Book of Horrors (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  You can’t go through someone else’s desk, Reed’s conscience scolded. It’s private property. And if you got caught, you’d be fired, that’s for sure. On your first day!

  True.

  Still, it was sort of her desk now, wasn’t it? And there were all those drawers. Six of them. Probably filled with valuable information about what made a real author tick. Could be an education all by itself, peeking into those drawers.

  Maybe just one? One of the small ones? Unless they were locked.

  They weren’t locked. The small drawer in the middle at the top slid quietly open.

  Pencils, sharpened to a keen point. Pens, some with their caps missing. Small notepads, blank. More paper clips, more rubber bands.

  Disappointed, Reed closed the drawer. Nothing educational about that drawer.

  Listening for footsteps the whole time, she leaned to her right side and slid a large bottom drawer open. It was crammed full of notebooks, the spiral kind with brightly colored covers. The top one bore a white, rectangular label. The handwriting on it was in ballpoint ink.

  “Cat’s Play,” the label declared in large black letters.

  Reed couldn’t believe it. Was she really looking at a rough draft, maybe even the very first draft, of the famous novel? Was this how McCoy began every book? Writing in longhand in an ordinary spiral notebook? Was Reed Monroe actually looking at literary history in the making?

  She had to see for herself.

  Breathing hard, her ears straining for any sound that would tell her the author had left her office, Reed bent over and lifted the notebook from the drawer. She opened the cover.

  “Cat’s Play, Chapter One, Page One,” was scrawled in longhand across the top of the first page. “First draft.”

  Reed let out a long, happy sigh. She was actually holding in her hands the raw beginning of what had become a very famous novel, one that she had held more than once after it was finished and bound between hard covers. Who would ever have thought that she would one day be sitting where she was sitting now, holding what she was holding now? It was so incredible, she could hardly believe it.

  She closed her eyes and hugged the notebook to her chest.

  She was so lost in bliss that she failed to hear an office door open and close.

  Nor did she hear footsteps, as soft black felt slippers moved down the hall. She didn’t even hear the sharp intake of breath as Victoria McCoy entered the room.

  The first thing Reed was aware of was a voice shouting at her angrily, “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

  Chapter 6

  AT THE SOUND OF Victoria McCoy’s voice, Reed gasped and the manuscript fell to the desk as if the bones in her fingers had suddenly disintegrated. She jumped up out of the chair, her face paper-white. “I … I was just looking for a pencil,” she breathed, as if there weren’t half a dozen of them sitting in a small can on the desk. “I … I didn’t …”

  The author moved slowly toward the desk. “You were … were snooping?” she asked, her voice hushed. “You were searching through my things, like some thief off the streets?”

  Tears of humiliation stung Reed’s eyelids. Then her back stiffened. She shouldn’t have gone into someone else’s desk drawers, but McCoy was acting as if she’d murdered someone. “I’m sorry. I really am. But they weren’t locked,” she said defensively.

  “No, they aren’t locked. Because I don’t expect my assistants to go rummaging through my drawers.” McCoy sighed heavily and she extended her hands in front of her helplessly. “I really must have my privacy,” she said sadly. “I really must.”

  Reed could think of nothing to say. She had apologized. Wasn’t that enough?

  “You were searching for my new work, weren’t you?” the author said in that same, sad voice. “You want to find it and steal it, sell it to the highest bidder, don’t you?”

  “No!”

  “Well, do you think I’d leave it lying around in an unlocked drawer? Do you think I’m … crazy?”

  Poe awoke then and began shrieking, “Mad as a hatter, mad as a hatter!”

  Reed shuddered with revulsion. She picked up her shoulder bag and her ski jacket. “I’ll be going now,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have gone into your desk.”

  The woman’s eyes moved away from Reed, centering on a spot just above Reed’s head as she said softly, almost in a whisper, “You’re just like all the rest, after all.”

  Reed stared at her. “What?”

