Deadly Attraction (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  “Poor Robert Q,” Darlene said in an odd singsong voice. “First Gerrie ends up in the hospital, probably blind forever, and now Richard is dead. Robert Q must be feeling just awful. Pretty soon, all he’ll have left is me.”

  The statement sickened Hailey. Darlene didn’t sound at all unhappy about Robert Q having only one “friend” left … as long as it was her.

  Then, briskly, Darlene continued, “Tell Robert Q to call me. I can’t get through to him at that stupid fraternity house. And I really need to tell him how sorry I am.”

  Although Hailey dutifully took the phone number again, the phrase “tell him how sorry I am” continued to ring in her ears as she quietly crept back to room 416. Did Darlene mean she was sorry the same way other people were sorry about Richard’s death?

  Or was there some reason why Darlene should be sorrier than everyone else?

  I am so tired, Hailey thought wearily, of all these questions. When is someone going to give me some answers?

  Nell was still sound asleep, buried beneath her blankets. There would be no morning run today.

  Hailey went to the window. She was momentarily stunned to see the snow blanket coming alive with people. Dressed in warm clothing, they were beginning to build snowmen or snow forts. Some were making and hoarding an arsenal of fat, firm snowballs. Others lay down on their backs in the snow and swept their arms and legs in arcs, creating snow angels. Everyone seemed to be having fun.

  Hailey’s first reaction was shock. They were playing! How could they be playing when someone had died?

  But just as quickly, she realized that while many people on campus had known who Richard was, they wouldn’t all be mourning his death. And those who hadn’t known him had no reason not to enjoy the clear blue sky, bright sunshine, and three feet of fresh, packable snow.

  I wouldn’t mind forgetting everything that’s happened and making a few snow angels myself, Hailey thought as Nell began to stir. We’re all sick to death of this awful nightmare. Maybe playing like little kids is what we all need.

  So, an hour later when Pete showed up and, a few minutes later, Finn, and asked if Hailey and Nell could “come out and play,” Hailey said yes, feeling only a twinge of guilt.

  Pete handed her something soft and black and bulky.

  “My purse!” Hailey cried with relief. “Where on earth did you find it? I thought it had been stolen.”

  “When I signed in downstairs and the girl at the desk saw your room number, she asked if I’d bring your purse up. She said it was under her desk when she came on duty this morning. She checked inside for identification and found your room key. Thought I’d save her a trip upstairs.”

  “That’s Pete for you,” Finn said, smiling. “We used to call him Fido, because he was always retrieving things. Bringing old shoes home, old newspapers, just like a puppy.”

  “I didn’t know you guys grew up together,” Nell said.

  Pete laughed. “Who said we grew up? Didn’t we just ask you to come out and play?”

  Hailey was busy checking the contents of the shoulder bag. “My wallet’s still here … the money’s still in it … and …” She dangled a key ring triumphantly at Nell … “My keys! So there’s no weirdo running around out there with a key to our door, Nell.”

  Finn’s brown eyes narrowed. “You thought someone might have a key to your room? I hope you were planning to call maintenance and have the lock changed.”

  “Well, we would have,” she said, flushing slightly because the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Anyway, thanks for bringing my purse. See,” she said to Nell, “there are honest people out there. I must have left my purse on the shuttle, not at the food court. Someone found it, maybe the driver, and brought it here without removing a single thing.” Hailey grinned. “That should give your rampant paranoia a good, swift kick.”

  “Sometimes,” Pete defended Nell, “it pays to be paranoid.”

  Nell sent him a grateful smile.

  “Look,” Finn said, “why don’t we put all this stuff on a back burner and get outside? Fresh air, sunshine, all that snow … let’s have some fun.”

  It’ll take more than a romp in the snow to make things better, Hailey thought. A lot more. But she was as anxious to get outside as everyone else.

  And Finn was right. It did help. Inside, the dorm was still and somber, library-quiet. But outside, the air rang with shouts and laughter and the whoosh of snowballs speeding from one snow fort to another.

  The residents of Nightingale Hall had made the snowy trek to campus to join in the fun. Hailey found a moment alone with Jess to ask if she’d heard anything new about Gerrie. “Has she gone to Philadelphia yet for her surgery?”

