Last Breath (6 page)

Sawyer shrugged. “Don’t get all bent out of shape. So you missed Bruin’s class. It was boring, anyway. Talia and Ann Freud here were the only two paying attention. Sophie was daydreaming about the dance and everyone else was dozing. So forget it.”

Cassidy couldn’t forget it. Easy for them to dismiss it.
They
hadn’t missed a class they couldn’t afford to miss. “I know what I saw,” she persisted. “My clock said eight o’clock.”

“And your watch?” Travis asked. “Did your watch say eight o’clock, too?”

Her flush deepened. “I couldn’t find my watch. I had it last night, but it wasn’t on my nightstand this morning. I don’t know where it is.” Glancing around the group, studying their faces, she saw the same doubt in their expressions that she’d seen when she told them about the missing money from the car wash.

And she felt every bit as alone as she had the night before, when she was lying, stunned, on the curb outside the mall.

“That clock read eight o’clock,” she said, biting off her words. Then she brushed past them and went into the psych room to face Dr. Bruin.

When she came back out, two red spots of embarrassment high on her cheekbones, the hallway was empty. She had hoped Sawyer would be waiting for her, but he wasn’t.

She walked back to the Quad alone, anxious to reassure herself that she had not read the clock wrong.

Sawyer was waiting for her outside the dorm. So. He hadn’t abandoned her, after all.

Noticing her limp, he asked with concern, “What happened to your leg?”

“I fell.” She wasn’t about to tell the bizarre truth to someone who was already questioning her ability to read a clock correctly. Maybe she’d tell him later, but not now.

Sophie, Talia, Ann, and Travis were already back in the room when Cassidy and Sawyer entered. It seemed to Cassidy that the three exchanged a look of concern when they saw her.

That annoyed her, and she hurried over to her bedside table, anxious to prove herself right. She reached down and picked up her alarm clock. “There!” she said triumphantly, holding it up and turning it toward them so they could all see its face. “What time does that say?”

There was a long moment of silence. Then Sawyer said quietly, “It says ten-fifteen, Cassidy. Not nine-fifteen. Ten-fifteen.”

Sophie nodded, her eyes huge.

“What?” Cassidy whipped the clock around to face her. Sawyer was right. The clock now showed the correct time.

After another long moment, Cassidy slowly, silently, bent to replace the traitorous clock on her nightstand.

And saw her watch.

It was lying exactly where it was supposed to be. It was lying in the same spot where she placed it each night after she climbed into bed. Exactly where it
hadn’t
been earlier that morning when she’d spent ten minutes searching for it.

C
ASSIDY STARED AT THE
watch. The silence in the room was as thick as pudding.

“Maybe there was something lying on top of your watch when you got up this morning,” Sophie said helpfully. “So you couldn’t see it.”

Cassidy lifted her head. “There wasn’t,” she said shakily. “I’d have noticed if there had been. The watch just wasn’t there.”

When no one said anything, she added fiercely, “It
wasn’t
there.”

Still no one said a word.

I don’t like this, Cassidy thought nervously. Something is
really
wrong. “Could someone have been in our room?” she asked.

“Someone?” Ann echoed in astonishment. “Like who?”

“I don’t know.” Cassidy knew she was clutching at straws. Why would someone come into their room simply to tamper with her clock and hide her watch? That was too ridiculous. But she was desperate for an answer. “All I know is, my watch wasn’t on this table when I left this morning.”

“Well, it’s here now,” Sawyer interrupted heartily, clearly anxious to have the unsettling business behind them. “All’s well that ends well. Want to go downstairs and get something to eat?”

Everyone looked at Cassidy. She could see that they all hoped she would answer yes. Then they could go to breakfast and forget all this craziness. That’s what they were hoping would happen.

And why not? What was the point of continuing to stand here and insist that her watch had been missing when no one believed her? Did she still believe it herself?

She wasn’t sure. She
had
been sure, but now…

What, she wondered, did her friends think
had
happened? Did they think she had forgotten how to read a clock correctly? That she couldn’t find her own watch when it was staring her right in the face? They were already convinced that she didn’t know the difference between a brand-new, crisp bill and an old, smooth, used one.