  “Betraying me like this,” the author whispered, still staring at the wall. “Such betrayal …”

  “I’m sorry,” Reed repeated. “Good-bye.” Shoulders back, head high, she strode to the door and was about to yank it open when from behind her, McCoy’s voice said calmly, pleasantly, “Ms. Monroe? Are you leaving? Have you finished for the day?”

  Reed turned around.

  Victoria McCoy lifted the pendant watch hanging on a gold chain around her neck and said, “My goodness! It is four o’clock. I had no idea!” She dropped the watch and smiled at Reed. For that one moment, she looked very like the picture on the back of her books. “Time just whizzes by when I’m in the middle of a chapter. Of course you must go. Before it gets dark. What time do you think you might get here tomorrow?”

  Stunned, Reed had a hard time finding her voice. It was as if the horrible incident between them had never taken place. The expression on Victoria McCoy’s face was bland and pleasant. “Do you have an important exam or something equally pressing? Because of course, if you do, the work could wait until Wednesday.”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Reed said slowly. “I’ll be here tomorrow. About the same time.” She wasn’t sure how her neck had been saved, but it had. She hadn’t been fired on the first day, after all.

  “Fine. That’s just fine. See you then, Ms. Monroe. May I call you Reed?”

  “Yes. Yes, sure.” Reed pulled the door open slowly and stepped outside, feeling totally disoriented.

  When the door had closed behind her, Reed stood on the front step for a moment, trying to shake the feeling of disorientation. Had she dreamed the whole thing? Was it possible she’d fallen asleep in the swivel chair, dozed off, just for a few minutes, and had a nightmare? Because that’s what it had been. McCoy catching her in the act, becoming so enraged, shouting at her like that, muttering about betrayal. A nightmare!

  But had it really happened? How could someone be so furious one minute and then, in the next, act as if everything was perfectly normal?”

  Reed shook her head, trying to clear it. Maybe it hadn’t really happened.

  “You leaving?” a voice said from beside her.

  Reed jumped. Rain moved around in front of her. “Leaving already? I was hoping I’d get here before you were done for the day. How’d it go?” There was a note of anxiety in his voice that surprised Reed. Had he been worried about how she and his mother would get along? Or was he just worried about his mother? Maybe with good reason.

  “Fine,” she said automatically. “It went fine. Except …” She stopped. What was she going to say? I went snooping through your mother’s desk drawers and she went off on me like a bomb? Not a good idea.

  “Think you might like to take in a movie with me Saturday night?” he asked suddenly. “A French film, at the art house in town.” He smiled. “You were expecting maybe an Alfred Hitchcock thriller? I prefer French films. Do you like them?”

  She loved French films. Link wouldn’t be caught dead at one. But she was supposed to go to a party at Nightingale Hall, an off-campus dorm, on Saturday night. Link was probably expecting her to go with him, although he hadn’t asked. Taking it for granted, probably. He’d be mad if she cancelled.

  She could invite Rain to join them. He and Milo Keith, one of the dorm’s residents, would probably get along well. They were both readers, both a little bit offbeat.

  Or she could skip the party and go to the movie with Rain instead. But she was anxious to see the inside
of the big, old brick house sitting high up on a hill off the highway. Everyone called it “Nightmare Hall” because a student had died there last spring.

  Suicide, they said.

  This might be her only chance to get inside. Although it was hard to believe right now that Nightingale Hall could be that much creepier than the McCoy house.

  “Actually, I’m supposed to go to a party. Would you like to come?” Reed told Rain about the party, thinking, Link will be livid. But she wasn’t inviting Rain as a date. Just inviting him to a party. No reason for Link to be jealous. Not that he needed a reason.

  “Great!” Rain said. “Eight on Saturday night? I’ll be there.”

  If the party wasn’t any fun, Reed thought, they could always talk books.

  “You started to tell me something before,” he reminded her. “What was it? Something about my mother?”

  “Never mind. It wasn’t important.”

  His eyes, black as night, glittered. He didn’t believe her. “Listen,” he said as she turned to leave, “I should have told you this earlier, before you started working for McCoy. There’s one thing …”

  “What?”

