Killer's Kiss

by R. L. Stine

  She touched the side of her head and held up her blood-smeared fingers. “Look at my head! My dress is torn. My knees are skinned.” She stared hard at Karina. “So how can you say I’m a liar?”

  “Noooooo!” Karina let out a long howl. She dove at Delia.

  But Vincent jumped between them. “Karina …” Vincent hesitated. “We’re going to do everything we can to get you the help you need.”

  Karina threw herself at Vincent. She pounded on his chest with both fists. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” she chanted. “I hate you! I hate you all!”

  With one more furious roar, she spun away from him. Her eyes wild, her hair flying behind her, she turned and pushed through the double doors.

  They slammed behind her.

  “Someone stop her!” Stewart cried.

  Gabe grabbed Britty’s arm. The two of them darted after Karina.

  “I’ll go find a phone. I’ll try to call her parents,” Stewart volunteered. “We have to stop her—before she does something else that’s horrible!”

  Delia watched Stewart run out the door. Then she sank against Vincent.

  “Let’s get you home,” Vincent said softly. “We have to take care of those cuts.”

  Delia sighed and pulled back. “Let’s just rest for a moment,” she whispered weakly. “I—I can’t believe what she did to me. I can’t believe she’d go this far …”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Delia inhaled deeply. She loved the smell of a new tube of lipstick.

  She stroked a coat of Midnight Wine over her full lips and checked her dresser mirror. “Perfect,” she murmured. She picked a tissue from the box on her dresser and blotted her lips. She dropped the tissue on the floor.

  “What do you think?” Delia turned to face Britty. Her friend perched on Delia’s bed, swinging her legs.

  “You sure look better than you did last night!” Britty declared. “It’s hard to believe you’re the same person.”

  Britty bounced up and paced around the room. “Last night when I saw you with all the blood on your face, I thought …”

  Britty shuddered. Her eyes glistened with tears.

  Britty is such a great friend, Delia told herself.

  “I love your outfit,” Britty said.

  Delia could tell Britty wanted to change the subject. She didn’t mind. Delia didn’t want to think about last night, either. She hoped that someday she would be able to forget all about it.

  “Only you could get away with wearing those colors together,” Britty teased.

  Delia ran her fingers down her purple, pink, yellow, and brown sweater. One of her favorites. Then she heard a honk from in front of the house.

  “Gabe’s here,” Britty announced. “Are you sure you feel well enough to be on Vincent’s clean-up crew?”

  “Definitely,” Delia answered. She grabbed her purse, and they headed to the front door. “The last thing I want to do is sit around by myself. All I would do is think about Karina. Every time I hear a tiny noise in the house, I think she is coming after me.”

  “Did you tell your parents?” Britty asked.

  “Of course. But I wouldn’t let them go to the police. They’re going to ‘discuss’ it with her parents. Karina needs help.”

  Delia opened the door and stepped out into the sunshine. She took a deep breath of the fresh, chilly air. “Last night when I was tied up in Karina’s room, I thought I would never escape. I couldn’t imagine being outside again. Or hanging out with my friends. I was so terrified.”

  Britty wrapped her arm around Delia’s shoulders as they made their way to Gabe’s car. “I know I was only there a few hours,” Delia continued. “But it felt like days. And I kept wondering what Karina planned to do … What she planned to do to me when she came home from the party.”

  They climbed into the car. “I brought us some doughnuts to eat on the way over,” Gabe said, passing the box. “How are you doing?” he asked Delia. He met Delia’s eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “Better,” she said.

  Gabe nodded.

  Delia stared out the window as they approached the house on Fear Street where Vincent had held his party the night before. Delia’s stomach tightened into a knot.

  Delia wrapped her arms around herself and leaned her forehead against the cold glass of the window. Gabe parked the car in front of the house.

  They climbed out of the car. Gabe popped open the trunk, and they pulled out a couple of brooms and some big garbage bags.

  “Vincent?” Gabe called as they made their way into the gloomy house.

