No Time to Die ds-3 Read online

  A sliver of light appeared-a door at the side of the balcony opened and a dark figure passed through it. Someone had been sitting up there.

  For how long? I wondered. Since the rustling I had heard when I first came in?

  "Is something wrong?" Brian asked, reemerging from the wings.

  "No. No, I just remembered I left my luggage at the front door."

  "It'll be okay. I'll show you the back door-that's the one everybody uses-then you can go around and get it."

  He led me backstage, where he turned out all but the light that had been burning before, then we headed down a flight of steps. The exit was at the bottom.

  "This door is usually unlocked," Brian said. "People from the city always think it's strange the way we leave things open, but you couldn't be in a safer town."

  Aside from an occasional serial killing, I thought.

  We emerged into an outside stairwell that was about five steps below ground level. Across the road from the theater, facing the back of the college quadrangle, was a row of large Victorian houses. A line of cars had pulled up in front of them, baggage was deposited on sidewalks, and kids were gathering on the lawns and porches. Someone waved and called to Brian.

  "Catch you later, Jenny," he said, and started toward the houses.

  I headed toward the front of Stoddard to fetch my luggage. As I rounded the corner I came face to face with someone. We both pulled up short. The guy was my age, tall with black hair, wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans. He glanced at me, then looked away quickly, but I kept staring. He had the most startlingly blue eyes.

  "Sorry," he said brusquely, then walked a wide route past me.

  I turned and watched him stride toward the houses across the street.

  I knew that every theater type has a completely black outfit in his closet, maybe two, for black is dramatic and tough and cool. But it's also the color to wear if you don't want to be seen in the dark, and this guy didn't want to be seen, not by me. I had sensed it in the way he'd glanced away. He'd acted guilty, as if I had caught him at something, like slinking out of the balcony, I thought.

  Had he heard Liza's voice? Had he been responsible for it? A tape of her voice, manipulated by sound equipment and played over the theater's system could have produced what I heard.

  There was just one problem with this explanation-it begged another. Why would anyone want to do that?

  Chapter three

  By the time I had picked up my suitcase, dragged it around the building, and crossed the street, the guy in black had disappeared among the other kids gathering at the four houses. Drama House, which had a sign on it, was the best kept of the three-story homes. Covered in pale yellow clapboard with white trim, it had a steep pyramid-shaped roof, gables protruding at different angles, and a turret at one comer.

  A guy about my height and three or four times my width blocked the sidewalk up to Drama House, two stuffed backpacks and a battered suitcase resting at his feet like tired dogs. He gazed toward the porch, where a flock of girls chattered and laughed. "She's beautiful," he said.

  I peeked around him, hoping he'd notice I wanted to get past, but he was lost in wonder. "Which one?" I finally asked.

  He blinked, surprised. "What?"

  "Which girl?"

  He shoved his hands in his pockets and looked embarrassed. "l-l was talking about the house. It's a Queen Anne, the style built at the end of the I800s.

  Look at the way they used the different shapes-triangular, rectangular, round, conical. Look at the texture in the roof and front gable."

  He had a strong Bronx accent-the kind I associated with beer vendors at Yankee Stadium, not an admirer of nineteenth-century architecture. I stifled a giggle.

  "If I was painting it, I'd use colors with more contrast," he went on. "Red, gold, green. Lime, maybe. Yes, definitely. . lime." He swallowed the last word self-consciously. "I'm supposed to be over there," he muttered, slinging on his backpacks, then reaching for his suitcase. He started toward a peeling gray house that had a stuffed plaid sofa and purple coffee table on its front lawn. Obviously, a fraternity.

  "Now, that house," I called after him, "could use a paint job."

  He turned back and smiled for just a moment. Despite his thick dark hair, bristly eyebrows, and nearly black eyes, his round face looked almost cherubic when he smiled.

  As he hurried on to the frat, I continued down the sidewalk to Drama House and up the steps of its wraparound porch. Four girls were gathered there in a tight group, talking loudly enough for three others to hear. I joined the quiet girls.