  “Well, it’s just that she’s very protective of her works-in-progress. Treats any new work like a lioness with a cub. No one, and I mean no one, gets a peek at it before it goes sailing off to her publisher. So, if you should be curious, my advice would be, swallow your urge to go hunting. If she catches you snooping, you’re dead.”

  Reed felt her cheeks redden. How did he know”? “Is that what her other assistants did?” she asked boldly. “She … she happened to mention something about ‘betrayal.’ Was that what she meant, that they saw something she was working on?”

  He turned away then to pick up a load of firewood. “I don’t know. She never told me why they left. She’s a very private person, my mother.”

  No kidding. “Yeah, I know. See you tomorrow.”

  Reed hurried away, afraid that if she stayed any longer, she’d tell him what had happened. McCoy hadn’t exactly thrown a tantrum. Wasn’t that one of the rumors about McCoy? That her assistants quit because she had a temper? But she’d hardly raised her voice. And then her anger had disappeared so suddenly …

  Weird.

  Reed wondered if what she had seen was part of Victoria McCoy’s dark side. What was it that brought it out? A desperate need for privacy? Or paranoia about having her work stolen? Had Victoria McCoy always been that way about her work? Or was her behavior today the result of her illness?

  Maybe she would ask Rain about that Saturday night. After they’d become better friends. It was important to know the why of such strange behavior. Wasn’t that why she’d taken the job in the first place? To learn?

  Link and Jude and Debrah were waiting in the trees at the edge of the path.

  “Did you show her the manuscripts I gave you?” Jude asked immediately.

  “Jude, it was my first day! I’m not going to bother her with that until I know her better.” If I ever do, Reed thought dubiously.

  Jude was clearly miffed. “Bother? You’re doing her a favor, showing her my work. She’ll be grateful, Reed.”

  “Where’s Lilith?” Reed asked as they began to move along the path toward campus.

  “At the library,” Debrah answered. “Researching a paper on McCoy for her contemporary literature class. I wouldn’t think there was anything that Lilith didn’t know about McCoy, but I guess there is. Never mind Lilith,” she added impatiently, “tell us about working for the Great One. What’s she like?”

  Reed almost laughed aloud. A very good question. What was Victoria McCoy like? A raging volcano, or a nice, pleasant, absent-minded artist? Who knew? Not me, she thought, and answered, “She’s … nice. I really didn’t see much of her. She has her own office at the back of the house, and she disappeared into it right after I got there.”

  During the trek back to campus, Debrah and Jude continued to ask questions Reed couldn’t answer. Only Link was silent.

  “Rain’s coming to the party at Nightmare Hall,” she announced as they arrived at the dorm.

  “What?” Link’s voice echoed through the twilight peace of campus. “With you? I was going to ask you to that party.”

  “Well, you didn’t,” Reed pointed out lightly. “Anyway, it’s not really a date.” Well, what is it then? she asked herself. Rain asked you to a movie, which would certainly be considered a date. And then you suggested the party instead, so wouldn’t that still be a date? “Next time,” she added, smiling at Link, “don’t wait so long. People aren’t just going to sit around while you make up your mind, you know.”

  “I’d already made up my mind,” he said sullenly. “You’ve been busy. Besides, how was I supposed to know somebody else was going to ask you? Everyone knows you’re …”

  He stopped just in time. Reed knew he’d been about to say “taken.” Good thing he hadn’t! She wasn’t anybody’s property.

  “I said, it’s not a date,” she said calmly. “I’ll see you at the party, right?”

  “I’ll see you before then. Debrah and Jude and Lilith have classes tomorrow when you leave for work, but I don’t. I’m walking you over there. And I’ll keep walking you over there until we find out where Carl Nordstrum is.” Link stomped away without a good-bye.

  “I don’t get it,” Debrah said sourly as they rode up to the sixth floor in the elevator. “You’re okay-looking, I guess, but everyone tells me I look like Cher, and you’re the one who has two guys interested in her, and one of them is the son of a famous author. I just don’t get it.”

