Deadly Visions (Nightmare Hall) (12 page)

Rachel shook her head. “I … I … let Sam try it on.”

“I don’t
want
Sam to try it on,” Aidan said sharply from behind his own mask. “I want you to. Come on, be a sport.”

But Rachel was still backing away, moving toward the door. “I don’t feel very good,” she said. “I need some air. I’ll meet you outside by the front entrance.”

“There’s a terrace right around the corner,” Joseph said.

But Rachel was already gone.

She ran blindly through the mall, not thinking about where she was going, just wanting to go
anywhere,
to get away from the endless horror she’d been facing the past few days.

Finally, she reached the big glass doors of the mall and hurried through them.

Off to one side, she spotted a bench and went to sit down and catch her breath. The bench was directly beneath the terrace Joseph had mentioned.

Above her, Rachel could see red flower blossoms peeking out from underneath the metal railing. It was probably very pretty up there, but she felt much safer down here, with all these people hurrying past.

Joseph had told them they were supposed to be back at the art building by six o’clock and she glanced at her wristwatch to check the time. Only four-thirty. Plenty of time.

Still, she hoped the others wouldn’t spend all afternoon in the mall. She was safe enough out here, sitting on a bench watching shoppers pass by with their trophies, but it didn’t strike her as a really fun way to spend a day.

Aidan was probably mad at her for refusing to try on the masks. Was that why he hadn’t come with her?

Something moved above her, and Rachel glanced up.

What she saw was the huge pot of bright red blossoms.

It was no longer sitting under the metal railing.

With a stab of terror she realized that the heavy pot of flowers had fallen off the edge of the stone terrace above her and was descending, at an astonishingly rapid speed, straight for her.

R
ACHEL SAT FROZEN ON
the stone bench, her head tilted, disbelieving eyes riveted on the heavy pot plunging down upon her. If a shopper emerging from the mall just then hadn’t seen what was happening and screamed a shrill warning, the pot would have slammed into Rachel full force.

The scream yanked her back to awareness. She catapulted her body backward, as hard as she could, off the bench and onto the grass. She landed on her back, one foot not yet free of the stone bench. The huge, heavy, terra-cotta pot slammed into the bench, instantly exploding into chunks of clay and sprays of dirt and red blossoms. There were screams and shouts as razor-sharp pot shards imbedded themselves in a forearm carrying a shopping bag, a hand counting change for the bus, the neck of the woman who had screamed a warning to Rachel. A toddler screamed in rage as a clod of dark dirt splashed his face and eyes. Another small child recoiled in terror, hiding his face in his mother’s coat, while a group of teenagers lounging far enough away to escape injury watched with barely concealed delight at this unexpected relief from their chronic boredom.

Pandemonium reigned under the mall canopy.

Rachel didn’t move. She couldn’t. Her left foot was pinned against the stone bench by a large chunk of pot, dirt and flowers. It hurt. She could see a thin stream of blood dripping from the bench. Her blood. But she knew she was lucky to be alive. If that woman hadn’t screamed …

Rachel swallowed a belated scream of her own. Then, because there was absolutely nothing she could do to help anyone, she lay back down on the grass and waited, her eyes wide open, staring up at the cloudless blue sky overhead. It was a pretty day, picture-perfect. And it had almost been the last day of Rachel Seaver’s short life.

She closed her eyes.

And opened them again when she heard Aidan’s voice above her saying, “I knew you should have stayed with us! Are you okay?” And then, “Rachel, you’re bleeding. Your foot …”

“I know,” she said calmly, looking up at him. “The pot fell. I was sitting on that bench when it came crashing down from the terrace. Just a second ago, I was sitting on that very bench.”

Although she spoke calmly, Aidan got the picture. As Samantha and Paloma arrived, breathless with shock, Aidan began scooping the mound of debris off Rachel’s foot. When it was completely uncovered, he carefully wrapped his windbreaker around the injured foot, bleeding steadily from a deep cut just above the anklebone. Then he knelt by Rachel’s side, awaiting the ambulance.

Security officers busied themselves helping the injured, consoling the frightened children, asking questions.