  "So did you get yourself expelled?" asked a girl whose head was wrapped in elegant African braids. Her cheekbones were high, her dark skin as smooth as satin.

  "No, Shawna, I did not," another girl replied, sighing wearily.

  "How come?" Shawna asked. "Did they keep giving you second chances?"

  "Something like that."

  Shawna laughed. "Well, how many times did you try, Keri?"

  "Not as many as I'd planned. I found out who went to the school where my parents threatened to send me. It would be entertaining for a while, but it'd get old."

  As she spoke, Keri combed long nails through her hair, which was cut short and dyed, a high contrast job in black and white. Dark pencil lined her pale eyes-sleepy, half-closed eyes. I knew that look: Liza had used it occasionally to let others know they had better do something if they wanted to hold her interest.

  "Hey, Keri, Paul's back," said another girl.

  "Is he?" The bored expression disappeared.

  "Still hot for Paul," the tall, thin girl observed.

  Shawna shook her head. "I just don't understand you, girlfriend."

  "Keri doesn't want to be understood," said the fourth girl of the group. She had long black hair and velvet-lashed, almond eyes.

  "I mean, he's good-looking," Shawna began, "but-" "Oh, look who's headed this way," Keri said coolly.

  "Boots," muttered the thin girl.

  All of us quiet ones turned to see whom the others were eyeing. I figured it was Brian's mother, a.k.a. Army Boots.

  From a distance she appeared theatrical, with a wide scarf wrapped around her thick, bleached hair and a big gold chain around her waist, but as she got close, she looked more like a P.E. teacher and mother-with a strong jaw, a determined mouth, but lots of little worry lines around her eyes.

  "Ladies," she greeted us, joining us on the porch. "How are you?"

  "Fine, okay, good," we mumbled.

  "I hope you can speak more clearly than that on stage," she said, then smiled. "I'm Dr. Margaret Rynne. You may call me Maggie."

  I thought Brian had said his last name was Jones; perhaps she used her maiden name or had remarried.

  "I'm the assistant director, and for the eight of you who have been assigned to Drama House"-she paused, counting to make sure we were eight-"your R.A., or housemother. We'll start promptly. Here are copies of the floor plan. Please find your name and locate your room."

  I studied the diagram. Maggie's room, two bedrooms, a multi-bath, and the common room were on the first floor. Four bedrooms and another multi-bath were on the second, and two bedrooms and a bath were nestled under the roof. We were supposed to eat in the cafeteria in the Student Union, but there was a kitchen in the house's basement.

  "On each door you'll find a rope necklace with your key attached," Maggie said. "Please remember to-" "Who wants to switch rooms?" Shawna interrupted.

  "No room switching," Maggie replied quickly. "Please be attentive to-" "But I have to, Maggie," she insisted, fingering a braid. "I'll never be able to sleep in that room."

  "You can sleep with me," Ken said. "I'm in the attic."

  I rechecked the floor plan. So was I.

  "Each girl will sleep in her own bed," Maggie said. "I would like to remind you all that this is theater camp, not a seven-week slumber party. When the lights go out at eleven, everyone is to be in bed. Our rehearsal schedule is a rigorous one a
nd you must be in top form."

  "But I can't be in top form if I have to sleep in that room," Shawna persisted. "My sister goes to college here, and she says the back room is haunted."

  "Haunted how?" asked the thin girl, twisting a strand of her light-colored hair.

  "There are strange sounds at night," Shawna said, "and cold drafts, and after the bed is made, it gets rumpled again, as if someone's been sleeping in it."

  I glanced at Maggie, who shook her head quietly. The other girls gazed at Shawna wide-eyed.

  "It's Liza Montgomery," Shawna continued.

  Now I stared at her.

  "That was her room last year, you know."

  "You mean the girl who was murdered?" asked a newcomer. "The one axed by the serial killer?"

  "Bludgeoned," Keri corrected with a dispassionate flick of her heavily lined eyes.

  Inside I cringed.

  "Four weeks into our camp," said the girl with the dark silky hair, "Liza went out alone in the middle of the night."

