by Diane Hoh
“Of course I don’t. And I’m feeling okay.” Margaret’s left hand moved without her consent to her hair to try and push some life into it. All three girls looked so perfect. How did they do that? Every shining blond hair in place on Liza’s head, Kiki’s makeup perfectly applied on her smooth, olive skin, Beth’s slender frame model-perfect in an expensive blue jumpsuit. So much perfection.
Margaret half expected one of them to open a mouth and say, “Please don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
Her discomfort had nothing to do with her physical condition. What was she going to talk to these people about? She had absolutely nothing in common with any of them. Except Mitch. And she wasn’t about to discuss Mitch with them.
She began leafing idly through the magazine Beth had brought her. “I’m going home tomorrow,” she said, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Now that she was going to the prom, she could talk about that, but she didn’t feel like it. Not with them. It would sound too much like the novice consulting the old pros. Yuck.
“Already?” Beth asked. “Isn’t that awfully soon? Mitch explained what you went through. And then it was on the news, in graphic detail. It sounded so horrible, Margaret. You could have died in that Dumpster.”
Margaret shifted among the sheets. “I’m okay. Really. I’ll be at the meeting.”
Liza frowned. “The decorating committee meeting? Oh, Margaret, really, that’s silly. You should rest tomorrow.” She smiled. “We’ll take care of Mitch for you, if that’s what you’re worried about. I know he’s going to be there. You know, we asked him to be on the committee and he said he didn’t have time. I guess you have more influence over him than any of us.”
I guess I do, Margaret thought.
“I’ll be at the meeting,” she said firmly. Her eyes on the magazine in her lap, she scanned an article about dressing for success and turned the page. To find a drawing nestled among the slick sheets of paper.
Drawn on plain white paper, it was a colored pencil sketch of a girl with long, yellow hair in a slender blue dress. It was, quite clearly, meant to be Beth. She was carrying a huge bouquet of red flowers in her arms. Wearing a large, golden crown on her head. And she was smiling from ear to ear.
Margaret glanced up at Beth, whose face had turned a painful scarlet. Kiki and Liza were engaged in conversation and hadn’t noticed the drawing.
Please, Beth’s blue eyes pleaded, please don’t show them.
Margaret quickly turned the page. Beth wanted to be queen?
Well, why not? Didn’t every girl at Toomey High? Kiki and Liza had already been crowned. Why not Beth?
But Margaret wondered if there wasn’t something a little bizarre about a girl sitting somewhere alone drawing a picture of herself wearing a crown. It gave her an eerie feeling.
“Thanks for the magazine,” was all she said to Beth as the girls left.
Two minutes later, Beth came hurrying back in, her cheeks red. “I told them I had to go to the rest room,” she said, moving to stand beside Margaret’s bed. “Listen, about the drawing …”
Margaret waved a hand. “Forget it. I’m not into sharing. Don’t worry.”
“No, I … I wanted to explain. You must think I’m crazy or something. It’s just … well, I never told any of my friends this, but I really would like to be queen of our last prom at Toomey. Lucas is a lot more popular than I am, like Stephanie was. He should be king. If he were going with Stephanie, he would be. Anyway, I was just daydreaming in school the other day, and the drawing just sort of happened. Could I have it back now?”
Margaret leafed through the magazine, found the drawing, and handed it to Beth. But she was wondering exactly when Beth had taken up art. Before Stephanie fell off that deck? Or after? “My lips are sealed,” she said to Beth. “And good luck, I think you’d make a great queen.”
“Thanks, Margaret.” Crumpling up the drawing and tossing it into Margaret’s waste-basket, Beth hurried out of the room.
Margaret still didn’t understand why the Pops had come to see her, and wondered if Mitch had sent them.
“Nope, I had nothing to do with it,” he claimed later when he was seated beside her bed. “They must have come on their own.”
Margaret didn’t tell him that, as they were leaving, she had checked out Kiki’s shoes. They had indeed been black, and were the kind of expensive leather flats that would probably require an occasional polishing.
