The Biker (Nightmare Hall) (18 page)

The bike kept going, skidding crazily out of control until it slammed into the railing, bounced off, and came to a rest, its motor dying, not far from Deejay’s booted feet.

It was those feet that Echo first saw when she realized she was still alive, still conscious, and that she hadn’t been tossed into the river.

At first, she thought the boots were Pruitt’s. Snakeskin, with diamonds of wine and green weaving their way up the sides.

Then one of the boots stomped down on Echo’s left hand, pinning it to the walkway.

The boots belonged to Delores Jean Cutter.

Too stunned to move, too numb to think, Echo lay on the damp wood, not even feeling the pain in the pinioned hand or in her ribs where the bat had struck.

The boot raised, freeing her hand. Two boots clomped over to the motorcycle. It was lying on its side, at Echo’s eye-level. She saw hands reach down, lift it, sensed that Deejay was climbing aboard. But the engine didn’t roar to life.

“Pruitt is going to die now,” Deejay said, “and you’re going to watch, Echo. I’ll take care of you permanently when I’m through with him. I’ve already told him who I am. He knows now, although I have to say it took him by surprise.”

“You said your last name was Cutter,” Pruitt said sullenly. “Not Costello. How was I supposed to know you were Ross Costello’s sister? You never came to court, so I didn’t know what you looked like.”

Echo lifted her head to look up at him. Ross Costello’s sister? Deejay? Deejay had lied about her last name? And she had a brother named Ross? Correction.
Had
had. Ross was dead, that much Echo knew from the journal.

“I never came to court,” Deejay said curtly, “because I was lying in a hospital bed. And I didn’t want you to know who I was. That would have ruined everything.” She glared at Echo. “But Echo did that for me, anyway, didn’t you, Echo? She ruined my whole, lovely plan.”

With great effort, Echo sat up, slid backward on the wet floorboards until her back was resting against the railing. She could see Pruitt standing with his back against the railing, could feel the metal bars shaking with his trembling. And she could see Deejay, sitting on the bike now, facing him.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” Echo said numbly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Deejay laughed harshly. “Yes, you do! You read my journal. You know all about it.”

“Your journal? That was
your
journal?”

“You weren’t supposed to find that. I should have hidden it better. Careless of me, leaving it out like that. You were supposed to think that everything in that cave belonged to Pruitt, and then I went and left my journal lying around. I had to steal it back from you because I was afraid you’d realize that the handwriting wasn’t his.”

“Deejay, I don’t get it. What was I supposed to do?” Echo shook her head to clear her mind.

“You were
supposed
to turn this weasel in to the police! I
gave
you everything you needed! I bought these stupid boots, exactly like his, I took you with me to Johnny’s Place so you’d be an eyewitness, and when those things didn’t work because you’re too stupid to live, I hauled you off to the minimart. I thought the whole time that any minute he’d be arrested because there was an eyewitness, and then you
fell
for him, Echo!” Her voice rose. “This creep, this cretin, this
murderer!
You fell for him!”

“Oh, God, I did not!” Echo cried. “I
hate
him! I wanted to turn him in, Deejay. I tried. But the cops believed him, not me. And he said he could kill me at any time. I knew he meant it, Deejay. After all the things he’d done, I knew he meant it.”

“Oh, you stupid girl!” Deejay moved the bike a foot closer to Pruitt. The railing shook harder.
“He
didn’t do anything! I am the biker. I made all the attacks. All of them. To frame
him.
And you were supposed to be my ace in the hole. I’d been following him every chance I got since I first came to Salem. So I saw you talking to him in the library, saw you point to his boots, and knew you thought he was the Mad Biker. Exactly what I wanted, although I wanted the person who noticed the boots to be someone more reliable than you. Someone with a better reputation on campus. I could have waited until someone better noticed the boots, but the school year is almost up and I was afraid to waste any more time. So I had to settle for you. My mistake.”

After a moment, she added, “You really weren’t in love with him? He was blackmailing you?” Deejay shook her head. “My mistake again. I guess I should have known. Sorry, Echo. But it’s too late now. We’ll just have to see this new scenario all the way to the end. I can’t change my plans again.”

Her statements refused to register in Echo’s spinning mind. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “It was
Pruitt
on that bike, I know it was.” The hand bruised from Deejay’s boot pointed at Pruitt. “I
talked
to him. That first night. He
is
the Mad Biker. He never denied it. And he said he would kill me if I didn’t do what he said.”

