Nightshade (28 page)

But why was it silent now?

The silence itself became frightening as she imagined what might be lurking there in the darkness, creeping closer to her.

She closed her eyes, telling herself that by not seeing the darkness, it didn’t exist.

Light!

She would imagine light!

She focused her mind, thinking of the chandelier that hung over the dining room table at home, its crystals refracting the light into a brilliant rainbow of color that splashed into every corner of the room.

Slowly, deep in her mind, a pinpoint of light appeared, then began to expand until it seemed she was no longer in the dark chamber, but in the center of a great pool of light.

But then, as something scuttled over her legs, the light vanished and she was plunged back into darkness. And with the disappearance of light, her hope also began to fade away.

No one — not even herself — knew where she was.

No one — not even herself — knew what had happened to her.

Slowly, the truth dawned on her.

She was going to die.

Die alone.

Die in the darkness.

Exhausted, Kelly Conroe finally gave in to the terror and sobbed.

But no one heard her. No one, at least, who cared.

*                                     *                                     *

THE NEWS OF Kelly Conroe’s disappearance spread through Granite Falls like a virus, leaping from one house to another, transmitted partly over the telephone wires, but also by people — adults and teenagers alike — who darted out of their houses to dash next door, or down the block, or even a street or two away to tell their friends what had happened. As with all stories that spread through small towns, the facts, what few there were, were soon tainted with speculation, rumor, and gossip. The simple truth — that Kelly Conroe was late coming home and that her parents had so far been unable to locate her — was far too prosaic to be passed along unadorned. So with each telling of the tale, each iteration of the facts as the teller had heard them, a detail was expanded upon, a speculation added, an interpretation mixed in.

“She just vanished, right after school!” Sarah Balfour’s mother hadn’t intentionally misinterpreted her daughter’s report that Kelly had ignored her invitation to go for a Coke after song-leading practice. It was simply that Sarah was involved with so many things that Elaine Balfour had long ago come to think of “after school” as beginning at four-thirty or five, rather than ten past three.

“She didn’t speak to anyone all day!” Marge Carson, who heard the story from Elaine Balfour, had no idea that it was only at song-leading practice that Kelly’s friends had noticed she’d appeared distracted. She had no idea that Kelly had gone to song-leading practice at all.

“Everyone says Matt Moore had something to do with it!” That had started with Heather Pullman, who overheard her father’s side of the conversation when Gerry Conroe finally made good on his threat to call the police chief. “Mr. Conroe thinks Matt must have done something to her,” she’d whispered to Tiffany Vail, a chill running through her as she imagined what “something” might be. She hung up when she felt her father’s eyes on her, but it was too late.

“You know you’re never to repeat anything you hear me talking about,” he told her as he unplugged her telephone.

Though it was well-intended, Dan Pullman’s suspension of his daughter’s telephone privileges accomplished nothing, for the speculation on Matt Moore’s role in Kelly’s disappearance had begun even before Tiffany Vail passed it on to Sarah Balfour and all the rest of the song-leaders.

Gossip and the grapevine acted as prosecutor and jury, and as the story spread, the assumption that Matt Moore was involved pervaded everything.

“Everyone knows she broke up with him.”

“Everyone knows he was trying to get her back.”

“Everyone knows he killed his stepfather.”

Everyone knows . . . everyone knows . . . everyone knows . . .

An hour after Nancy Conroe began looking for Kelly, the disease had infected nearly everyone in Granite Falls, and nearly everyone agreed on what had happened.

Kelly Conroe had tried to break up with Matt Moore, and Matt refused to accept it. So after school he followed her, and when she refused even to speak to him, he’d “done something” to her.

No one would say he “killed” her, rather than “done something” to Kelly, but it didn’t matter. Everybody knew exactly what everybody else meant.

“Well, I don’t believe it,” Becky Adams announced. She’d been surprised when Eric Holmes came to the back door ten minutes earlier. Even though the Holmes family had lived next door for most of her life, and she and Eric grew up together, they’d never been friends.

Not like Matt and Kelly were friends, anyway.

