by Diane Hoh
“Yeah, I did. I figured you were just covering for your roomie, that’s all. Because you felt sorry for her. But I knew you’d reach the end of your rope sooner or later. I was willing to keep at it and be patient. I’m a very patient person, Quinn, or I would have done something about Tobie long ago.” Then, a note of curiosity in her voice, Ivy asked, “You were covering for her, weren’t you, Quinn? That’s why my plan didn’t work? You couldn’t bear to give her up to the police?”
Quinn laughed. “No, that’s not why, Ivy. I’m not that noble. If I’d really believed Tobie was doing those terrible things, I would have gone to the police. But I didn’t think it was Tobie. I thought it was me.”
Ivy stood up, looping the metal handle of the lantern over her wrist and craning her neck upward toward the hayloft. “You? How could you think it was you? That’s crazy!”
“No, it’s not.” In spite of her predicament, Quinn felt a fleeting, warm sense of satisfaction at being able to shock Ivy. “It’s not crazy at all. There’s something you don’t know about me, Ivy. Only Tobie and Simon know.”
Suspicion clouded Ivy’s lantern-yellowed face. “What?”
“I walk in my sleep.”
Ivy looked confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t remember what I do when I walk in my sleep,” Quinn explained. “Not much of it, anyway. So when I found the stuff you planted in our room, and it was all my stuff, I thought I had a serious problem, and I hid the things. Just until I could figure out what was going on. Of course, after a while, I knew they’d been planted. I didn’t know why, and I did think for a little bit that Tobie was trying to frame me. But just for a little while.”
Ivy, bathed in the lantern’s glow, leaned back against the wall. “So that was it. Well, at least it explains things.” The expression on her face was bleak. “Sleepwalking! So you thought … oh, I don’t believe this!”
But she recovered quickly. “Oh, well, never mind. Doesn’t matter now, anyway. All systems are go. Actually,” she added cheerfully, “this might work out even better. Tobie knew you walked in your sleep, so she thought you were the perfect person to frame, right? That’s how it will look. I think it makes the case against her much stronger, actually. Don’t you?”
Exasperated, Quinn shouted, “Why didn’t you just frame her if you’re so dead-set on her going to prison? Why use me at all?”
“Simple.” Ivy put one foot on the bottom step of the ladder. “We know Tobie’s history. A simple frame might have resulted in the poor, demented girl going scot-free on an insanity plea. After what she’s been through, what jury in the land would convict her? I could just see the members of the jury weeping in sympathy. But,” Ivy declared happily, “a person who is sane enough to deliberately plan a very clever frame of a friend would never get off. If she was sane enough and rational enough to be so meticulous in her planning, how could she possibly plead insanity? She couldn’t. She’d rot in prison forever, which is exactly what I wanted. Rot in prison, just like my Gunther.”
The coldness of her voice sent a chill down Quinn’s spine.
Suddenly Quinn remembered something. “What about the attack on you and Tim?”
Ivy laughed. “I wasn’t attacked. You’re wrong about Tim, though. He certainly was attacked. He never even saw my trusty little hammer coming at him. The guy actually thought I was in love with him! Can you believe it? Me? After knowing someone like Gunther! Tim Lobo isn’t fit to wipe Gunther’s shoes.” Bitterness coated her words. “And there he was, walking around free as a bird, while Gunther …”
“You hit yourself on the head with that hammer?”
“Well, not hard. But hard enough to look convincing. Man, what a headache! But it was worth it.”
Ivy moved to the second ladder step.
“I don’t understand,” Quinn said, desperately stalling for time. Hadn’t anyone from Nightmare Hall seen people slipping into the barn? Wouldn’t they come out and check? “How could you love a criminal? Someone who would do what Gunther did?”
“You know nothing!” Ivy shouted. “We love each other! Gunther didn’t have any money, didn’t come from what my parents called ‘a good family,’ so they forbade me to see him. They said they’d cut me off without a penny if I continued to see him. Throw me out of the house, like I was a stray dog or something. Their own child!”
