“No,” he said. “It’s too much trouble. But once when I was younger I saw a cat’s grave with a headstone on it, and I thought it was a good joke. So this time I copied it.” He gave a mock bow. “I did it especially for you, Jess. Now … how about that glass of iced tea?”
“No.”
“Come on, Jess,” Mark coaxed. “Make it easy on both of us. The police will find the remains of oleander on Mr. Chambelin’s sink, and we’ll all mourn the fact that you had iced tea with a senile old man who brewed oleander in with the tea bags. I might even be the hero who finds your bodies and tries to save your lives by calling an ambulance … which arrives too late, of course.”
“No!”
But Mark glowed with excitement. “I’ll take your place as head of the volunteer committee. I’ll be a model citizen. I might go so far as to visit the children’s ward once in a while and pat a few little heads, but they better behave. Kids and cats remind me of each other. Now … there’s a drinking glass, and there’s the pitcher of tea. Pour it, Jess.”
I was no longer frightened just for myself. Through a red haze my terror became a fireball. Mark was a murderer. He was not going to get near those children!
His grip on my shoulder tightened painfully, but I swung my arm out, knocking over the pitcher. The tea gushed across the table, dripping on the carpet.
Furious, Mark yelled and shoved me, and I fell, hitting my head on the bookcase that divided the alcove from the living room. For a moment I couldn’t see, and I felt myself slipping sideways, spinning around and around and … No! I repeated over and over as I fought to regain consciousness. I heard voices, and I opened my eyes. Now Mark had lost interest in me. Instead he faced the open front door.
“You’re not going to hurt her,” Scott said. “I won’t let you.”
Mark laughed. “I’m taller and outweigh you by at least fifteen pounds. What makes you think you can take me on?”
“You’ve made a terrible mistake, Mark. Whatever your plans are, you’re not smart enough to carry them out.”
“You’re wrong about that. No one is smarter or more clever than me. Of course I use my genius in the wrong way. A team of doctors told me I am a sociopath. You didn’t know that, did you?”
“I knew.”
For a moment Mark’s bravado faltered. “You expect me to believe you figured that out? Ha! How could you know?”
“For years I’ve followed you. Ever since you terrorized my cousin’s neighborhood. Ever since you murdered him.… He was like a brother to me. Paulie was only a child, and you murdered him.”
Mark broke in. “You’ve got that all wrong. I remember what happened. It was his fault, not mine. The jury agreed it was self-defense on my part.”
“It doesn’t matter that some lawyer was able to make the jury buy your lies. You know, and so do I, what really took place.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Mark insisted, but Scott went on.
“At first I followed what you were doing through neighborhood gossip. We were aware each time you were arrested, and we dreaded each time you were released on probation. Then, when I was old enough to take the money I’d saved and go off on my own, I made sure I knew where you were. I vowed to myself you’d never go free.”
Mark hesitated. “I don’t believe you. I helped the FBI. The protected witness program is totally secret.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Scott paused only a few seconds, to let what he had said sink in. “No one suspects a kid in jeans. No one pays any attention to him. The Feds bought you that old Chevy on the same used-car lot in Houston where I bought my Ford. I just followed your aunt and uncle.”
Mark took a step to steady himself. His face paled. “If you could follow me, then …” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
“The people you testified against could be after you, too. And I bet they’re not as nice as I am.” Scott said. “Which is it going to be—them or me?”
Slowly, silently, I pulled myself upright, hoping Mark wouldn’t notice. If Scott could keep Mark talking, maybe I could make it out the back door and run for help. I slid a few inches to my left.
But Mark saw me. Before I had time to react, he whirled to grab my arm, then snatched the parrot pitcher from the table, smashing it. He held aloft the handle with its heavy bottom broken into jagged points of glass.
“Back off!” he warned Scott.
“Mark,” I pleaded, “Scott isn’t going to hurt you.”
“He thinks he is,” Mark said. “He came to get revenge.”
“No,” I said. “He wouldn’t.” I begged Scott, “Listen to me, please. Revenge isn’t the answer. It’s never the answer. It just leads to more hurt, to more killing, to more—”
“Shut up!” Mark yelled, and shoved me to the floor. I landed so hard I bit my tongue. I could taste the blood in my mouth.
Through all this Scott hadn’t moved. Quietly he said, “I didn’t come to get revenge, Jess. I came to make sure Mark didn’t ruin any other lives.” He glanced at Mr. Chamberlin and shook his head. “I guess I failed. When I saw Mark had killed Peaches, I knew he was still sick.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Mark yelled. For a long moment he breathed heavily through his mouth, his eyes on Scott.
