The Biker (Nightmare Hall) (11 page)

Now all I have to figure out is how to keep my promise.

There was one last entry in the black notebook:
It’s been a long, hot summer and it hasn’t been easy, but I made it. I spent a lot of long, painful hours thinking and planning, and I’ve already started acting out my long-term plan. I think it will work.

I bought the clerk’s bike. Hadn’t ridden it much, anyway, just enough to put on an act for a while. It didn’t work. Nobody bought the new image. Of course it was for sale. Who would want to keep it after what happened? It took every ounce of courage I had to even touch it. But I knew I had to. The garage owner looked so surprised when I walked in and asked about the bike. I could tell he thought I should be the last person in the world to buy a motorcycle. Especially that one. I didn’t care what he thought.

I’m teaching myself to ride it. It’s hard, and it hurts. But I keep thinking about Ross, and I know this is something I have to do. And I’m getting pretty good. I keep the bike hidden, so my parents won’t know. They’re so wrecked, they don’t know or care where I am half the time, anyway. I only ride at night, when it’s dark, on back roads where no one can see me. Not that anyone would ever believe it’s me. Still, there’s no point in taking chances. Wouldn’t want to spoil everything before my plan even gets off the ground.

Sometimes when I’m riding, I see it all happening again: Ross picking me up after school because Mom had a committee meeting. Ross teasing me because I had sworn I would never, ever climb on that monster of a bike. Then the speed and the power of it took over, and I actually relaxed. I was hanging on him like mad, but I was enjoying the wind in my face and the feeling that was so much like flying.

And then something went terribly wrong and I knew it had gone terribly wrong because the bike sort of flew up into the air and Ross screamed and then I screamed and then the bike landed and tipped over on its side and I was thrown free but Ross was trapped somehow alongside the bike and it kept skidding and sliding, really fast along the rough surface of the road with him being dragged along beside it, his clothes were shredding, and he was screaming for someone to help him but I couldn’t move, I couldn’t
…

Reading, Echo shuddered at the very vivid image the words conjured up.

I will have scars inside and out that will never go away.

But I mustn’t think about that now. I have to push those thoughts away and keep practicing, practicing, until I’m as good as Ross was. Then I can do anything I want. Then I can keep my promise to Ross.

There were no more entries in the book.

Echo closed it, slid it back underneath her pillow, and lay down, no longer aware of her painful scrapes and bruises. Something had gone wrong. Pruitt had been riding a motorcycle with … who? A best friend? A cousin, a brother? And something had gone wrong, something a judge had called “accidental,” but Pruitt had not. And now he was out for revenge? Unless she had read wrong, he was now using a bike that had belonged to the clerk whose negligence had killed someone. Had bought it and taught himself to ride it, always with a plan in mind. That seemed pretty sick to her.

Scary. That much rage, that much determination, was very scary. How could she possibly fight that?

Pruitt was on a mission. It was very clear from the notebook that he didn’t intend to let anyone or anything stand in his way. He had already killed. He wouldn’t hesitate to kill again. And he certainly wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone who tried to stop him.

Echo closed her eyes and rolled over on her side, facing the wall. What did the old woman and the little boy in town, the shoppers at the mall, the group in front of Johnny’s Place and those two freshmen in the red Miata have to do with the death of Ross? They couldn’t possibly all have been involved, could they? Pruitt wasn’t even from Twin Falls. She had seen him arrive on campus in late August flanked by a trunk and two suitcases. He couldn’t be a townie. So why attack the townspeople?

Pruitt isn’t sane, Echo, she told herself. You must know that by now. So quit looking for logical explanations. Pruitt didn’t go after those people because of Ross. He went after them because he
wanted
to, because he doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore. Maybe he did start out with a plan, like the notebook says. But he must have abandoned it when insanity took over.

There was no name in or on the notebook, no way of connecting it to Pruitt. Handwriting, maybe … an expert would be able to match the entries with Pruitt’s penmanship. But she couldn’t very well go to the police and ask them to test Pruitt’s handwriting. Nothing in the notebook identified him as the Mad Biker.