“Maybe they just knew what he was.”
Ivy reached down, picked up the lantern, slid its hanger over her wrist. “You don’t know anything about him,” Ivy said calmly, her anger gone. “He was exciting. Not afraid of anything. My life was boring. Go to school, come home, do your homework, eat your dinner, brush your teeth, go to bed, get up and do it all over again the next day. Rules, rules, rules! My upright, uptight parents never did anything spontaneous in their entire lives. Gunther was … different.”
“I’ll say,” Quinn said sarcastically.
“He never intended to hurt Peter Gallagher,” Ivy said hotly. “It was an accident.” Tobie had said almost the same thing. Then why had Gunther gone to prison?
“We needed money to run away. My parents had threatened to send me away to school if I didn’t stop seeing Gunther. When I told Gunther, he said that was the last night I’d ever spend in my parents’ house. So … we had to have money. Gunther said we could steal it from someone at an automatic teller machine. He’d done it before. Said it was easy. So we drove to Riverdale looking for a machine, and at the very first one we spotted, there was this guy taking money out. I thought that was a good omen … that someone was there. Like we were meant to have the money, right?”
Quinn said nothing.
“Gunther wouldn’t let me get out of the car.” Ivy’s voice softened. “He was so protective of me. He just planned to go over and tell the guy he wanted the money, that was all. He didn’t even have a real gun, but it looked like one. I was sure no one would be dumb enough to put up a fight.”
“But Peter did,” Quinn pointed out.
Ivy nodded. “The fool! We had to have that money. I found out later that Peter didn’t even need it. He had plenty. He could always get more. Why did he have to fight?”
Lost in her story, Ivy had stopped climbing. “Peter told Gunther he wasn’t giving him anything, and grabbed for the gun. Gunther pushed him. Peter fell.” Ivy made a sound of contempt.
She began climbing again. The lantern swayed back and forth, its yellow-green glow casting traveling shadows across the aged floor below. “Gunther didn’t do anything. It was just a push.” Her voice was flat and emotionless as she added, “I knew Gallagher was dead the minute he landed. Something about the way his head hit.”
Quinn felt sick. Sick and dizzy. Afraid she would topple over and fall, she leaned back, away from the edge of the platform.
“Gunther stood there,” Ivy continued, “frozen, for far too long. Then he finally snapped out of it, and turned and ran. But Tobie had already memorized what he looked like.”
“If it was an accident …”
“He was committing a felony at the time, stupid!” Ivy shouted. “So it didn’t matter whether it was an accident or not. Anyway, Gunther wasn’t anybody. Not to anyone but me. But Peter Gallagher definitely was somebody. That whole town was in an uproar. Gunther drove me to my house, went back home, and was arrested the minute he pulled into his driveway. He told the police he was alone when it happened.”
She was on the fifth step, the sixth … Quinn put her hands on the ladder.
“I was perfectly willing to go to jail, too. But I knew Tobie would testify against him. And I knew he’d never get off. So I decided that one of us should be free to get even with her for sending Gunther to prison. I kept my mouth shut. I went to court every single day, and I was already making plans to pay Tobie back.”
The seventh step, the eighth …
Quinn gripped the sides of the ladder so tightly her knuckles ached. There was no way out, no way out … her breath came in short,
painful little gasps and her head throbbed.
“It wasn’t like I ever knew Tobie. I’m from Scotts City, not Riverdale. But just in case she’d noticed me in the courtroom, I dyed my hair, bought contact lenses, and lost a ton of weight. I probably didn’t need to. I don’t think she looked straight at me even once when she was testifying. But better to be safe than sorry, I always say. She never had any idea who I was.”
“You came to Salem only to get even with Tobie?”
Ivy stopped climbing again, one hand left the ladder rail, one index finger pointed straight at Quinn. “Very good, Nancy Drew. Of course! Why else would I come to this insignificant small-town college? It wasn’t hard to find out Tobie was coming here. I just went to Riverdale and asked around. My application was in the mail that same afternoon.”
