by Kate White
Glenda shook her head quickly back and forth.
“The body’s badly decomposed, so he probably died last spring. I assume, since it’s too soon for DNA results, that they found some type of ID on him. He never took off for parts unknown, as everyone suspected.”
Phoebe felt numb. It was another endorsement of Tom’s serial killer theory. There was even a pattern emerging, she realized. Scott had died a year ago this past spring. The following fall Wesley Hines had found himself in the river. Trevor had obviously died this spring, and now Lily this fall. It felt to Phoebe like one of those ridiculous but terrifying slasher movies she’d seen trailers for—where bodies of teen victims pile up at regular intervals.
Phoebe started to blurt out what she’d learned from Wesley, but then caught herself. She didn’t want to share the info in front of Val.
“But I don’t get it,” Stockton said. He’d started to pace, arms across his chest. “Bodies eventually pop up from a river. What took this one so long?”
“Michelson said that the body was snagged in some tree roots close to the shore. It’s similar to what happened to Lily.”
“Who spotted it?” Stockton said.
“Michelson was being cagey, but it sounded like the police actually came across the body. You know that antique place, the Big Red Barn on Route 1? If you cross the road to the bike path, there’s a picnic area right in front of the river. The body was found nearby in some fairly dense vegetation. The police were apparently searching the area for some reason.”
“Perhaps they’re still trying to figure out where Lily went into the water,” Phoebe said.
“But why—” Val started to say, but Stockton interrupted her.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” he said. “There is some maniac out there preying on our students. We’ve got a total nightmare on our hands.”
Here we go, Phoebe thought.
“But how big a nightmare it becomes depends on our actions,” Glenda said. “We have to keep cool and use our heads. We can’t have a single regret later about how we handled this.”
“So what’s the plan?” Stockton asked. “Have you talked to the parents?”
“I’ve left a message for them, but I’d like you to follow up,” Glenda said. “I’ve got the PR team coming to my house in a few minutes to devise a strategy on that end.”
“I should join you,” Stockton said.
“No, Tom, I need you here,” Glenda said. “Our first priority is the students. I want you to draft an e-mail alerting them to the news. Tell them I’ve already arranged for the campus police to beef up security, but they also need to watch out for each other. And draft an e-mail to the parents, too. Full disclosure. I also want you to brainstorm with Craig about any additional safety recommendations we should be making. We don’t want to set off a panic, but we may want to tell kids to travel in pairs.” She paused. “And finally, I want to know if we have any rights in controlling student behavior off campus.”
“What do you mean?” Stockton asked, wrinkling his brow.
“That bar Cat Tails keeps turning up in every story,” Glenda said. “Can we restrict students from going to the river bars? I know that’s extreme, but if we’re going to prevent another death, we may need to practice tough love.”
Glenda checked her watch and then turned to Phoebe. “Have you got your car? I walked today, and I’d love a lift home.”
“Of course,” Phoebe said, relieved at the request. She was anxious to talk to Glenda alone.
“What can I do, President Johns?” Val asked. “I want to be of assistance.”
“I appreciate the offer, Val,” Glenda said, “and I’ll let you know if something comes to mind. Right now all I ask is that everyone be discreet.”
Phoebe followed Glenda from the room. The building was eerily quiet now. Though the hall lights were on, most of the staff had left for the day, so offices were dark. They passed no one in the building, but outside, as they hurried to the parking lot, groups of students dashed by them, chatting and laughing. They won’t be laughing so hard tomorrow, Phoebe thought, once they’ve learned the news about Trevor.
As Phoebe pulled the car out of the parking lot a few minutes later, Glenda threw her head back on the seat of the car.
“Three deaths in two years,” Glenda said. “I can’t believe it.”
“Actually, four incidents,” Phoebe said. She relayed what she’d learned from Wesley.
Glenda shook her head and blew out a breath. “Well, at least the police seem to be giving it their full attention now. It was like an overturned beehive down there tonight.”
