Dad is asleep after our fourth episode of ANTM in a row. I guess I can’t really blame him. While women find watching pretty girls play complicated mind games with one another endlessly fascinating—like today in the café, with Cheryl and Kimberly—your average heterosexual man can only take so many hours of it before he—like Dad, and Patty’s husband, Frank—passes out from sheer boredom.
He’s sleeping hard enough that when the phone rings, it doesn’t even wake him. There might be something to this yoga stuff after all, if it makes you sleep so hard even a ringing phone can’t wake you.
“Hello?” I whisper, after checking the caller ID—Unknown Number—and picking up.
“Hello, Heather?” asks a vaguely familiar male voice.
“Yes,” I say. “Who’s this?”
“Oh, I think you know,” the voice says. “Who else would be calling you at midnight on a Friday night?”
I think about this. Actually, I don’t know anyone who would call me at this hour, with the exception of Patty. But she wouldn’t dare pick up a phone this late, now that she has that disapproving live-in nanny.
Also, Patty doesn’t sound like a guy.
“Is this… ” I know I sound ridiculous, but I say it anyway. “Tad Tocco? I’m sorry I didn’t call you back earlier, but I’ve been busy.”
I hear convulsive laughter. Whoever it is on the other end of the phone is having a really good time. I instantly suspect students.
Drunk students.
“No, it’s not Tad,” the voice says. “It’s actually a friend of yours from last night. Don’t tell me you don’t remember.”
And suddenly the memory of those ice-blue eyes on mine comes flooding back.
And all the blood seems to leave my extremities. I’m sitting there, frozen to the spot, holding the phone with my dad asleep on one side of me, and Lucy asleep on the other.
“Hello, Steve,” I manage to say, through lips that have gone cold. “How did you get my number?”
“How’d I figure out your last name and look it up, you mean?” Steve asks, with a laugh. “A little bird told me. Do you want to speak to him? He’s right here.”
The next thing I know, a voice that is unmistakably Gavin McGoren’s is swearing—steadily, and with much imagination— into the phone. I’d recognize those “motherfuckin’s” anywhere. They are the same ones Gavin regularly uttered back when I used to catch him elevator-surfing.
Then I hear a smacking sound—like skin on skin—and a second later, Steve is saying, “Tell her, goddamn you. Tell her what we told you to say.”
“FUCK… YOU,” is Gavin’s response. This is followed by a scuffling sound, and more smacking. When I hear Steve’s voice again, it’s out of breath.
“Well, I think you get the idea, anyway,” he says. “We’re having another party. And this time, you’re actually invited. And to make sure you show, we have your friend Gavin here. Unless you do exactly what I tell you, he’s going to suffer some bodily injury. And you wouldn’t want that, now, would you?”
I’m so horrified I can barely breathe. I say, “No.”
“I didn’t think so. So here’s the dealio. You come here. Alone. If you call the cops, he will get hurt. If you don’t show, he—”
“HEATHER, DON’T—” I hear Gavin start to bellow, but his voice is quickly smothered.
“—could get very, very hurt,” Steve finishes. “Got it?”
“I got it,” I say. “I’ll be there. But where’s here? The Tau Phi House?”
“Please,” Steve says, sounding bored. “We’re here, Heather. I think you know where.”
“Fischer Hall,” I say, my gaze going toward my living room windows, which look out at the back of the twenty-story building that is my place of work. It’s still early, by New York College residence hall standards, which means that most of the lights in the windows are blazing as the building’s occupants prepare to go out, apparently completely unaware that down on the first floor, in the closed and locked cafeteria, something unspeakable is about to take place.
Which is when I stop feeling cold, and start feeling angry. How dare they? Seriously. How dare they think they can get away with this again? Do they really believe I’m going to sit idly back and let them turn Fischer Hall into Death Dorm?
And okay, maybe it already is Death Dorm. But I’m not going to let it stay that way.
“Heather?” Steve’s voice is warm in my ear. It’s amazing how charming psychopathic killers can be, when they put their minds to it. “Are you still there?”
“Oh, I’m here,” I tell him. “And I’ll be right over.”
“Good,” Steve says, sounding pleased. “We’ll be looking forward to seeing you. Alone, like I said.”
“Don’t worry,” I assure him. “I’ll be alone.” Like I need any help kicking his skinny ass. Steve Winer is making an extremely bad decision, challenging me to a confrontation on my own turf. He might have been able to off a girl as tiny as Lindsay without getting caught, but if he thinks a girl like me is going to go down without a fight—a fight loud enough to bring the entire building banging on the cafeteria doors—he’s got another think coming.
But then again, he, like his brother, doesn’t strike me as the sharpest knife in the drawer.
“Good,” Steve says. “And remember. No cops. Or your boyfriend’s a dead man.”
I hear a thump, and then a scream. The scream comes from Gavin.
And I know that, stupid though he might be, Steve Winer isn’t someone to underestimate.
I slam down the receiver and spin around to see my dad sitting up, blinking groggily.
“Heather?” he says. “What’s the matter?”
“Something’s going down at the dorm,” I say, grabbing a piece of paper and writing a number on it. “I mean, residence hall. Something bad. I need you to call this person and tell him he needs to get over there as fast as possible. Tell him I’ll meet him in the café. Tell him to bring backup.”
Dad squints down at the number. “Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Fischer Hall,” I say, grabbing my coat. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Dad looks confused. “I don’t like this, Heather,” he says. “They don’t pay you enough for you to be hurrying over there in the dead of night like this.”
“Tell me about it,” I say, and I’m out the door.
The walk to Fischer Hall has never seemed so long. Even though I’m half running, it seems to take forever to get there. Partly because of the slick sidewalks I have to navigate, but also, I’m convinced, because of how hard my heart is hammering inside my chest. If they did anything to hurt Gavin… if they so much as bruised him—
I’m so intent on getting where I’m going that I don’t even see Reggie until I crash into him.
“Whoa, little lady,” he cries, as we collide. “Where would you be off to in such a hurry so late at night?”
“Geez, Reggie,” I say, struggling to catch my breath. “Don’t you ever go home?”
“Fridays are my best nights,” Reggie says. “Heather, what’s the matter? You’re white as—well, a white girl.”
“It’s those guys,” I pant. “The ones I told you about. They have one of my residents. In the café. They’re going to hurt him if I don’t get there, fast—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Reggie has hold of both my arms and doesn’t seem eager to let go. “Are you serious? Heather, don’t you think you should call the police?”
“I did!” I have to windmill both my arms before I manage to break free of his grip. “My dad’s calling them. But someone has to get in there in the meantime—”
“Why does that someone have to be you?” Reggie wants to know.
But it’s too late. I’m already off and running again, my Timberlands pounding on the newly shoveled sidewalk, my heart pounding in my throat.
When I throw open the door to Fischer Hall, the mystery of how Doug and his fellow frat brothers—not to mention his real brother—got into the building to kill Lindsay without actually being signed in is cleared up the minute I walk through the door and see the security guard.
“You!” I cry. It’s the crusty old guard from the security desk in Waverly Hall.
“ID,” he says.He doesn’t even recognize me.
“You were at Waverly Hall last night,” I pant, pointing at him accusingly.
“Yeah,” Crusty Old Guard says, with a shrug. “That’s my regular spot. I fill in other places when there’s an opening. Like here, tonight. I need to see your ID before I can let you in.”
