Dark Secrets 2: No Time to Die; The Deep End of Fear (9 page)

But when I found the courage to look up, he was looking down, gazing at my lips, his lashes long and dark, almost hiding the shimmer of his eyes. His face moved slowly closer to mine. He tilted his head. If I wanted to bail out, it had to be now. I held still. Feeling the nearness of him, I waited breathlessly.

His lips touched mine.

How could a touch so soft, so barely there, be so wonderful? He wasn't even holding me. It was just his mouth against mine, light as a whisper.

"Hey, you guys. What have you been working on?"

We both pulled back. Shawna entered the room.

"Walker's going to keep my group til five," she said, "but we're taking fifteen. Let's see what you've done."

"A wall," Mike said quietly.

"This side," I mumbled, stepping down from the stool. I fought the urge to touch my hand to my lips. Had his kiss felt as incredible to Liza? What had made it that magic?

Shawna ducked under the rope.

How had my kiss felt to him?

Shawna studied the canvas, then me. "You sure did get a lot of sun this weekend, Jenny," she said, smiling. "You white people ought to be more careful."

Mike flashed a sly smile over the top of the clothesline.

Shawna caught it.

"What?" she asked. "Did I miss something?"

"I didn't say anything," Mike replied.

Shawna got a knowing look on her face. "Come on, girl," she said to me. "Take a break. I need some air."

I knew I was going to be interrogated but decided I could handle that better than one more moment alone with Mike. I did not want to fall for him—fall farther than I already had.

Shawna and I took the back exit of the building, climbed to the top of the outside stairwell, and sprawled on the grass.

"Okay, Reds, what's going on between you two?"

"You two who?" I asked.

"Don't play dumb. You and Mike."

"Nothing."

"Un-hunh."

"Really, nothing!"

"That's the fastest fading sunburn I've ever seen," she remarked.

I plucked at the grass.

"Did he kiss you?" she persisted. "Is that what you were doing when I barged in?"

"Why would you even think something like that?" I replied.

"Oh, I don't know," she said, smiling. "Maybe it's those glances you keep stealing at each other during rehearsal, or maybe the way Mike murmured, 'A wall,' as if he was still feeling your kiss on his lips." She eyed me. "Whoa! There it is again, that mysterious recurring sunburn."

I bit my lip.

"Why are you fighting this?" she asked.

Because he was Liza's boyfriend and had lied about it. Because I knew I couldn't compete. Because it was scary, the spel he cast on me, the way I felt when he was near.

"He lives in Trenton," I told Shawna. "I live in New York."

"So what's that—an hour and a half by car, less by train? Ever heard of Greyhound? Amtrak? E-mail? I think you're making excuses."

I didn't deny it.

"But I'll play along," she said. "This afternoon, at least," she added with a grin, then mercifully changed the subject.

When she returned to rehearsal I went downstairs to see what Tomas wanted me to do next. Mike must have cleaned up our paints. He and Paul were in the corner of the room, Mike measuring a board, Paul standing a foot away, running his finger up and down the length of a saw. Keri sat nearby, chipping at her fingernails, looking bored.

Brian had come downstairs and was talking with Tomas. I watched them a moment, feeling proud of Tomas, the way he was managing everything and earning people's respect.

"Hey, Jen," Tomas called, "would you bring over a hammer? There's one in the toolbox right behind you."

I nodded and knelt down to unfasten the latches of the metal box. Lifting the lid, seeing that the hammer's handle was buried beneath other tools, I reached for its head, trying to extract it. I pulled back in surprise. The steel felt ice cold. Reaching down to grasp it again, I saw the metal glimmering blue. I touched it and cold traveled up my arm, as if my veins had been injected with ice. My shoulders and neck grew numb, my head light, so light I had to close my eyes.

Then I jerked and was free of the floating feeling, but I wasn't at Stoddard anymore. I stood breathless, as if I'd been running fast. Clutching my side, I opened my mouth trying to breathe silently, afraid to make the slightest noise. I could see little in the darkness that surrounded me, but I smelled the creek and heard its black water lapping against the pilings. I knew I was in terrible danger.

Soft footsteps hurried across the structure above me. I looked up and listened, trying to judge the direction the person was heading.
My
direction, I thought, panicking, no matter what, it would be my direction.