  “It’s your mouthwash,” Reed joked, and then had to force back a laugh as Debrah quickly put a hand to her mouth to breathe into her palm. “Debrah, I was just joking. Your breath is fine.”

  Who was Debrah kidding, anyway? She’d never go out with Link or Rain. Debrah only dated business administration majors, because she figured they’d work on Wall Street and make big bucks, so if she married one, she could afford to stay home and write full-time. Debrah knew exactly what she wanted. Link and Rain just didn’t fit the profile. Well … maybe Rain did. His mother was rich, so he’d probably be rich, too, one day. Reed said. “Actually, it’s not your breath. It’s your cologne.”

  They were both laughing when they got off the elevator.

  That evening, several people in the dorm who knew that Reed had gone to work for McCoy asked her what the author was like. Each time, the vision of McCoy’s face twisted with rage sprang into Reed’s mind. Each time, she evaded the question with a vague answer.

  At least, she didn’t have to tell them she’d been fired on the first day. That would have been so humiliating. She wouldn’t have had the nerve to admit that she’d been fired for snooping. She’d have had to make up some flimsy excuse.

  Reed and Tisha held a study session in their room that night. Debrah and Lilith were there, and several of Tisha’s friends came. As word got around, other people from the building dropped in, books and food in hand.

  “Hey, Reed,” a boy named Decker from the eighth floor called. “I hear you’re working for that author. The woman with the crow?”

  “It’s not a crow. It’s a mynah. And if you know about Victoria McCoy,” Reed said with mock severity, “why haven’t you joined our fan club? We need more members.”

  “Fan clubs are for rock stars,” he said nonchalantly, “not some weird old writer.”

  “Well, she’s not old, but she is a little weird, and I like that.” The face distorted by anger, surrounded by a wild mane of salt-and-pepper hair, the mouth shouting in fury, popped into Reed’s head. She forced the image away.

  “That’s because you’re weird, too,” Debrah said, glancing pointedly at Reed’s black skirt, shirt, and boots. “Where are you getting your wardrobe these days, Vampira?”

  Decker, sprawled on the floor with his backpack supporting his head, said, “You’re nuts working for her. Carl Nordstrum was a friend of mine. And look what happen
ed to him.”

  “We don’t know that anything happened to him,” Reed replied calmly. “Maybe he just left school.”

  Decker shook his head. “Not Carl. He was a lot more interested in getting an education than anyone I know. He’s the one who nagged me into finishing papers and studying for exams. He left for work at that writer’s house one morning and that was the last time anybody saw him. How do you explain that?”

  “He just left school, that’s all.” But the words of the clerk in the administration building rang in Reed’s ears: “Carl Nordstrum wasn’t the type to just up and leave a job.” Reed shook her head to banish the voice and added, “If Carl worked as hard as you say he did, he probably got overloaded. Just got in his car one day and took off. It happens. If anything sinister had happened to him, the police would know, right?”

  “Not if someone didn’t want them to. Someone really clever. Like psychopathically clever, for instance. And as far as I’m concerned,” Decker rolled over on his side and grabbed a handful of cheese balls from the bowl in Debrah’s lap, “the best candidate is someone who writes psychopathically clever novels like that stuff McCoy writes.”

  “Oh, Decker,” Lilith said, laughing, “you’ve never even opened a McCoy book. You don’t know the first thing about them.”

  “I know what I’ve heard,” Decker retorted, popping a cheese ball into his mouth. “And all I can say is, Reed is as crazy as McCoy probably is, to go to work there. So if anything happens to you, Reed, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “I consider myself warned,” Reed said. “But if anything happened to me, I wouldn’t be around to say you didn’t warn me. Thanks, anyway, Decker. Big of you.”

  Her voice was calm, but her emotions weren’t. Carl had last been seen on his way to McCoy’s. That news should be worrying her. But it wasn’t.

  Instead, she felt … excited.

  Was this a little bit of the dark side about which McCoy wrote so well? Was it a place where someone like McCoy lived? Did the darker side excite the author as it excited Reed now?