No Time to Die ds-3

by Элизабет Чандлер

  I gazed at the brass key Brian dropped in my hand.

  "No, it isn't ethical," he added as if he'd read my thoughts, "and I don't care. All I care about is you seeing what you're dealing with." He took my face in his hands. "Believe me, Jenny, I don't want you to go. New York is a long way from here. But I think you're taking big chances."

  "I'm not ready to leave yet."

  "This afternoon ought to make you ready." He let go and glanced around. "We'd better eat."

  We gulped down our food and Maggie called everyone in. Brian returned my tray and his to the cafeteria, sending me ahead to the theater. I joined Tomas and Shawna at the back of a crowd filing into Stoddard. Too late I noticed that Mike was in front of them. I fussed with my backpack and pretended not to see him.

  "Hello," Mike said cheerfully.

  I hoped he was speaking to someone else.

  "Hello, Jenny. Is anyone home?"

  Shawna and Tomas laughed at his question.

  I glanced up. "Hi."

  "Did you have a nice lunch?" he asked.

  Had he been watching? I wondered.

  "We were going to join you," Shawna said, her eyes bright with teasing, "but Tomas said it looked like a tree-for-two, so we didn't."

  Tomas gave a little shrug and smile, then followed Shawna into the building. Mike stayed behind and caught me with a light hand before I could enter.

  He stood close, his neck and shoulders blocking out the light, making me acutely aware of his size and strength. When I glanced up at his face, I saw his eyes following a trickle of sweat down my neck.

  "For a moment during lunch," he said, "I was afraid you were going to have another accident."

  My cheeks got hot. "Must have been a pretty boring lunch," I replied. "I hope your dinner is better."

  Chapter sixteen

  Soon after we came back from our three o'clock break, Brian handed me a diagram of the play's revised set and sent me off to "make copies." I circled Stoddard then headed toward the fraternity.

  The house's design was almost identical to that of Drama House, but the peeling gray paint on the outside and its dilapidated condition inside made it seem like a very different place. The foyer was painted dark purple, its only light a bare bulb dangling from the ceiling. The stairway's banister, also purple, had deep gashes in it, and several of its balusters were missing.

  I set the folder Brian had given me on the steps, then continued upstairs and found the door to Paul's room. Only then did I hesitate. I was invading his privacy, and I wasn't sure the private part of Paul's life was something I wanted to know. But I had to do this, for Liza's sake and my own. I slipped the key in the hole.

  As soon as I opened the door, I smelled the perfume, Liza's perfume. Then I saw the pictures. She was everywhere, on the bureau and desk, hanging inside the mirror frame, taped to all four walls, her face large as life in some of the photos. I felt as if I'd walked inside a house of mirrors with my sister.

  Her image and perfume overwhelmed me, and I reached for a desk chair to sit down.

  Turning slowly in the chair, I studied the photos one by one. Many I had never seen before and must have been taken at camp. Since Paul didn't occupy this room during the college year, he had brought them back with him. Why did he surround himself with these pictures? Perhaps for the same reason that Brian believed he played the pranks: to keep Liza "alive." But was it obsessive love which made him try to keep her alive, or the need to deny that something terrible had occurred?

  My eyes scanned the surface of the battered desk, then stopped. I picked up two pens and scribbled with them on my palm, leaving bright green and pink marks. Guys didn't usually write with those colors, but Liza had loved to. I opened the desk drawer and spotted a pink address book. I checked the entries, but I already knew it was Liza's. Then I saw her turquoise hair clip. It was as if my sister were living here!

  I pushed back from the desk and walked around the room. The bookshelves had photos of Liza, but nothing else belonging to her. I stopped at the bureau. Liza's watch. I held it gently, then closed my hand around it. We had found Liza's other watch at home, which meant my vision was accurate: a third watch, one that didn't belong to her, had been fastened to her wrist.