  No answer.

  “Vincent had better be here,” Gabe said. “I’m not cleaning up the whole place before he arrives.”

  “Vincent!” Britty called.

  No answer.

  They took a few more steps inside the house. “He said he would be here early, right?” Britty asked.

  “That’s what he told me when he took me home last night,” Delia said. She poked her head into the huge ballroom. Soda cans, empty pizza boxes, and empty chicken buckets littered the floor.

  The helium balloons that had clung to the ceiling last night now hovered at eye level. Delia pushed a balloon aside and crossed the big room.

  “Vincent!” she yelled. “We’ve got a lot of work to do!”

  “He must not be here yet,” Britty said. “Let’s wait outside for him. This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Okay,” Delia answered. She turned—and froze.

  “Oh nooooo!” Britty wailed. She saw it too.

  Saw Vincent. Facedown. On the floor. Surrounded by empty soda cans and pizza boxes.

  “Vincent—?” Delia uttered.

  And then she was down on her knees beside his still body.

  “Vincent? Vincent? Vincent?”

  “Is he—is he breathing?” Gabe choke out.

  Delia reached out and ran her fingers along his cheek. His skin felt cool.

  She pressed her fingers against his throat. Nothing. No pulse.

  Nothing. Nothing …

  “He’s dead,” Delia whispered. “Vincent is dead.”

  Chapter

  21

  Gabe crouched beside her. He pulled back Vincent’s shoulder, then gently returned it to the floor. “Somebody stabbed him—stabbed him in the chest.”

  “Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!” Britty wailed.

  “Vincent … Vincent … Vincent …” Delia rocked back and forth, repeating his name.

  Gabe stood up and pulled Delia to her feet. “We have to get out of here. We have to call the police.”

  “Vincent … Vincent … Vincent …” Delia repeated.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Delia stuffed her hands deep into her pockets. She huddled on the front porch of the old house with Gabe and Britty. Waiting for the police—and their parents—to arrive.

  “Maybe we should go wait in the car,” Gabe said. “It’s pretty cold out here.”

  “No,” Britty insisted. “I’m too nervous to sit still.”

  “Here they come anyway,” Delia announced. A black-and-white cruiser pulled up in front of the house. Two officers slid out and strode up the walkway.

  “I’m Detective Bender,” one of the men told them. He gestured to his tall, skinny partner. “And that’s Detective Jamison. You reported a murder?”

  “One of our friends. He’s been stabbed. We didn’t move him or anything,” Gabe answered.

  “What were you kids doing out here anyway? This place has been deserted for at least a year,” Detective Jamison said. His angular face held a grim expression.

  “We explained that on the phone,” Delia replied. “Vincent … he’s the one who … who’s been killed. He gave a party here last night. We all came over this morning to help him clean up. That’s when we found him.”

  Britty shifted from one foot to the other, chewing on a piece of her hair. “We called you right away!”

  “Show us,” Detective Bender instructed.

  Delia and G
abe led the way inside. Britty trailed behind the detectives.

  Delia’s heart beat against her ribs.

  A helium balloon brushed against Delia’s arms. She hated the feel of the rubbery skin. She pointed to Vincent’s body.

  “Stay back,” Detective Jamison ordered. He pulled on a pair of thin plastic gloves. He knelt beside Vincent and studied him for a long moment without touching him. Then the detective rolled Vincent onto his back.

  Delia squeezed her eyes shut. She heard Britty gasp.

  “A knife into his chest,” one of the detectives noted. “One stab between the ribs. Another into the heart.”

  Delia’s eyes locked on the handle of the large knife sticking out of Vincent’s chest. Most of the blade was buried in his body.

  She moved her eyes slowly up Vincent’s body. Over the blood matted on his green sweater. A circle of dark blood on the green sweater. The sweater she gave him for Christmas. The one she chose so carefully.

  Her eyes traveled up to his mouth. It was frozen open, in a silent howl of terror.