  My stomach tightened. I should have anticipated this, my sister being turned into a piece of campus lore.

  "She was found under the bridge, chased under there," the girl added.

  In fact, the police didn't know why Liza was beneath the bridge-whether she was chased, lured, or simply happened to be walking there.

  "She got it in the back of the head-with a hammer. There was blood like all over the place."

  "Thank you for that detail, Lynne," Maggie said.

  "Her watch was smashed," Lynne went on.

  I struggled to act like the other girls, interested in a story that was making me sick.

  "That's how the police knew it was the serial killer. He murders people under bridges and smashes their wristwatches, so you know what time he did it."

  "What time did he do it?" asked a new girl.

  "Midnight," said Lynne.

  Twelve-thirty, I corrected silently, twelve-thirty while I was still trying to reach her.

  "Well, I think that's enough for today's storytime," Maggie said, then turned to the four of us who were new. "Ladies, there was a horrible tragedy here last summer. It shook up all of us. But this is a very safe campus and a safe town, and if you follow the camp's curfew rules, there is no reason to be concerned. Keri, Shawna, Lynne, and Denise"-she pointed them out-"were here last year. And camp is camp, no matter how grown-up you get. Those of you who are new, don't be conned by the tales and pranks of the veterans."

  "My sister wasn't making up tales," Shawna insisted. "The room is haunted." "I'll take it."

  The other girls and Maggie turned around. I thought Maggie was going to remind me that she had prohibited the switching of rooms, but perhaps she reasoned that Shawna's room was next to her own and seven weeks was a long time to live next to someone convinced she was sharing her bed with a ghost. "Fine," she agreed. "And you are?" "Jenny Baird. I was assigned to the third floor." She made a neat correction on her own copy of the floor plan, then glanced at her watch. "We have a camp meeting and cookout at the college pavilion scheduled for five o'clock. I would like you all to deposit your luggage in your rooms and be ready to go in five minutes. Wear your key and lock your door when you leave."

  There was general confusion as the eight of us pulled our luggage out of the heap and rushed toward the front door. "Don't dawdle in the bathroom," Maggie called after us.

  "She means it," Shawna whispered. "She'll come in and pull you off the toilet."

  One of the new girls looked back at Shawna, horrified.

  "Just kidding," Shawna said, laughing in a loud, bright way that made me laugh.

  The front door opened into a large, square foyer with varnished wood trim and a worn tile floor. The stairs rose against the back wall of the foyer, turned and climbed, then turned and climbed again. A hall ran from the foot of the stairway straight to the back of the house. The common room, where we could all hang out, was to the right of the foyer. Proceeding down the hall, there was a room on either side, Maggie's and Lynne's, then continuing on, my bedroom on one side and the multi-bath on the other.

  I knew from Liza's e-mails that she had liked this room, and when I opened the door I remembered why. Its back wall had a deep double window with a built-in bench. I pictured Liza practicing every possible pose a heroine could adopt in the romantic window seat, but there was no time for me to "dawdle" and try it out.

  I met up with Lynne in the bathroom, then we headed out to the front porch. When everyone had reported back, Maggie led us down Goose Lane, which ran past the backyard of the fraternity next door toward Oyster Creek.

  "How do you like your room?" Keri asked as she strolled beside me, her short black-and-white hair ruffling in the breeze. It 's nice."

  "Yes," she said, lowering her voice, "if you like being next to Boots."

  I shrugged. I hadn't come here to see how many rules I could break.

  "Hey, guy alert," Denise called from behind us.

  Everyone turned around but Maggie, who marched on like a mother goose assuming her goslings were right behind. Our group of eight slowed down, or perhaps the guys picked up their pace. However it happened, the two groups soon merged and we did what guys and girls always do, say things too loudly, make comments that seem terribly clever until they come out really dumb, while checking each other out. I saw the heavy-set guy from the Bronx hanging toward the back. Far ahead Maggie stopped and gazed back at us, counting her flock, I guessed.

  "So where's Paul? I thought Paul was supposed to be here," Shawna said with a sly look at Keri.