  I wanted this one back, and I wanted her hair clip, her address book, her pens, even the photos that had not been ours. I hated the thought of Paul's eyes roving over the image of her face, his narrow fingers touching her belongings, but I had to leave everything where I found it.

  I set down the watch and noticed the shimmer of an object half hidden by a computer game magazine with a lurid red cover. Lifting the magazine, I found my sister's bracelet, the wide silver bangle I had given her for her sixteenth birthday. I picked it up and slid it over my hand.

  The moment the silver touched my wrist I felt its icy sting. Cold traveled up my arm and fear rippled through me, wrapping my heart in a chilling web.

  Paul's room slipped into shadow, then darkness, its edges glimmering blue. I could smell the creek.

  Not again! I thought. Please, don't make me go through it again!

  I yanked the bracelet over my knuckles and heard it land on the bureau. The blue glint disappeared and the darkness of my vision frayed until the sunlit room shone through again. But fear still made my heart beat fast; Liza's fear throbbed inside me.

  I held my head with my hands, trying to sort out what was happening. Most of my sister's belongings, such as her pens and hair clip, did not affect me when I touched them. It was as if the emotion coursing through her the night she died had imprinted certain things she touched-the window she had climbed through to meet Mike, the bank beneath the bridge, a piling beneath the pavilion-enough so that when I touched them they could engender my visions. Liza's extreme fear and pain the moment she was murdered had charged the hammer even more. Feeling the same sensation when I touched the bracelet, I wondered if she had been wearing it when she died.

  I looked quickly inside Paul's bureau and closet and probably should have searched further, but I had seen all I could endure for the moment. After placing the magazine so that it partially covered the bracelet-I didn't dare touch the bangle again-I checked that everything else was as I had found it, then left. and locked the door. Heading toward the stairway, I noticed Mike's name on the door across the hall.

  I didn't try to rationalize my snooping, but simply unlocked the door and let myself in. Mike was neater than Paul, though his concept of order appeared to be leaving everything out and stacking his belongings in thematic piles. Clothes, books, CDs, tennis balls, sunscreen and shaving lotion-all of it in organized piles-covered the tops of his desk, bureau, and chair. Glancing down at a stack of books, I noticed a satiny edge of paper protruding from the pages of one. A photograph. Curious, I pulled it out.

  It caught me completely by surprise. Liza and I, our arms around each other's shoulders, wearing T-shirts made in honor of our father, laughed into the camera's eye. It was a favorite photo of my sister's because, as she used to say, "We look just like us!"

  Mike knew who I was. He had known from the start. But if he knew my identity, why had he lied to me about his and Liza's relationship? Did he fear I would pepper him with questions until he revealed something he didn't want me to know?

  I slipped the photo back in the book. I had seen what Brian wanted me to see, and then some, but the more I knew, the less I understood.

  Walker ended rehearsal early that day, reminding us that it was Movie Night. Kids left the theater quickly, and Walker followed Maggie down to the offices. Both had been edgy that afternoon; according to Shawna, they had argued fiercely while I was gone on my errand. Brian followed them downstairs, hoping, he said, to get them to cool it.

  I had already returned the master key to him, choosing a time when there were too many people around for us to confer. I didn't want to discuss what I had discovered.

  Tomas and I were about to leave the set when Arthur and another guy from maintenance arrived, carryi
ng the extension ladder that Tomas had been calling about all day. The two men made a hasty exit, perhaps afraid of being asked to do something else. After several clumsy efforts Tomas and I managed to rest the ladder against the catwalk thirty feet up.

  "Shall I give it a try?" I asked.

  Tomas shook his head. "I'd rather have a couple people here holding it."

  "Don't worry. I'm not going far."

  Tomas held the ladder and I started up the aluminum rungs. On the sixth one I stopped. I didn't like the give of the ladder, the way it vibrated in my hands and the metallic noise it made.

  "Everything okay?" Tomas asked, pulling his head back to look at me.

  "You're going to have to find someone else for the job," I said, climbing back down.

