How to Party with a Killer Vampire (18 page)

“Excuse me,” a voice said. I glanced around and saw a young woman with short hair sitting behind a small reception desk.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t see you there,” I said.
Uh-oh
. It was the RA, apparently making sure loiterers didn’t try to sneak in through the front doors.

“Do you have ID?” she asked.

I stepped over, got out my wallet, and flashed my faculty card.

“It’s from last year,” she said, eyeing me.

I looked at it. “Oh, shoot! I must have left the new one in my office. I’m just here to meet with a student. . . .” I tried to appear innocent and hopeful.

“Okay, go ahead. But sign in.”

I did. “Thanks,” I said, then headed for the elevators.

Zooming by the floors on my way to the fourteenth, I remembered many of them had different themes, such as the science and technology floor where Trace was housed. The dorm rooms were apartment style, with two bedrooms, and two people in each.

I knocked on the door of room 1404 and was surprised when it was opened by Lark instead of Trace. Her dark hair was in a twist at the top of her head, and she was wearing clothes similar to the ones she’d worn doing parkour—baggy shorts and a T-shirt.

“Lark! What are you doing here?” I said, blurting out the first thing that came to mind.

She shrugged and said, “Hanging out. You’re that lady from the party. What are you doing here?”

“May I come in? I need to speak to Trace.”

She widened the door opening, allowing me to step inside the living area. I glanced around for Trace.

She seemed to read my mind. “He’ll be out in a minute. Did he know you were coming?”

I spotted two closed bedroom doors and wondered which led to Trace’s room. “
Uh
, no. I was in the area and thought I’d stop by.”

“You wanna sit down?” Lark asked, apparently accepting my lame excuse, and plopped herself in a threadbare chair, apt for a college student’s dorm room. The only other option was a couch strewn with books, papers, T-shirts, and a couple of beer cans. I opted to tour the living area while I waited, and I checked out the kitchenette that offered a microwave, fridge, and stove top, but no oven. I wondered if they cooked.

Stepping back into the living area, I scanned the walls, lined with posters. Most were of extreme sports figures, but the only one I recognized was skateboarder Tony Hawk. The rest featured guys kite surfing, water surfing, hang gliding, skydiving, snowboarding, and doing what looked like street luge. This was certainly a guy’s dorm room.

I finished my tour and turned to Lark. “So, do you go to school here too, Lark?”

“Naw. I’m not into all that school shit.”

After a moment of silence, I asked, “Do you work?”

Another awkward silence. “Still live at home?”

Before she could answer, one of the bedroom doors burst open. Trace stood in the doorway half-naked, a wet towel wrapped around the bottom half of his torso, covering him from his pubic hairline to above his knees—not much. His chin-length brown hair was damp and sticking out in all directions.

“Hey,” he said, then shook his head like a freshly shampooed dog.

“Hi, Trace. I don’t know if you remember me. Presley Parker. I helped with the party the other night. . . .”

“Yeah, yeah. What’s up? You don’t go to school here, do you?”

I laughed. “No. I wanted to ask you a few questions about your friend Spidey.”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll be out in a sec. Just gotta grab some clothes. Lark, take care of our guest, would you?” He shuffled off to the bedroom on the right.

She nodded but made no effort to get up.

“Want a drink or something?” Lark asked, leaning her head against the back of the chair. She was obviously not eager to move from her spot.

“No, I’m fine,” I said. “So, how are you doing . . . you know, with Spidey’s death?”

“Bummed,” she said simply.

It was clear I wasn’t going to get anything more from her. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long for Trace. Unlike Delicia who might have taken twenty or thirty minutes to dress, do her hair, and put on her makeup, Trace was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt seemingly in seconds. He was barefoot from the shower and his hair still stuck out, but other than that, he looked ready to welcome company.

He headed for the fridge, pulled out a beer, and hoisted it toward me as an offering. I shook my head. It was a little early in the day for me. He popped the top, grabbed an Oreo from a half-empty bag, and stepped over to the couch. With a sweep of his cookie arm, he cleared the seating area and sat down, then patted the area beside him for me.

Hoping I didn’t sit on any wet spots—beer or God knows what—I sat down lightly and turned to Trace.

“So, what’s up, Presley Parker? I hear you’re trying to find out what happened to Spidey. Any luck?”

I shook my head. “I thought you might be able to answer a few questions.”

“I’ll try. But I told the police everything I know. Don’t know much else ’cause I wasn’t there when he . . . you know . . . died.”

“Well,” I said, “as you probably know, Duncan doesn’t believe he fell. He thinks Spidey was too good to lose his balance like that.”

“Everybody falls,” Trace said. “It goes with the territory.” He took a long swallow of beer, then burped. If this guy was grieving, then maybe the beer was helping him cope. But his lack of emotion made me wonder how close they had been as friends.

“So you think it’s possible that Spidey fell? Even though it’s starting to look otherwise?”

“Like I said, no idea.”

“What do you think he was doing in the cemetery after you left? Why didn’t he leave with you and Lark?”

Trace tapped his head. “Truthfully, the dude was kinda psycho.” I saw him steal a glance at Lark, but she looked away. “Always wanting to push himself, you know? Trying to impress people.”

“Girls, you mean,” Lark added.

“Anyone in particular?” I asked Lark.

This time she glanced at Trace.

“Trace?” I asked.

He sighed, took a gulp of beer, and said, “Ever since we got to be extras in that movie, Spidey’s been wanting to hook up with Angelica.”