Rachel had turned her head toward the entrance. Even in her shock, she couldn’t help being amused by the change in expression on shoppers’ faces as they emerged from the mall. They came out laughing or chattering with friends, or they came out alone, lost in thought, but no matter what they were doing when they came through the glass doors, their faces transformed completely when the scene of havoc before them registered.

Paloma and Samantha had been laughing too when they came out of the mall, laughter that died an abrupt death when they saw the chaos. Rachel was surprised to see Bibi and Rudy Samms trailing along behind them. Samantha dropped her packages and rushed over to the grassy area.

“Where did Bibi and Rudy come from?” Rachel murmured. “I thought they were still at the art building.”

Aidan shrugged. “Who knows? Everyone left African Safari right after you did. They all had other places they wanted to go, so we said we’d all meet out here. They must have run into Bibi and Rudy inside.”

By now, Rachel was surrounded by a small crowd. And the buzz of conversation around her made it clear that everyone was assuming the pot had simply fallen off the terrace.

All by itself? Rachel thought, disgusted. A great big pot like that? Oh, right. Like it was dancing or doing calisthenics and missed a step and tumbled right over the edge? So careless of it.

And people thought
she
was imagining things.

How could anyone possibly think that huge, heavy pot had somehow, all by itself and accidentally, fallen from the terrace?

Someone had pushed it. She knew it, in her heart and in her head. And toppling something that heavy must have taken strong muscles and a ton of determination.

But she was told, a few minutes later by the mall security officers, that no one had been on the terrace before the pot fell.

“It didn’t just fall,” Rachel insisted as the ambulance arrived with a mournful wail of its siren. “It couldn’t have. Someone pushed it.” Hadn’t she said the same thing about Milo? No one had believed her then, either.

Milo … he was the reason Rachel changed her mind about refusing to go to the hospital. She had hoped to be taken to the campus infirmary for a quick dressing of her ankle wound, and then straight to her room and to bed.

But … if she went to the hospital, as the ambulance attendants were insisting, maybe she could hunt Milo down and, if he was finally conscious, ask him about the fire escape incident. If Milo remembered being pushed, she’d have someone backing her up. That would certainly help, wouldn’t it? Then when she took the calendar page to security, she could tell them to go talk to Milo and they’d know the danger was real. Very real.

To her surprise, Aidan made it clear that he and the others didn’t believe the incident had been accidental. And he said so, first to Rachel, then to the mall security personnel.

Listening to Aidan and the officer argue, Rachel found herself much more interested in how long Rudy Samms had been with Bibi. Was he with her when the pot had come crashing down? Because if he wasn’t, he just might have been out on the terrace, giving the huge planter a wicked nudge.

She knew she found it easier to suspect Rudy because she didn’t like him as much as she did the others. Maybe that was unfair, but she couldn’t help it.

“She got this message,” Aidan was saying to the security officer as Rachel was loaded onto a stretcher. “Threatening her. Saying she wouldn’t live to see tomorrow. That’s why we’re pretty sure the pot didn’t just fall all by itself. Has one ever fallen before?”

“Not since I came to work here.”

“Enough said,” Aidan said firmly. He told Rachel they’d meet her at the hospital.

“No, Aidan,” she said quickly, “you don’t have to.” If they all came to the hospital and waited for her to be treated, she’d never get to track down Milo. They’d insist on whisking her off to her room and tucking her into bed, safe and sound. “I could be there a long time. You know what emergency rooms are like. And I know you guys are supposed to be back at the art building by six. You go ahead. When they’ve fixed me up I’ll call you there. Someone can come down and pick me up then, okay?”

Not long afterward, she came out of the emergency room with stitches and a thick bandage on her injured ankle.

All she had to do was locate Intensive Care, where they were keeping Milo, and hobble there to see if he was awake.

She found ICU easily enough, but once there, she hit a snag. Only immediate relatives were allowed to see the patients. How was she going to get in to see him?

There he was, right there behind a large glass window. She could see him clearly. He didn’t look conscious. He didn’t even look alive. Much of his head was swathed in a thick white bandage. Even from a distance, Rachel could see how badly he’d been injured. His face was swollen and purple, with traces of dried blood zigzagging his chin and cheekbones.