Becky’s mother constantly speculated on how wonderful it would be if she eventually married the boy next door, but Becky knew it was never going to happen; Eric had always been part of a group that barely acknowledged her existence. So when he knocked at the back door, she’d been immediately suspicious, and as she listened to his version of Kelly’s disappearance, her suspicion coagulated into anger. “I don’t care what anybody says. Matt wouldn’t hurt Kelly. He wouldn’t hurt anybody!”

Eric rolled his eyes scornfully. “I was there the day he killed his dad, Becky!”

“Nobody even knows if he killed Mr. Hapgood,” Becky flared. “They don’t even know if it was Matt’s gun.”

“I’m telling you, I know what happened!” Eric shot back. “And what about his grandma?”

Becky’s expression hardened. “Nobody knows what happened to Mrs. Moore, so why are you and your friends saying Matt had something to do with it?”

“If he didn’t have anything to do with anything, how come he’s acting so weird?”

Becky’s fury grew. “How would you be acting if all your friends were treating you the way you’re treating Matt? I thought you were supposed to be his best friend! I thought — ” Before she could finish, Pete Arenson pushed through the hedge that separated the Adams’ backyard from Eric’s. “What do
you
want?” she demanded. “If you’re going to start talking about Matt, I don’t want to hear it.”

Pete barely even glanced at her. “You ready?” he asked Eric.

“Ready for what?” Becky asked.

“Pete and I are going to look for Kelly,” Eric told her.

Becky stared at the two boys she had known all her life and wondered why she’d ever wanted to be part of their crowd. But she knew why: because Matt was part of it. But not anymore. All the people Matt thought were his friends had turned their backs on him.

Suddenly Becky no longer wanted to be part of that group. “Jerks,” she said, not aware that she was speaking out loud.

“What?” Eric said. “What did you say?”

Becky flushed with embarrassment, but it quickly vanished. “I said you’re both jerks,” she repeated. “I thought you were Matt’s friends, but you’re not. If you were really his friends, you’d know he couldn’t have done any of the things you think he did. He couldn’t have hurt his dad or his grandmother, and there’s no way he could have done anything to Kelly!”

Eric Holmes stared balefully at Becky. “We may be jerks,” he said, “but at least we’re not stupid.” A moment later he and Pete Arneson were gone, disappearing into the night.

CHAPTER
19

“SO WHERE DO you think he took her?” Eric Holmes asked as Pete Arneson revved the engine of his BMW. Though the car had been new the year before Pete was born, he loved it as much as if it had come off the assembly line last week, and for a moment, listening to the purr of the motor, he ignored Eric’s question.

“Do you hear a valve clattering?” he asked, cocking his head as he concentrated on the car’s rumble.

“How would I know what a valve sounds like? I’m gonna be a lawyer, not a mechanic. And if we’re going to go look for Kelly, let’s do it, okay?” As Pete pulled away from the curb, Eric repeated the question he’d asked a moment ago. This time Pete grinned at him, the pale glow of the halogen street lamps making the twisting of his lips look almost cruel.

“Same place he took his grandmother.”

“They haven’t even found his grandmother,” Eric reminded his friend, but Pete shrugged the question off.

“They found her slippers, didn’t they? Just because they didn’t find her body doesn’t mean anything — all they did was look in the stream and under the falls. Matt could have buried her out there, and the grave would be so covered with leaves nobody’d ever notice it.”

Eric wasn’t so sure. “I heard they took dogs out there. If the dogs didn’t find anything, how come you’re so sure — ”

“Look, do you want to do this, or not? Because if you don’t, I can take you back to your house and go by myself.”

And then tell everyone I chickened out,
Eric thought. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t go,” he protested. “All I said was no one really knows what happened to Mrs. Moore.”

Pete shot him a look. “Well, we sure know what happened to Mr. Hapgood, don’t we?” As they passed the last of the streetlights, the night seemed to close around the car, and Eric unconsciously shrank back into the seat, a movement Pete caught out of the corner of his eye. “Going to chicken out?” he mocked.

“Just drive, okay? We’ll see who chickens out when we get there.”

