Читать книгу All The Pretty Dead Girls - John Manning - Страница 17

All three people in the dining room of the Yellow Bird turned their heads when the bell over the door rang once again and Bonnie Warner stepped inside.

Bonnie was bone tired. She needed a quick cup of joe to take with her, to propel her the last couple of miles back to Wilbourne. She knew the outside gates to the college had already been locked, but that didn’t concern her. It was the eleven o’clock lockdown of Bentley Hall that was more problematic. Once Bentley was locked down for the night, no one was getting in—or out.

“Coffee, please, to go,” Bonnie said, standing at the corner.

Marjorie nodded, and turned to fill the order.

Bonnie’s eyes made contact with the young man seated near her on a stool. She nodded at him.

“You got to Wilbourne?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Bonnie told him.

“Out kind of late,” he said.

She shrugged. “I have a job in town.”

He nodded, returning to the last of the french fries on his plate.

All Bonnie needed was to chug down the coffee and hop back on her bike and she’d be back at the college in practically no time at all. She glanced at her watch. She still had plenty of time, but she knew tonight she was pushing her luck. But Amy had actually been making progress tonight—Bonnie couldn’t just take off in the middle of explaining why x times y equaled z. Tutoring algebra was a delicate assignment. When the kid’s brain was finally showing some signs of comprehension, Bonnie needed to stick with it and make sure all the points were made.

“Here you go, honey,” Marjorie said, handing her the coffee in a large Styrofoam cup with a secure lid.

“Thanks,” Bonnie said, paying her.

That’s when her eyes lit on the woman in the booth, who was also watching her. Shit! It was Dr. Marshall.

She couldn’t bolt. Dr. Marshall had seen her.

Bonnie took a long breath, then walked over to where Dr. Marshall was sitting.

“Hello, Bonnie,” the older woman said.

Bonnie decided simply to throw herself on Dr. Marshall’s mercy. She liked Dr. Marshall. She had a reputation for being fair. She wasn’t whacked out on authority like so many of the other professors at Wilbourne.

“Dr. Marshall, please don’t tell the dean you saw me,” Bonnie pleaded.

The professor smiled. “Bonnie, you know only upper-classmen are allowed to be off campus at this hour.”

“I know. But I have a job.”

“A job?” Dr. Marshall looked perplexed. “Again, only upper-classmen can hold off-campus jobs.”

“I know, I know. But I’m not a rich girl like so many of the other kids, Dr. Marshall. Somehow I’ve got to find a way to pay for books for the new school year.”

Dr. Marshall looked at her kindly. “What kind of job do you have?”

“I tutor a seventh-grader. The kid’s having major troubles with algebra. I saw the ad her mother placed in a local paper and so I called, and now I ride back my bike into town to see her. Her mother is so grateful, and the kid’s finally making progress.”

“I see. So you’ve been away from campus all evening?”

Bonnie nodded. “I missed the welcome ceremony.”

Dr. Marshall smiled wryly. “Well, count yourself lucky on that score.” Her smile turned warmer. “But you’ll be reprimanded for missing it. They’ll see you didn’t sign in…”

“Oh, no, Tish Lewis said she’d sign me in.”

“I did not hear that.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Marshall, but I need the job…”

“Okay, Bonnie, I won’t say anything. But please—try to arrange your visits to the girl during daytime hours, so you won’t risk getting caught again.”

“Oh, thank you, Dr. Marshall.”

The older woman thought of something. “But the outside gates are locked. I’ll need to give you a lift and—”

“No, no, it’s fine. One of the seniors gave me the code for the gate.”

Dr. Marshall sighed. “Do not tell me her name. Then I’d be covering up for three wayward students.”

“Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Marshall. You’re great!”

“Just please rearrange your tutoring schedule, okay?”

Bonnie nodded. She waved good-bye to Dr. Marshall and turned to head back out into the night. As she neared the door, the young man at the counter called over to her.