Pruitt spoke, then, his voice so unsteady it was almost a falsetto. “I borrowed that bike. The first night.”

“You mean you stole it,” Deejay corrected, her voice cold.

“Well, yeah. From some guy at the frat house. We just took that little ride and then I put it back and went back to the frat house. That was it. I haven’t been on a motorcycle since.”

“But I saw a book on caves in your room, Pruitt. That’s how I figured out where to look for the bike.”

“I was writing a report on caves. That’s all that book was for. I didn’t know where the bike was hidden. Didn’t care. All I knew was, I wasn’t the person attacking people, so I didn’t really have anything to worry about. I heard what happened on the radio, and I knew you’d think it was me. So I just pretended it
was
me.”

Echo turned on him. “You
sleaze!
You let me think it was you! You heard on the radio what had happened and you used that against me! You
threatened
me, you creep!”

“Welcome to the club.” Deejay smiled thinly. “He really is a creep, isn’t he?”

“You were never interested in me before,” Pruitt whined. “You were only interested when you thought I had a motorcycle.”

Echo stared at him. “But the boots, the bike …”

“He bought the boots in high school,” Deejay said coldly. “Went through a brief phase when he thought being a biker might make him cool. It didn’t, and he gave up on the idea. But he kept the leather stuff and the helmet. Got fired at the bike shop, though. Who wants a clerk who kills people? Too bad. He liked the shop, thought the people there were cool, especially my brother Ross.”

The bike shop. That registered. “You were the clerk?” Echo asked Pruitt. “You were the one who screwed up Ross’s bike?”

“It was an accident,” Pruitt said.

“So the judge said,” Deejay said coldly. To Echo, she said, “I don’t have tennis elbow, Echo. I never did. It’s my legs that need that whirlpool, not my arms. They haven’t been the same since the accident, and it nearly killed me every single time I had to climb on this bike, I was in so much pain. But I had to do it. He got off scot-free, and no one was willing to punish him except me.”

“But … I found Pruitt’s motorcycle license in the cave, just now.”

Deejay smiled coldly. “It is
so
easy to doctor a license. That license used to be Ross’s. I just took a picture of Pruitt right after I got to campus and had it laminated to the license. Changed a few dates. I put the license where I knew you’d find it, thinking you’d take it to the police. Then, when I thought you had a thing for him, I decided I’d have to forget the whole idea and just kill him myself. I was following you tonight, thinking I’d catch the two of you together. Kill two birds with one stone, as they say. When I saw you heading for the cave alone, I called Pruitt, told him I knew he was the Mad Biker and said he should meet me here, on the bridge. Of course,” she added, her voice silky-smooth, “you have to die, too, Echo. You’re too much a part of this now. But that’s okay. I can deal with both of you at the same time.”

“It was a mistake,” Pruitt began to babble, “just a mistake. I liked Ross, I never intended for anything bad to happen to him, it wasn’t my fault …”

“That’s
why you looked so shocked when I pretended my brother’s name was Ross,” Echo cried. “It was because it reminded you of what you’d done to Deejay and her brother.”

“He did it on purpose,” Deejay said. “I’ve always thought that.” To Pruitt, she said, “You were jealous of him. He had everything you didn’t, friends, a good job, a family that loved him. You don’t have any of that.”

“No,” Pruitt moaned, “it’s not true.”

Using the railing as a prop, Echo pulled herself to her feet. “You blackmailed me,” she accused, “when you knew the whole time that you weren’t on that bike, except for that first ride. You let me think you would
kill
me!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! I couldn’t help it. You were so pretty, and I saw my chance to be like everybody else, all those guys dating gorgeous girls. And it was fun telling someone else what to do for a change,” Pruitt added petulantly. “I’ve been doing what other people told me to all of my life.”

“No one told you to put that defective part on my brother’s bike,” Deejay said harshly.

“Echo, you have to stop her,” Pruitt begged. “You can’t let her kill me. It’s not right. The judge said it wasn’t my fault.”

“Because of your father!” Deejay’s words were scornful. “That judge knew you were guilty, just as I and my family did. But he wasn’t willing to cross your very important father who contributed big bucks to the honorable judge’s campaign. I know because I checked.”