  "I've already got them lined up."

  "Shall we store this on its side?" I asked.

  "No." He gestured toward a table full of tools and the bolt of blue fabric. "I'd like to get the sky hung right away tomorrow."

  "Walker might get irritable if he starts the day with a ladder in the middle of his stage."

  "If he does, I'll say I'm sorry," Tomas replied.

  "I see. Better to say you're sorry later, than ask for permission before? "

  He smiled. "Sometimes, with some people, yes."

  "Tomas, you continually surprise me."

  We gathered our belongings and walked back to the dorms together, passing Mike, who was carrying a tennis racket and a can of balls. He said hello, more to Tomas than me, and continued on. After Tomas and I parted, I headed in the direction Mike had taken, figuring there were courts somewhere beyond the Stoddard parking area and athletic fields.

  I found him playing alone, hitting a tennis ball against a wall in a practice court, driving it hard. Thump! Thump! A day's worth of heat radiated from the pavement, and the humidity wrung every last degree from the lowering sun. Mike's shirt was soaked through and his forearms shone with sweat, still he played on as if some demon were goading him. Sometimes he slammed the ball hard, too hard to get the rebound-that seemed to give him the most satisfaction.

  He didn't notice when I sat on a bench outside the court's wire fence. I brushed the gnats away from my face and waited. At last he stopped to drink from a water bottle.

  "May I talk to you?"

  He spun around, surprised, then glanced about to see if anyone else was there. "All right," he said, but he stayed where he was, midcourt on the other side of the tall wire fence. "About what?"

  "My sister."

  He didn't move.

  "My sister Liza."

  He wiped his face on his shirt and walked toward me, but only as far as the fence, keeping it between us.

  "When did you know who I was?" I asked.

  "As soon as I saw you."

  "Why didn't you say something?"

  "Why didn't you?"

  "I have reasons," I replied.

  "So do I."

  I kicked at the grass, frustrated. He turned the face of his racket horizontal and bounced the ball against the court.

  "Why did Liza give you the picture of her and me?"

  "I guess she told you I liked it," he said, continuing to dribble the ball. Then his hand swooped down and snatched it. "No, she couldn't have, or you would have realized that I recognized you. How do you know about the photo?"

  "I saw it in your room this afternoon."

  "In my room?" His eyes narrowed, turning the color of blue slate. "What were you doing there?" Snooping.

  He looked at me, amazed. "I can't believe it," he said. "I can't believe you'd do something like that."

  "At least I'm honest in admitting it. You lied to me about Liza."

  He turned his back on me and drove the ball hard against the wall. "You lied the day you introduced yourself as Jenny Baird."

  "If you knew who I was, why did you He to me about her?" I persisted.

  He faced me again, frowning.

  "Why didn't you admit you were dating, in love, whatever?"

  "Whatever," he echoed.

  "You had to realize she'd tell me about the two of you. Sisters share almost everything."

  "I don't know what Liza told you, but we were just friends."

  I shook my head and turned to walk away.

  "Jenny, listen. I may have. . misled Liza," he said haltingly.

  I glanced back.

  "When we first got to camp we became friends almost instantly. We spent a lot of time together and told each other stuff about our families. We had a lot in common-l mean, our dream of being actors and all.

  I realized too late that Liza was misinterpreting things, that she thought I was interested in her romantically when really I was-" He broke off.

  I stepped toward the fence and finished his statement: "Interested in my father, interested in his connections. Maybe he could get you a scholarship, like Walker did," I said and started to laugh, though I didn't think the situation funny. "You know, I've been used by guys who wanted to date my sister. I've been used by theater groupies who wanted access to Dad, but I didn't think something like that would ever happen to Liza."

  Mike said nothing.

  "Do you have any idea how much it hurts to be used that way-how much it makes you feel like a nothing?"

  "I tried to let her down easy. I tried to back out, but she wouldn't let go."

  "Did you kiss her?" I blurted.

