Captives (Nightmare Hall) (8 page)

They can’t believe the windows are nailed shut.

They’ll start looking for another way out now, but they won’t find one. This is
my
territory, and I know my way around. Wherever they are, I’ll be somewhere else. Except, of course, when I’m picking them off, one by one, like apples from a tree.

This might be fun, after all. Hadn’t planned on it, of course. But now it feels kind of like a game. Entertainment for a rainy night. If they hadn’t come along, what would I be doing? Hanging around this place waiting for the roads to open.

I know exactly which one to get rid of first. It’ll be as easy as stealing grapes at the supermarket.

Watch out girls, here I co-ome!

E
RNIE NEEDED TO TALK
to Tanner Leo. He knew it was a really crass thing to want, when her father had just been murdered, but he was going to try, anyway. Tanner might know something about the killer. She might be able to say to him, “Yes, I’ve already told the police who it is, but I have to tell you, Ernie, I know this guy and I promise you, he’s long gone. He isn’t the type to hang around waiting to get arrested.”

That was what Ernie Dodd needed to hear. That the creep was long gone, and therefore no threat to Molloy.

Of course, Tanner would already have shared any information she had with the police. He should go to them instead of to the bereaved daughter. But as someone who had sought the services of Dr. Leo, Ernie Dodd was
on
that list of suspects, so he wasn’t about to present himself to the police. It had to be Tanner he talked to.

Tanner played second base on the baseball team, and Ernie liked her. She was friendly and seemed helpful. Would she help him out now? Could she?

Ian Banion had said on the radio that “Dr. Leo’s only survivor, his daughter, Tanner, is recovering from the news at the campus infirmary.”

Ernie made his way across campus, sloshing through deep puddles as if they weren’t even there.

Tanner, a tall, thin, dark-haired girl who reminded Ernie a little of Molloy, was sitting in the infirmary waiting room with Charlie Cochran, her boyfriend. He had an arm around her shoulders and was talking to her quietly, comforting her.

They looked up in surprise when Ernie walked in. He declared his condolences, which Tanner accepted with quiet gratitude, and then, sitting down, said, “Tanner, I really hate bothering you like this. I know you must be really upset.”

“They gave me something,” she said, gesturing toward a nurse standing behind the counter. “They tell me it’ll help me sleep. I’m staying with Jodie for a few days.” Jodie Lawson was Tanner’s best friend. Tanner shuddered. “I couldn’t go back to that house even if the police let me.”

Ernie felt terrible. He shouldn’t be here, bothering her like this. Then he saw a police officer in a small room off the hall, talking to a doctor. Already asking questions. They’d be coming to Ernie Dodd sooner or later to get
his
answers. Might even keep him from looking for Molloy.

He couldn’t give up on Tanner. “Look, I’m sorry, Tanner. I know you must be wrecked, but I have to ask you something. I’m worried about Molloy.”

Tanner knew who he meant. He had talked to everyone on the team about Molloy. “Your girlfriend? Why?”

Ernie explained. “And with that guy out there …”

Tanner paled.

“I thought maybe you might have some idea about who it is, and then you might also know where he might be hiding out or, better yet, where he might have escaped to,” Ernie asked desperately. He knew he was grabbing at straws, but he didn’t know what else to do.

“Oh, Ernie,” Tanner said softly, “if I knew who it was, don’t you think I’d tell? My father and I didn’t get along very well, I guess, but …” She bit her lower lip.

Charlie patted her shoulder and squeezed her hand,

“Think, Tanner, okay? Isn’t there anything that you can think of that would help the police find this guy? I mean, he’s
out
there, and for all I know, so is Molloy.”

“It might not be a guy,” Tanner said slowly. The sedative was beginning to hit her. “My father had female patients, too, Ernie, and some of them didn’t like him very much. But I’ll tell you what I told the police. If I were going to look for a fugitive, I know the first place I’d look. Nightmare Hall.”

Ernie stared at her. “Nightmare Hall?” That old, gloomy brick place out on the highway, sitting up on a hill under huge, black trees. “Why there?”

“Because it’s off-campus, it’s out of the way, and it’s empty right now. I know the housemother has gone on vacation, and so has the handyman.” She leaned closer to Charlie, and he tightened his grip around her shoulders.