“Wow. Did he really think she was interested in him?”

Trace tapped his forehead again. “He got this crush on her and wouldn’t stop talking about her. Said he’d impress her with his parkour stunts. Said she was always giving him the eye, flirting with him. He was sure she was hot for him. As I said, he was a little psycho.” He swallowed the rest of his beer.

I wondered if Spidey might have been Angelica’s stalker. It was possible, especially if he was what Trace called “psycho” and obsessed with the actress. He might have had an unrealistic view of himself as some kind of parkour star and saw Angelica as someone who would want to be with a guy like that. I wondered if Spidey knew about Angelica and Jonas. Or about Angelica’s already being secretly married.

“Did he ever write her, text her, or follow her, or anything like that?” I asked Trace.

He tossed the beer bottle into a plastic basket. “Other than talking about her nonstop, I have no clue. It’s not as if we were together twenty-four-seven.”

Lark shot him a look, then glanced at the open bedroom door.

Trace scratched his stomach. “Listen, I gotta go. I want to find out what happened to Spidey as much as anyone. But I don’t have any more answers.”

I rose to go. Obviously our meeting was over, but I had a feeling there was something in the bedroom he didn’t want me to see.

“Just one last question then. Where did Spidey live? I’d like to go see his parents.”

Trace and Lark looked at each other again.

“He . . . was homeless,” Trace said. “His parents moved back east somewhere when he was in high school. He stayed here. Hasn’t been in contact with them for years.”

“Homeless?” I repeated, surprised at the news.

Trace nodded, but Lark glanced away.

“Well, thanks for your time.”

As I headed for the door, I tried to see inside Trace’s bedroom and caught a glimpse of something that made me gasp internally.

On the far wall was a large, full-color poster of Angelica Brayden.

 

I stepped into the hallway of the dorm and heard the door close behind me. That had been a very odd interview. Well, Trace and Lark might be finished with me, but I wasn’t quite finished with them.

One of the best techniques I’d learned in dealing with people who had something to hide—like a disorder they didn’t want revealed—was to surprise them with a visit when they least expected it. I doubted if the doorknob had even cooled before I knocked again at room 1404.

Lark answered. As I expected, she was surprised to see me back.

“Forget something?” she said, keeping a tight grip on the door.

“Sort of,” I said. “I have to make a few more stops and wondered if I could use your bathroom before I go. I may not get another chance.”

No one would refuse a person’s request to use their bathroom, would they?

“Trace!” she shouted back into the room. “Presley wants to use the bathroom. You cool?”

“Come on in,” Trace called back. Lark pulled the door open reluctantly and pointed toward the room adjacent to Trace’s bedroom. “It’s over there.”

Trace, standing by the bathroom door, moved over, allowing me access, but blocking the view to the rest of his room.

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll only be a minute.”

I entered the small bathroom and locked the door behind me. The room contained a toilet, shower—no bathtub—and sink with a cupboard underneath and a medicine cabinet above. There was barely enough space for a human being, but then, this was college life.

I ran some water to make it sound as if I were peeing—I knew the walls were paper thin. Then I opened the medicine chest. To my surprise, there were three shelves of women’s cosmetics, and only one shelf with men’s shaving supplies. I shut off the water and flushed the toilet, then quickly opened the cabinet doors. Inside, I found a pink hair dryer, a black hair dryer, and two hairbrushes, plus three razors—one pink, one black, and one red. I closed the doors and took a last glance around the bathroom before making my exit.

Then I saw what had been right in front of me: On the rim of the sink was a cup containing three toothbrushes—one pink, one black, and one that featured Spiderman.

Trace, Lark, and Spidey.

That could only mean one thing: Lark was living in Trace’s dorm room—and Spidey had been living there too.

I was pooped from playing Nancy Drew. Nancy always seemed tireless in her exploits to find the culprit responsible for stealing a valuable necklace, hiding an important will, or “haunting” a moss-covered mansion. I wished I had her energy, not to mention her ability to solve a crime without any help from the Hardy Boys. At the moment, I had neither Frank nor Joe—nor energy.

Of course, Nancy had to endure chloroform, abduction, quicksand, and being trapped in an attic with her hands tied behind her back and left for dead, with nothing more than a lipstick to free herself. Me, I’d never had to deal with any of the above. But I’d had my share of life-threatening situations, and I didn’t relish dealing with any more near-death experiences.

So far, so good. But seeing Trace and Lark had got me thinking. A lot of odd looks had passed between the two of them. Was it possible that Trace—or Lark—killed Spidey? I thought of the poster I’d seen in Trace’s bedroom. Or should I say Spidey and Lark’s bedroom too? If the two of them were crashing at Trace’s place, it was against the rules, and he could be evicted if anyone found out. But that wasn’t a reason to kill Spidey.

As for the poster, maybe Trace also had a crush on Angelica, and maybe she was leading him on as well. Maybe Spidey was jealous and threatened Trace—or vice versa. And what part did Lark play in all this? Was she jealous of Angelica and the attention she was stealing from Trace and Spidey?

I reached Treasure Island around four in the afternoon, my head full of more questions. I parked the car in the lot and headed for the office. It was unlocked but empty when I entered. A message Delicia had left on the “in/out” board read: “Duncan’s office.” She took this “in/out” board seriously if she felt she had to let me know she was only two doors away. I walked the few steps to the office Duncan shared with Berkeley, knocked, and tried the knob. It opened. I peered in. Berkeley was watching a videotape of my Vampire Party.