She straightened up then, and began climbing again. “But you know too much now, Quinn. Anyway, I don’t need you anymore. You’ve served your purpose. Sorry. Once you’re out of the way, I’ll take care of Tobie. I’ll see to it that the last few pieces of evidence are in place in her room. Then I’ll make a phone call to the police. It will be clear to them that you found out Tobie was trying to frame you, and so she had to kill you. They’ll send her to prison for a long, long time. And then,” Ivy’s voice was bitter, “she’ll find out firsthand how Gunther has suffered.”
If this ladder is nailed to the loft platform, Quinn thought, her hands on the rails beginning to quiver, I’m dead.
“Then I’m out of here,” Ivy added. The top of her sleek, dark head was only a foot or so below Quinn’s hands. “I don’t know exactly where I’ll go,” she said, her tone almost conversational, “but it doesn’t matter. Without Gunther, nothing matters much.”
Ivy was still speaking in that same placid, conversational tone, about how Simon Kent would mourn the loss of his girlfriend with the crazy sleeping disorder, how Tobie’s family would turn against her when they learned what she’d done … .
Thinking, I have to do this, I have no choice, Quinn gritted her teeth and tightened her grip around the ladder handles. Then she pushed them with all her might, away from the platform.
At first, Ivy didn’t realize what was happening. The ladder was heavy, and swung away from the loft platform very slowly. “Give me that ring, Quinn,” she said. “It’s mine, give it to… .”
And then her eyes opened very wide and her jaw dropped as she felt the ladder swaying backward and saw the sudden gap appearing between her and Quinn.
“No,” she said quietly, and then she screamed, “No, oh no!”
As she and the ladder fell backward together, one arm began to flail at the air in an effort to stop the descent. It was the arm holding the oil lantern, still glowing brightly.
The lantern slid from Ivy’s arm and sailed through the air, spraying oil across the barn as it fell. When it hit the floor, it exploded, spewing oil and flame in every direction.
The old floorboards quickly became a sea of red, orange, and yellow.
A split-second later Ivy, still clinging to the ladder, an expression of pure terror on her face, fell into that sea of flame.
Chapter 25
A HORRIFIED QUINN WATCHED from above, helpless, as Ivy quickly disappeared behind a thick wall of fire.
“Ivy, get up!” she screamed, leaning as far over the edge of the loft as she dared. “Get up, Ivy, run!”
But the flaming barrier kept her from seeing if Ivy had.’ Was she even able to run? There had been a sharp cracking sound when she landed. She could be unconscious.
When it finally sank in that there was nothing she could do for Ivy, Quinn’s attention returned to herself. The ladder was gone now. Even if the distance from the loft to the floor hadn’t been too great to jump, the floor below her was ablaze.
She was trapped.
Waves of thick, gray smoke and searing heat rose up to meet her, forcing her to back up into a dark corner of the loft. Coughing, eyes watering, Quinn’s frantic gaze searched the small, high platform for a way out. Wait … over there … off to her left … boards laid vertically instead of horizontally like the rest of the wood. A … small … door?
Crawling on her hands and knees, keeping one hand over her mouth and nose against the smoke and heat, Quinn moved slowly, carefully along the platform, until she reached the vertical boards.
It was a door … a small one, arched at the top. Probably used, a long time ago, to toss hay down from the loft.
How long ago? So long ago that the small rusted hinges, which Quinn could clearly see now, wouldn’t open?
Waste of time. Very little time left. Hard to breathe, and so hot, so hot …
Instead of wrestling with the small black latch on the inside of the door, Quinn sat up and began kicking, kicking with all her might, her sneakered feet slamming against the door. Her chest hurt and tears from the smoke were pouring out of her eyes, and coughing wracked her upper body, but still she kicked, crying out, “Open, damn you, open!”
The door didn’t open, but one particularly fierce blow splintered a board, enough to let in a whiff of fresh air. It felt so delicious that Quinn, gulping it in gratefully, kicked again with renewed strength. A second board splintered, and then gave way completely, leaving a hole the size of a shoebox.
