by Meg Cabot
I wince. Simon Hague, I want to reply, but I’m too professional.
“Can I have some trash bags, please?” a voice at my elbow asks.
I duck to grab some from beneath the counter.
“Gavin,” I whisper urgently into the phone, “please do as I asked. Leave Howard’s room now, and come back down here with that phone immediately.”
“Oh, hells no, I’m not leaving,” Gavin says. “This is research, dude. I have never seen anyone who makes his bed so damned tight. You could bounce quarters off this shit. This guy’s mom must have warped his brain to make him so anal.”
Mommy issues.
“Gavin.” My throat has gone dry. That’s because as I’ve straightened up to hand over the trash bags, I see the face of the person who’s asked for them.
It’s Howard Chen.
He looks as shocked as I feel. His lips are parted in confusion, his eyes wide, his fingers, on the trash bags I’ve just handed him, white-knuckled.
“Did I hear you tell Gavin to leave my room?” Howard asks. “And to come back down here with a phone?”
“No,” I say quickly, giving a completely fake laugh. “Of course not. Why would Gavin be in your room, Howard? He’s in his own room, on a break, and he’s taking way too long, which is why I’m telling him to get off the phone and get back down here.”
“Uh-oh,” Gavin says in my ear. “Got it. He’s back. Getting out of here, quick.”
There’s a click. Gavin’s hung up.
“Okay, Gavin,” I say, pretending Gavin’s still on the line. “No, I don’t care if you’re talking to your mom, I want you back down here now. I have work to do and need to get back to my office.”
I slam down the handset and roll my eyes at Howard. “God. Gavin’s so annoying sometimes, right? So, you’re going to start moving out, huh, Howard? Is that why you need trash bags? Getting rid of old stuff?”
Howard isn’t falling for my act.
“I know what I heard,” he says in a voice without a hint of humor—much like his face. “You said, ‘leave Howard’s room now, and come back down here with that phone.’ ”
“Now, why would Gavin be in your room, Howard?” I ask, walking over to the pile of newspapers on which I’ve left my purse. My heart has begun thumping a little erratically. Earlier, I had absolutely no intention of taking out the gun Hal insisted I bring to work.
Now I’m even more determined not to. What I need is my cell phone, so that I can discreetly text Pete over at the security desk and have him call 911, as well as Dr. Flynn over at psych services and also campus security.
Howard Chen may indeed be the “lying little punk” Gavin recently accused him of being, and he’s also no doubt a murderer.
But he’s also a student at this college, and a deeply disturbed one at that, who needs our help.
Instead of answering, Howard simply stares at me, his eyes narrowing. The hand on the trash bags is no longer white-knuckled.
This is a good sign. Maybe I’m getting through to him.
“That doesn’t even make any sense,” I say, taking my purse with me as I stroll casually back to the area of the desk where the reception phone sits. I have the best chance of surreptitiously slipping out my personal phone there, without his noticing.
“Why don’t you just go on up to your room and check if you’re so worried about people invading your personal space,” I say to him, confident that Gavin’s long gone from Howard’s room by now. “I’m sure you’ll find it exactly the way you left it.”
“No, I won’t,” Howard says. He’s released the trash bags completely, and slipped both hands into the deep pockets of his hoodie.
“Howard,” I say. I’ve dug my smartphone from the pocket in which I keep it. “I think you’re being a little paranoid. Maybe this whole thing with the president’s office is getting to you. I swear to you it’s going to work out, though.”
Pete, I’m texting as I speak. Howard Chen killed Jasmine. Call 911/Psych/Security. But do not alarm him! Dangerous!
I add a frowny face for emphasis and hit send.
“It’s not going to work out,” Howard says emotionlessly.
“Hey,” Gavin says, panting as he throws open the door to the desk and jogs in. “Sorry that took me so long. Thanks for the break, Heather. I was starving.”
Howard stares at him, dead-eyed. “I thought you were calling your mother.”
Gavin darts a quick glance at me. “Oh, yeah. I grabbed something to eat while I was returning her call.”
