No Time to Die ds-3 Page 7

  "Does anyone have a flashlight?" Brian asked. "Even a small one on a key chain would help."

  Two girls seated in the audience volunteered theirs.

  "Pass the flashlights toward the center aisle," Maggie instructed.

  There was whispering and nervous laughter as Brian retrieved the flashlights, then crossed the stage to the steps that led to the ground floor hall.

  Suddenly the whispering stopped.

  "What's that?" someone asked, her voice thin with apprehension. "What do I smell?"

  "Perfume," a guy answered.

  I sniffed and my skin prickled. I knew the scent.

  "Smells like jasmine," said another girl.

  Liza's perfume. I remembered the weeks after she'd died, packing her sweaters in a Goodwill bag, smelling the jasmine. I had felt as if she would walk into our bedroom at any moment. It was a scent that haunted.

  The lights suddenly came back on.

  "Nobody move," Maggie commanded. "I'm doing a head count."

  The vets exchanged glances-perhaps they recognized my sister's trademark scent.

  "Look at Paul," someone whispered.

  His eyes were shut, his lips closed and smiling. He was inhaling deeply, as if he loved breathing in Liza's scent, as if he couldn't get enough.

  I felt sick to my stomach. Turning away from him, I discovered Mike watching me.

  Walker paced up and down the stage, obviously irritated.

  "What was the problem?" he asked when Brian emerged from behind the stage.

  "I don't know. The power came back on before I reached the electrical room."

  "Did you see Arthur?"

  "No, but I came right back."

  "All of us are accounted for," Maggie reported to Walker.

  Placing his hands on his hips, Walker eyed Paul and me, then Keri in the wings with her fairies, then the kids in the rows of seats below.

  "It was a nice bit of theater," he said. "We might even incorporate it in our production, releasing a certain scent through the air duct system when Puck does his magic or Titania sweeps through. That said, I don't wish to be entertained by further improvisation. Got it?"

  Kids nodded and looked suspiciously at one another.

  I wanted to believe it was a piece of theater, but I couldn't shake the eerie feeling I'd had the day I arrived here, the strong sense of Liza's presence. I had thought I came out of my own need for closure; now I wondered if Liza had summoned me.

  What do you want, Liza?

  To find things for her, it was always to find things. Had someone at the camp heard something, seen something? If I probed, would I find clues that could solve her murder?

  "Miss Baird," Walker was saying, "please join us on this planet."

  No way, Liza, I answered my sister silently, don't ask me to do it.

  I'd hunt for barrettes, socks, homework, and phone numbers, but not for serial killers.

  Chapter ten

  The best moments of Thursday and Friday were spent in the gym with Maggie and Tomas, the three of us working on how to make Puck "lighter than air." Tomas, seeing what I could do, was full of ideas on how to rework the set to accommodate vaults and tumbles. Maggie acted different than she did at the theater. She still worried, and still was unrelenting about getting things right, but sometimes, when we'd clown around, she'd laugh. We even "played hooky" for an hour, going to a nearby store to buy leotards for me. When Maggie heard that Tomas and I would be staying through the weekend, she invited us for dinner at her home Saturday night.

  I learned from Shawna that Mike, Paul, and Keri were also staying over the weekend. I avoided the three of them as much as possible Friday and saw them only from a distance walking down High Street on Saturday.

  I also avoided the window seat and the bridge and kept the lights on in my room. I slept badly Thursday and Friday night, wanting to close my eyes, but fighting sleep each time I'd feel myself slipping away. Still, I got a few hours each night with no haunting images. By the time Tomas and I were walking to Maggie's house Saturday night, I had convinced myself that the strange events of the first week were simply my initial reaction to facing the place where Liza had died. My second week here would certainly be easier.

  Maggie lived in a pretty wooden house on Cannon Street, one block over from High. Its front porch was welcoming with wicker chairs and pots of pink and white flowers. Brian answered the door smiling. "Any trouble with my directions?"