Pete pressed hard on the accelerator. The car shot forward, but seconds later he had to brake sharply as they came to the mouth of the narrow dirt road that led to a small parking area the Hapgoods had carved out of the woods two generations earlier. Slowing the car to a crawl, Pete negotiated the ruts and potholes in the worn surface until he came to the deserted parking area at the trailhead of the path that led to the waterfall.

Pete shut the engine and headlights off, but as the comforting hum of the engine died away and the silence and darkness of the night closed around them, neither boy spoke nor made a move to leave the car. Eric finally broke the silence. “So what’s your plan?” he asked. “Are we just going to sit here all night?”

Spurred as much by the mocking tone as by the words, Pete Arneson jerked on the handle and pushed his door open. “Maybe you are, but I’m going to take a look around.”

Eric hesitated, then he got out of the car too.

For a moment neither boy could see anything, but as their eyes adjusted to the darkness, the moonlight filtering through the branches provided just enough illumination for them to make out the trail and the trees on either side of it. “You coming?” Pete asked as he started down the trail.

As Pete moved quickly toward the path, Eric just as quickly considered his choices. He could stay by himself in the parking lot, but if he did, he knew that by tomorrow afternoon Pete would tell everyone they knew that he lost his nerve and he’d never live it down. Besides, what if Kelly was out here? What if something actually had happened to her?

What if someone had killed her? And what if that someone was still out here?

The idea of being alone in the silence and the darkness was suddenly more frightening than going with Pete, and Eric hurried after his friend before the other boy vanished completely into the darkness.

They moved quickly along the path, Pete leading the way. They had walked it hundreds of times before, but tonight it seemed longer, and they found themselves pausing every few yards.

Pausing to peer into the darkness around them.

Pausing to listen to the sounds of the night.

But they could see nothing, and all they could hear was the steadily growing roar of the waterfall that lay a quarter of a mile ahead.

A roar that would grow louder and louder, masking every other sound.

Though neither of them spoke, the same thoughts came to both of them:

What if there’s someone else out here?

What if it’s not Kelly? What if it’s someone else, and he’s right beside us?

Following us.

Watching us.

Pete began moving faster, and Eric matched his pace. The path seemed to grow narrower, the forest denser.

A faint sound stopped Pete dead in his tracks, and Eric almost bumped into him. “What is it?” he whispered, his words sounding louder than they were. “Why are we stopping?”

“Will you shut up?” Pete whispered back. “I thought I heard something!”

A chill passed through Eric, and he scanned the darkness, straining to pierce the night.

But he could see nothing.

They stood still, their bodies as tense as those of animals sensing danger, but all they could hear was the roar of the waterfall, and they slowly relaxed. Pete continued along the path, Eric following, but as the trail opened onto the broad shelf of rock that edged the pool, he stopped again, reaching back to stop Eric as well.

Pete pressed his forefinger to his lips, and as Eric moved closer, Pete pointed toward the waterfall.

At first Eric saw nothing, but then, almost invisible in the darkness, he barely was able to make out a shadowy figure.

Someone was standing on the ledge about forty yards away.

Standing on the ledge, and peering into the pool.

Every instinct in Eric Holmes told him to turn around and slip back into the protective darkness, then run back to the safety of the car. But as he started to back away, Pete Arneson moved through the grove of trees that edged the rocky shelf.

Against his own will, Eric found himself following.

They moved closer, until they were only twenty feet from the figure that was now silhouetted against the cascading waterfall. And then, over the roar of the falls, they heard a voice.

“Kelly? Kelllly . . .”

It was a voice they both recognized.

Matt Moore.

Pete and Eric looked at each other. Again Eric’s instincts told him to go back to the car, to go back to town, to tell someone what they’d seen — their parents, or even the police. But before he could say anything, Pete spoke up.

“What did you do with her, Matt?” Matt spun around, and Pete glared balefully at him in the darkness. “What did you do with Kelly?”

Matt remained frozen where he was, staring at the two figures that had suddenly materialized out of the darkness. But as Pete took a step toward him, he finally recovered. “I didn’t do anything to her,” he said. “I’m looking for her.”