Pretty Please (Nightmare Hall) (8 page)

“Oh, that. I think it was soda. I wiped it off before the paramedics got here. I was afraid they’d fall.” Jo had to admit that was sensible. Still, she had wanted another look at the spill. She had so many questions, and had hoped the mess on the top step might provide an answer.

Cath came in then, and asked what they were talking about.

When Jo explained, Cath said, “There wasn’t anything on that step when I left the kitchen. Jo had just gone down to the cellar. And it was just a few minutes later that Tina fell. If something was on the step, she must have spilled it herself.”

Evan shook his head. “If she’d been drinking something, her cup would have fallen with her. I didn’t see one down there. Besides, think about it. If she’d been standing there, looking down into the cellar, and she’d spilled something, she wouldn’t have stepped in it.”

“Unless she didn’t
know
she’d spilled,” Jo said.

“True. But then I repeat my original question: if she was drinking something, where is the cup or glass she was using?” To double-check, Evan went back down into the cellar and looked around. He found no cup or glass.

When he came back upstairs, shrugging, Kelly said impatiently, “Look, we don’t know what happened. No one saw anything. Except Jo, and she doesn’t really know
what
she saw. We’ll just have to wait until Tina’s okay. Then she can tell us if she was pushed.”

She had a point. Jo nodded reluctantly. “Kelly’s right. And can we get out of this kitchen now?” she added, shivering. “I keep looking down into the cellar. It’s giving me the creeps.”

They went into the living room, where the hushed group of party guests had gathered.

“Is somebody trying to tell us something?” said Missy Stark, dressed as Madonna. “Like, we’re partying too much? I mean,” she added, “two horrible accidents so close together seems a really weird coincidence to me. I think I’m staying in my room for the rest of the semester. So don’t anyone invite me anywhere. I won’t go.”

The party broke up quickly then.

Jo decided against going to the hospital. “Tina’s friends will be there. That’s enough of a crowd. We’ll call later to see how she’s doing.” As anxious as she was to hear Tina say she had not been deliberately pushed down those stairs, Jo couldn’t stand the thought of hanging around a hospital. Not tonight. It would remind her too much of her own accident.

As Evan helped Jo with her coat, she struggled to make sense of what had happened. She had been warned away from this party. She’d received all kinds of messages that clearly told her she shouldn’t be going out in public until her face was healed. She’d ignored them and come to the party, anyway. She
had
covered her injured face, but she’d come.

Maybe that had made someone angry.

But it was
Tina
who had flown down that flight of stairs.

As they left Nightmare Hall, Jo remembered Missy’s statement at the ski lodge hinting that Jo had been deliberately pushed into that door at the Stark party.

But it wasn’t
true
. She was sure of it. She’d thought about it, long and carefully. And she was still positive it had been an accident.

Just as Tina’s fall had been an accident. That sticky stuff on the top step…anyone could have supped on that and fallen. I almost slipped on it myself, Jo thought.

It was true that two accidents in a row was pretty weird. But stranger things had happened, right?

Some vague, unformed thought tugged at the back of Jo’s consciousness…something that made her uneasy…something she couldn’t identify. What
was
it?

She was too tired to wrestle with it now. Later…

Kelly, Nan, Carl, and Reed decided to go to Vinnie’s, but Jo had lost her appetite. She insisted that Evan drop her off back on campus.

“You don’t have to walk me in,” she said. “Go on to Vinnie’s with them.”

“I don’t want to go to Vinnie’s with them.” He closed the car door and grabbed her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Liar. She began walking across the Commons, huddling in her suede jacket for warmth. The mask was irritating her face pulling at her bandages. She couldn’t wait to get it off. Such a great costume…but such a bad night, after all.

“At first I thought Tina’s fall was an accident,” Evan said. “But I’m not really sure. I know
you
want to believe that. I do, too, but I can’t.” They were almost to Lester. It looked warm and welcoming, lights peeking from many windows, dotting the old snow with streaks of yellow. “I’m just not sure, Jo.”

“It
was
an accident! Quit trying to scare me.”