  "No," I said, "the only trouble was keeping Tomas moving. He has to stop and look at everything." I turned to my friend. "Next time we go somewhere, I'm leading you blindfolded."

  "Okay," he replied, half-listening, more interested now in peering beyond Brian to see what was in the living room.

  It was a homey room, though a little too flowery for me, with prints of cabbage-size roses on the slipcovers and curtains. Brian led us through a small dining room and into a square kitchen, where Maggie was stuffing potato skins.

  "What can we do to help?" I asked.

  "Just enjoy yourselves," she replied. "I've got everything under control here."

  Brian placed a tall kitchen stool next to Maggie for Tomas to sit on.

  I thought he'd get one for me, too, but when Maggie started talking with Tomas about the dinner she was preparing, I felt a tug on my arm. Brian winked, then pulled me toward the door. I followed him to the living room, though I felt a little rude leaving Tomas and Maggie in the kitchen. I glanced back over my shoulder.

  "I never get a chance to hang out with you," Brian said. "Tomas always does."

  "Yes, but I'm your mom's guest, too."

  "She understands my situation. I think that may be why she invited you tonight. I'm only two years older than you, but you're a student and I'm staff, so I'm not supposed to ask you for a date."

  "Otherwise you would?"

  He laughed in response. "Sometimes I can't believe you, Jenny! You're as naive as Tomas. You make quite a pair."

  "Guess we do."

  His brown eyes swept over my face, the dusty lashes making his long gaze soft. His lips parted for a moment as if he was going to say something more, but he simply smiled. I glanced around the room for something to talk about.

  "Is that you?" I asked, pointing to a photograph. "Or did Superman get a lot shorter?"

  "That's me, Halloween, our first year in Wisteria."

  I walked over and picked up the framed picture. "You were awfully cute!"

  "Do you have to use the past tense?" he asked.

  I laughed. "How old were you?"

  "Six, I think." He crossed the room, stood beside me for a moment studying the photo, then sat on the love seat next to the table of pictures, leaving space for me.

  I remained standing and picked up another photo. "Your mom. How pretty!"

  "That's her college picture. You can sit down and look at them, Jenny."

  I did, and he pulled his arm up, resting it along the back of the love seat, conveniently close to my shoulders. I wondered what to do when I ran out of pictures. I wasn't ready to get romantic with him, but I didn't want him to think I never would.

  "Who's this?" I asked, pointing to another photo. Maggie and Brian were sitting on a picnic blanket with a child who looked two or three years younger than Brian. There were several pictures of the child, a beautiful little girl with brown hair and blue eyes. I picked up the closest one.

  "That's my sister, Melanie."

  "Where is she now?" I asked, then wished I hadn't. As I gazed at her face, a strange feeling came over me. I knew she was dead.

  "She died about six months after that picture was taken."

  "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked."

  "Don't worry about it," Brian said. "It was a long time ago. I was only five at the time."

  I kept looking at the picture. With her dark hair and puffy party dress, Melanie reminded me of a young Liza.

  "What is it?" Brian asked gently. "You look so-so sad."

  "It is sad," I repl
ied, tempted to tell him what we shared. I thought about the way Maggie watched us campers like a worried mother hen. Since Liza's death, I had caught my own mother watching me that way.

  I placed the picture back on the table, and Brian reached over and picked up another. "This is my favorite photo of Melanie," he said, laying it in my lap.

  "This is how I remember her."

  I held the picture gently. His sister was wearing little green overalls with a bunny on the front. She had a wonderful, merry smile and eyes full of mischief, as if she were keeping a delicious secret.

  The image grew blurry and I felt tears in my eyes, helpless tears for Brian's family and mine. I blinked them back, but the image still wavered before me, its edges softening and shifting, another image rising up through it, like an object at the bottom of a pond that suddenly clears. The little girl was in a long, narrow box and she was scared. A soft black blanket dropped down over her. I felt horribly afraid. Then Liza stood next to me. I couldn't see her, but I knew it was she. "Don't be scared, Jenny," she said. "I'll help you."