That might have meant something if it weren’t for one other inescapable fact. Margaret couldn’t say for sure that Kiki was not a killer. She didn’t know her well enough. But she could say for sure that, like Stephanie Markham, Kiki Pappas would never, in a million years, have worn one of the cheap silver Quartet pins. So, while Margaret had no idea whose pin had been found on the observation deck of the lighthouse, she knew it wasn’t Kiki’s.
That still didn’t mean she hadn’t had one in her possession, dropping it on the deck as some kind .of message after Stephanie had fallen.
But then, why hadn’t there been one next to the Dumpster?
“Any news from Eddie?” she asked Mitch.
He regarded her with mock cynicism. “Is that the only reason you’re hanging out with me? So I can feed you information about the investigations? There are two of them now, you know,” he added. “Steph’s, and yours. Three, if you count that business about the dresses at the shop.”
“Yes,” Margaret said with a perfectly straight face, “that is the only reason I’m the least bit interested in you. Why else? You are ugly and boring and completely turn me off.”
“Liar,” he said, grinning, and bent to kiss her.
She was discharged the following morning. Adrienne had the fit that Margaret had expected when her daughter announced shortly after her arrival home that she was planning to attend the decorating committee meeting that afternoon.
“I can’t believe that meeting hasn’t been canceled!” Margaret’s mother led her to the sofa, insisting that she lie down. “You girls are just not safe out there right now. I don’t know what’s going on, but I will not have you wandering around town without protection, Margaret. Not after what you’ve been through. Not until the police have some answers.”
“I’m not going to be wandering around, Mother. I’ll be in the school gym. There will be lots of other people there, including Mitch. In fact, he’s picking me up and bringing me home. So I’ll be perfectly safe.” She really believed that, or she would never have considered leaving her house. That … person … was still out there. But she wouldn’t be alone, so she wouldn’t be a target if he or she decided Sunday afternoon was a good time to finish the job.
“Margaret,” Adrienne said, sitting down on the edge of the sofa, “I came very close to losing you Friday night.” Her hands shook as she covered Margaret’s legs with an afghan, and her voice was heavy with emotion. “You’re all I have. I couldn’t …” Her voice broke, making it impossible for her to continue.
“Mom, it’s okay,” Margaret said quietly, patting her mother’s hand. “I promise you I will not take one single step alone today, okay? I promise! I really want to go to this meeting, especially now that I’m actually going to the prom. You wanted me to go, remember?”
“That was before …”
“I’ll be at school,” Margaret pleaded, really worried now that her mother wasn’t going to give in this time. “Nothing bad has happened at school. And when I get home, we’ll talk about where to go from here. I agree with you that working alone at the store is a definite no-no, and I have no intention of going anywhere near the Point. But I have to go to school during the week, anyway. So why can’t I go there today? I promise I’ll rest right here on this sofa until it’s time to go. I won’t move a muscle.”
“All right,” her mother said reluctantly. “I really don’t want to spoil this time for you, you know that. But Margaret, I’ve never been as frightened in my life as I was when Mitch came racing into the restaurant and sho
uted that the Dumpster was on fire and you’d been trapped inside. He needed help getting it open. I will never forget that, as long as I live.”
“I’m sorry you had to go through that. Look, I’ll call you from the meeting, okay? Every five minutes, if you want. Every minute.”
Adrienne laughed. It was weak, but better than nothing. “You don’t have to do that. But … you could call at least once, just to say that things are going okay. Will your faculty advisor be there?”
Mrs. Thompson. An old crone if ever there was one, sour-faced and tight-lipped. But an advisor was required, and she was the only teacher willing to spend the time. “I’m sure she will be. She was there the last three times.”
“Okay, then.” Adrienne sighed. “I know I can’t keep you locked up in the house, although that’s what my maternal instincts tell me to do. Come right home after the meeting?”
“I promise. I’ll be here by five. Don’t worry, okay?”
Margaret went to the meeting. She went with a queasy stomach, a slight headache, a stiff knee, and constant glances over her shoulders, but she did go.