Two things might hang him. The motorcycle, for one. If she sent the police to the cave, they could probably link the bike to Aaron Pruitt somehow. Second, the notebook,
if
she could first make sure that Pruitt really had had a friend or relative named Ross. That was probably something she should do
before
she called the police, otherwise the notebook would be worthless.

She couldn’t very well come right out and ask Pruitt about someone named Ross. He had already threatened her. Her life wouldn’t be worth spit if he knew she had that notebook.

She’d figure out what to do. Because Ruthanne was right. Two more people were dead and someone had to
do
something. She was the only one on campus who knew the identity of the Mad Biker, so that someone would have to be her.

O
N MONDAY MORNING, ECHO
had to fight the urge to call the police and direct them to the cave. Without something to tie Pruitt to the bike, some tiny piece of evidence that he had staked out that cave for his own use, the phone call would be a waste of time.

So she fought against the sense of urgency that was tying her stomach in knots, brought on by fear that at any second, the biker would strike again. If one more person died or was maimed when she already
knew
who the guilty party was, she wouldn’t be able to live with her guilt.

She turned on the radio, half-expecting to hear another horror story about an attack during the night. She had seen with her own eyes Pruitt taking the bike from the cave in an enraged state. What mayhem had he wreaked this time?

But there was nothing, except an announcement that classes had been cancelled out of respect for Polk Malone and Nancy Becker.

A rap song with a great beat in the background took over the air waves and Echo heaved a huge sigh of relief. The Mad Biker hadn’t struck again. Maybe knowing that someone had found his cave and was aware of his hiding place was worrying him, forcing him to play it safe for a little while. That would be good. It would give her a little breathing room, maybe even enough time to link him to the notebook and the cave and the bike so she could go to the police.

There might be a way. The infirmary had in its files medical histories of every student on campus. Providing a medical history was required of all incoming freshmen. Upon admission last August, Echo had had to list every member of her immediate family, living or deceased, and mention whether or not they had any physical condition worth noting, or cause of death. Since “abandonment of child” wasn’t among the ailments listed, she had answered most of the questions in the negative, except for her grandfather’s diabetes and her grandmother’s heart condition.

She thought of those forms now. Pruitt must have filled one out, too. If the “Ross” mentioned in the notebook had been a close relative, and he must have been or his parents wouldn’t have been so devastated, Pruitt would have had to list him, adding that he was deceased and giving the cause of death. If she could locate Pruitt’s medical file, find the name “Ross” listed there, she could make a copy of it, using it to connect Pruitt to the notebook, and, therefore, to the bike in the cave.

Dressing quickly in jeans and an oversized Salem U sweatshirt and sneakers, Echo hurried off to the infirmary. If anyone asked, she could simply say that since there were no classes that day, she’d decided to earn a few extra bucks. No one would question that. If it wasn’t busy, she’d have all the time in the world to look for Pruitt’s file.

It wasn’t busy. Everyone was taking advantage of the nice weather and the day off to do things far more fun than running to the infirmary for medical advice.

She was just bending over the metal drawer labeled “P-R” in the empty file room when a voice from the doorway said, “They let
you
work here? Someone with a profound disregard for human life? Aren’t they worried about being sued for reckless endangerment?”

Echo flew upright, her cheeks burning, her hands flying away from the metal drawer as if it had just bitten her.

Liam McCullough, his left wrist in a cast and a nasty bruise over one eye, was leaning against the open door. Dark auburn hair curled across his forehead and down the back of his neck, and his arms and legs in shorts and a Salem T-shirt were deeply tanned.

“Don’t you believe in knocking?” she said sharply, annoyed with him for catching her off-guard. And for
almost
catching her in the act of snooping.

One dark eyebrow lifted to meet the bruise. “Well, it’s not like you were treating a patient in here.” An expression of mock horror crossed his strong-boned, tanned face. “They
don’t
let you treat patients, do they?”

Echo didn’t answer. The cold metal of the file drawer was burning a hole in her back. Her fingers were itching to get to it. What was he doing in here, anyway? This wasn’t a treatment room.