  She studied his eyes next. Vincent’s eyes. They stared up at her blankly.

  “Delia,” Britty whispered.

  Delia followed Britty’s gaze down to Vincent’s cheek.

  To the lip print on his pale cheek.

  A purple lip print.

  Midnight Wine.

  “Delia, that’s your lipstick!” Britty cried.

  Chapter

  22

  Both detectives turned to Delia. They narrowed their eyes to study her lips.

  Her purple lipstick.

  Then they stared down at the purple lip print on Vincent’s cheek.

  “No!” Delia gasped, raising her hands to her face.

  Detective Jamison scribbled something in his little spiral notebook.

  “When was the last time you saw the boy?” Detective Bender asked.

  “He … he drove me home last night,” Delia replied shakily. “We got to my house at about onethirty.”

  “When I showed up at Delia’s this morning, she still had on her pajamas,” Britty volunteered. Her voice sounded high and squeaky. Nervous. “She couldn’t have been here early this morning. I know she hadn’t been awake long—”

  “And we all drove over here together,” Gabe chimed in.

  “We’ll need all three of you to give us statements,” the tall detective told them. “For now I want you to stay here and wait for your parents. You called them—right?”

  Delia and the others nodded.

  They turned away from the body.

  “Everyone at Shadyside High knows that I always wear Midnight Wine,” Delia said quietly. “Somebody wanted me to appear guilty. I wonder who …”

  A man with two cameras strapped around his neck hurried over to Vincent’s body. A woman with super-short blond hair followed him. She carried a small briefcase with her. Delia watched as she kneeled, set the case down near the body, flipped it open, and began taking fingerprints and collecting fibers.

  “Karina has been so out-of-control,” Delia whispered to her friends. “She—she tied me to her bed to keep me from Vincent’s party. But you don’t think she killed Vincent—do you?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” Gabe replied, shaking his head.

  “Why would she do it?” Britty asked thought fully. “She was crazy about Vincent. Crazy enough to tie you up. So why would she kill him?”

  “Delia, try to stay calm when you talk to the police,” Gabe whispered. “Just tell them the truth. You don’t have anything to worry about. And don’t start accusing Karina. Let them find out the truth. If you start accusing Karina, you’ll sound—”

  “What?” Delia demanded, her voice low and hard.

  Gabe hesitated. “Guilty,” he muttered. “You’ll sound as if you’re trying to throw the blame on someone else.”

  “You think I killed him?” Delia asked shrilly.

  “No way!” Gabe protested.

  “Of course not!” Britty echoed.

  “I just don’t want you to look bad to the police. When they are ready to question us, we’ll tell them everything that happened at the party,” Gabe said. “They can talk to every person there if they want to.”

  “Here comes one of the detectives,” Britty announced.

  Detective Bender hurried toward them. Now what? Delia wondered. She couldn’t stand being in this room much longer. So close to Vincent’s body.

  If I have to stay much longer, she thought, I’ll start screaming. I know I won’t be able to stop. They will have to drag me out of here in a straitjacket.

  “Your parents are out front,” the detective told her. “I’d like you all to come back to the office with me and answer some questions.”

  Delia stared at him. His blue eyes narrowed, studying her face. They reminded Delia of X-ray machines. He can study the inside of my head, she thought. He knows everything that’s going on in there.

  That’s crazy, Delia scolded herself.

  “You and your parents can ride in my car,” Detective Bender said. He gazed at the bruises on Delia’s wrists. “I think you probably have a lot to tell me, Delia.”

  Delia suddenly lost control. “I didn’t do it! I know that’s what you think!” she blurted out. Her voice echoed in the empty room.

  “I see you staring at the purple lipstick on his cheek!” Delia cried. “You think I killed him. You all think it. But I didn’t do it! I didn’t! Doesn’t anyone believe me?”