“Come with me, Mark,” Scott coaxed. “Let’s get help for you. Let’s call the police.”
Suddenly Mark lunged for Scott and slammed him in the side of the head with the broken pitcher.
Scott dropped to the floor and lay without moving. I could see a thin trickle of blood creeping down the side of his face.
“Scott!” I cried, and tried to crawl toward him.
Mark grabbed my arm and jerked me to my feet. Holding the jagged edge of the pitcher toward me, he snapped, “Get up, Jess. Come with me. Don’t give me any trouble.”
“Where?” I asked, trying to stall for time. Someone notice that blinking alarm light and come to help! Someone! Please!
Mark gleamed with the smile Mom had said was charming. “I’m going to satisfy your curiosity, Jess. You wanted to see the ancient cemetery in the woods, didn’t you?”
“Scott said it didn’t exist.”
Mark shook his head sadly. “Poor Scott. He wasn’t telling you the truth. He’s a liar. I’m not.”
“He was trying to protect me.”
“He isn’t doing a very good job of it, is he?” Mark laughed and stepped over Scott, pulling me with him. “He’ll be out until I get back to take care of him.”
As we went down the porch steps, Mark moved close to me, the glass shards jammed against my side. I glanced toward my house, but he said, “Your father’s at the golf club, and your mother’s out shopping. We had a nice neighborly visit before she left, which gave me a chance to tell her you had gone to visit Lori.”
I tensed, trying to think. There are other people around who might hear me if I yell, if I—
“I can read your thoughts, Jess,” Mark said with a chuckle. “I’ll give you just one warning. Don’t scream.”
Within a few minutes we had passed through our empty neighborhood and plunged into the woods.
“Please,” I begged, as I struggled to follow Mark over the uneven ground, lumpy with roots and shrubs and an occasional rock, “please don’t go past Pepper’s grave. It hurts me to see it, to guess what you did to Pepper.”
“I’ll be glad to describe every detail to you,” Mark said, but when I began to whimper, the glee left his voice. “I can’t understand how people can care so much for a stupid animal.”
“That’s because you don’t know how to care for anything or anyone,” I told him.
“That’s true,” Mark said, as though we were having nothing more than a class discussion. “I’ve heard about love and read about love, but I’ve never experienced it. I’ve never loved anyone.”
“Not even your parents?”
“Especially my parents.”
“Your aunt and uncle gave up their own lives to come here for you.”
“That’s their problem, not mine.”
Mark yanked me over a fallen tree trunk and steadied me as I stumbled. There, in front of us, were the two small graves. “Cat-size,” he said. “Child-size.”
I shuddered, and he laughed.
“Pull yourself together, Jess,” Mark said. “We’re going only a little farther. I want you to see the graves we talked about.”
“The settlers? You really found them?”
“I did. There’s no way of telling whose graves they were, though. Wooden crosses would have disintegrated long ago. There were a couple of stones with names carved on them, but the small cemetery is a mess—a tangle of vines and weeds and underbrush. One grave has completely fallen in.”
He paused and smiled with delight. “Considering my change of plans, the sunken grave is made to order. The perfect final resting place for you. An original settler. A goody-goody from the Old World.”
CHAPTER
sixteen
I dug in my heels and said, “I’m not going with you to be killed—are you crazy?”
“Don’t call me that. You haven’t got a choice.” Mark’s voice was vicious. He held up the pitcher threateningly.
“I have two choices,” I said. “I can give in or I can fight. I’m not going to let you kill me without a fight.”
“Look,” Mark said, his voice changed now, “this isn’t my fault, Jess. It’s yours. Don’t blame me. Blame yourself.”
“Everybody’s going to blame you!” I caught a flash of movement behind Mark and thought I heard a twig snap. Was someone coming? I talked more and more loudly, trying to keep Mark’s attention on me. “The police are going to blame you! The whole world is going to blame you! You are the one with the evil eyes!”
“Stop shouting! No one’s going to hear you!”
“I can shout if I want to! If I’m going to die, I’m going to scream as I go.”
I twisted, driving my arm toward his thumb and breaking his grip. I jumped to one side just as Scott and Eric leaped into the clearing.
“Stand back!” Mark waved his chunk of broken glass at them.
The two of them stood half-crouched, arms extended, ready to spring.
Mark had a weapon that could kill; Scott and Eric faced him bare-handed.
In a flash I thought of my cat and the children who would be in danger and poor dead Mr. Chamberlin. I stiffened my right hand and brought it down in a hard chop against Mark’s bent elbow. He yelled, his hand fell, and he dropped what was left of the pitcher.