  He looked at me curiously. "Does it make any difference to you?"

  "No, of course not." Talking about lying, I thought, I had just told a big one.

  Mike was silent for a moment. "Well, as you know, accidents happen."

  I stared at him angrily. "Next time, kiss up to my father, not me and my sister."

  He took a step back.

  "Why did you send Liza the note asking her to meet you by the river?"

  "I didn't."

  "You know what note I mean," I went on.

  "The one Ken claims she saw, asking Liza to meet me at the gazebo. If there was one, I didn't send it. And, besides, Liza was killed under the bridge."

  "Under the pavilion," I corrected him.

  His forehead creased. "They found her under the bridge."

  "She was murdered under the pavilion."

  "How do you know that?" he asked. "l"-l was reluctant to tell him about the visions-"I sense it."

  He moved closer. "Sense it how?"

  I was tired of lying. "I have dreams about it, visions."

  "Like the dreams you had when you were a little girl? The blue dreams?"

  I blinked. "How do you know about them?"

  "Liza told me. She said that sometimes you would dream the same thing as she. She thought you had a special connection to her, that you were telepathic."

  I grasped the fence, twisting my fingers around the wire.

  "She talked to me about you all the time," Mike said. "She really missed you. I was so sure you'd come to see her."

  "Well, I have-finally." I fought back the tears.

  From the other side of the fence Mike smoothed the tips of my fingers with his. "Why did you come? Why now?"

  I pulled my hand free of the fence. I didn't want to get into that with him. "Does Paul know who I am? Does Keri or Walker? Did you tell them?"

  "I haven't told anyone," he said. "Have you?"

  "Just Brian. Who is playing the pranks?"

  "Until yesterday, I suspected Brian-Brian with some help from Arthur," he added. "Both would enjoy messing up Walker's rehearsals."

  "Brian says it's Paul."

  "That's possible. The ring that Liza wore for last year's production, the one that rolled across the floor yesterday, was taken by Keri. Kids thought it was misplaced, but she took it last year and gave it to Paul."

  "I don't understand. Why would Keri give Paul something connected to Liza when she was so jealous of her?"

  He shrugged. "Maybe Keri hoped Paul would be grateful to her, that he would be grateful and notice her."

  "That doesn't make s
ense."

  Mike smiled. "I guess you've never been in love with someone who's in love with someone else. You find yourself saying and doing stupid things just to get that person to look at you."

  I looked away. "Does Paul know much about sound equipment?"

  "He's pretty good with that stuff when he puts his mind to it. Why?"

  "The first day of camp, when you were in the theater, up in the balcony, did you hear voices, voices that sounded like Liza's?"

  "All I heard was you saying Liza's lines."

  "Before that."

  "I came in right then," he said.

  At least he kept his story consistent.

  "Well, I heard voices. The sound, like Liza's perfume and the sudden appearance of her ring, was haunting, but I believe it was simply a recording of Liza's voice overlapping itself."

  "So these pranks are directed at you?"

  I shook my head. "I don't think so. I'm beginning to think I stumbled into a private rehearsal. It would have been a good time for the person behind the pranks to practice, since everyone was supposed to be busy with check-in at the dorms, if I did barge into a rehearsal, then these hauntings were planned before camp began, before anyone had a chance to recognize me. And I'm sure no one thought I'd be coming."

  "I didn't think I would come this year," Mike said. "But then I found that I had to in order to go on. Is it like that for you? Is that why you came?"

  He kept wanting an answer to that question. "It was at first."

  "And now?"

  "Liza wants me to find her murderer."

  His eyes widened.

  "She told me, sort of," I added lamely.

  "But the serial killer could be anywhere."

  "I believe she was killed by someone who knew her, then doctored the crime to make it look like part of the series."

  He was silent for a long moment, spinning the tennis racket in his hand. "That's why you were searching my room. You think I'm involved."

  "I think more than one person is involved and that more than one person knows something."