  Chapter

  23

  “I told you already.” Delia sighed. “I drove to the house with Gabe and Britty,” Delia answered. “We all walked in together. To help Vincent clean up. I … I don’t remember who saw him lying on the floor first. I guess it was me.”

  Delia had her elbows on the table, her head resting in her hands. There was no air in the tiny room. The ceiling light glared in her eyes.

  Didn’t they get tired of hearing the same story over and over again? What would it take to make them believe her?

  Detective Jamison signaled Detective Bender from outside the interviewing room. “I’ll be right back, and we’ll go over all this again,” he said.

  Delia slumped back in the hard wooden chair. She stared around the room. She needed something to take her mind off the police and all their questions.

  But the cork bulletin board across from her was empty—except for dozens and dozens of tiny pinholes. And everything else in the room seemed to have been dipped in a big can of tan paint. Tan walls, tan chairs, tan table, tan floor.

  A jar of powdered creamer, a stack of napkins, packets of sugar, and some coffee stirrers stood at one end of the table. Nothing else. Delia poured a little of the creamer onto the table and drew tiny pictures in it with one of the stirrers.

  I’m going nuts in here, Delia thought. She chipped some of the nail polish off her thumb. Then she reached for her purse. She pulled out a tube of Midnight Wine.

  Wait! What am I doing?

  Now is not the time to be touching up my lipstick!

  Delia tapped her fingernails against the tabletop. They can’t really think I’m guilty. Everyone at school knows how much I cared about Vincent.

  But they did suspect her.

  She knew they did.

  She could tell by the way they watched her. By the way they asked the same questions again and again.

  An officer entered the room. He didn’t say a word to Delia. He strode over to the corkboard and pinned two photos on it. Then he turned and left.

  Delia leaned forward and studied the photos. Photos just taken at the house on Fear Street.

  One showed the purple lip print on Vincent’s cheek. The other showed a close-up of Delia’s face.

  Detective Jamison and Detective Bender entered the room. They sat down across from Delia. Both turned to study the photos.

  “Well, what do you know?” Detective Bender commented. He leaned across the table. “I think your parents had better call an attorney for y
ou, Delia.”

  “Huh?” Delia’s temples throbbed. She jerked straight up in the chair. “What do you mean?”

  “Take a look at your lips and the lip print on the body,” Officer Jamison said softly.

  Officer Bender shook his head. “They’re a perfect match.”

  Chapter

  24

  “T hey—they match?” Delia gasped. “But … that’s impossible!”

  She took a deep breath. Tried to force herself to stay calm. Sounding panicked would only make things worse. It would only make her appear more guilty.

  She could feel sweat dripping down her forehead. She grabbed a napkin off the table and blotted it away.

  She studied the photos. Yes. Her lips and the lip print were definitely identical. No mistaking that.

  “It doesn’t make any sense,” Delia insisted. “I’m telling you—I didn’t kill Vincent. Why would I kiss him—and then kill him?”

  “You tell us,” Detective Bender replied sharply. His voice held a new coldness.

  Detective Jamison flipped through the pages of his little spiral notebook. Reviewing his notes.

  Delia shredded the paper napkin between her fingers. Then she reached for another.

  How can I convince them? she thought. How?

  She ripped up another napkin and let the shreds fall to the table.

  Detective Bender heaved himself out of the chair and leaned across the table. “The lips match perfectly,” he told her. “Pictures don’t lie. Why don’t you tell us—”

  “No.” Detective Jamison interrupted him. He gazed at Delia sternly. “Don’t say another word. Not until your parents get an attorney here.”

  Delia snatched another napkin from the pile on the table. She didn’t shred it. She crumpled it into a ball and held it clenched in her hand.

  Stay calm, she ordered herself. You must stay calm.

  She crossed over to the bulletin board. The photo of Vincent’s cheek made her eyes sting with tears. How many times had she seen him with a Midnight Wine lip print on his face?

  We had so many good times together, she thought. Hanging out in the Burger Barn after school. Dancing close at Red Heat. Snuggling on the couch in his family room.