Nightstruck (4 page)

“A better lie, you mean.”

She grinned at me. “Your point being…?”

I sank a little lower in my seat and crossed my arms. It wasn't like I had any problem with lying to my dad. If he had his way, my entire life would consist of doing chores, going to school, and studying. If I had a dollar for every time I'd told him I was studying when I was actually reading a romance novel or messing around online, I'd have enough to buy that car I wanted so badly. But this was a whole different level of lying—and there was more risk I'd get caught at it.

“Seriously, Becket, what's the worst that can happen? Your dad can yell at you and ground you for longer, but is that such a terrible risk to take?”

Once again, she had a point. One problem with my dad's No Privileges policy was that he didn't have much in the way of privileges to take away for punishment.

“What the hell,” I decided. “You only live once, right? If you can come up with a cover my dad can swallow, then you're on.”

Piper grinned and offered me an awkward high five, thankfully keeping her eyes on the road and one hand on the steering wheel. “I love a good challenge,” she said. “Now, tell me how you managed to get yourself grounded.”

Thinking about what had happened last night put a damper on my momentary defiance high. I wished I could just convince myself it was some kind of nightmare, but every time I tried to sell myself a logical explanation, I kept getting stuck on Bob. All well and good to come up with reasons why I might have been seeing things or misinterpreted what I saw, but there was no question that Bob had seen something freaky, too.

I told Piper the cat story. She laughed her ass off, and I knew she was going to give me a hard time about it for the foreseeable future. But at least she didn't think I was crazy.

 

CHAPTER THREE

Jimmy shivered and pulled his flimsy jacket tighter around him as he hurried down the quiet street. He should have worn his heavy coat, but he hadn't wanted to deal with it during dinner, and it had never occurred to him that he wouldn't be going home until the ass end of morning. He'd never gotten lucky on a blind date before and certainly hadn't been expecting it tonight. Winter had eased up a bit and it was above freezing, but only by a degree or two. He turned up the collar of his shirt and buried his hands in his pants pockets, but that didn't help much.

He was shivering, and his feet felt like lumps of ice, but there was still a warm, contented glow in his belly. It had been the best damn blind date ever. The sex alone had been out of this world, but the connection he'd felt with Maria went so much deeper than that. He didn't generally think of himself as the romantic type, but he couldn't help thinking that tonight he may very well have met the One.

The fastest way to get back to his own apartment was to cut through Logan Circle, and he was all for the fastest way. In the daytime, there were always people around, taking in the view of the impressive fountain in the center of the circle, but at this hour sensible people were shut up tight in their heated homes, not taking in the sights, and Logan Circle was deserted.

For reasons he didn't understand, his footsteps slowed when he got within a few yards of the fountain, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled.

At the center of the large circular fountain, there was a raised area with three larger-than-life bronze statues reclining. The highest jet of the fountain rose up from between those figures, and jets all around the perimeter of the circle sent water streaming toward the center. From where Jimmy stood, the feathery jets veiled the figures in the center, revealing only shadows and glimpses.

Jimmy blinked. It had to be his imagination, or just his tired mind messing with his memories, but he could have sworn the bronze figures were reclining farther from the center than they used to be. He took another few steps, moving away from the jets on the edge so he had a better view of the center.

There were steps in the center of the fountain—people often cavorted in the water or sat on those steps on hot summer days—and there were raised sections in the steps for each of the statues. The statue closest to Jimmy was a hollow-eyed naked woman lying on her side with her head raised so she was staring out at anyone who stood near the edge. She was kind of unsettling on the best of days, her eyes shadowed, her stare holding a hint of malevolence, at least in Jimmy's opinion.

And the more he looked, the more Jimmy was convinced the statue wasn't where it was supposed to be. Its hand was usually propped on the top step, its body draped over the rest of the stairs. But now it was lying at the bottom of the stairs.

Jimmy swallowed hard and rubbed his eyes. It had to be an illusion of some kind, or just some kind of brain fart.

When he dropped his hands from his eyes, Jimmy's insides turned to pure ice. Because the statue wasn't reclining anymore. It was sitting up, one arm draped over its knee, the other hand resting casually on the bottom step.

Jimmy's breath came in soft little gasps, white puffs of frozen air emerging from his mouth like smoke. He was seeing things. He had to be. Either that or Maria had put something in his drink—but if she'd done that, surely he'd have felt the effects before now. He shook his head, as if that movement would make the sight before him change.

The statue's lips curled up into a smile, and Jimmy cried out, stumbling backward, in such a hurry to back away that he tripped over his own feet and landed on his butt. The statue's smile went broader, metallic muscles rippling as it slowly rose, those hollow eyes fixed on Jimmy.

Jimmy no longer cared if his mind was playing tricks with him or whether he was having a psychotic episode or what. The look in that statue's eyes was pure malevolence, and Jimmy wasn't hanging around to see what would happen next.

He sprang to his feet, the combination of cold-numbed feet and terror making him clumsy. It didn't help that he couldn't seem to tear his gaze away from the crouching statue.

Finally, Jimmy got his feet under him and forced himself to look away. He ran for all he was worth, looking frantically around for another person, preferably a cop with a gun. If they hauled him off to the loony bin, it would be worth it. But there was no one in sight.

Behind him, there was a metallic screech and a sound like a giant hammer beating down on concrete.

He couldn't help it, couldn't stop himself from looking over his shoulder, though if he'd been in his right mind he'd never have slowed himself down by looking back.

A terrified scream tore from his throat when he saw that the statue was giving chase, its arms reaching for him.

This can't be real,
his mind insisted.
I'm having a nightmare, and any moment I'll wake up in a cold sweat.