Step by step I moved forward in the darkness, hating the feel of the swampy ooze but knowing I had to keep on. About twenty feet behind me I heard the muffled thud of feet landing on wet ground.

I hid behind a piling and listened to my pursuer walking in the mud, moving steadily closer. My heart pounded so loudly I thought the person had to hear it. If he or she discovered me now, I'd be trapped.

I bolted, splashing through the shallow water. The person was after me in a flash. I tripped and fel facedown. Tasting mud, gasping for breath, I scrambled to my feet. A distance ahead I saw a wall of grass, tall as com, and beyond that, a lighter, open area. Bright lights shone from the tops of poles.

If I could make it as far as the lights, maybe someone would see me, maybe someone would help me.

Then I felt a powerful blow from behind. Pain exploded at the base of my skull. Every nerve in my body buzzed with it—every second of agony so excruciating, I could not stay conscious. I fel headfirst into darkness.

Chapter 13

When I opened my eyes I was in Brian's arms. He knelt on the floor next to the toolbox, holding me, searching my face, his own face lined with worry.

"Jenny, Jenny, are you all right?"

I nodded, unable to speak. The crushing pain at the back of my skull had disappeared, but the memory of it was so intense it dulled my senses and made the present seem less real. Tomas and others working on scenery had gathered around me. Paul watched me with keen eyes. Keri stood next to him, looking as if she'd finally seen something of interest. I knew Mike was next to Keri, but I didn't allow myself to look at him, afraid he'd see how much I wished he was the one holding me.

"What happened?" Brian asked gently.

"I don't know."

"Why did you faint?"

I shook my head, unable to think of an answer that would make sense to him and the others.

"Did you get lunch, Jen?" Tomas asked. "When you went back to Drama House, did you get something to eat?"

"No. I'm sure that's it," I said, seizing upon the excuse.

Brian brushed my hair back from my cheek, his dark eyes doubtful.

"I'm okay," I told him, sitting up, pull ing away from him.

He let go reluctantly. Tomas, who had been searching his pockets, leaned over and handed me a candy bar.

"Perfect," I said. "Thanks."

"Why don't I walk you back to Drama House?" Brian suggested.

"No, I'm fine and want to keep working. There's the hammer, Tomas."

He picked it up, then glanced at his watch. "Everybody, let's start cleaning up. It's going to take us a while."

I stood and followed some of the others to the corner of the room where they had been cutting out leaves. Brian, shaking his head at my stubbornness, returned to rehearsal.

For five minutes I picked up scraps of paper, then, when I thought no one was paying attention to me, I walked back to the toolbox. I sorted through it and grasped a hammer, first by the handle, then by its steel head, wrapping my fingers tightly around it. Nothing, I felt nothing, just a tool that was cool to the touch like the others in the box. It didn't turn icy cold, didn't make my head grow light; nothing glimmered blue.

I walked to the bench where Tomas had been working and laid my hand on the first hammer. Just cool, I told myself, but then the cold began to seep through the tips of my fingers. It flowed through my veins and up my arm. The bench's fluorescent fixture buzzed blue. My head grew light. I quickly thrust out my other hand, grasping the edge of the workbench to steady myself.

"You doing okay?"

I let go of the hammer. "Fine."

"Sorry," Mike said, "but I don't believe you."

"I've never been better."

"Better at what? Acting?" He waited, as if he thought I would change my answer. "So I guess there's nothing I can do to help," he concluded.

"No, but thanks."

He took a step closer, leaned down, and whispered, "Just so you know, you're supposed to swoon when I kiss you, not a half hour afterward."

"That's not why I fainted."

"Darn! And I was so sure."

"Our kiss—that was just an accident," I told him.

"An accident? You mean you were aiming for someone else's lips and ran into mine instead?"

"I—I mean the kiss didn't mean anything." "I see."

"Sometimes things just happen," I said. "They happen and don't mean anything at al."

"Really."

Paul called out to Mike then, asking for help in lifting a flat.

"Well, hope you're feeling better," Mike said, and went to help his friend.

I took a deep breath and glanced down at the hammer. I couldn't bring myself to touch it again. My blue visions were becoming like the frightening blue dreams I'd had as a child—bizarre and yet very, very real.

The
real
"Teen Psychic," I thought. What if I were? What if the images that had seemed so strange to me as a child had been retrieved from other people's minds? Maybe Liza wasn't simply comforting me after those dreams; maybe I really did share her mind and the minds and lives of others.

