The Prom Queen (9 page)

I
should have been overjoyed. But I felt my heart start to pound all over again. I was almost afraid to ask who it was. The image in my head was of a boy with brown hair and eyes set too close together—Lucas.

“It was on the news,” Dad said. “It was some guy who escaped from the state prison.”

I let out a long breath slowly.

“And Simone? Did they say anything about Simone?”

My father's pleased expression quickly faded. He shook his head. “There's no word on Simone.”

I sat down on the black leather footstool. “At least,” he said, “we can relax a bit now. The guy is caught.”

“Thanks for telling me,” I said.

I went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. I wanted a snack, so I opened the vegetable crisper. Not that I wanted a vegetable. That was where my mom hid the chocolate from my father, who was developing quite a paunch.

I dug out a huge Nestlé Crunch bar, poured a big glass of skim milk, and sat down at the yellow table. I know it's ridiculous to drink skim milk when you're pigging out on a chocolate bar, but I figured, why not cut calories where you can? Anyway, chocolate always helps me relax. I've read articles that say it's addictive and that it makes people feel loved. I believe it.

Gnawing on a big chunk, I turned on the small kitchen TV.

The ten o'clock news was on—the weather just finishing. “So, in conclusion, rain, rain, and more rain,” said the grinning weatherman.

The anchorman smiled and turned to the camera. “Thanks, Tony. We may not be dry tomorrow, but at least we'll be feeling a lot safer. Repeating our top story, a man believed to be the Shadyside killer has been caught.”

I lurched forward in my chair as they showed footage of the killer being led into the Shadyside police station.

Most people cover their faces when they're arrested and on TV. Not this lunatic.

He stared right into the camera. And smiled. He was missing several teeth; his smile looked black
and rotten. He was short, slight, but wiry with tattooed, muscular arms—arms that had been too strong for Tina, Stacy, and Simone.

“What made you do it?” cried a reporter, reaching through the crowd and shoving her microphone in the killer's direction.

The police were trying to hustle him inside, and his lawyer was shouting “No questions!”

But the killer stopped and flashed that rotten smile of his. “Do what?” he asked with exaggerated innocence.

“Murderer! Murderer!” a woman was shrieking off-camera. The killer disappeared into the station, still smiling. He turned to give one last wave to the cameras, his small eyes burning.

I reached over and snapped off the TV. I was sorry I had seen it. Now when I pictured what had happened to Simone, I could picture the killer's face. That smile. It was as if he had been sending a message to me—“I'm still going to get you.”

I went upstairs, brushed my teeth, toweled my hair dry all over again, then climbed into bed. I turned off the light and stared up at the Day-Glo stars I had stuck to my ceiling. Usually they helped make me sleepy. But that night they weren't working. Nothing was.

Was Dad right? Could we all relax a little now? Was it possible that this whole frightening episode was over? Those questions rolling through my mind, I drifted into a restless sleep.

I didn't sleep long.

I was awakened by a loud, insistent knocking on the front door.

I sat bolt upright in bed. I stared at the clock. It was almost midnight.

Was it possible that I only dreamt I had heard someone knocking?

I knew I hadn't. But I waited in bed anyway, hoping I was wrong. The loud knocking was repeated. I got out of bed, grabbed my robe, and started down the stairs.

My mother, tying her robe as well, met me at the landing. My dad was standing in front of the burglar alarm control panel, punching in our code number to shut off the alarm so we could go downstairs without setting off the siren and waking the entire neighborhood. We all exchanged frightened glances and then went down the stairs together.

Dad yanked the door open.

Standing outside in the rain was a grim-faced police officer. He looked past my father to me. “Elizabeth McVay?” he asked.

“That's me,” I said quietly.

“Were you at Rachel West's house tonight?”

My parents both turned to stare at me. “Yes,” I said.

“Well,” the cop said, “I'm afraid I need to talk to you. You were the last person to see her alive.”

“M
aria's rosary,” I said. I made a check on my clipboard. “The captain's whistle. Check.”

I was in the prop room, making sure I had everything for that night's rehearsal. Trying to keep my mind on what I was doing was the hardest part.

It was Thursday night. A week had passed since Rachel's murder. A week that had passed for me in a total daze. I just tried to put one foot in front of the other.

Soon after I had left Rachel's house that rainy Wednesday night, her family left too. Her dad had insisted on taking all the Wests out for ice cream—never mind the rain or that it was nine forty-five.

But Rachel was so upset over Gideon that she had refused to go.

Mr. West asked her nicely, then he begged, pleaded, and even ordered. He isn't the most understanding guy in the world.

Rachel can be as stubborn as her father. There was no way she was going out for ice cream when her boyfriend had just dumped her. “I'd rather die than go!” she yelled at her father.

Of course, those were words her dad will never forget. And he'll probably never forgive himself for leaving Rachel at home alone.

Then again, he thought the killer had been caught. We'd all seen his strange, smiling face on TV.

So Rachel's family had gone out for ice cream without her.

When they got home, Rachel was there.

Facedown on her bedroom floor.

Stabbed to death.

“The picnic basket,” I said out loud. “Check.”

I lowered my head. Now I was remembering Rachel's funeral. I thought the whole school would have been there. But not that many kids showed up. Gideon came. I bet he felt pretty low. He sure gave her a nice farewell present—dumping her for Elana.

They buried her in the new section of the Fear Street cemetery. It started raining again during the ceremony.