“Did you tell the police to go check it out?” Ernie asked, hating himself for not leaving her alone.

Tanner nodded. “But they said right now they’re busy checking every dorm, and that it would take a while. Twin Falls doesn’t have a very large police force, Ernie.” Her eyes began to dull from the sedative and the arm that had been resting on the chair dropped into her lap.

It was time to go. “Thanks, Tanner. Thanks for your help. And I really am sorry about what happened.”

Tanner’s eyes were fighting to stay open.

“I’ve got to get her over to Jodie’s,” Charlie said. He helped her upright. “I hope you find Molloy, Ernie. I’m sure she’s okay.”

Watching them leave, Ernie saw the way Charlie was careful to open Tanner’s umbrella and shield her with it, and felt a stab of pain in his chest because he wasn’t doing exactly the same thing for Molloy. He was
supposed
to be. But Molloy wasn’t here.

Nightmare Hall? Was Tanner right? It
would
be the perfect place to hide out. Isolated, deserted.

It was worth a try. Even a long trek in foul weather would be worth it if Molloy opened the door to Nightmare Hall when he knocked and cried, “Ernie! You found me!”

Ernie stood up, would have bolted from the infirmary, but an authoritative voice behind him said, “Excuse me. You want to tell me your name and what you were doing talking to Dr. Leo’s daughter?”

Ernie turned around to face a middle-aged, ruddy-faced policeman in uniform.

“I’m a friend of hers,” he said, deliberately not giving his name. Maybe this policeman didn’t know or wouldn’t remember that the name ‘Ernest Dodd’ was on that list of suspects, probably in capital letters, but he couldn’t afford to risk it. “I just came to offer my condolences.”

“Nice of you.” The policeman’s eyes narrowed. “Coming out on a bad night like this, I mean. Could have waited till morning, right? What’d you say your name was again?”

Oh, man.

A younger officer, looking not much older than Ernie, came out of another room just then. “What’s going on, Sloane?” he asked, glancing over at Ernie. “Problem?”

“Nah, no problem, Reardon. This guy was talking to the Leo girl, and now he seems to be having trouble remembering his own name.”

“You want to give us your name?” the officer named Reardon asked Ernie politely. “I mean, there isn’t any reason why you
wouldn’t
want to, is there?”

Ernie gave up. Sometimes you could fight City Hall, and sometimes you couldn’t. This was one of those times. “Ernie Dodd,” he said reluctantly.

Reardon nodded. “He’s on the list,” he told his partner. “Maybe that’s why he wanted to keep his name to himself.” To Ernie, he said, “You want to come along with us? We just have a few routine questions.” He pointed into the small room. “Right in here, if you don’t mind. Nothing to worry about.”

Easy for you to say, Ernie thought as his earlier hope of finding Molloy soon shriveled up and died.
Your
girlfriend isn’t missing, is she?

But he moved into the room without further argument, knowing that he wasn’t going to be leaving the infirmary any time soon. If Molloy
was
at Nightmare Hall, she’d have to wait a little longer for Ernie Dodd to find her.

He could only hope that she was there with no one but Lynne, Toni, and Daisy. No one else.

Not a killer looking for a place to hide.

D
AISY AND MOLLOY CLIMBED
down from the chair and stood facing each other in the kitchen. The flashlight lay on the edge of the sink, its wide yellow beam casting an eerie glow across the room,

Molloy was the first to speak. “Maybe,” she proposed halfheartedly, “the nails are old. Maybe the handyman did this a long time ago, to keep intruders out.”

“Oh, right,” Daisy said, glaring. “And he also locked the doors from the inside and pocketed the keys so we couldn’t open them. And then, with the house locked up tighter than a penitentiary, he was magically transported out of here.”

Molloy sagged against the sink. “Sorry. I was just trying …”

“You were just trying to deny the truth.” Daisy’s tone softened. “I don’t blame you. I was doing the same thing when I insisted that no one was in here but us.” She glanced around the long, narrow, dim kitchen again, her eyes revealing raw fear now. “But someone
is,
Molloy! And for some crazy reason, he’s trapped us in here with him!”

They were too bewildered to think straight. They stumbled to the round, wooden kitchen table at one end of the room and sank into chairs.