For a unit filled with critically ill patients, there didn’t seem to be that many nurses. One behind the high white desk off to Rachel’s right, another moving briskly in and out of the room where Milo lay, still another further down the hall, where there had to be other rooms. Rachel waited until the nurse at the desk had turned her back and the nurse in Milo’s area left his room and disappeared down the hall. Certain the nurse wouldn’t be gone long, Rachel made her move.

It was easy. She simply opened the door and went into the unit, where she moved quickly into Milo’s room and hurried to his bedside. Sooner or later, someone would notice her, but by then, maybe she’d already have her answer.

“Milo?” she whispered when she was at his bedside. Both eyes, the area around them swollen and black and blue, were closed. She imagined his head bouncing down the iron fire escape steps, and winced. His face looked so awful, it was hard to believe he’d ever appear normal again. “Milo, are you awake? Can you hear me?”

His eyes remained closed, the lids bluish, but he turned his head toward her when she spoke.

“Milo, it’s Rachel Seaver. Someone’s going to come and drag me out of here any second now, so if you can hear me, please tell me why you fell down that fire escape, okay? I need to know. It’s important, Milo. A matter of life and death.”

Milo forced one eyelid open slightly. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, the faintest of whispers. And he uttered only one word.

But Rachel heard it.

“Pushed,” Milo said. “Pushed.”

Rachel sagged against the bed. Milo couldn’t know how much that one, simple word meant to her. True, she couldn’t do much about it tonight. He was in no shape to talk to the police. But by tomorrow, he might be better. She could take the threatening calendar page to campus security now and tell them that Milo hadn’t fallen accidentally. She could tell them he’d been deliberately attacked, and she could tell them that the patient himself could verify that fact.

That had to be enough to get them to listen to her. She had no idea where she would go from there, but it was a start.

Milo opened one eye again, and murmured something.

Rachel didn’t catch what he’d said. She leaned down, close to his face. “What did you say, Milo? I couldn’t hear you.”

“I said,” he whispered foggily, “are you Rachel the troublemaker?”

Confused, Rachel decided he was probably on heavy drugs to help him sleep in spite of the pain. She shouldn’t be keeping him awake.

But when she moved to leave, he reached out with a bruised arm and weakly grasped her wrist. “Rachel?” he said huskily. And added, with great effort, the words coming slowly, painfully, “After I was pushed, while I was still falling, I heard someone say, ‘Perfect. Now I have to deal with that troublemaker, Rachel.’ That’s what I heard someone say.”

Rachel’s knees threatened to give. She had to clutch the metal bed rail tightly. “Oh, man,” she murmured, shaken to the core by Milo’s words.

He took a deep, difficult breath and let it out. “Is that you? Is your name Rachel?”

Her face slate-gray, Rachel nodded silently. “Yes.”

“You’d better be careful,” Milo whispered. Then his swollen eyes closed.

Rachel stood beside his bed for a few seconds more. “You’re right, Milo,” she said quietly, gently picking up his arm and slipping it beneath the white sheet. “I’d better be careful.”

R
ACHEL SPLURGED ON A
taxi ride back to campus. Sitting in the back of the cab, she thought about what Milo had told her.

Why had Milo’s attacker said, “And now for that troublemaker Rachel”? She wasn’t making any trouble.

The only thing she’d done lately was see images that no one else saw in paintings at the exhibit. And no one had believed that she’d seen them, so how could that make trouble for anyone?

Besides, if the artist didn’t want anyone seeing the images, why put them in there in the first place?

That couldn’t be it. She hadn’t even told anyone that she’d seen something unusual in the still life. Although she
had
stared at it for a long time.

And the only people who even knew she’d seen the watercolor painting were Aidan and his friends.

Rachel sat up straighter in the back seat of the cab. Her friends … Aidan’s friends … they’d been in the room when she pulled that painting from her purse, and someone, she couldn’t remember who, had asked her why she was staring at it for so long.

Still, that didn’t mean that the artist who had painted his cruel acts into his art was Aidan or one of his friends, she thought as she leaned her head back against the seat. One of them might have innocently mentioned to someone in the art department that she was seeing things that weren’t there in some of the paintings. Might have said, “It’s the weirdest thing. We looked and looked, but we didn’t see what she saw.”