“Do you think I was seeing things?” she couldn’t resist asking. “Or, in the case of my watch,
not
seeing them?”

“No one said that, Cassidy,” Ann said calmly. “It’s just that you’ve been sick, and then you took that bad fall yesterday. That must have shaken you up some. Besides, anyone can look at a clock wrong. I’ve done it lots of times.”

“No, you haven’t,” Cassidy said, her voice cool. “Not you, Ann.” But it was hopeless, she could see that. She was never going to convince them that the clock had been an hour slow, or that her watch had been missing.

She was glad now that she hadn’t tried to tell them about the TransAm tormenting her yesterday at the mall. The looks of doubt on their faces now would be nothing compared to their reactions to such a crazy story. She’d been right to keep it to herself.

She suddenly felt very tired, as if she’d run a long distance. Maybe they were right. It
had
been a rotten week. She hadn’t been herself. Maybe she still wasn’t. It was easy to oversleep when you were exhausted. Then you woke up, looked at the clock, and saw what you wanted to see, right?

Sophie was probably right: The watch must have been on the table the whole time. Maybe it had slid underneath the clock. Yes, that could explain it. It had been hiding underneath the clock and when she picked up the clock just now to show them, presto, there was the missing watch.

“You’re right,” she said quietly, “I know you’re right. I was tired, and…”

“You need something to eat,” Sawyer said quickly. “Didn’t eat breakfast, I’ll bet. Did you?”

“No. I’ll do that now.”

As they all left, she couldn’t help glancing over her shoulder toward her nightstand, where the clock sat staring out into the room, its hands smugly pointing out the correct time.

She had been so sure the small hand had been on the eight when she awoke that morning. Not on the nine. On the eight.

Being so wrong about something so simple, so basic, left her feeling like she had a big hole in her stomach.

But maybe that was just hunger.

Her leg ached all the way through a day of classes, a dance committee meeting, and a visit to the library to work on her psych paper, with a side trip to the post office to pick up mail. While she was there, she picked up the mail for her suitemates too: A care package from Sophie’s grandmother, who made the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, a letter for Talia, the return address the hospital where her mother worked, two postcards for Ann from friends in other schools, circulars from the campus bookstore, and four small, purple envelopes decorated with Salem University stickers.

She was walking back from the PO to the Quad, alone, when she spotted the black TransAm. It was parked in front of the Quad, its engine idling.

Cassidy stopped walking. She was by the fountain in the commons, a large, rectangular patch of green located near the Quad. The sight of the car made her knees weak, and she sank down on the stone wall around the fountain.

What was the car doing there? Waiting for
her
? Hadn’t he tormented her enough yesterday? She didn’t feel up to playing another nasty game of tag. But she couldn’t get into the Quad without passing the car.

Of course you can, a little voice in her head said. The Quad is a huge complex. It has more than one door, silly. Pick door A, pick door B, pick any one of a dozen other entrances.

Cassidy shook her head and laughed softly to herself. Of course. What was the matter with her? She could simply retrace her steps to a side entrance and go in that way. She didn’t need to go anywhere near that creepy car. And there were no driveways on the commons, so the car couldn’t follow her.

Still a little shaky, but relieved, she got up and hurried to a side entrance, pulled the door open, and went inside. She never once looked over her shoulder toward the waiting car.

“Look,” she said when she entered the suite and found Sophie coming out of the bathroom, her hair dripping wet, “invitations.” She handed Sophie her mail.

Sophie glanced up with interest. “No kidding? A party, what fun!” she said, and ripped open the envelope. “Oh, great, it’s at Nightingale Hall! I’m dying to see the inside of that place. Cath Devon’s giving it. Ann’s friend. And she’s my partner in art class. I didn’t think she was the party type. She’s kind of shy and quiet. You never know about people, do you?”

Nightingale Hall was an off-campus dorm some distance up the road from Salem University. A huge, old brick house sitting at the top of a hill, surrounded by tall, dark oak trees, it had been the subject of rumors on campus. Someone had died there, although the details about the death were sketchy.
Nightmare Hall
, everyone called it now.