  Jess shook her head. “Not yet. The weather’s been too bad. Cath Devon told me that Gerrie heard about Richard’s death on the news! Can you believe it?” She glanced balefully toward a large snow fort off to her left. “Robert Q didn’t even have the decency to go to the hospital and break the news himself to Gerrie. I know she and Richard were friends. It was cruel to let her find out that way.”

  The fort, whose snowy walls should have melted under Jess’s angry glare was manned by Robert Q, Lyle, Puffy, and Susan, all wearing expensive pastel-colored skiwear.

  “To look at the four of them,” Hailey said contemptuously, “you’d never guess that a close friend of theirs was killed yesterday.”

  “I heard Robert Q tell someone that ‘good old Richard’ wouldn’t have wanted them to mope around,” Jess said.

  Hailey made a face of distaste. “That’s what people always say to hide the fact that they have less compassion than a pencil-point. I’m sure Richard would not have been happy to see Robert Q and his fan club frolicking in the snow the day after he was killed.”

  “Could we please just ignore them?” Nell said, bending to fill her gloved hands with snow. “We’re supposed to be having fun!”

  And, in spite of everything, they did have fun. Hailey let herself feel safe, outside on the Commons surrounded by friends, and lost herself in the moment.

  But when the sun disappeared behind a thick bank of clouds, wet fingers and feet began to feel the cold. People began drifting away.

  “I’m freezing,” Nell said. Her cheeks were wind-chafed, the tip of her nose bright red. “Let’s go in.”

  And Hailey reluctantly returned to reality. Nothing had changed. Back in 416, Hailey changed her clothes and, a while later, left for the library. “I’ve goofed off all day,” she told Nell. “Time to get back to work.” What she really wanted was some time alone, to think, and the library was the best place to do that. “See you later.”

  Darkness was falling quickly, and as she hurried across campus, she found herself looking over her shoulder repeatedly. Maybe trekking across campus alone wasn’t such a hot idea. Maybe she should have talked Nell into coming with her.

  No! she told herself, huddling deeper within her jacket. I can take care of myself.

  But she hurried her steps. And breathed a sigh of relief when she reached the wide stone steps of the library.

  When she left an hour later, she decided to go to Butler Hall, the administration building, to see what she could find out about Darlene’s brother. Mike … wasn’t that his name? She could at least find out if he lived on or off campus. Maybe he could answer some of her questions about both Darlene and Bo.

  She hurried across the Commons toward the big, brick building. Darlene’s brother should be able to tell her if Darlene really had been in Willowcreek all this time.

  But the only office open in the administration building was the Dean’s office. Hailey would have hurried past it if she hadn’t heard Susan Grossbeck’s voice shouting, “This is ridiculous! You’re accusing me of cheating?”

  Alone in the dimly lit hall, Hailey stopped in her tracks.

  Puffy’s unmistakable whine quickly followed Susan’s voice. “Dr. Leonardo knows Susan and I study together. That’s why our test papers were so similar. But we didn�
��t cheat!”

  Hailey moved closer to the glass-windowed door. Dr. Leonardo was a history professor. Hailey wasn’t taking history, but Susan was in her math class, and she was the smartest student in there. Why would Susan need to cheat on a test?

  The Dean murmured something Hailey didn’t catch.

  Then Susan said airily, “Besides, everyone knows two great minds think as one, right?”

  “Well, that wouldn’t apply in this case, would it?” Dr. Leonardo shot back sarcastically. “On the basis of this remarkable coincidence, combined with an anonymous telephone call I received this morning, I requested and received permission to open your tennis locker.”

  “My locker?” Susan sounded appalled. “You got a mysterious phone call telling you to search my locker? For what?”

  “In your locker, Ms. Grossbeck,” Dr. Leonardo answered, coldly, “a security officer found my personal notes for the test in question, which you could only have obtained from my desk drawer. It was very generous of you to share those notes with Ms. Wycroft. Unfortunately, she may question your generosity when Dr. Lambert dispenses her disciplinary action. I, on the other hand,” she added with a slight smile, “shall be looking forward to that moment.”