  "Jen," Brian said, "Jenny!" He pulled me close to him. "I didn't bring you over here to make you sad."

  My eyes cleared; the little girl was smiling up at me again. "How did Melanie die?"

  "In a fire. She became frightened and hid in a closet."

  My throat tightened. "In a closet?"

  "The baby-sitter couldn't find her. She died from smoke inhalation."

  I swallowed hard. What in the sunny picture before me had allowed me to see her in a long box-a closet-with a blanket of black smoke descending upon her?

  "Have you ever been in a fire?" Brian asked.

  "No. No, it must be very frightening."

  "You feel so powerless," he said.

  Powerless was how I felt now, unable to stop the images that invaded my mind. I had been careful the last two days, but as soon as I let down my guard, Liza crept back into my head.

  Was there something real about these images, I wondered, something true about them?

  Liza and I used to watch Mom's old films and laugh ourselves silly at one called Teen Psychic. There were a lot of close-ups of Mom's green eyes widening with terror as she gazed at photos of murder sites and touched things that belonged to dead people. In a singsongy voice she would describe the visions she was seeing, images that would help solve mysteries. I wished I could laugh about it now, but I was scared and desperate to believe there was nothing psychic about me and my visions.

  I glanced up at Brian.

  "Good move, guy," he said to himself. "A girl comes over, you get time alone, and you depress the heck out of her."

  I forced a smile. "I like knowing about your family-family is what makes a person who he is. And I like seeing your house," I said, seizing the excuse to get up and walk around again. "Houses are full of clues about people."

  "You know a lot more about me than I know about you," Brian pointed out.

  "Well, I don't have much to tell. My family's boring."

  Another picture of Melanie sat on a desk, and another on a bookcase.

  It would be easy to guess that the child was dead, I reasoned, since there were no pictures of her growing older. And knowing she had died, it would be natural to imagine her in a long box-a casket, not a closet-with a symbolic black blanket drawn over her. These images had been triggered simply by my empathy with Brian as someone who lost a sister. And that, of course, was why I had thought of Liza. Liza was not sending me messages from the dead, and I was not "Teen Psychic."

  I pulled a worn book off the shelf, Handbook to Acting, and started paging through it as if I were interested.

  "How do you think it's going between you and Walker?" Brian asked.

  "A lot better than I thought it would."

  "He likes your feistiness," Brian said. "And it doesn't hurt that you're new to theater. I know you won't believe it, but Walker is easily threatened by people with talent and experience."

  "You're right, I don't believe it."

  Brian laughed and swung his feet up on the love seat, sitting sideways, watching me as I closed the book and chose another.

  "To understand Walker," he said, "you've got to understand his history. When he bombed in New York, he really bombed. The last show he directed, his big chance, the one he thought would bring him fame and fortune, starred Lee Montgomery."

  I turned toward Brian-a little too quickly, I realized. I knew my father had worked with Walker, but I had been too young to remember anything about the situation, "It didn't do well?" I asked aloud.

  "Montgomery pulled out. He saw the ship going down and jumped fast. The show sank immediately, closing three days after he left the cast."

  I turned back to the bookcase so Brian couldn't see my face. "Are you sure? Did Walker tell you this himself?"

  "Walker would never tell me anything he'd consider so humiliating. My mother did, last summer, when Liza Montgomery came here. I had seen Walker go after actresses he thought were prima donnas but never with such passion as he did with Liza. Of course, Liza could defend herself. She dished it back, right in front of the other kids, and wasn't shy about reminding him that he had failed in New York, that he was just some drama teacher in the middle of nowhere."

  I winced inwardly. I knew how sharp Liza's tongue could be.

  "I don't think she realized what a tender point it was with him. Anyway, my mother, who knew Walker from her grad school days in New York, explained the situation to me. Don't repeat it, Jenny, I wasn't supposed to.

  "I won' t."

  There was a clinking of silverware in the next room.