Cassidy thought a party sounded like fun, but she wasn’t really interested in Nightmare Hall. Although she liked big old houses, she preferred them to have a cheerful look. Had Nightmare Hall belonged to her, she would have painted it a crisp white or a mellow yellow, repaired the tilting front porch, and painted the shutters and the front door a deep cranberry red, hung a bright red mailbox near the door. Anything to take away that creepy, old-horror-movie look the house had.

Still, a party might be nice. She barely knew Cath Devon, and was surprised to have been invited. Maybe her name had made its way onto the invitation list because she was Ann’s roommate. Or because she was friendly with Jessica Vogt and Ian Banion, two residents of Nightmare Hall. They were in her math class. She liked both of them, and the party would be a good opportunity to get to know them better.

“I love Friday night parties,” Sophie said. “We get to sleep late the next morning.”

“Sophie, you love all parties,” Cassidy teased. “You’re a party animal.”

“This is true,” Sophie admitted. “That’s because I never went to any parties in high school. Wasn’t invited. Too fat for those unsophisticated high-schoolers.” Pain flashed across her face.

“Well, you aren’t fat. And you’re invited to all the parties now.”

“This, too, is true,” Sophie agreed, and the pain disappeared from her eyes.

By the time Cassidy had taken a quick shower and applied fresh antiseptic cream to the abrasion on her leg, Ann and Talia had returned and opened their own invitations. “So,” Cassidy said as she sat down on her bed and opened her own envelope, “is everybody going to this party?”

“I’m not sure,” Talia said. “I’m running the next day. Probably shouldn’t party the night before.”

“Ms. Physically Fit,” Sophie said. “If you can’t be physically fit and still party, then I’ll settle for poor muscle tone.”

“I might have to baby-sit,” Ann said. “Professor Benham is finally dating. Her husband’s been dead over a year, so I say it’s about time. She might be going out that night.”

“There are other sitters, Ann,” Cassidy pointed out. If Travis asked Ann to the party, would he be as annoyed with Ann for turning him down to baby-sit as he’d been with Cassidy for being busy with activities?

Ann shrugged. “I could use the money.”

The talk turned to what to wear, and after a while, Cassidy rolled over and went to sleep.

She dreamed that she was being driven to the party at Nightmare Hall in the black TransAm, but when they reached the long, curving gravel driveway up to the house, the car raced past it, and when she cried out a protest, the driver turned his head around to face her. But he
had
no face. No eyes, no mouth, no nose, no chin. There was only a cream-colored parka hood and a gray, foggy blank where his facial features should have been.

She awoke Wednesday morning shivering, her skin clammy and cold.

When she turned in the overdue psych paper, Professor Bruin said only, “About time.”

The discussion in class that day centered again around the fragility of the human mind.

Cassidy, drowsy in the overheated room, rested her chin on her hand, her eyelids heavy. That nightmare had robbed her of a decent night’s sleep. Who did that horrible car belong to? And why was it haunting her? She was so tired. She had never been so tired.

“Fatigue,” the professor said as she strode back and forth, front and center in the large lecture hall, “can damage our immune system, weaken our resistance.”

Tell me about it, Cassidy thought, listening now.

“And stress, too, has the ability to weaken our resources. Under certain circumstances, even the strongest ego can slip over the edge of sanity, given enough reason.”

Someone in the group made an audible sound of disbelief.

“It’s true,” the professor continued, nodding her head for emphasis. “Many factors have the ability to weaken our hold on sanity. Illness, fatigue, depression, loneliness, shock, all of those things and more batter our senses, making us vulnerable to the ordinary stresses of everyday life. You’re all fond of the expression ‘losing it.’ That is most likely to happen when we are overburdened with stress of one sort or another. No matter how strong we think we are, certain stimuli, such as the ones I mentioned above, can convince us that we’re seeing things we really aren’t, hearing sounds no one else hears, can take from us the ability to perform the simplest tasks. This is why managing your time and your physical and emotional resources well is so important.”

Cassidy sat up straighter. “Seeing things?” “Losing it?” “Overburdened?” What was Professor Bruin
talking
about?