The Night Walker (Nightmare Hall) (8 page)

Giving up, she joined Ivy and Suze out on the Commons.

“No gloomy talk about attacks on innocent, helpless cars,” Ivy half-joked on the way to the mall. “I’m as upset about it as you are, but it’s too nice a day to try to analyze why some crazy with a hammer would go after a helpless sedan, okay?”

“Okay with me,” Quinn said as she steered her own small blue compact car around a curve. Ivy had a point. Why waste time discussing a puzzle when no one had the missing pieces? Maybe this day could still be salvaged. And maybe she’d get the chance to ask Suze what she was doing at Jake’s car that morning.

They did have fun. Suze bought two new pairs of outrageously expensive earrings, Ivy found a CD she’d been hunting for for weeks, and Quinn tested four or five shades of lipstick, one a bold, daring red, which she didn’t buy. No guts, she accused silently, buying instead a pale coral shade.

Suze drove Ivy and Quinn crazy, stopping every few minutes to talk to a different guy.

“She is the most incredible flirt I’ve ever seen!” Ivy said with some disgust.

Quinn laughed. “Look who’s talking.”

Ivy shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s just a game to me. You don’t see me latching on to any one guy, do you? Who needs it?”

“Does Tim know you feel that way? He looks to me like he has great expectations concerning the two of you.”

“Tim’s okay. But I’m still having fun …”

Ivy was as casual about Tim, who seemed nuts about her, as Tobie was about Danny.

“I guess you and Simon are sailing along smoothly now,” Ivy said, stopping to gaze into a sporting goods store window. “Don’t you think that’s kind of risky?”

“Risky? Risky how?”

“Well,” Ivy turned away from the window, “some of the couples on campus aren’t going out in public now. They’re afraid to. I guess they think being a twosome on campus right now is a dangerous thing.”

Quinn wanted to retort that people were just being silly, but the words stuck in her throat. Because maybe they weren’t. The attacks had all been on couples. How could you ignore that?

Ignoring it might be … what was the word Ivy had used … dangerous?

“I need new sneakers,” she said, pulling Ivy into the sporting goods store. She did need new sneakers, although she hated the thought of
why
she needed them. Not to mention new white socks, she thought dismally.

She was at the sock rack when Suze caught up with her. Quinn turned around when Suze said her name. Ivy was at the rear of the store, trying on boots. It seemed like the perfect time to ask Suze what she was doing at Jake’s car this morning.

But, Quinn thought, then she’ll want to know what
I
was doing there.

So, I’ll fib.

Blonde hair up in a curly ponytail, blue eyes wide with pleasure as she joined Quinn, Suze looked like the most innocent person in the world. “Suze,” Quinn began, “have you heard any more about Reed and Jake? I can’t believe they got out of that car with only some scratches, can you?”

“No, but they did. I saw Reed this morning. She had a Band-Aid on one cheek and some scratches on her hands, but that’s all. They were really lucky.”

“I’ll say.” Quinn fingered a pair of thick white socks and said very casually, “I wandered over to the car this morning to see what was left of it in daylight, and I thought I saw you there.”

“You did? I didn’t see you.”

Quinn felt her cheeks grow warm. That’s because I was hiding, Susan, like the sneaky person that I am. Aloud, she said, “No? So … what were you doing there?”

“I was getting something for Reed,” Suze answered without hesitation. “She called early this morning, said she’d left her purse on the front seat.”

Ivy joined them then, and Quinn dropped the matter. Who was she to be grilling Suze? Hadn’t she herself been at the car? And which of .the two of them was Most Likely To Be Suspected? Which one of them had found a paint-stained skirt and sweater in her room? Which one had been wearing grungy, grimy socks in bed shortly after the attack on Jake’s car, and which one had found glass fragments in her raincoat pockets?

And which one sleepwalked, wandering around at night like some beady-eyed nocturnal animal when everyone else was asleep?

Not Suze.

Maybe it was time for Quinn Hadley to visit a campus counselor again. She didn’t want to. Talking with a counselor would make her feel like she was really losing it.

Well, maybe she was.

They stopped at Vinnie’s on the way home. To Quinn’s surprise, Reed and Jake were there, sitting quietly in a corner booth. The simple Band-Aid on Reed’s cheek lied about the severity of the attack.