“Well, I’m glad you got that straightened out,” I say in a briskly businesslike tone, darting a glance over Howard’s shoulder at Pete. He’s received my text, thrown me a wide-eyed, startled glance, and begun pointing questioningly at Howard, who fortunately doesn’t notice since his back is to the hefty security officer.
“Yes,” I say, nodding energetically. “We definitely have it all straightened out now.”
Pete’s nodding and giving me the thumbs-up as he reaches for the phone on the wall behind him.
“I don’t think we do have this all straightened out, Heather,” Howard says somberly, and draws his smartphone from the pocket of his hoodie. He pushes a button on it.
My heart gives another staggered leap. I don’t know quite what I’m expecting—maybe for the package room to explode—but it certainly isn’t what occurs, which is that Gavin’s pajama bottoms begin playing Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the U.S.A.”
“Oh, shit,” Gavin says, looking down at his pants pocket. The material of his pajamas is so thin, I can see a bright pink phone flashing in his front pocket as the ring tone continues to sound.
Howard holds his smartphone toward me so that I’m able to see the name on the screen of the person he’d dialed.
Jasmine Albright—Emergency Contact.
34
Pretend inferiority and encourage his arrogance.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
What was that you were saying about how Gavin didn’t go into my room?”
Howard’s lower chin has begun to tremble, the way it did in the hall director’s office right before he’d started to cry.
Only this time he doesn’t look like he’s about to cry. He looks furious.
“Howard,” I say. I’ve dropped the act. I’m sincerely frightened over what he might do next. We’ve just proven that he’s killed one person, and probably tried to kill at least one other. There’s no telling what he might do next. “Howard, I’m sorry. We did it because we’re worried about you. We care about you, and we want to get you the help you need.”
“Don’t you get it? It’s too late for help.”
On the word “help,” Howard hurls his cell phone across the lobby. It whizzes so close to a kid who’s strolling into the building, carrying his skateboard, it almost hits him in the face. Instead, it smashes against one of the marble walls near the ornately carved fireplace, which hasn’t been lit since I’ve worked at Fischer Hall.
“Hey, man,” the kid with the skateboard says, giving Howard a dirty look. “What are you trying to do, kill someone?”
Gavin and I exchange wide-eyed glances. Um, yes, actually.
Kyle Cheeseman and Joshua Dungarden enter the building from the protest just in time to see the projectile go flying. Both of them gawk at Howard as well.
“What’s the matter, dude?” Joshua asks, seeing his friend’s face, as well as the expressions on ours, not to mention Pete, who is standing, rigid, behind the security desk. It takes an emergency of some momentousness to cause Pete to stand.
Howard shrugs off the gentle hand Joshua’s laid upon his shoulder.
“I’m not going to jail!” he screams.
Then he runs past his startled friends, as well as the skateboarder and Pete, before the security guard can react. Instead of dashing outside, he heads through the lobby straight into the cafeteria, which I can tell from the busy hum emanating from its open doors has become crowded with late-rising Friday-morning din
ers.
“Shit,” I say, grabbing my purse and tearing out from behind the front desk. “Shit, shit, shit, shit.”
“Heather,” Gavin cries. “Wait. What do you want me to do?”
“Stay there,” I shout, trying to remember from the crisis management seminars I attended over the summer what one is supposed to do in situations like this. The only thing I can recall is a video from Homeland Security that instructed us that, if attacked in our workplace by gunmen, we’re supposed to run, then hide, then, as a last resort, throw a pair of scissors at the attackers.
Tom Snelling and I had laughed until we cried at the idea of throwing a pair of scissors at an armed gunman, particularly the one in the video, who was dressed in full body armor. We’d been asked by Simon Hague, who’d been running the seminar, to leave until we could compose ourselves. We’d gone out for gelato and then shopping for shoes to match my wedding gown. (I’d asked Tom if he wanted to be an honorary bridesmaid, but he’d refused on the grounds of preferring to work behind the scenes to “beautify” me.)
The information from the seminar isn’t very useful in a situation concerning an unarmed, clearly deranged student, even if he has already killed one person, attempted to kill another, and seems ready to kill himself.