“I just wonder if they’re equipped to handle something this big,” Phoebe said.
“I could ask myself the same question,” Glenda said. “You know, I’ve worked at four different colleges and been trained to deal with just about everything—budget cuts, student protests, faculty caught sleeping with students. But no one ever took me aside and said, ‘Here’s what you need to do if a Ted Bundy type shows up on your campus.’ ”
“What if there really is a serial killer,” Phoebe asked quietly, “but not some Ted Bundy type? What if it’s someone we know?”
“What do you mean?” Glenda said. Even with her eyes on the road, Phoebe could sense her friend’s shock at the comment.
“What if the Sixes did it?” Phoebe quickly spelled out what she’d learned from Alexis about the circles and how Blair loved to exact revenge.
“My God, this is worse than I thought. We’ve got to nail these girls. But you don’t really believe they’re cold-blooded killers, do you, Fee? I can entertain the idea that they might have accidentally killed Lily as part of some prank gone wrong, but three murders? It seems unfathomable.”
“It’s just something worth mulling over.” Phoebe knew she needed to learn what the fifth and sixth circles entailed. “We should finally mention the Sixes to the cops now, don’t you think?”
“Let’s continue to let Craig investigate the Sixes for a bit longer. I don’t want to open a Pandora’s box unnecessarily.”
Phoebe felt a pang of doubt but kept her mouth shut. She had to take Glenda’s lead on this one.
“Why didn’t you want Tom to come to your house, by the way?” Phoebe asked.
Out of the corner of her eye Phoebe saw Glenda cock her head, deliberating.
“I do need him on campus right now, taking care of business there, but I’ve also picked up a weird vibe from him lately, like he’s saying one thing and thinking another. Or maybe this whole mess has made me paranoid.”
“There’s a vibe I pick up from him,” Phoebe said. “That he seems to really like the serial killer theory. As if he’s dying for it to be true.”
“And why would that be, do you think?”
“Well, would he be a candidate for your job if this whole thing exploded in your face?”
Glenda nodded slowly. “So you mean he’s pushing it in order to throw the campus into even bigger turmoil?” she asked. “And give the board a reason to boot me out?”
“Maybe,” Phoebe said. “He just seems awfully slick to me, and worth keeping an eye on.” Glenda was silent.
“So you think there’ll be a full-scale panic tomorrow?” Phoebe asked.
“Not so much from the kids,” Glenda said. “But the parents are going to go nuts. Trust me—some will be showing up with U-Hauls to whisk their kids away.”
When they reached Glenda’s house, Phoebe put the car in park and leaned over to hug her friend.
“Hang in there, okay?” Phoebe said. “There’s nothing you can’t handle.”
Alone in the car, Phoebe headed home. As she drove down the dark, empty streets of Lyle, she could feel her unease rising. About Trevor Harris being found, about everything. Plus, she hadn’t had time to go home earlier to turn the lights on, and she couldn’t bear the idea of walking into a pitch-black house.
As she pulled into the driveway, her eyes raced quickly over the front of
the house. The glowing porch light, controlled by a sensor, seemed to accentuate how absolutely dark the inside of the house was. Phoebe stepped out of the car, locked it, and scanned all around her. There wasn’t a soul anywhere.
Phoebe unlocked the front door, pushed it open a few inches, and listened. The only sound was the low purr of the furnace. Patting her fingers along the living room wall, she located the switch for the overhead light, which she rarely used. When she flicked it on, the room exploded with light. At first glance, everything looked exactly as she’d left it.
After locking the door behind her, Phoebe made her way to the kitchen and quickly flipped on the light. Her eyes roamed the room—the back door, the windows, the fridge. Everything seemed okay.
As she shrugged off her coat, Phoebe felt her stomach growl from hunger. She hadn’t eaten a thing since the morning. She dumped a can of New England clam chowder into a pan. While the soup heated, she dug her phone from her purse to check e-mails. There was one from Duncan, sent a short while ago.