“I didn’t expect to see
them
here,” Suze commented. “You’d think after their narrow escape, they’d be hiding in their rooms.” She shook her head and her ponytail bounced. “It’s a miracle that they weren’t hurt worse than they were.”

“They must have ducked the first time the hammer hit the car,” Ivy commented, reaching for a napkin. “Or maybe they both fainted, facedown. I know I would have.”

“Me, too,” Quinn agreed. In her mind’s eye, she saw a yellow-clad figure lifting a large hammer, slamming it down against the car …

“I’m not hungry,” she announced, standing up. “Just order me something to drink, okay? I’ll be right back.”

She hurried over to the table in the corner. “I’m glad you guys aren’t lying in hospital beds,” she told Reed and Jake. “We were just talking about how lucky you were. I mean,” she added hastily, “I’m sure it was horrible, but it could have been so much worse.”

Reed nodded. “We know, Quinn. Of course, Jake here is without wheels now.”

Quinn couldn’t help noticing that Reed’s hand shook slightly as she lifted her glass.

Small wonder.

“Well, at least no one stole your purse from the car,” she said to Reed. “It would have been so easy to just reach in through that broken windshield and yank it right out of there.”

Reed looked up at Quinn. “My purse?”

Quinn nodded. “I’m not surprised that you forgot it when the fire fighters helped you out of there. You must have been so glad to get free.”

“I didn’t forget my purse, Quinn. What are you talking about?”

Quinn’s eyes moved from Reed’s face to Suze, standing over by the jukebox, flirting outrageously with “Mower” Platte, one of the football players.

She lied, Quinn thought. She
lied.

Well, her conscience snickered,
you
were going to lie to
her,
if you had to. You just didn’t have to, that’s the only difference between the two of you.

I
know
why I was going to fib, Quinn thought. Because that raincoat and hat are lying in the back of my closet. But why did Suze lie?

Quinn made up a flimsy excuse for commenting about Reed’s purse, and returned to the booth, where she announced that she wanted to leave. Headache.

No one argued.

When they got back to campus, Quinn went straight to the library, where she staked out a quiet corner and tried to decide what to do. She needed to talk to someone about all of this. Simon? Maybe. She was seeing him later. But she hated to dump all of this on him when they’d just made up. They weren’t that sure of each other yet.

Ivy? Suze was Ivy’s roommate, and a good friend. Ivy knew Suze was a flirt, but she probably wouldn’t even consider the idea that Suze could be something worse.

And Tobie had problems of her own. It didn’t seem fair to overload her.

There didn’t seem to be a whole lot of choice, and Quinn
had
to talk to someone.

Sighing, she got up and left the library, walking directly to the student services offices at Butler Hall, the administration building.

If she absolutely
had
to talk to someone, it might as well be the counselor she’d talked with before. At least she wouldn’t have to start from scratch. The thought of starting from the very beginning was mind-boggling.

Oh, that’s pretty funny, she thought as she pulled the heavy wooden door open. Like my mind isn’t already boggled to the max. Maybe even beyond repair.

She was just about to turn a corner when she heard a familiar voice say an even more familiar name. She stopped, remaining safely behind the corner wall.

“Stop in any time, Tabitha. I’m always here for you, you know that. You mustn’t keep things bottled up inside. It’s not healthy. It can be dangerous. And Tabitha,” said the voice softly, “time really does heal even the worst pain. I promise.”

The voice that answered quietly, “Thanks a lot, Doctor. See you next week,” was even more recognizable.

Quinn shrank back against the wall, making herself as small as possible, then breathed a sigh of relief as the footsteps turned in a different direction and faded.

The voice belonged to her counselor, the one she had confessed to about her sleepwalking. The therapist had said almost the same thing to Quinn. “It’ll get better, Quinn, I promise.” A very optimistic woman.

The footsteps belonged to Tabitha.

How many Tabithas could there be on campus? And if there
was
another, it wouldn’t have that voice, would it? The voice that belonged to Tabitha Thomason.

Tabitha Thomason, better known to friends and family as Tobie.

Her roommate Tobie.