To her dismay, he moved into the room, stopping just a few feet short of where she stood with her back to the file cabinet. His eyes, she couldn’t help noticing, were not pale and expressionless like Pruitt’s. They were light brown, almost amber. “So, is that what you were doing when you attacked me on the river path with your bike?” he asked. “Drumming up patients for this place? You have to go out and drag them in here, is that it?”

Although his tone of voice wasn’t angry, but cautiously friendly, Echo’s pulse skipped a beat, wondering briefly if he really
was
talking about the incident on the river path. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he suspected that she had been on the motorcycle in front of Johnny’s Place and he was testing, waiting to see her reaction to his comments.

Well, he wasn’t going to get a rise out of her. “That was an accident,” she said, her voice smooth as pudding. “I told you that at the time. I didn’t
see
you. And you shouldn’t have jumped out of the woods like that without looking to see if anyone was coming.”

To her surprise, he nodded. “Right. You are right. I was thinking about a paper I had to write, forty percent of my final grade in psych, and I wasn’t my usual alert self.” He grinned. “I’ll forgive you if you’ll forgive me.”

Feeling uncertain, Echo nodded. What was he doing here? What did he
want?

He got right to it. “Saw you with Pruitt at the movie last night.” He shook his head. “He doesn’t seem like your type.”

“You couldn’t possibly have the faintest notion what my type is,” Echo said archly. If he didn’t leave soon, someone would come into the room to work and then she’d never get to that file. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“That’s true. But that’s only because everyone I asked said you were a loner. That you wouldn’t be interested in seeing a movie with me or going boating on the river or dancing at Johnny’s Place. That’s why I was so surprised to see you walk into the rec center last night with Pruitt.”

He had asked people about her? Before or after she’d clobbered him with her bike?

“I mean,” he went on, resting the injured wrist on the top of a metal file cabinet next to him, “if you were going to go to a movie with anyone, it should have been me, not Pruitt. You owe me for ruining my run that day. Unless, of course, he was just another one of your victims.”

She bit back the words, “Actually, it’s the other way around. I’m one of
his
victims.” It struck her then as bitterly ironic that Liam was joking about people being hit by bikes at a time when people had
died
after being struck by a bike. A different kind of bike, true, and she could see that he wasn’t making the connection, but still …

“Well, he wasn’t one of my victims,” she answered, “but I … I did owe him something, in a way.”

He looked interested. “So you two aren’t an item?”

Echo shook her head vigorously. Maybe too vigorously, she realized then, remembering that Pruitt had promised they’d be seeing more of each other. Liam seemed nice enough, now that he didn’t hate her any more. But this was no time to get someone involved in the mess she was in. Pruitt had made some nasty threat about “competition.” Look what he’d done to Polk Malone.

“Look, I’m very busy here,” she said, meaning it because, right now, she wanted nothing more than to get her hands on Pruitt’s medical file. It suddenly seemed like the most important thing in the world. And Liam was in the way. “I don’t want to be rude, but …”

The high, angled cheekbones flushed slightly. His arm came off the file cabinet and he stood up straight. “So they were right about you, I guess,” he said, his voice gone flat. “You really are a loner. Except for Pruitt, of course.” He turned away, headed for the door. “Actually,” he said over his shoulder, “I came in to have my cast checked and got the wrong room. Sorry I bothered you.” Then he was gone.

He did seem nice. Odd-colored eyes. Kind of like a cat’s. But warm.

If he’d gotten run over by that motorcycle, like Lily D’Agostino, those eyes would be cold and empty, like a house with no one home.

Echo turned back to the “P-R” file drawer, wrapped her fingers around the brass pull, yanked, and almost wailed aloud with disappointment.

The drawer was locked.

Well, of
course
it’s locked, she told herself, sagging against the cabinet. Those files are confidential. Did you really expect the drawers to be unlocked so that anyone who chose to could waltz right in and read medical files?

Disheartened, she decided she might just as well leave the infirmary. It wasn’t busy, she wasn’t really needed, and she wasn’t going to learn anything useful. Maybe if she sneaked back up to the cave, she could do a more thorough search, come up with something incriminating.