“Looking forward to tomorrow night,” he’d written.
“Me, too,” she typed back, smiling. “What time? And where?”
She almost jumped when another e-mail appeared from Duncan almost instantly. So he was online right now.
“Why don’t you come by my office in the science building at six,” he replied. “I’ll show you around the lab and then we can head to my place.”
“Great,” she wrote, though the idea of seeing the lab made her squirm. “Btw, have you heard the news about Trevor Harris?”
She watched the screen, waiting, but nothing else appeared. Their brief exchange had lifted her mood, but now she felt her unease return, weighing down on her.
She took her soup to her office and typed up notes from her conversations that day with both Alexis and Wesley. When she was done, she printed out a set for Glenda and one for Hutch as well, which she would drop off tomorrow. It would be good to get his input, though she wondered if he’d feel he’d been wrong not to take Wesley seriously.
Next she went online and searched date-rape drugs like GHB and roofies. She quickly learned that victims often appeared normal after they’d been slipped the drugs, and people around them might have no idea they were under the influence. And just as Wesley had told her, they might later experience total amnesia about what had transpired.
When she’d finished reading, she closed her eyes and massaged the area between her eyes. Her brain hurt, and so did her body, from so many hours in the car. She shut off her laptop and, leaving several lights downstairs blazing, mounted the stairs to her bedroom.
As her head sank into the pillow a few minutes later, she picked up a faint musky scent, and she realized it was Duncan’s cologne, still lingering in the fabric from the other night. Until she’d received his e-mails, she had kept thoughts of him mostly at bay since the morning, but now, as sleep began to overwhelm her, she allowed a few to roam her brain. I can’t help it, she realized. I’m dying to see the man again tomorrow. Sure, it’s just a fling, she told herself, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t relish it. In fact, maybe that’s why the sex had been so intense and exhilarating the other night—because they both knew it was destined to end before long.
She woke with a start after three, cold all over. Searching the bed with her hand, she found that the duvet had slipped off onto the floor. She slid out of bed and began to drag the duvet back onto the mattress. As she stood barefoot on the cold floor, adjusting the duvet, she froze. There was a noise, like a machine running. Her heart seemed to ram into her rib cage.
Phoebe flicked on the bedside light and listened. There was definitely a noise, the low, steady hum of a motor of some kind. She grabbed her phone and forced herself to tiptoe into the hallway. Whatever the noise was, it was coming from downstairs. With her heart still pounding hard, she made her way to the top of the stairs. It’s the dishwasher, she realized after a moment. She could now hear the rush and swirl of water.
But she hadn’t run the machine after dinner, and even if she had, it wouldn’t still be running now. The dishwasher in her city apartment had a delay feature so it could run hours later. Did this one have the same feature, and had she set it accidentally? She didn’t think so; it was an old model.
Damn, I’ve got to go down there, she told herself. She flicked on the stairwell light and edged down the stairs. As soon as she reached the third step from the bottom, her eyes flew to the front door, to the chain lock. From the light she left on, she could see the lock was still in place.
She’d left the kitchen light burning, too, and as soon as she approached the room, she could see that the chain was still in place on the back door, too.
She relaxed a little. This has got to be a mechanical fluke, she told herself. She entered the kitchen and ran her eyes rapidly over all the fixtures. Nothing was amiss. The only sound in the room was the swish and swirl of water.
Phoebe approached, set her phone on the counter, and rested her hand on top of the dishwasher door. Open it, she told herself. You have to open it.
***
I F SHE’D BEEN smart, she would have just backed off, concentrated on her work and on things that couldn’t be taken away. But she hated the fact that she’d been shut out of doing any writing and editing. So she bided her time for a bit, mulling over her options, and then went to an English teacher who seemed to like her. She had an idea, she said, for a quarterly poetry magazine with a twist. There’d be no selection or rejection process. Everyone would have the chance to have one poem published in it. “That’s a lovely idea,” the teacher had said.