But then a pair of giant metal arms grabbed him and lifted him from the ground. He struggled, kicking and flailing, but it was like being bound with steel bars, the grip so strong it squeezed the breath right out of him. He tried to scream again, but there wasn't enough air in his lungs. The arms squeezed more tightly, and he felt what he was sure was a rib breaking.

This was no dream, no matter how impossible it seemed.

Keeping a crushing grip on Jimmy, the statue loped back to the fountain. Though every motion hurt, Jimmy kept struggling, the will to live stronger than any pain. He let out a startled little bleat when the statue let go.

Jimmy landed in the ice-cold water, on his hands and knees. He came down so hard his teeth sliced into his cheek, and blood trickled from his lips, staining the water. He managed one full breath before the metal hand grabbed him by the back of the neck and shoved his face into the water. His nose made solid contact with the concrete floor of the fountain, and more blood stained the water.

The icy water sent shards of pain whipping through his body, and the chill stole what little air he'd managed to suck in. He tried to hold his breath, but the hand stayed clamped around his neck, holding him down as he thrashed and struggled and suffered. Until, eventually, he was perfectly still.

*   *   *

When Piper comes up with a cover story, she doesn't mess around. Her parents have friends in high places—including, it turns out, an old college buddy of her dad, who works in the Princeton admissions office. Princeton was far from my first-choice college—it was too close to home, for one thing—but it was on my list, and it was a place my dad would dearly like to see me go. I have the grades to get me there, and the SAT scores to boot, but so do thousands of other people who don't get in. Which meant a chance to schmooze with someone who might help me get into Princeton was an opportunity my dad couldn't let me pass up, even if I was grounded.

“My mom invited Dr. Schiff and his wife for dinner on Saturday night,” Piper told me on Thursday morning, when we passed in the hall at school. “I asked if I could invite you, and she said it was fine.”

I looked at her skeptically. “Dinner with your parents and a couple of their friends doesn't sound like the kind of Saturday night outing you were talking about.” Actually, it sounded a bit like my vision of hell. I find Piper's parents kind of snobby, and socializing with them and a guy who'd be studying my every word to see if I was Princeton worthy would be torture. He'd probably run back Monday morning and put me on some kind of Do Not Admit list.

“Oh, we won't be joining them for dinner,” Piper assured me. “We can beg off at the last minute. My mom won't mind. My dad'll probably be irritated, but he'll get over it.”

It sounded awfully rude to me—both to Piper's parents and to Dr. Schiff. But Piper and her folks didn't live by the same kind of rules I did, and if she didn't think her parents would mind, then who was I to question it?

Piper must have seen the acceptance in my eyes—either that or she had just
assumed
I would accept. “Good. It's settled then. I'll have my mom call your dad so it sounds all legit.”

“And what will I tell my dad when he gives me the third degree afterward?” He'd probably want a line-by-line report of what I'd talked about with Dr. Schiff, as well as a careful analysis of how I thought the evening went. Dad
really
wanted me to get into an Ivy League school.

“Make something up,” Piper said easily. “I'll introduce you to Dr. Schiff before we leave, so at least you'll have
met
the guy. It's not like your dad is going to call up my folks and ask them to verify your story.”

Piper talked about all this like it was no big deal, and for her, it probably wasn't. Obviously she did this kind of thing all the time, and if her folks knew about it, they apparently didn't care—or had given up on trying to stop her. For me, it was a different story. I'm not some kind of goody-goody, and I'd gotten in trouble with my dad—and my mom, when she was still living with us—more than once, but it was always for small things. You know, like failing to do my chores or talking back to them or lying to them about something trivial, like whether I'd done my homework.

Lying about where I was going was a much bigger deal. And sneaking out with Piper when I was supposed to be chatting up someone who could help me get into Princeton was off the charts.

But as Piper had pointed out, the worst my dad could do was ground me for longer, and that was only if he ever found out.

“We're going to have so much fun!” Piper promised, and she looked almost giddy with excitement.

*   *   *

Since I was supposed to be going to Piper's place to meet and have dinner with Dr. Schiff, I had to dress like I was going to an interview, not like I was going out for a night on the town. Piper refused to tell me what she had planned, but she did say I couldn't wear the black pants with the button-down silk shirt and low-heeled boots I would leave my house in. I couldn't very well sneak a change of clothes by my dad that night, so I stuck some jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt in my backpack on Friday morning and put them in Piper's car.

She was supposed to pick me up at seven thirty for an eight o'clock dinner, but Piper is allergic to getting anywhere on time, so it was almost eight already when she knocked on my door. Bob greeted her arrival with a bark that rattled the windows, and my dad didn't immediately call him off. I think Bob was kind of talking for the both of them, because my dad had been looking at his watch every five seconds since seven thirty, and there was no hiding the irritation on his face.

If I'm being perfectly honest, I was a bit irritated myself, even though I'd been expecting her to be late. The last thirty minutes would have been tense even if I weren't nervous about what we were about to do, and fending off my dad's barbed comments had been no fun. I'd defended Piper loyally, but really, is it that hard to show up at least
close
to on time?

“It's a subtle power play,” my dad had said. “Showing you that her time is more valuable than yours.”

I just rolled my eyes at that one.

Dad finally called Bob off, but he answered the door himself instead of letting me do it. Internally, I groaned, knowing this couldn't be a good thing. I couldn't see the look on his face, but I could see Piper's and the way her eyes widened. There weren't many people who could intimidate her, but my dad was one of them.

“I suppose Becket misheard you,” he said. “She thought you said you were picking her up at seven thirty.”

Yes, my dad has all the subtlety and tact of a wrecking ball. “Cut it out, Dad,” I said, trying to slip past him and out the door before he changed his mind about letting me go. “It's not that big a deal.”