If so, I must have learned how to suppress the ability. But the visions I had now felt too powerful for me to control, triggered by things that formed a physical link to Liza: the window seat where she had sat, the place on stage where she had liked to stand, pictures of her murder site, and now, the hammer. I couldn't prove it, but I knew beyond a shadow of a psychic's doubt, this hammer was the weapon that had killed my sister.

Chase Library kept short hours during the summer, so I went there directly from the theater, needing a college computer to access newspaper archives.

In every account I read, the facts were the same. The murder weapon was determined to be something heavy, a metal tool with a small blunt surface. The police believed it was a hammer, but the weapon had never been found. None of the news articles noted whether it was Liza's left or right wrist that bore the smashed watch.

At first I was comforted by my vision of the watch on the wrong wrist, reasoning from that small detail that the murderer hadn't known Liza. But the truth was that anyone in a hurry to escape the crime scene could have easily overlooked such a small matter.

I knew what I needed to do—carry the hammer to the bridge tonight and see what images came to me—but I was afraid. I didn't want to feel the crushing blow. Knowing what it was, realizing that I was reliving my sister's death, I felt sickened by it long after the physical pain receded.

As I gathered my things at the library, I realized that I had left my script at the theater. It was five-thirty when I reached Stoddard, but the back door was unlocked as usual, as was the room where we had been working. I retrieved my book from a bench.

Emerging from the room, I thought I heard voices at the end of the hall, but they had a strange, echoing sound, as if the people and I were separated by a very long passage. Curious, I followed the hall, rounding the corner, passing Walker's office, then Maggie's. No one was in sight. The next three doors, all offices belonging to professors, were closed. Then I saw the last door in the hall ajar and strode toward it.

I thought I was peering into a dark closet, but when I heard the voices again, I opened the door wider and saw the outline of a metal stairway. It rose inside the small, square space, four or five steps up one wall, then met the corner and turned, rising several steps along the next wall, continuing to spire up into the darkness, a murky darkness, as if there was light at the top. The steps to the tower!

I was tempted to climb them. The platform above the clock must have been high enough to command a view of both the river and creek. But the voices above me were becoming louder and more distinct. A guy and a girl—Paul and Keri, I realized—were coming down. I didn't want to meet up with them, not when I was alone. I exited quickly and hurried along the hallway. Then curiosity won out. Were they simply enjoying a romantic moment in the tower, or were they up to something? I ducked inside the room from which I had fetched my book, extinguished the lights, and hid behind the open door.

"You're losing your edge," I heard Keri say, as she and Paul walked down the hall.

Paul laughed. "I'm not here to entertain you."

"But you do entertain me," she insisted. "That little mean thing that crawls around inside your brain fascinates me."

I pressed my head against the door, watching them through the vertical crack between the hinges.

"Did you ever think that it might be crawling around in
your
brain?" Paul asked. "You don't know who I am, Keri. You keep inventing me, trying to make me into the guy you want me to be."

"That's good," she answered sharply, "real good coming from a guy who turned a girl into a fantasy, who made her so perfect in his mind he can't give her up, not even when she's a corpse."

Paul turned away so I couldn't see his face.

"Do you know why Liza went out that night?" Keri asked.

"Why don't you tell me?" he replied. "I know you want to."

"She got a note from Mike asking her to meet him by the creek."

I felt as if someone had just punched me in the stomach.

"If you're trying to turn me against Mike—" Paul began.

"I saw the note," Keri went on. "Liza couldn't wait to show me what he had written. It was poetic. He was counting the minutes til he could meet her by the water."

"Maybe you should have shared that information with the police," Paul suggested coolly.

"I've told you before, I don't go running to teachers or police. It's us against them. I'm loyal—unless, of course, someone gives me a reason not to be."

Paul faced her.

"But I find it interesting," she went on, "that a note Liza would have saved for framing wasn't found on her body or in her room. Someone must have destroyed it before the police could get their hands on it. Was it you?" She stepped close to him. "Was it?"

"Do you want it to be?" he asked, placing his hands around Keri's neck and running his fingers lightly over her skin.

For a moment she didn't say anything. She closed her eyes as if she hoped the tease would become something more, then she pushed him away.

"I just want it over," she said, her voice low and angry. "Liza's dead. Why can't you bury her?"