“Jo!” He sounded honestly appalled. “I wasn’t trying to scare you.” He yanked on her hand, forcing her to stop. Then he pulled her around to face him. “It’s just that when I looked down into that cellar and thought I saw you lying there…” He stopped. He reached out, grabbed her by the shoulders, pulled her close and kissed her.

Afterward, she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder, and said quietly, “Evan, it
wasn’t
me. I’m fine. I’m just fine.”

“I know.”

He kissed her again at the door to her room. “You’re sure you’re going to be okay? Want me to stay?”

She shook her head. She wouldn’t mind being alone for a while. There were things to think about.

The first thing she did after she locked the door was carefully pull the black latex mask off her face and head.

She’d been right about her hair. It was squashed flatter than a pancake. But the relief of having the rubber off her face was wonderful.

When she had changed into a long nightshirt and her robe, she sat on the bed, thinking about the party.

Jo curled her legs up underneath her and leaned back against the wall. What if Tina’s fall wasn’t an accident? If that were true…then there was something else to think about. From the back, in that darkened kitchen, all anyone would have seen was a tall, thin figure dressed head to toe in black. Tina. But…the figure could as easily have been Johanna Donahue. From the back, in that tiny bit of light from the cellar, the two figures could have been interchangeable.

Curling her fists into small, tight balls, Jo thought about the draped mirrors, the missing compact mirror, the hat with the veil, the cover-up cream.

“I was being warned,” she murmured, her fists clenching and unclenching nervously. “I was being told to hide my face, not to show it in public. And I didn’t listen. I went to the party, anyway.”

Could that have made someone angry enough to…punish her? Punish her for not listening? For ignoring the warnings? Punish her by pushing her down a flight of stairs?

I don’t know anyone like that, Jo argued with herself. I
don’t
!

You mean, a little voice in the back of her head admonished, that you don’t
want
to know anyone like that. But isn’t it obvious that you
do
? Because if someone
did
push Tina down those stairs, they were attending the same party you were. So you
know
them. Whether you want to or not.

Had the push been meant for her instead of Tina? Who knew she was dressed as Catwoman?

Everyone. Everyone at the party knew. She hadn’t made any secret of who she was.

Her head beginning to ache, Jo lay down on the bed, pulling her comforter up over her. So many questions, but only two were important:
Had
Tina been deliberately pushed down those stairs? And if she had, had she been mistaken for Jo Donahue?

One thing was clear: if she was the one who was supposed to have fallen, then she would be stupid not to be afraid.

She wasn’t stupid.

So…was she afraid?

Yes.

She was scared to death.

J
O AWOKE THE NEXT
morning with a headache. She took an aspirin and called the hospital to find out about Tina.

The nurse would tell her only that Tina Downs was in “fair condition.”

Oh, thanks a lot, Jo thought as she hung up the phone. That tells me next to nothing.

But at least Tina was alive.

Jo glanced out the window. They’d planned to return their costumes this morning. The sun was shining brightly and the sky was cloudless. Looked like a beautiful day—maybe her mood would improve.

By the time she had showered and dressed, Kelly was awake. She asked about Tina right away.

Jo shrugged. “Fair condition, whatever that means.”

“I think it means she’s going to be okay. If she weren’t, she’d be in ‘critical’ or ‘serious’ condition,” Kelly said. “So, what are our plans on this beautiful Saturday?”

Jo had awakened to find the stitches on her cheek bothering her, probably a result of wearing the mask the night before. They still hurt, and she found herself resenting the fact that Kelly, who hadn’t been awake more than a minute, looked perfectly gorgeous.

Life just wasn’t fair. “I don’t
have
any plans,” Jo said irritably. “Except, we have to return our costumes.”

“Are the guys going with us?”

And then, for no other reason than the fact that Kelly Benedict looked far more beautiful than anyone had a right to look first thing in the morning, Jo snapped, “Can’t you go
anywhere
without a male by your side?”

“Hey!” Kelly sat up in bed. “Ease up. What’s your problem, anyway?”