She only hoped, as she climbed awkwardly into Mitch’s truck, that she wasn’t making a terrible mistake leaving the safety of her home.
Chapter 18
SHE’S NOT DEAD! NOT even close. What rotten luck!
I can’t figure out how it happened. Oh, I know Mitch dragged her out of there in time, but how did he know she was in there? If he got there in time to see the smoke and maybe flames coming out of the Dumpster, why didn’t he just call the fire department? What made him think to look for her inside the thing? She couldn’t have been screaming … too much smoke. Wasn’t even making much noise while I was still there. I could hear how hard it was for her to breathe, so by that time I wasn’t worried about her screaming loud enough to attract anyone’s attention.
So how did he know she was in there?
There she was, sitting up in that hospital bed like a queen. She couldn’t actually be prom queen, could she? I’d say absolutely not, except that Mitch is such a big deal at school, maybe people will suddenly like her just because she’s with him. That would kill me.
I cannot believe she’s still alive. And healthy enough to go. She’ll probably even be able to dance.
I should have taken the time to plan more carefully.
Still, they don’t know about the other part yet. The evidence should be ashes. If it’s not, I’ll deal with that later.
Right now, I have to decide what to do. I’m not giving up. But everyone’s going to be watching her to see that nothing else happens. I won’t be able to get at her.
Okay, this is what I need to do. First I’ll make sure I’ve got someone waiting in the wings, just in case my plans for Margaret are thwarted. I’ll take care of that part of it tomorrow. I’m not missing the prom because of Mitch McGill. Anyone is better than no one.
But he’s the one I really want. He’s the best choice.
Now that I think about it, maybe tomorrow’s little distraction will take some of that attention away from Margaret, leaving her more vulnerable. So I can swoop in for the kill.
The kill … that’s pretty funny.
But my head aches too much to laugh.
Chapter 19
WHEN THEY GOT TO the gym, Margaret and Mitch split up. He left to help Lucas and David borrow a ladder from maintenance. The Pops were seated at a long, narrow table along one side, armed with notebooks and paper. Margaret felt their stares as she stood in the gym doorway. And when she passed their table to join Caroline, Jeannine, and Lacey, busy unpacking boxes of tiny ceramic yearbooks in blue and white, Toomey High’s colors, Beth sent her a nervous glance. Margaret simply nodded.
Caroline barely looked up when Margaret joined them. Had Scott told her about his phone call? Caroline would be embarrassed by that.
Margaret split the tape open on the box before her. “Who’s taking Stephanie’s place as chairperson?”
“Kiki.” Caroline, in work clothes of jeans and a blue T-shirt, glanced over at the Pops’ table. “The Pops picked her, of course. She’s taken complete control, complaining about everything. I frankly do not understand what David Goumas sees in that girl. She’s still arguing about the theme, saying it should be Tropical Nights, which anyone with a brain knows has been done to death, instead of Happy Endings, which is much more appropriate since we’re about to graduate, right? And then she said …”
Margaret wasn’t really listening. The guys had returned with the ladder, and Liza and Kiki had gathered around them, giving orders. Margaret’s eyes were on Liza. She really was gorgeous, even in jeans and a long-sleeved white blouse. The guys at Toomey must all be devastated that Liza was going to the prom with a college guy. Who wouldn’t want someone who looked like Liza at his side on such a special night?
No matter how my mother fusses with my hair and makeup prom night, Margaret thought despondently, I am never going to look anything like Liza Buffet. Never.
Never mind, she told herself briskly, you’re not only going, you’re going with someone really nice. Who apparently didn’t want Liza at his side. He wanted you. So shut up about how you’re going to look, okay? You’ll look fine.