I tried focusing my attention on the play. I used to love being up in the prop room. At our school the prop room is way up at the top of the flies—that's
what they call the area above the stage. It's hidden in a corner at the end of the catwalk that goes across the stage. It's so small it feels like a secret attic room. It's filled with all kinds of wild props. There are cardboard boxes stuffed with swords, feathers, old-fashioned phones, canes, every kind of dishware, bells, whistles, even a gun with a flag inside that says “Bang!” when you fire it.

Right then the tiny cramped room struck me as very scary. Who would hear if something happened to me up there? No one.

Then I noticed something peculiar.

The door to a small closet was slightly ajar.

I knew I had closed it after the last rehearsal. I knew because I close all closets until they snap shut. It's a silly habit I have. I like things to be neat. I can't stand a drawer that's half-open or a cupboard door that's half-shut.

I slowly approached the closet. The only thing I could hear was my heart beating.

Slowly I pulled the door open.

A box of papier-mâché masks crashed down and almost clunked me right on the head.

There was no one in the closet. I knelt down and muttered to myself as I checked the masks. Luckily, nothing had been broken.

And that was when the boy's voice behind me said, “Hi, Lizzy.”

I stood up fast. It was Robbie. He was pointing a gun right at my head.

“You're dead,” he said.

He squeezed the trigger. The flag inside the gun popped out. “Bang!” it read.

“Very funny,” I said. “You—nearly scared me to death. Then the joke would have been on you.”

I tried not to let him see how hard I was breathing. But he was eyeing me strangely.

“So,” I said slowly, “what do you want?”

He kept studying me for a moment. Then he said, “Oh, yeah,” and pulled out one of the pieces of yellow paper that he took notes on at every rehearsal. “I forgot to give you this note the other night. The abbey flats are reading too dark under the lights. Could you lighten them up?”

“Sure.”

Then a girl's voice said, “Can you fit one more person in here?”

It was Dawn, her long blond hair tucked up under her nun's wimple. She was the only one wearing a costume that night.

“Maria, aren't you supposed to be getting ready to go onstage?” Robbie said.

“Yeah. I'll go back down in a second. I just needed to check some of my props with Lizzy. I won't be late—promise.”

Robbie crossed off the note he had given me and then inched around Dawn. “Hurry up,” he called back as he moved along the catwalk toward the ladder that led down to the stage.

Dawn and I stared at each other. Something about her expression scared me. “What's up?” I said.

“This was a huge mistake,” she said.

“What was a huge mistake?”

“I never should have agreed to take over Simone's part in the play. Never.”

“Why?”

“Because it's just totally freaking me out, that's why. Wearing a dead girl's costume. Why don't I just wear a big sign that says, ‘Me next!' ”

I started to laugh but caught myself. “I'm scared too,” I told her.

Dawn stared at me hard, as if she were trying to see right through me. “Have you been thinking what I've been thinking?” she asked.

It made me shiver. These past few days, a terrible idea had formed in my mind. Apparently, it had occurred to Dawn as well. “What are you talking about?” I said, pretending I didn't know what she meant.

“First Simone, then Rachel. And that guy who attacked me at the movies.”

“Yeah? So?”

Dawn was still giving me that freaky stare, as if we shared a horrible secret. “Well, do you think someone has set out to kill off the prom queens?”

“The prom queens?” My voice cracked when I said it. “I don't believe it. Why would—”

“You think it's just a coincidence?” Dawn asked incredulously.

“Sure. It could be.”

“It can't be!”

“Maria!” It was Robbie, down in the auditorium. “Places, please.”

“Just a second!” Dawn called down.

“But they caught the guy who—” I began.

“Sure,” Dawn went on, lowering her voice. “But he was already in custody when Rachel was killed. And he won't confess to killing Simone. Come on, Lizzy, it's pretty clear. Somebody else is after us. And I do mean
us.”

Dawn's left eye twitched. I realized she was feeling as scared as I was.

I cleared my throat. “There are only three of us left. You, me, and Elana.”

“So what are we going to do?” Dawn asked, her voice trembling now.

I shook my head. I had no idea. “Look—you'd better get down there,” I said. What I meant was,
I
wanted to get down there myself.

She ignored me. “You know what the scariest thing of all is?”

“Scarier than some freak murdering us one at a time?”

“Uh-huh. The scariest thing of all is, it's probably someone we all know.”

“Well, you've certainly changed your tune,” I told her. “You said I was crazy when I said Lucas—”

I stopped cold as I thought of Lucas stalking me with those crazy dark eyes of his.

“I still don't think it's Lucas,” Dawn said. “I
mean, okay, even if he had a reason for hating Simone, what did he have against Rachel?”

“I don't know.” Then I thought of Mr. Meade's game. Maybe that was the way to find the murderer. Put myself in his shoes, imagine what he was thinking.

I must have looked pretty spacey because Dawn asked, “What are you thinking?”

“Dawn!” Robbie screamed from down below. “Let's go!”

If I were the murderer, I was thinking, Why would I kill off the prom queens one by one?

Then it hit me.

“The money,” I said aloud.

“The money?” Dawn rolled her eyes. “What are you talking about? What money?”

“The three-thousand-dollar scholarship that goes to the winning prom queen. Maybe some guy wants to make sure that his girl wins so he can collect.”

Dawn made a face. “Would you murder four girls for three thousand dollars? I mean, why doesn't he just rob a bank? That makes no sense at all. Wait a minute! I know! Maybe it's some girl who wasn't nominated and who's really bitter.”

“I think the money makes more sense than that.”