Chagrined, Jo apologized. It wasn’t Kelly’s fault she looked the way she did. And not her fault that Jo had gone through that glass door. She hadn’t even been
in
that crowd at Missy’s party. “I’m sorry. Guess I got up on the wrong side of the bed. And yes, as far as I know, they’re meeting us down at the fountain at ten.”

Kelly glanced at her alarm clock. “Ten? That’s only an hour away!” She threw the covers aside and jumped out of bed. Running for the bathroom, she called over her shoulder, “I’ll never be ready in time, no way!”

Jo’s irritation melted. It was Saturday, it was gorgeous, Evan had kissed her last night, and she was going to see him again in an hour. Best of all, Tina was not in “critical” or “serious” condition; she was in “fair” condition. Maybe she’d even be up to a telephone conversation later today.

Vowing to call the hospital when they returned from town, Jo got dressed.

They were coming out of the costume shop in Twin Falls when she glanced across the street and noticed that the sporting-goods shop was flanked by a beauty supply shop on one side and a drugstore on the other.

Beauty supplies?

Evan must have been going into the drugstore the day they rented their costumes. What would he be doing in a beauty supply store? Jo smiled to herself. Evan certainly didn’t need any beauty supplies. He looked just fine the way he was.

Suddenly, without warning, a vision of the little beige tube danced before her eyes. Ban-Blem. A special corrective makeup for scars and blemishes….

Wouldn’t you buy that at a beauty supply store?

She was instantly ashamed. Evan? Buying a tube of makeup and hiding it in her bag from the sporting-goods store?

Never! He would never do anything so mean.

Why
would
he?

He had gone into the drugstore that day. Absolutely.

She could
ask
him. But then he’d want to know why she was so curious. Maybe he’d even figure out that she was asking because of the Ban-Blem, and he’d be furious that she could think he’d pull such a rotten stunt.

Jo tried valiantly to put the whole nasty business out of her mind. It
hadn’t
been Evan. Couldn’t have been.

But she found herself watching him later, at Burgers Etc., while they were eating lunch. And then, because she couldn’t bear the thought that it might have been him, she found herself watching all of her friends. Reed and Carl, both so great-looking, so funny, so popular, calling out cheerfully to friends who entered the long, silver diner. Nan and Kelly, the perfect foils for Reed and Carl, with their own flawless good looks, their self-confidence, their ability to wear clothes as if the designer had had them in mind all along.

Perfect teeth, Jo found herself thinking…my friends all have perfect teeth. Look at all that shiny white enamel. Incredible!

And it occurred to her then that she’d been thinking far too much about looks lately. I never did that before, she thought, a little bit stunned. What’s
wrong
with me?

“What’s the matter with you?” Evan asked suddenly, yanking Jo out of herself.

For a second, she thought she’d spoken aloud. And quickly realized he wasn’t referring to her sudden preoccupation with looks. He was talking about how quiet she’d been since they’d come from town.

“Sorry. I guess I’m still a little off-balance from last night.”

“Yeah. Well, I heard Tina’s going to be okay.” Evan smiled. “That should make you feel better.”

Jo nodded. “It does. I’m going to call her later.”

“You are?” They got up then and left the diner. “What for?” Evan asked as he opened the door. “I didn’t know you knew her that well.”

Jo slipped red leather gloves on her hands. “I know her well enough to want to find out if she was pushed down those stairs. I thought you’d want me to find out.”

They had decided to walk back to school. It wasn’t that far, and it would give them some time alone. “I do,” Evan answered as they crossed the highway. “But she’s only been in the hospital since last night. I figured you’d wait a while, that’s all.”

“No time like the present,” Jo quipped lightly. “But first, I have to stop off at the infirmary and talk to Dr. Trent. My stitches are driving me nuts.”

“You’re not going to have her take them out already, are you?” Evan sounded alarmed.

“No. But maybe she can give me something to stop the itching.”

“Want some company?”

Jo shook her head. She hated the way she was feeling, wondering about Evan and the beauty supply shop, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t really know him all that well, did she? He hadn’t
seemed
put off by her damaged face, but maybe that was just an act. Someone who liked only new and perfect houses might like only new and perfect faces, as well.

Until she was sure of Evan, maybe she shouldn’t spend a lot of time alone with him.