Tinker, and Erica all reluctantly admitted that they’d told more than one person about Tia Maria. “She sounded like such a character,” Erica admitted.
“I didn’t tell Graham Lucas,” Candie said thoughtfully, “but he was sitting in the next booth at Vinnie’s when I was telling a bunch of people about her. I remember being really annoyed by that because I thought he was eavesdropping. I still do.”
And Tinker pointed out that most of campus probably knew all of the details of every incident that had taken place at the sorority house. “Even if we hadn’t told people,” she said, “you know how that stuff gets around. Cath told me everyone knew what was going on at Nightmare Hall when things were so bad. She hated that.”
“Thanks for rescuing me,” Maxie said. Her eyelids suddenly weighed a ton. “How long was I down in the basement, anyway? Aren’t you guys missing the Tri-Delt party?” She didn’t care that she wasn’t going. Brendan wasn’t going to be there. He’d driven some guy somewhere …
“Longer than you should have been,” Tinker said guiltily. “No one noticed your slipper until we’d all been home a while. I’m sorry, Maxie. Erica found it there by the chute, and then Candie came downstairs and said your room was a mess, so we knew something was wrong. That’s when we started looking for you. It was my idea,” she added proudly, “to check the basement where the chute comes out.”
“And we don’t care about the party,” Erica added. “The Tri-Delts don’t give such a great party, anyway.”
They were still laughing when Maxie quit struggling against sleep and closed her eyes. She was disappointed because there was something really, really important that she needed to remember. But she couldn’t … couldn’t …
On Sunday, they handed over to the police their lists of who might have known about Tia Maria and the incidents that had taken place in the house. The officers’ faces fell when they saw the length of the lists.
“Is there anyone on campus who didn’t know?” one said. But they took the lists and left.
Later that day, Cath was released from the hospital. She hadn’t been home more than an hour when she came into Maxie’s room to announce that she was leaving. Leaving the house, leaving Omega Phi Delta. Erica, Tinker, and Candie were stationed on Tinker’s bed.
Cath had a cast on her arm and she walked stiffly, telling them her back still hurt. “Thanks for pledging me,” she said quietly, standing in the center of the room, “but I’ve decided to go back to Nightmare Hall.” Her pale cheeks flushed. “I’ve. .. I’ve missed my friends there. I guess it’s not such a good idea to leave the place you’ve been living, in the middle of a semester. Too hard to get used to. I’m really sorry,” Cath added, and left.
A chagrined silence followed her departure.
We all know the real reason she’s leaving, Maxie told herself, and we’re embarrassed that Cath thinks Omega house is even scarier now than that gloomy old place down the road. Omega house scarier than Nightmare Hall? How was that possible?
This last Sunday in the month of March was turning out to be the gloomiest day of Maxie’s life.
“I talked to my mother,” Candie said. “I didn’t tell her anything that had happened, of course, she’d go ballistic on me, but I managed, very cleverly, I thought, to find out what Tia Maria looks like.”
“And … ?”Maxie sat up in h
er bed.
“She’s only five feet, four inches tall and she has short platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. And she doesn’t wear glasses. Or, according to my mother, lime green. Ever.”
So the real Tia Maria was a far cry from the person who had been standing on the front porch when Maxie opened the door on Friday. Maxie wasn’t really surprised. “I should have known,” she said miserably. “I should have known someone as classy as your mother wouldn’t have a hairdresser who looked like something out of a cartoon.”
“Quit beating yourself over the head,” Erica said. “I personally think that any one of us would have let the woman in. We’d heard so much about Tia Maria from Candie’s mom, we all felt like we knew her. Whoever that was pretending to be her, it was a brilliant idea, if you ask me.”
Brendan called later that afternoon. “How was the party?” he wanted to know. He hadn’t heard what had happened. She didn’t want him to know, which was exactly why she hadn’t called him.
“Didn’t go. You weren’t going to be there, so I opted to stay home.” She wasn’t really lying. She had decided to stay home. Of course, she’d had a little help deciding. …
“Gee, I’m flattered. So, you feel like canoeing this afternoon? Not a bad day out there.”
The trouble with telling one little white lie was that you just dug yourself a hole. She hadn’t told him about her ankle, so now she had no excuse for not going canoeing.
Maybe a half-truth would do. “Can’t. Went and turned my stupid ankle yesterday. I’m stuck in bed.” Stupid, stupid, she scolded … if he found out from someone else exactly how she had “turned” her ankle, he’d be furious that she hadn’t told him the whole story.