Before he could react, with all my might, I socked him in the stomach.
Giddy with success, I waited for him to go ooof! and bend double so I could bring my clenched hands up hard under his chin. But Eric and Scott were suddenly on top of him in a wild scramble, and I was shoved out of the way.
I grabbed the pitcher’s handle, snatching it up so that no one would roll on it, and when Mark’s head rose from the scuffle, I banged it with what was left of the smooth, heavy glass bottom. He went down without a sound.
As soon as Scott and Eric realized the fight was over, they got to their feet.
“You were great, Jess,” Eric said in awe.
“We’ve got to get him to the police,” Scott said.
“I’ll go,” Eric said.
Scott shook his head. “He may come to, and for safety’s sake we should stick together. Jess, you and Eric each take one of his hands, and I’ll take his feet. We’ll carry him out of the woods.”
“He’s heavy,” I said. “He’ll be hard to lift. He might bump and scrape along the ground.”
Eric gave Mark a disgusted look. “I have no problem with that,” he said. “Do you?”
I answered by grabbing Mark’s right hand. Slowly, and with great difficulty, we carried him from the woods. We yelled as we neared the edge of the woods, “Help! Someone call the police!”
WE TOLD THE police the entire story while we were waiting for my parents to pick us up.
Scott explained, “Sorry it took so long to get to you, Jess. We had to make sure there was nothing we could do for Mr. Chamberlin.”
I turned to Eric. “How’d you get involved?”
“Remember, I told you I’d get that information to you as soon as it all came in. If you only had a fax …”
“If I had a fax, you wouldn’t have been there to help.”
“Good point,” Eric said. “Anyhow, I was bringing the material over to your house when I saw that alarm light flashing. I ran to see if whoever lived there was in trouble. I found Scott there rubbing his head. He filled me in on what had happened.” Eric thought a moment. “My dad keeps telling me that reality is more interesting than virtual reality. I suppose I’ll have to tell him that I concede in this one situation, at least.”
“Well, thanks, Eric,” I said. “You came off the Internet long enough to save us. Why don’t you balance your online hours with people hours?”
Eric actually looked pleased. “People hours may be a possibility. I’ll give it some serious thought,” he said.
I said to Scott, “I’m glad I heard what you told the police. Some of my questions about you were answered. You didn’t even know Edna Turner. You just picked her name out of the newspaper.”
Scott stared at me in surprise. “You actually thought that I …?”
“Well, it was pretty confusing,” I admitted. “Guess you won’t be coming back to Oakberry High.” I thought how sad Lori would feel. “When you told the police your real name, you said you graduated from high school two years ago.” I changed the subject quickly. “What’s it like being a freelance writer? Do you make enough money to support yourself?”
One eyebrow arched as Scott answered me, and I blushed. “Not nearly enough,” he said. “That’s why I’ll be leaving to go on to college as soon as I know that Mark Malik—or Wayne Arthur Randall—will be kept from harming anyone else.”
I heard Mom’s voice raised over a sudden hubbub out in the hallway. I quickly said, “Lori is going to miss you.”
Scott stood. “I’d like to be the one to tell her,” he said, and strode from the room.
I heard Mom shout, “Why do we have to wait to talk to the detective in charge? I want my daughter … now!”
“My parents are really upset,” I said to Eric.
He grinned. “No surprise. Mine will be, too. But they kept telling me to get a life. They’ll have nothing to complain about.”
Eric’s grin reminded me of how terrific I had thought he was when I was in seventh grade, and I realized my opinion hadn’t changed a bit. “Thanks again, Eric.” I put a hand on his arm. “I’d like to learn more about all the things you can find on the Internet. Maybe you’ll teach me.”
“Glad to.” Eric beamed.
“First, could you answer a question that’s really bugging me? Why is it that Scott’s fake background was easy to detect? And Scott’s the good guy. But Mark—or Wayne, the dangerous sociopath—had a perfect background, with nothing left out?”
“Scott took what is called the Tombstone Theory and didn’t know it could be broken down so easily. The Feds set up Mark’s ID, and they’re pros at the job. They don’t make mistakes.”
I pictured Mark standing over Mr. Chamberlin and smiling. And I saw in my mind the graves of Peaches and Pepper. I shuddered. “Oh, yes, they do,” I said. “This time they made a big one.”
JOAN LOWERY NIXON has been called the grande dame of young adult mysteries. She is the author of more than 130 books for young readers and is the only four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel. She received the award for The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore, The Séance, The Name of the Game Is Murder, and The Other Side of Dark, which also won the California Young Reader Medal.
From.Net
Don't Scream (9780307823526) Page 12