  "Sounds like it's almost time to eat," Brian observed.

  I returned my book to its place, and he rose from the sofa. Just before I reached the dining room door, he pulled me back. "Jenny, I realize I'm blowing my chance with you," he said softly. "I promise we'll talk about all happy things during dinner and after."

  We did, and there was a lot of laughter as we discussed high school life from math class to prom dates, even Maggie chiming in with a funny account of her first date. But I felt like a person split in two, one part of me chattering away and putting on a good show, the other plagued by a growing uneasiness.

  What had happened between Walker and my father? What exactly had happened when Liza was here? How deep did the bitterness run?

  When the evening was over, Brian insisted on escorting us back to campus, even though he was off for the weekend while other Chase students covered the dorms. It took a while for Tomas to figure out that Brian was waiting for him to go inside and leave us alone. As soon as he disappeared, Brian walked me over to the porch steps of Drama House and pulled me down next to him.

  "I'm not supposed to date you, Jenny."

  "That's what you said before."

  He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "I didn't think this was going to be a problem. I mean, I'm pretty good at not letting someone become important to me. I have to be if I want to make it to L.A."

  "I understand."

  He laughed. "How nice of you to understand, since you're the one making it a struggle for me! It would be so easy to make you important."

  "Then be careful," I told him.

  "I don't think I want to be." He took my face in his hands.

  "You know how important the rules are to your mother," I reminded him.

  "I heard it's a rule that you have to kiss a girl when you walk her home beneath a full moon."

  "The moon isn't full."

  He smiled and glanced toward the tower on top of Stoddard. Its clock gleamed in the dark. "This is drama camp. The clock is shining. We'll make it a moon."

  He kissed me on the lips. "Good night," he said softly, then rose and walked away whistling.

  I leaned against the stair railing. Brian's kiss was nice-as nice as a handshake, I thought. How could I feel romantic when there was so much else going on in my life? I debated whether I should confide in Brian, so he would understand why I couldn't g
et interested. Not quite yet, I decided.

  He was right, the tower clock did look like a full moon. I stood up quickly. The image I had seen Tuesday night, the shattering circle of light, flashed through my mind. Perhaps the image wasn't a moon, but a clock-a watch, for I had felt something being fastened around my wrist. I grasped my wrist as I had done then and thought of Liza's watch being smashed by the murderer.

  But it was my left wrist that I grasped tonight, and the left wrist in my vision. As left-handers, Liza and I wore our watches on our right. I sat back down on the steps.

  Was this detail a meaningless mistake in the way my mind re-created the events beneath the bridge, or was it true? I tried to remember what the police report said, but I had worked so hard at blocking out the facts, I couldn't recall.

  Liza didn't always wear a watch. Maybe the serial killer supplied a watch if his victim wasn't wearing one and fastened it to the wrist on which a person usually wore her watch. Maybe the watch would be a clue to the killer's identity. Was this what Liza wanted me to discover?

  Of course, anyone could have fastened a watch on her, then smashed it. What if someone had done so to make it look like a crime by the serial killer? I shuddered at the idea and dismissed it, for that kind of murder suggested a more personal motive. And no one could have hated my sister enough to kill her.

  Chapter eleven

  Sunday morning I went to church. I sat in the back and prayed my visions would go away. I knew it was a dangerous thing to do-God has a habit of answering prayers in ways different from what we have in mind.

  When I returned to Drama House, I found a note from Tomas asking if I wanted to hang out in town. I changed into a sleeveless top and shorts, slipped some money and tissues in my pockets, then went next door. Tomas emerged carrying his stuffed backpack, like a snail hauling his shell.

  "Would you like to put anything in here?" he asked as he adjusted the pack on his shoulders.

  "Yeah, and never see it again," I teased.

  We spent an hour visiting shops on side streets, then bought two iced cappuccinos and strolled down to the river. The town harbor had a public dock, a rectangular platform extending over the water and lined with benches-a perfect place to sit and sip.