“What are we going to do?” Molloy said. She wasn’t asking a question, and didn’t really expect an answer. She knew Daisy was as stunned as she was. First Lynne, with that horrible wound on the side of her head, curled up inside the trunk as if she were already dead, and now this! Trapped in a horrible old house with no way out.

No, that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right. Of course there was a way out. There had to be. “We’ll just have to find another way out, that’s all. He couldn’t have nailed all of the windows shut. He didn’t have time.”

Daisy disagreed. “One big, fat nail, one hammer, one blow, presto, the bottom of the window frame is nailed to the windowsill and won’t open. How long could it take? It’s not like he had to do the upstairs windows. Who’s going to jump out of a second-story window?”

But Molloy insisted they quickly check all of the first-floor windows. “If you’re right, and they’re all nailed shut, we’ll just have to break one,” she said. They had taken to talking in whispers. It seemed safer. “Then one of us has to go for help, and the other one has to get back upstairs to Lynne and Toni.”

They were checking the last room, the bedroom off the kitchen, when each of them found something.

The room had no windows, and they would have turned and left quickly. But Molloy decided a coat or jacket would be helpful when one of them went out into the rain, and she opened what she thought was a closet door. Instead she found a staircase.

Daisy had her back turned, in the process of finding another pair of dry socks. She heard Molloy’s gasp of discovery and whirled around, her face suffused with fear. “What? What’s wrong?” Then, taking a step forward, “What
is that?”

“It’s the back staircase we talked about,” Molloy said, holding the door open and peering up into the shadowed tunnel. “It was right here all along.” She stared at Daisy, her eyes wide with discovery. “This is how he did it. This room is right off the kitchen. He came in the back way when we were up front in the library and carried Lynne up these stairs. He’s probably been going up and down it, going in and out, the whole time we’ve been in here.” Her eyes were huge with dismay. “Maybe even listening to us, watching us …” Tears of terror trembled on her eyelashes. “Oh, Daisy, he must have been so
close!
And we didn’t even know it.”

“Close it!” Daisy demanded, and lunged for the door, slamming it shut. “Lock it!”

Molloy stared down at the doorknob. “It doesn’t lock. There’s no lock. But …” she lifted her head, “we can put something against it. Something heavy. So he can’t use the staircase anymore. Can’t sneak up on us from in here.” She glanced around the small, cluttered room, her eyes landing on a huge, old dresser. “There! We’ll use that. If we can move it.”

“We can move it!” Daisy said firmly. “We have to.”

It took a while. Although the drawers were only half-full, they had to remove them, setting them aside while they made another try at hefting the huge piece up over the edge of the faded oriental carpet. It kept getting stuck, and they were both sweating profusely by the time they had moved it only a few inches.

Working together on the same side of the dresser, they lifted one side and swung it sideways, and then did the same to the other side. A slow process, but it did the trick. They continued until the dresser was flat against the stairwell door. Then they reinserted the drawers.

Exhausted, they sank down on the neatly made bed.

“You think he won’t be able to move it?” Daisy asked, staring at the dresser.

“I hope not.”

“Of course,” Daisy looked over her shoulder uneasily, “we don’t even know that he’s
up
there.”

Molloy’s head turned slowly. “What?”

“Well, we don’t. Just because he took Lynne up to the attic doesn’t mean he’s still upstairs. He came down here to nail the windows shut, didn’t he? We don’t know that he ever went back up. I mean, he could be down
here
now, somewhere. Or in the cellar. We don’t know, do we? Maybe all we’ve done is made sure he stays down here with us. We barred the door, so unless he can move that huge dresser, he can’t get back upstairs. If he used the main staircase, we’d see him or hear him.”

Molloy thought about that, the expression on her face one of hopeless despair. Then it cleared, and she sat up straighter. “Okay,” she whispered, “so maybe he
is
down here. Somewhere. At least we know he’s not up in the attic with Toni. If he was, we’d have heard something. Toni would have screamed or pounded on the floor or something. She probably put something in front of the door up there, just like we did here. But,” Molloy stood up, “we have to get back up there. So we have to decide which one of us is going for help. How do we decide that?”

But Daisy bent just then to pluck a clean, dry pair of socks from the bedside table, and let out a soft sound of delight. “Look! Look, Molloy, it’s a radio! If the batteries are good, we can at least find out if the highway is open. If it isn’t, whoever leaves will have to go back down through the woods and take that back road.