But the flames were crackling viciously now, leaping up into the air, taunting Quinn with their hot breath.
Kicking, kicking …so tired, but mustn’t stop now … another board and then another gave way. The hole had enlarged, its jagged edges forming a good-sized rectangle. Not big enough to squeeze through, but big enough to push her head through and fill her aching lungs with fresh air. And then to scream.
Quinn sat up, scuttled closer to the hole, thrust her head out, scratching one cheek on the ragged edge of a board, and crying out in pain.
The fire below her roared angrily.
When she had swallowed enough air to ease the pain in her chest, she opened her mouth to scream for help. The sound that came out was pitiful, a hoarse croak.
Tears of frustration joined the smoke-induced tears in Quinn’s eyes. Help was so far away. How could anyone asleep in Nightingale Hall hear that pathetic little sound she’d just made? Her vocal chords must have been affected by the smoke.
Exhausted, terrified, her legs scalded by the intense heat directly beneath her, Quinn sagged against the little broken door, tempted to give up. Help … she needed help … she couldn’t get out of this place alone.
Desperate, she raised her eyes heavenward.
And saw the pulley.
A small, metal pulley, attached to the front of the barn. There was a thick rope wound around it. The tip of the rope dangled loosely, temptingly, over Quinn’s head. She couldn’t tell how long the rope was. But what did it matter if it didn’t carry her all the way to the ground? It would at least get her out of this inferno.
At the same moment, a light went on upstairs in Nightingale Hall. Quinn knew no one had heard her cry for help. Had they heard the flames crackling?
Someone would be coming to help.
But she couldn’t wait. There wasn’t time.
She could probably squeeze her chest and arms through the jagged hole. But it wasn’t large enough for her whole body. It would do her no good to grab the rope with her hand if she couldn’t get the rest of her through the hole. She had to make the hole larger.
But there was no time …
She pulled her head backward, out of the hole. A lick of flame jumped up behind Quinn and caught a small pile of straw in its mouth, devouring it.
The hungry flame would be coming for her next.
With a hoarse, desperate roar, Quinn drew both legs backward and, using them as a battering ram, drove them straight into the wounded little door.
It fell open, dangling from its hinges like a broken-winged bird.
Instantly, Quinn jumped up, leaned out of the open space, one hand holding onto the wall for leverage, and stretched upward, straining until one hand touch
ed the rough tip of the rope. Carefully, her fingers closed around it and pulled it toward her.
Another light went on in Nightingale Hall, then another. Over the roar of the flames, Quinn was vaguely aware of faint shouting. The shouting grew louder, came closer. Footsteps thudded down the slope in front of her. Startled cries and more shouting, near her now. A siren sounded faintly in the distance.
But as her hand closed around the rope, a crashing sound behind her brought her head around to look back into the barn. The rear half of the platform she was standing on had collapsed. There was only a dark hole where she had been sitting when Ivy came into the barn.
Ivy …
The siren sound moved closer … fire trucks, on their way to save her.
No time …
Clutching the end of the rope with both fists, Quinn took a deep breath, closed her eyes … and jumped.
Halfway down, she was brutally jerked to a standstill.
The rope was too short.
And flames were escaping from the building now, stabbing outward like snakes’ tongues, straining outward to sear her, to consume her rope, and send her crashing to the ground.
She hung there, swaying above the hard ground, her face and arms feeling the hot breath of the fire.
“Jump!” someone shouted from below her. “Jump! You have to jump!”
She looked down. Below her, a group of people stood in a circle. They were all looking up at her. And they were holding something in their hands. It was stretched out across the circle, so that instead of seeing hard, dark ground, she saw white, as if that circle of ground had been covered with snow.
A sheet? A blanket?
They were holding a sheet or a blanket. Holding it up high, every person in the circle holding onto the edges for dear life.
For her dear life.
“Let go!” someone shouted. “Let go! We’ll catch you!”