“… and then Kiki said we hadn’t ordered nearly enough candles and so I’m supposed to get myself over to the mall this afternoon to buy more, but she hasn’t given me any money. If she thinks I’m going to spend my own hard-earned cash on candles for a prom I’m probably not even going to attend, she can think again.” Out of breath at last, Caroline paused, but only for a moment. “Margaret? You’re not listening, are you? What’s the matter with you? Are you feeling sick? Or are you still mad at us for going to Stephanie’s house after the funeral? Not that it did us any good,” she added gloomily. “Who would have thought that Michael Danz would miss his own senior prom?”
Margaret didn’t say what she was thinking. That Michael Danz was probably avoiding the prom out of guilt, not sadness. Did the girl he’d been seeing feel the same guilt? “Sorry. I was just wondering about Stephanie’s dress. Who could have taken it? How they got into the store? What they did with it?”
“Oh, let’s not talk about that stuff now, okay?” Lacey carefully unwrapped another tiny yearbook. “It’s too creepy. I can’t believe your mother let you come to this meeting, Margaret. After what happened. I thought she’d lock you in your room until the police found that guy. My own mother nearly had a fit when I told her I was leaving the house. She’s terrified that I’m going to end up like Stephanie.”
“All the parents in Toomey probably are. Getting out of the house did take some doing,” Margaret admitted. “But Mom’s so excited about me going to the prom, she thought I should be in on the decorating, so here I am.”
“I have to go to the mall and get those candles,” Caroline said, turning away from Margaret. “But first, I have to get the money from Kiki.”
Margaret felt a twinge of disappointment. She had hoped they would talk about her invitation to the prom, at least a little. It was exciting, and she wanted to share that excitement with her friends. But they all seemed to be avoiding the subject.
Well, what did you expect? she asked herself as she followed Caroline over to Kiki’s table. You’re breaking up the quartet that planned to celebrate together on prom night, just like always. If one of them had a date instead of you, would you be rejoicing?
No, Margaret answered honestly, probably not.
“I don’t have the money on me,” Kiki retorted when Caroline asked her for the funds. Kiki’s work clothes, unlike Caroline’s, were gray silk trousers and a peach silk blouse. “I don’t carry it around. It’s in Mrs. Thompson’s desk drawer. Her locked desk drawer, of course. I’ve been very careful with that money. Thompson’s out of town at a wedding, that’s why she’s not here.” Kiki tossed short, silky dark hair. “But I have a key to the drawer.”
Mrs. Thompson, the committee’s faculty advisor, was also an English teacher. Her clas
sroom was on Toomey High’s fourth floor.
Caroline made a small sound of protest. “You don’t have the money with you? It’ll take you forever to go all the way up to the fourth floor. It’s not like this high school has an elevator, Kiki. It’s already past three. I want to get to the mall and back this year.”
“I’m not going by way of China, Connie. That is your name, isn’t it?”
Caroline’s cheeks flamed. “No, it’s Caroline.”
“Sorry. Look. I’ll be right back, I promise.” Kiki stood up, stuck a pencil behind one ear. “I might take a minute in the rest room, see if I can’t do something with this hair.” Her hair looked perfect. She hesitated and then mused aloud, “Maybe I should take David with me. I know nothing creepy has happened here at school, and maybe I’m being silly, but roaming around the halls alone might not be such a hot idea right now.”
She walked confidently over to David, who was adjusting the ladder, and said something to him. His handsome face creased into a frown, and he shook his head no. Kiki argued briefly, then turned away, annoyance in her face.
“I guess I’m on my own,” she said when she came back, shrugging. To Caroline, she said, “Just relax, Connie, okay? I’m sending you to the mall, not the moon. Quit looking so worried. I promise I’ll hurry.” Kiki turned and walked quickly, confidently, out of the gym, apparently having forgotten that she’d had misgivings about leaving the room alone.
“My name isn’t Connie!” Caroline called angrily. “It’s Caroline!”
“Whatever.” Kiki waved a careless hand over one shoulder and disappeared around a corner.
Margaret could see that Caroline was fuming. She walked over to her and said, “It’ll take her a few minutes. Let’s go sit outside while we wait. It’s gorgeous out, and I need some air. Can’t stand the smell of gym socks another second.”