I call over my shoulder, “Keep people from going into the dining hall!”
I don’t stick around to see how Gavin processes this information. I follow Pete as he sprints into the cafeteria, shouting into his radio, “We’ve got a ten-fifty in progress at Fischer Hall, I repeat, a ten-fifty who is a danger to himself and probably others. Send units immediately.”
“What’s a ten-fifty?” I ask him.
“Disorderly person,” he says. We’ve stopped in the middle of the cafeteria, where there are quite a few empty tables, but even more that are crowded with freshmen in their pajamas enjoying healthful egg-white omelets. I immediately recognize Kaileigh, who’s apparently taking a break from her busy protesting schedule to have breakfast with her mother and a balding man who can only be her father.
Kaileigh ducks her head when I attempt to make eye contact, however, and pretends not to know who I am as she heads toward the bagel bar. I am now apparently one of the Evil Administrators, and the Enemy.
Great.
Everyone else in the dining hall seems to be staring at us, however (except Mrs. Harris, who is engrossed in what appears to be a frittata). The security guard and the girl with the big purse who’ve come running in for no evident reason are the source of a great deal of interest and whispered speculation.
“I don’t really know how else to classify him,” Pete is going on. “Disorderly seems good. I could have said it was an assault, but he hasn’t really assaulted anyone . . . today, anyway.”
I feel that Pete is overthinking things. “Do you see him anywhere?”
I’m scanning the tables, the bagel bar, the fresh-fruit spa water bar, and the hot food line. There are people everywhere, but none of them is Howard.
“No. Do you?”
“I’m guessing he ducked through the kitchen doors and out the back exit.”
“Crap,” Pete says with a sigh as he begins trundling toward the kitchen door. “Why do they always have to run? I hate running.”
“Mi amor.” Magda approaches us, having abandoned her post by the ID scanner. “Heather. What are you two doing in here? And why do you look so sweaty?”
“Did a kid just run through here?” Pete asks. “Asian kid in a hoodie?”
Magda shrugs. “I don’t know, I was busy, the guy is here.” She points at “the guy,” who turns out to be the snack-cake deliveryman. He is stuffing fresh delicious fruit pies and chocolate cakes into the snack rack. I try not to let this distract me, but register it for later, since I still have some declining dollars left on my ID card. “I didn’t see anything. What did this boy do? Try to sneak into the building? Is he a deliveryman? Is he from Charlie Mom’s? Is he trying to put menus under all the doors again?”
“No, Magda,” I say. “He lives here. He’s troubled. We want to help him.”
Actually, he’s a murderer and we want to incarcerate him, but it would probably be a violation of his student right to privacy to share this in front of the table of sleepy freshmen girls who are sitting nearby.
“Oh, poor little movie star,” Magda says, looking sad. “If I see him, I’ll let you know.”
“We saw him,” one of the first-year girls chimes in. She has red hair and freckles. “In the Harvard hoodie? He ran over there.” She points in the direction of the door to the kitchen.
Pete sighs. “I knew it. He ran. Okay, I’ll go. You stay here, Heather, in case he circles back this way. Also in case the cops show up. Tell them where I am.” He hustles off—speed-walking more than running—the leather of his duty belt creaking.
“Cops?” The freshmen girls look thrilled and frightened at the same time. “What’d this guy do? Did he rape someone?”
“No,” I assure them, though of course the truth is going to come out soon enough. “The police want to ask him some questions, is all.”
“Oh.” The girls look disappointed, until Red Hair and Freckles points again. “There he is! He didn’t go through the door! He was hiding!”
Unbelievably, when I glance in the direction she’s pointing, I see that she’s correct. Howard is slinking out from beneath a cafeteria table, his gaze on the door through which Pete’s just left. Looking relieved, Howard is straightening up and tugging on his hoodie. He begins sauntering back toward the lobby, apparently considering only the security guard a threat to his freedom.
Well, he’s in for a surprise.
“You!” Magda says, pointing at him with one long, metallic-gold nail. “Stop and talk to this lady.” The fingernail turns toward me.