“Hey, do you need a ride back to the college? It’s pretty dark out there.”

Marjorie was leaning over the counter next to him. “It’s okay, honey. He’s a cop. You can trust him.”

Bonnie smiled. The man had a kind face.

“Thanks anyway,” she said. “I have my bike.”

“Well,” the young cop said, “be careful.”

“I grew up Brooklyn,” Bonnie told him. “Believe me, I know how to take care of myself. Lebanon is like paradise compared to the streets I grew up on.”

The bell jingled again as she left the Bird.

It wasn’t that Bonnie really enjoyed tutoring Amy. The girl was resistant and resentful. Only tonight had she shown any progress. All summer Bonnie had worked with her, trying to get her ready for the fall term. While the other girls on campus had all gone home for the summer, partying in the Hamptons or taking trips to Europe, Bonnie had stayed here, working in the registrar’s office on campus and tutoring Amy in the afternoons. It was really quite baffling. Amy and her older sisters called Bonnie a “rich girl” from Wilbourne—a “Wilbournian” according to townie lingo—while Bonnie’s classmates looked down on her for having to work off campus.

Can’t win for losing, Bonnie thought as she biked through the town square. Halfway there.

She was wearing a pair of shorts and a T-shirt; a baseball cap was pulled down low over her head. She glanced again at her watch. Okay, now she was getting close. It was ten-thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes before the doors of Bentley were sealed shut until seven the next morning. In the event of a fire, they automatically unlocked, but nothing short of a conflagration would get them to open up otherwise.

She pushed on, even though now her legs were starting to burn and her breath was coming in gasps. Six miles into town was a long way on a bicycle. Amy lived out in what was known as “the Banks,” a poorer part of town that reminded Bonnie of her own Brooklyn neighborhood—minus all the trees, of course. She tried to explain to the kid that she wasn’t rich like most Wilbourne girls, that she had grown up in a third-floor apartment over a Greek restaurant. Bonnie wished she could quit the job, but she needed the money. Her parents were sure not sending her any. In any event, the job could only last a few more months at most. There was no way Bonnie could pedal her bike all this way once the weather turned cold.

At last, she passed through the center of town and could see the gates of the school looming in the near distance. Bonnie’s legs ached, and she slowed down. Almost ten minutes to spare, she thought, sliding off the seat and taking deep breaths to try to slow her heart rate down a bit. She’d walk the bike through the gate after punching in the code. Then she could slip through the shadows and scramble into Bentley just in time.

I’m going to take a long hot shower and wash my hair, then just relax. My first class isn’t until eleven tomorrow, so I can sleep in, I might even skip breakfast and take my time getting ready. Maybe Tish has something nice she can let me borrow for the first day of class.

She was walking her bike alongside the tall red brick wall that surrounded the school. She was almost at the gate.

And then she heard something off to the side of the road.

The road was dark. The sky was covered with clouds, blotting out the moon and the stars. Across from the campus stretched deep woods. The noise came again. An animal maybe. Something crunching through the leaves.

Bonnie felt a flicker of fear in her chest, but dismissed it. Right, Bonnie, she scolded herself. Like it’s a bear. Probably a squirrel.

She was no more than ten feet from the front gate. She heard the noise again.

Now, don’t scare yourself, there’s nothing out there—

That’s when she was suddenly bathed in a red light.

“What the heck?”

Great. Just great. Apparently I’ve been caught in a new security system to catch girls who left campus after curfew.

Except the light didn’t seem to come from anywhere. It seemed, rather, just to be: a strange, eerie red glow.

Bonnie turned, ready with her excuses.

But what she saw left the words frozen in her throat.

She tried to scream, but couldn’t.

She dropped her bike. It clattered on the road beside her.

Bonnie ran, heading for the gates of the college as fast as her tired legs could move. She heard the steps coming behind her, crashing through the underbrush on the side of the road, and then directly on her heels.

This time she found she was able to scream.