  Hailey had heard enough. She turned and hurried from the building.

  Chapter 14

  FINN AND PETE WERE in room 416 when Hailey returned. When she had related the conversation she’d overheard, Nell said with delight, “Well, well, well! I knew Susan and Puffy were disgusting little snobs, but I didn’t know they were cheats!”

  “I’m not so sure they are,” Hailey said.

  “You’re defending Susan?” Nell asked, disbelief in her voice.

  “Susan is in my calculus class,” Hailey answered. “She’s the smartest person in there. She doesn’t need to cheat.”

  “Maybe,” Pete said, “she just stole the notes to prove that she could do it. An ego thing. Probably thought she’d never get caught.”

  “I heard Dr. Leonardo say that she’d received an anonymous phone call,” Hailey said as she took a seat on the floor beside Finn. “Telling her to look in Susan’s tennis locker. Don’t you think that’s pretty weird? If Susan had stolen those notes, she wouldn’t tell anyone. Except Puffy, of course. And Puffy would never turn Susan in. So who made that phone call?”

  “Who knows?” Nell asked. “Who cares?”

  “Well,” Hailey pressed, “either Susan didn’t cheat and someone is framing her, or Susan did steal the notes and then made the mistake of telling someone she shouldn’t have trusted. I don’t think she’d be that stupid.” Although, Hailey quickly reminded herself, Richard Wentworth had been that stupid. He’d trusted someone not to hit him. He’d been wrong. And now he was … dead.

  Hailey felt depression settling in her bones. “This doesn’t make any sense. I thought whoever wrecked our room was mad at us for helping Darlene. But Susan and Puffy didn’t help Darlene. Just the opposite. So, if they’re being framed, it can’t be by the same person who’s mad at us.”

  “Probably doesn’t have anything to do with what happened in your room,” Finn said. “And you can’t even be sure they are being framed. Do you really think those two are above cheating?”

  Hailey shook her head. “I don’t know. Maybe not.” But she couldn’t shake the feeling of uneasiness created by the overheard conversation in the Dean’s office. It made no sense … but then, what did these days?

  Pete and Nell had already tuned out Hailey’s questions and were huddled together on a corner of Nell’s bed, talking quietly. Noticing, Hailey’s spirits lifted. Pete and Nell? That might be nice, since Pete and Finn were friends. And she hadn’t heard that Pete was dating anyone else.

  If only all she had to think about was romance …

  Hailey saw Susan only once the next day. And when they passed in the library, she saw far more pain than anger in Susan’s eyes. Being caught cheating at Salem was a very big deal. Hailey had no trouble imagining what kind of day Susan was having: the stares, the gossip, the contemptuous attitude of her professors.

  At noon, Hailey heard that Susan and Puffy had been suspended from the tennis team until their disciplinary hearing, which was scheduled for a week away.

  A week! And Susan and Puffy were going through this alone, since Robert Q, Lyle, and their other “friends” were avoiding them as if they’d come down with a contagious disease.

  That evening when Hailey, Nell, Pete, and Finn went to Vinnie’s for pizza, Robert Q and Lyle were in one booth, both with dates, while Susan and Puffy sat alone in a corner booth.

  “It must be horrible, being gossiped about all over campus,” Hailey said. She felt almost certain that the two had been framed. Whoever had wreaked revenge on Robert Q and Richard had struck again.

  But she had no proof.

  “Don’t waste your sympathy on those two,” Nell cautioned. “Save it for someone like us. At least their room wasn’t wrecked.”

  “Or Darlene,” Finn said. “She probably got hurt worse than anyone.”

  Hailey look at him, surprised. As he left to have their soda pitcher refilled, she watched him with a feeling of warmth. It was nice that he cared when someone got hurt.

  When Finn returned with a full pitcher, he had four friends from Nightingale Hall with him. They were deep into a conversation about Richard’s car, which had been found by the state police. There were no fingerprints in or on the car. And the blowing snow had erased any telltale footprints left when Richard’s killer abandoned the “murder weapon” and hiked away.