Howard freezes, his eyes widening in surprise. All his attention had been concentrated on Pete. Apparently, he hadn’t even realized I was in the room until just now.
The entire cafeteria falls silent, including everyone working behind the steam tables. No serving forks scrape. Not even a coffee cup rattles as it returns to a tray.
“Howard,” I say, moving toward him. “I’m not here to hurt you—” I add this as he takes a step back for every one I take forward. “But I’m not going to allow you to leave either. You need help, and we’re going to make sure you get it. That’s why we’re here.”
“That’s not why you’re here,” Howard says in a voice that shakes. “I know why you’re here. To take me to jail. Well, I don’t need that kind of help!”
He whirls around and tears off in the direction of the hot food line, colliding with the fresh-fruit spa water bar on his way, which he destroys—on purpose to keep me and whoever else might be in pursuit—by overturning, one by one, first the watermelon water dispenser, then the honeydew (both flavors of the day).
The oversize glass watercoolers go crashing to the floor, sending gallons of water, sharp splinters of glass, ice, and chunks of melon everywhere.
The silence in the cafeteria is broken. Magda screams. So do the first-year girls at Red Hair and Freckles’s table. By now everyone in the cafeteria is aware that there’s a madman on the loose. They do exactly as we were instructed to do by the crisis management video from Homeland Security: they run, streaming through the open doors to the lobby.
All except for the few people who have the misfortune to be behind the water bar. That includes everyone standing in line for hot food. They scatter as they see Howard coming, some ducking beneath the counter and joining Jimmy, who’s waved for them to join him in the kitchen, and others making a run around Howard for the lobby, only to find themselves slipping and falling on the spilled water and melon, cutting themselves painfully on the broken glass.
Magda, who’s bravely remained behind, rushes forward to help them up, with napkins for them to press against the wounds.
Unfortunately, Howard seems focused on a single area of the dining hall, and one resident standing besid
e it can seem to neither run nor hide. Kaileigh Harris is frozen in place at the bagel bar, a newly toasted English muffin in one hand (I got the last bagel) and a butter knife in the other, staring wide-eyed at Howard as he lurches toward her.
My heart sinks. Oh, no. Not Kaileigh. Anyone but Kaileigh.
For a second Howard comes so close to her, it seems as if he means to snatch her muffin. Kaileigh, who obviously doesn’t understand what’s going on (who would?), drops the butter knife and holds the English muffin toward him, as if to say, Here. Is this what you want? Take it. It’s a little like watching a child fall into the gorilla pen at the zoo, then seeing the child offer the enraged gorilla his balloon.
Bread isn’t what Howard wants. He slaps the toast from Kaileigh’s hand, reaches past her, and grabs the large serrated knife sitting on the cutting board behind her.
Oh God, no, I think as from somewhere in the cafeteria, I hear Kaileigh’s mother scream in a voice that sounds as if it’s been ripped from the depths of her soul, “Kaileigh!”
It’s too late though. Kaileigh turns huge, frightened eyes in the direction of her mother’s voice. I see her lips murmur the word “Mom?”
A second later, Howard has one arm around her narrow waist, and the edges of the serrated knife at her throat.
35
I love him.
Does he love me?
Enough to last an eternity?
In thirty days, we’ll pledge our troth
Unless something happens
To call it off
“Wedding Jitters,”
written by Heather Wells
I’ll kill her!” Howard shouts at everyone around him, which, it turns out, is only me and Kaileigh. Everyone else has run away, or is keeping a wide, respectful distance.
“Please don’t,” I say to him softly.
I have melon stuck to the bottom of my shoe because I’ve raced through the broken watercoolers. I’m standing only ten feet away from him. I can see each tear as it slides down Kaileigh’s cheek.
“I’ll slit her carotid artery and she’ll bleed out before you can get her to a hospital,” Howard says. “Your common carotid is the artery in your throat that you check for your pulse. If it’s slit, all your blood pulses out, and you die. Is that what you want? For this girl to die right here in front of you?”
