'So where's Paul? I thought Paul was supposed to be here,' Shawna said with a sly look at Keri.
'He's here. Somewhere,' a guy replied. 'Mike and Brian are looking for him.'
Mike? Liza's Michael? I wondered. Would a guy in love with a girl return to the place where she was murdered? No way… and yet I had come here and I loved Liza.
'Paul's probably back torching Drama House,' another guy teased. 'Hope you girls didn't leave anything important there.'
'I still think it was unfair for everyone to blame last year's fire on Paul,' Shawna replied. 'There was no evidence.'
'Oh, come on. He did it,' Lynne said, 'probably with the help of Liza.'
'Probably to get Liza,' a guy observed.
'No way,' argued another. 'Paul wouldn't have hurt her. He was totally obsessed with her.'
I saw Keri bite her lip.
'That's what obsessed people do when they don't get what they want,' the boy continued. 'They get the person's attention one way or another.'
I didn't like this conversation.
'I thought Paul was weird before Liza was murdered,' Denise said, rubbing her long, thin arms, 'but he was even weirder afterward, wanting all the details.'
'Most people do want the details,' Keri said crisply. 'He's just more honest than the rest of you.'
'Anyway, it's not strange for him,' observed another guy. 'You ever seen the video games Paul plays? The more violent they are the better he likes them.'
'Movies, too,' someone else added. 'I bet he watched slasher movies in his playpen.'
Sounds like a terrific guy, I thought.
'Paul's great-looking-in a dangerous kind of way,' Lynne said, picking up her dark hair and waving it around to cool herself. 'But once he gets hooked on someone or something, he's scary.'
'At least scary is interesting,' Keri remarked, 'which is more than I can say for the rest of you guys.'
The boys hooted. The girls laughed. The conversation turned to other people who had attended camp last year.
Had Liza been aware of Paul's feelings? I wondered as we walked on. Did my sister realize that someone like that could turn on you? Call it a huge ego or simple naivete, but Liza always believed that everyone liked her-'they like me deep down,' she'd insist when people acted otherwise.
Goose Lane ended at the college boathouse. Beyond the cinder-block building were racks of sculls-those long, thin boats for rowing races-and a pier with floating docks attached. Oyster Creek, wide as a river, flowed peacefully between us and a distant bank of trees. To the left of the docks was the pavilion, an open wooden structure with a shingled roof and deck. Built on pilings over the edge of the creek, it seemed to float on a tide of tall, grasslike vegetation.
Two other groups of eight had caught up with us. Maggie conferred with a guy and girl whom I guessed were RA.s, and the rest of us climbed a ramp to the pavilion. Inside it was furnished with wood tables and benches. I headed for its sun-washed deck, which provided a view of the creek. Leaning on the railing, I finally allowed myself to look to the left, past a small green park to a bridge, the bridge where Liza had been killed. I studied it for several minutes, then turned away.
'Are you all right?'
I hadn't realized Shawna was standing next to me. 'Me? Yeah.'
'You're pale,' she said. 'Even your freckles are pale.
'Too bad they don't fade all together,' I joked. 'Really, I'm all right. I, uh, look like this when I haven't eaten for a while.'
She believed the excuse. 'They're putting out munchies. You stay here, Reds. I'll get you some.'
'Thanks.'
I turned back to the water. When Liza came to this place the first day, when she saw the creek sparkling in the late-afternoon sun and heard the breeze rustling in the long grass, did she have any idea that her life would end here?
No. Impossible.
She had had so much ahead of her-a scholarship to study acting in London, a film role scheduled for spring. She had had beauty, brains, and incredible talent, and the world was about to get its first real glimpse of her. It was no time to die.
Besides, even if Liza had been a more ordinary girl, no teen believes death is waiting for her. Certainly, standing by the creek that sunny afternoon, I didn't.
Our director arrived by motorcycle. The guys thought it was cool. I think a middle-aged man with a big paunch straddling a motorcycle looks like a jackin-the-box before it springs-all rolled up in himself. In any case, it was a dramatic entrance, especially since he rode the cycle across the park grass and partway up a pavilion ramp, stopped only by Maggie running down it, waving her arms frantically, screaming that the machine was too heavy.
Walker backed up his vehicle and climbed off. He was greeted like a hero, the guys swarming down the walkway to see the cycle, the girls lining up on the deck of the pavilion, like ladies watching from the top of a castle wall. When Walker removed his helmet, I saw that he was bald. A few reddish strands of hair had been recruited from a low part and combed over his dome; the remaining hair grew long enough to curl over his shirt collar.
'This is a merry troupe,' he said, striding up the ramp.
Inside the pavilion we sat in a circle with Walker at the center. He asked us to introduce ourselves, say where we lived, and tell something about our interests.
My parents had known Walker Burke years ago in New York, but I couldn't remember meeting him, and if I had, I would have been too young for him to recognize me now. The autobiography submitted with my application was mostly true. Realizing that whoppers would make it too easy to slip up, I had changed only what was necessary to conceal my identity, like making myself the child of a magazine editor and his wife. I had showed the bio to the two people who had agreed to recommend me under the name of Jenny Baird so there would be no inconsistencies. When called on, I was brief.
Other kids went on and on. It took at least forty minutes to get all the way around the circle of introductions. At last the final person spoke, the heavyset guy who had admired the architecture of Drama House.
'Tomas Alvarez,' he said, using the Spanish pronunciation of his first name.
'My set designer,' Walker replied.
'I am?'
Applicants had been invited to submit a design for the set of the play; apparently his had been chosen. Tomas's face lit up like a Halloween pumpkin's.
'It needs revision, of course,' Walker said, then rose to his feet. He wiped his neck, cricked it left and right, and rolled his shoulders. He seemed to be winding up for a speech.
'Now, people,' he said, 'let me tell you what I expect from you. The absolute best. A hundred percent and more. Nothing less than your heart, soul, and mind.'
He began to pace.
'From eight-thirty A.M. to four-thirty p.m. you will be mine. I will work you hard, so hard that at dinnertime your faces will drop onto your plates. And after dinner I will expect more of you.'
He took a pair of glasses from his pocket, a nice prop with which to gesture.
'That means I expect each of you to keep yourselves in top physical shape. I expect you to eat right, to sleep eight hours a night, and to avoid risky behavior. You are old enough to know what I mean by risky behavior.'
We glanced at one another.
'You will have studying to do, lines to memorize, films to watch. Your life here will be utterly devoted to