There was hardly anything special about it, and some of the poems that were submitted were like the stuff you found in greeting cards. But it was a success in terms of volume and participation. The first issue debuted at thirty-one pages long.
Four days later the note arrived in her mailbox. “You think you’re hot shit, don’t you? But you’re not. You’ll see.”
Below the words, the writer had drawn a tiny wheel.
17
P HOEBE TOOK A breath and slid over the rusted lever on the dishwasher door. The rushing-water sound ceased instantly, and the house was now utterly quiet. She paused for a moment, steeling herself. Then she slowly opened the door. A spray of water splashed onto her, and she glanced down instinctively. But it wasn’t just water. The wet mark the water had left on her white pajama bottoms was tinged pink.
She gasped. The water was mixed with what looked like blood.
Letting the door flop back into place, she stumbled backward. It was them again, she realized—the Sixes. They’d gotten inside again somehow—while she was sleeping.
She grabbed her phone from the counter. She’d programmed in Craig Ball’s number the other night, and she hit it now. Her fingers, she saw, were trembling. As the phone rang, she rushed into the living room, checking all around her. Since both chain locks were still on, they must have gone out a window, she thought. But how had they gotten in? She felt as if she was in one of those nightmares in which the walls and the doors of your house dissolve, and you feel completely exposed and vulnerable.
“Ball,” a voice said. It was low but not groggy, as if he’d already been awake.
“It’s Phoebe Hall,” she blurted out. “They’ve broken into the house again. Please, you’ve got to help me.”
“You’re talking about the girls—the Sixes?”
“Yes—and I think there’s blood. In my kitchen. I don’t know who it belongs to.”
As she talked, she positioned herself by the front door, ready to bolt if she had to.
“Okay, I’m ten minutes away, tops.”
“Should I call the police, too?”
“Uh, just wait till I arrive, okay?”
As soon as the call ended, she froze and listened again. Could they still be in the house? she wondered frantically, but she heard nothing now, only the low groan of the furnace. She leaned back against a small cabinet to the right of
the front door. They’d raised the stakes, she realized. As bad as the rats had been, breaking into her house while she was there, was a whole new level of audaciousness.
Though the wait seemed interminable, Ball was good to his word. The car pulled up exactly ten minutes later. This time, however, he wasn’t wearing his campus police jacket. He was dressed in jeans and a black leather coat.
“You okay?” he asked as Phoebe let him in the front door. She knew that she must look panic-stricken.
“I’ve been better,” she said. “I woke to the sound of my dishwasher running, and I think there’s blood inside it. I’m wondering if they put a rat in there.”
“Christ,” he said, grimacing. “Let me see.”
She trailed behind him as he went into the kitchen. He scanned the room, and then, using a handkerchief that he’d drawn from his pocket, he slowly opened the dishwasher door.
For a few seconds he just peered, squinting, into the machine. Phoebe stood behind him, and from her vantage point she saw that the dishwasher looked empty, except for the pool of bloody-looking water at the bottom. She fought an urge to retch.
“Is it blood?” she asked.
“I think so,” he said. “There’s that telltale smell. But at least I don’t see anything dead in there.”
Slowly, he pulled out the top rack. It was empty. He squatted close to the ground. As he pulled out the lower rack, Phoebe spotted something in the utensil holder. It was a cluster of spoons, wrapped in soggy cardboard that had been secured by a rubber band and was now tinted pink.
Using his handkerchief again, Ball lifted the little package from the dishwasher.
“If there were any prints, they sure aren’t there now,” he said. After yanking a paper towel from the dispenser, he laid it on the counter and set the spoons on top.
It took Phoebe only a split second to see that there were six spoons altogether.
“I don’t believe this,” she said, throwing her hands up. “What are they trying to do to me?” She didn’t want to freak out in front of Ball, but inside she was roiling.