“I don’t understand,” Echo said, even as her eyes were glancing around the floor of the bridge, trying to locate the hole she had nearly fallen into on her way over. “Deejay, you were
alone
when you pushed that Miata off the cliff, and when you killed Gabriella Stone. I wasn’t on that bike then. I couldn’t have testified against Pruitt. Why did you do that?”

“To build a better case against him. I wanted you to ride with me, but I couldn’t find you. Anyway, it didn’t matter by then. At least, I thought it didn’t. You
thought
it was Pruitt on the bike the whole time. I was sure that sooner or later, you’d turn him in. All I was doing was making sure he didn’t go free again. Murder seemed the best way to do that. I almost went crazy when you still didn’t blow the whistle on him.”

“I didn’t have any proof. But Deejay … you
killed
people!”

“So did he. Don’t forget that, Echo.”

“That’s why you pushed me to date Pruitt,” Echo said, her eyes finally locating the hole in the floor of the bridge. It was behind her, to her left. “You
wanted
people to see me on campus with him, so they would believe me when I told what he’d done. What I
thought
he’d done. But at the tennis match that day, you acted like you’d changed your mind. Why?”

“I thought you’d fallen for him. Hard to believe, but that was what it looked like. That ruined everything. I figured you’d never testify against him now. So I had to take matters into my own hands.”

Echo fought to make sense of it all. “You took everything out of the cave after I found it? Why? Didn’t you want the police to have the bike?”

“Not then. Too soon. You weren’t supposed to find it so quickly, Echo. I underestimated you. I didn’t have a strong enough case against Pruitt yet. So I moved it all and then put it back. I knew the police would never look there twice.”

Realizing she was talking to a cold-blooded killer, Echo chose her words carefully. “Pruitt knew he wasn’t on that bike at Johnny’s Place, Deejay. He knew someone else was. Didn’t you think he’d just tell me that, and that would be the end of it?”

Deejay threw her head back and laughed loudly. “Oh, Echo. I
know
what kind of person Pruitt is! I knew he’d love picturing himself as the Mad Biker, and he’d love it even more if a pretty girl pictured him that way, too. No way would he punch a hole in that theory. And I was right, wasn’t I?”

Pruitt’s eyes were wide with terror. He didn’t answer. Echo thought perhaps he couldn’t speak, he was so frightened. She tried to feel sorry for him, and couldn’t.

Now, so suddenly that the noise seemed to explode in Echo’s ears, Deejay turned the key and the motorcycle’s engine roared.

“Echo, don’t let her do this!” Pruitt begged, pushing so hard against the bridge railing that it leaned slightly backward. “I didn’t mean it, I know I shouldn’t have lied, shouldn’t have scared you like that, but it felt so good to finally be in charge, and I didn’t think it would hurt anything.”

“You weren’t in
charge
of me, Pruitt.” Echo addressed him with almost as much contempt as Deejay had. “You
terrified
me! There’s a difference. And it
did
hurt. It hurt a lot.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The bike roared. “Echo,
do
something! She’s going to kill me.”

Seeing him standing there, trembling violently, hearing him whine to the point of tears, Echo had a hard time connecting him to the threatening, swaggering bully she’d known as Aaron Pruitt, the person who had made her life so miserable. She felt a raw, savage impulse to make him pay for what he had done to her. No punishment could be too severe, could it?

But then Deejay gunned the engine, fixed her dark eyes on him and tightened her mouth, and Echo knew that she couldn’t stand the thought of one more death. Not even Pruitt’s. “Deejay, you can’t do this,” she called over the engine’s roar. “I know you’ve been through hell, but you can’t kill him! Can’t we just talk about it?”

“So, talk,” Deejay said. And then she stomped down hard on the pedal and twisted the handlebars and the motorcycle raced across the bridge and slammed into Pruitt, flinging him up into the air, over the railing, and down into the cold, rushing water below.

He never even screamed.

T
HE FORCE OF THE
collision between Pruitt against the metal railing was strong enough to knock Deejay backwards, off the bike. She slid to the floor with a surprised look on her face. The bike bounced backward, too, then veered off to the side to land at Echo’s feet. Seizing the opportunity, Echo reached down and yanked it upright. The motor was still running. She jumped on the seat, clutched the handlebars, her eyes never leaving Deejay for a second.