  "He's here. Somewhere," a guy replied. "Mike and Brian are looking for him."

  Mike? Liza's Michael? I wondered. Would a guy in love with a girl return to the place where she was murdered? No way… and yet I had come here and I loved Liza.

  "Paul's probably back torching Drama House," another guy teased. "Hope you girls didn't leave anything important there."

  "I still think it was unfair for everyone to blame last year's fire on Paul," Shawna replied. "There was no evidence."

  "Oh, come on. He did it," Lynne said, "probably with the help of Liza."

  "Probably to get Liza," a guy observed.

  "No way," argued another. "Paul wouldn't have hurt her. He was totally obsessed with her."

  I saw Keri bite her lip.

  "That's what obsessed people do when they don't get what they want," the boy continued. "They get the person's attention one way or another."

  I didn't like this conversation.

  "I thought Paul was weird before Liza was murdered," Denise said, rubbing her long, thin arms, "but he was even weirder afterward, wanting all the details."

  "Most people do want the details," Keri said crisply. "He's just more honest than the rest of you."

  "Anyway, it's not strange for him," observed another guy. "You ever seen the video games Paul plays? The more violent they are the better he likes them."

  "Movies, too," someone else added. "I bet he watched slasher movies in his playpen."

  Sounds like a terrific guy, I thought.

  "Paul's great-looking-in a dangerous kind of way," Lynne said, picking up her dark hair and waving it around to cool herself. "But once he gets hooked on someone or something, he's scary."

  "At least scary is interesting," Keri remarked, "which is more than I can say for the rest of you guys."

  The boys hooted. The girls laughed. The conversation turned to other people who had attended camp last year.

  Had Liza been aware of Paul's feelings? I wondered as we walked on. Did my sister realize that someone like that could turn on you? Call it a huge ego or simple naiveté, but Liza always believed that everyone liked her-"they like me deep down," she'd insist when people acted otherwise.

  Goose Lane ended at the college boathouse. Beyond the cinder-block building were racks of sculls-those long, thin boats for rowing races-and a pier with floating docks attached. Oyster Creek, wide as a river, flowed peacefully between us and a distant b
ank of trees. To the left of the docks was the pavilion, an open wooden structure with a shingled roof and deck. Built on pilings over the edge of the creek, it seemed to float on a tide of tall, grasslike vegetation.

  Two other groups of eight had caught up with us. Maggie conferred with a guy and girl whom I guessed were RA.s, and the rest of us climbed a ramp to the pavilion. Inside it was furnished with wood tables and benches. I headed for its sun-washed deck, which provided a view of the creek. Leaning on the railing, I finally allowed myself to look to the left, past a small green park to a bridge, the bridge where Liza had been killed. I studied it for several minutes, then turned away.

  "Are you all right?"

  I hadn't realized Shawna was standing next to me. "Me? Yeah."

  "You're pale," she said. "Even your freckles are pale.

  "Too bad they don't fade all together," I joked. "Really, I'm all right. I, uh, look like this when I haven't eaten for a while."

  She believed the excuse. "They're putting out munchies. You stay here, Reds. I'll get you some."

  "Thanks."

  I turned back to the water. When Liza came to this place the first day, when she saw the creek sparkling in the late-afternoon sun and heard the breeze rustling in the long grass, did she have any idea that her life would end here?

  No. Impossible.

  She had had so much ahead of her-a scholarship to study acting in London, a film role scheduled for spring. She had had beauty, brains, and incredible talent, and the world was about to get its first real glimpse of her. It was no time to die.

  Besides, even if Liza had been a more ordinary girl, no teen believes death is waiting for her. Certainly, standing by the creek that sunny afternoon, I didn't.

  Chapter four

  Our director arrived by motorcycle. The guys thought it was cool. I think a middle-aged man with a big paunch straddling a motorcycle looks like a jackin-the-box before it springs-all rolled up in himself. In any case, it was a dramatic entrance, especially since he rode the cycle across the park grass and partway up a pavilion ramp, stopped only by Maggie running down it, waving her arms frantically, screaming that the machine was too heavy.