  But the biggest clue, to Hailey, was the car’s location. It was halfway between Twin Falls and Willowcreek.

  There were just too many unanswered questions about Darlene. When Hailey returned to the dorm, the first thing she did was call Darlene at her grandmother’s.

  The conversation was as disturbing as the last time Hailey had talked with Darlene.

  Darlene refused to talk about Gerrie or Richard. She wanted to talk about Puffy and Susan. “They’ll be leaving campus now, won’t they, Hailey? Won’t they be kicked out? Sent home?”

  “I don’t know, Darlene. They haven’t had their hearing yet. No one even knows for sure that they cheated. I don’t know why, but I just feel like they were set up.”

  “What?” Darlene shrieked into the phone. “Hailey, you’re not on their side now, are you?”

  Hailey sighed. “I’m not on anybody’s side, Darlene. This isn’t a war.” Oh, isn’t it? a little voice in her head teased.

  “They have to be sent home,” Darlene said in a low, grating voice. Then, her tone becoming mournful, she added, “Poor Robert Q. He just isn’t going to have anyone left on campus, is he? I wish I could be there for him now. My parents are back in Twin Falls, but I can’t come back yet. Soon, though.”

  Then she began talking nonstop, in a high, breathless voice, only of Robert Q: how lonely he must be, how much he must need her, how hard it was to be away from him when she wanted desperately to be there, comforting him.

  Hailey felt as if she’d wandered into one of Darlene’s dreams. Not once since Darlene left Twin Falls had Robert Q asked about her. He hadn’t asked Hailey for a phone number where Darlene could be reached. He hadn’t driven over to see her, a trip which, with his yellow Miata and without speed traps or state troopers, wouldn’t take much more than ninety minutes. Maybe seventy-five.

  Robert Q Parker had not shown the slightest bit of interest in the town girl named Darlene Riggs after she’d left Twin Falls.

  Yet here was Darlene, yearning to be with Robert Q to comfort him.

  It was so unreal.

  Either Darlene has fallen through the looking glass, Hailey thought, or I have.

  What had happened to Darlene’s grip on reality? And how much of it had she lost?

  While Nell curled up in bed with a textbook, Hailey paced the worn blue carpet. She needed to talk to someone about Darlene. But who? She didn’t know Darlene’s parents well enou
gh. Besides, they had enough on their minds, with Darlene’s grandmother ill.

  Darlene’s brother, Mike. He was on campus somewhere. He must know about Robert Q and everything else that had happened. And he certainly should know Darlene better than anyone else on campus.

  Where could she find Mike Riggs?

  She’d ask around tomorrow.

  The next day, the snow that had looked so beautiful when it first blanketed campus, was rapidly turning into a sea of gray slush. The temperature had warmed only a few degrees, but that was enough to begin the melting while the sun shone brightly.

  There seemed to be police officers everywhere, asking questions. If only, Hailey thought, they had the answers. What had happened to that suspect the one officer had told her about? Why hadn’t he been arrested? Or … she.

  Hailey asked several people about Mike Riggs. No one seemed to have heard of him. It was eerie, as if Darlene’s brother didn’t really exist.

  Finally, Hailey decided to call Darlene’s house. If Mike Riggs wasn’t there, his mother would know where to reach him. That would be the first thing she’d do when she got back to the dorm.

  But … it wasn’t.

  When she unlocked the door to 416 and pulled it open, she was greeted by a blast of air so cold, it took her breath away.

  The wide window on the opposite side of the room had been cranked outward as far as it would go. There was no screen in place.

  The room was every bit as cold as the outside.

  “I don’t believe this!” Hailey gasped, tossing her books on her bed. “Nell left the window wide open? Is she nuts?”

  She rushed across the room to crank the window closed.

  She was reaching down for the curving brass handle set into the windowsill when she realized, too late, that Nell would never have left a window wide open on a day when the temperature was barely above freezing.

  Someone else had opened the window.

  And then she heard a soft, whispering rush behind her, and a sharp, forceful blow struck her left side, knocking her off-balance.

  “Gotcha!” a voice hissed, and a second shove toppled Hailey off her feet.