It wasn’t so surprising, after what Quinn had learned about Tobie recently, that her roommate was seeing a counselor. For that matter, even without the horrendous event in Tobie’s past, she could easily have been seeing a counselor because she was homesick, or having a hard time with her studies.

Lots of people on campus probably talked with the counselors.
I
was on my way to see one, Quinn told herself. Why shouldn’t Tobie?

Right. Why
shouldn’t
Tobie?

It was at that precise moment that Quinn remembered where she’d seen the bright pink paper like the sheet that Simon had pulled from his wallet.

On Tobie’s cork bulletin board over her desk.

Tobie often had trouble concentrating, remembering things, and so she often wrote notes to herself about her schedule or library books to be returned or assignments to finish. She pushpinned the notes to her bulletin board and discarded them when they were no longer needed.

The pushpins, Quinn remembered, were yellow.

But the notes were pink. Bright pink. Each and every one of them was the same exact color and texture as the piece of paper telling Simon Kent that Quinn Hadley wasn’t interested in having him in her life anymore.

The letter to Simon had been written on Tobie’s stationery.

T
OBIE WASN’T IN THE
room when Quinn got back, but she had left a note on her bulletin board.
Not
on pink stationery but on plain white notepaper.

Went over to Danny’s,
Quinn read.
Back later. Have fun with Simon.

So, Tobie had finally decided to get out of her funk. Talking with the counselor must have made her feel better.

There were no pieces of bright pink stationery pushpinned to the bulletin board. The other two notes, one a laundry reminder, the other a scribbled phone number, were both on plain white notepaper.

Had Tobie run out of bright pink? Or … didn’t want to use it for fear Simon had shared his letter with Quinn (as he
had)
and Quinn would recognize the paper?

The first moment they were in this room together, just the two of them, Tobie was going to have to explain that letter.

Pushing the unpleasant matter from her mind, Quinn took a quick shower and got ready for her date with Simon. They were driving into Twin Falls for dinner at Hunan Manor, Quinn’s favorite place to eat, and then taking in a movie. Just the two of them. Quinn’s idea. She had decided they needed to get reacquainted, and that would be easier without a crowd around.

Ivy had pretended to be insulted. “You’re not coming to Tim’s frat party? Okay, that does it, Quinnie, you are no longer in my will.”

Quinn laughed. “You don’t have any money, Ivy.”

‘That’s not the point.” Ivy, in a thick white bathrobe, hair turbanned in a white towel, was sprawled across Tobie’s bed. “It’s the thought that counts. Come on, Quinn, the party’s going to be a blast. It’s bad enough that Tobie wimped out. Now you’re telling me neither of my best friends is going to be at this festive celebration?”

“Suze is going, isn’t she? I thought
she
was your best friend.” Maybe she wouldn’t be, Quinn thought, if you knew that she lies. “Besides,” she added dolefully, “what is there to celebrate with all the creepy things happening on this campus.”

“You’re
all
my best friends,” Ivy said. “And Tim said we’re having this party to show that we’re not afraid. Thumb our nose at that maniac, so to speak.”

“There’s bravery and then there’s stupidity,” Quinn pointed out.

“Look who’s talking. You and Simon are going out
alone,
as a
couple,
while the rest of us are going to be hanging out together. Not even a crazy person would be dumb enough to descend on a crowded frat house. But this particular crazy doesn’t seem to have any problem at all attacking a couple. That’s you and Simon, Quinn.”

“I need to be alone with him,” Quinn insisted. “We have some things to straighten out. Maybe we’ll drop by the party later.”

Ivy seemed satisfied with that, and left to get dressed, adding that if Quinn showed up at the party, she just might consider putting her back in the will.

Quinn was laughing as the door closed.

But the uneasiness had returned. Ivy could be right. Maybe it was foolish to go out as a lone couple on this particular Friday night. Were she and Simon just asking for trouble?

Well, that depends, a niggling little voice said, on who’s doing these nasties. Are you forgetting it
could
be you? You’d hardly attack
yourself,
would you?

Oh, I don’t know, Quinn thought drily. Seems to me, if I’m crazy enough to set off a stink bomb, pour paint on people, and attack a car with a hammer, I’m probably crazy enough to do almost anything.