She turned and stalked away. I heard the outside door swing open and closed. Paul left a moment later.

I emerged from the room, still reeling from my discovery. I had made up my mind: after curfew tonight I'd go down to the bridge. I'd find out what happened when Mike asked my sister to meet him.

At eleven-thirty I climbed out the same window Liza had and followed the lane down to Oyster Creek. I didn't have the hammer with me. After Ken and Paul had left the theater, I searched the scenery and drying rooms, and even the stage, in case someone carried the tool upstairs, but I couldn't find it. I tried the tower, too, but the door had been locked.

Now, having escaped Drama House, I rushed down Goose Lane, then turned left on Scull, which ran parallel to the water. I didn't stop walking til I reached the bridge, afraid I'd lose my nerve. As I had hoped, the waterfront was deserted. I sat down quickly on the bank of the creek, pull ing my knees up to my chest, pressing my face against them.

"I'm here, Liza," I whispered.

Nothing happened. My mind felt rigid like my body, locked into a protective position. I took a deep breath, rose, and walked five feet down to the edge of the water. I lay on my back beside the water and ever so slowly let go, as I had learned to do in my relaxation exercises, allowing my shoulders, my elbows, the calves of my legs to sink down into the mud and stones. I cringed when I felt the trickle of creek at the back of my skull—it felt like blood—but I continued to work through Maggie's exercises til my body and mind relaxed.

The bridge above me was lost in darkness. I turned my head to the side and gazed at the creek, at the concrete pilings and the wavering reflections of the bridge's street lamps. The water shimmered blue. I closed my eyes and still I saw blue. I grew light-headed, so light I felt as if I were floating above myself. Suspended in the air, I looked down on a dark body and a glowing watch face. Someone in black bent over the body, drew back, then smashed the watch.

I sat up quickly and grabbed my wrist, but there was no pain, not like there had been in the hammer vision. I felt confused and frustrated. Why couldn't I see who was shattering the watch? In the chase visions my pursuer was cloaked in black and had struck from behind, so I couldn't see the face. But why couldn't I now, when the person was bent over Liza?

I had thought I was inside Liza's mind reliving the events—I knew I had felt the murderer's blow as she would have felt it. Then it occurred to me: when the watch was strapped to my sister's wrist she was already dead. People who have near-death experiences talk about the spirit leaving the body, hovering above it. That was why I hovered in this part of my vision, looking down on the body and the watch face just as Liza's spirit had.

I stood up, my skin feeling clammy and chill despite the warm night. Slowly I walked toward the gazebo, running my hands through my matted hair, brushing the gritty mud from my arms.

At the gazebo I sat on the steps to think. I wondered if this was the place by the creek where Mike had met Liza. Here or the pavilion, I thought. In the pale moonlight, the pavilion, sitting high on its pilings and surrounded by tall grass, seemed its own little romantic island.

I blinked. Tall grass, grass high as com. I had assumed the pilings of my visions were the supports beneath the bridge, but there were pilings beneath the pavilion, too, and the creek washed through the grass and under the wooden structure just as it did under the bridge. I jumped up and ran toward the pavilion, stopping at the grass jungle encircling it. It grew thick as bamboo. I thrust my arms into it, parted the long stalks, and stepped in, then continued to push aside swordlike leaves, gradually working my way through the dense vegetation. It stopped abruptly at the edge of the pavilion floor, where sunlight would end.

The moonlight ended there, too. Step by step I moved into the darkness beneath the pavilion. The ground turned soggy under my feet. I could hear the light lap of water against the pilings and small rustlings in the surrounding grass. As I moved farther beneath the structure, the water began to pool around my ankles. Mosquitoes whined in my ears. I thought I heard something and paused for a moment to listen, resting against a piling. My head buzzed and grew light. The darkness around me glinted blue.

Behind me, twenty feet back, there was a soft thud, a sound light as a cat landing on leaves, then quiet footsteps. The person had found me.

My heart pounded in my chest. I could hardly breathe, my throat raw, my side aching from running. I slipped behind a piling hoping to see something—if not the face, the size or gait of the person—some clue as to who it was, but I couldn't. I heard the person coming closer and closer. I debated what to do.

Instinct took over. I bolted, then felt the sudden movement, the rush from behind. I wanted to pull out of the vision. I wanted it to stop now. But I had to turn around, had to reach for the face of my pursuer, to feel the shape I couldn't see.