“I believe so,” Detective Ortiz replied.
“Come, Christine. You must get to class.” Ms. Zaborov had stepped out the door and beckoned me to join her. With one last look over my shoulder, I left Detectives Arnold and Ortiz in Mrs. Crane’s office.
By the time we made it back to the studio, classes were changing and the hall filled with students. Jenna spotted me and pushed her way through them to get to me.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“Yeah, but they asked me where I was last night.”
“Shh.” Jenna whipped her head about furtively, as several of the girls around us tried to eavesdrop. “C’mon, let’s get outta here.” Taking me by the hand, she parted the crowd and steered us out of the school where we stepped around the building to talk privately. “Tell me everything,” she said, and by the time I finished, I was numb.
“I don’t know what to do,” I moaned.
“Do you think he did it?” Jenna asked.
I rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes and moaned, “I have no idea. After what he did to Raoul, and the whole split personality thing, I just don’t know. Maybe I should have told them about him. I’m so confused I don’t know what to do.”
“Calm down. They’re fishing. They don’t have anything.”
“But what made them question me?”
Jenna pinched her lips together and shrugged. “I don’t know. It is weird.”
Dazed, I tugged my sweater tightly around me, and leaned my back against the side of the building. “Something made them connect me to Mrs. Hahn. I just can’t figure out what that was.”
“He’s so twisted,” Jenna said, “maybe he gave them an anonymous tip—to cause you trouble.”
“Possibly.”
I pushed off the building’s wall then gasped when something occurred to me. “The sketches of me in the boiler room, and the stop-motion video on Erik’s computer. What if the police find them? Could that be considered incriminating evidence?”
“Ew, I don’t know.”
“I have to go down there.”
“Are you crazy? What if he’s there?”
Thinking it over, I weighed my options. “If they find those sketches, the video with my name on it, they’re going to know I haven’t been truthful. They might never believe I had nothing to do with it then. I have to get those drawings—delete the files. Will you go with me?”
Jenna’s eyes bulged wide. “To the boiler room?”
“Please. I can’t go alone. Besides, if he did attack Mrs. Hahn, and after Raoul’s beating him up, wouldn’t he have left? He wouldn’t stay in the garage he’d assaulted her in.” Grasping both Jenna’s forearms in my hands, I squeezed and gave her an imploring look. “Please.”
“Oh, all right.”
And before she had time to change her mind, I led the way to the garage.
Chapter Seventy One
Inside the underground parking lot, we moved as stealthily as possible, staying close to cars and concrete columns to hide behind if necessary. A few feet from the boiler room door, I placed a hand on Jenna’s arm to stop her. Now that we were here, I regretted pressuring her to come with me. “You don’t have to go any further. I’m okay now. I can handle it.” I may have sounded bold, but on the inside, it felt like my bones were melting and oozing into my bloodstream.
“I said I’m in and I’m in. Now let’s go.” And she started walking again.
The fear of anyone finding those sketches bolstered my resolve, and in a few more steps, we were at the door.
My breathing rapid and unsteady, I tried the doorknob. It was locked. Then I remembered the key on the ledge overhead, and did a relevé, rising up on my toes and running my fingers across the doorframe until I found it. Trembling, it took the use of both my hands to guide the key into the lock.
Once inside, Jenna closed the door and we stood and stared at the jail cell wall of pipes. Suddenly, the smells, the droning motors, and the memories they evoked overcame me, and I clutched at Jenna’s arm.
“Are you okay?” she whispered.
Swallowing the disgusting taste that had suddenly plugged my mouth, I nodded and took a couple of tentative steps.
“Erik?” I whispered. “Erik? Are you here?”
Edging close to a web of pipes, I peeked through the cracks between them and saw that he was not there. Hovering over my shoulder Jenna said, “C’mon, he’s not here. Let’s get this done and get outta here.”
Darting to the back of the room, Jenna went straight for the sketches. “Whoa,” she said as she gathered the pages, “this guy is seriously messed up. He’s been after you for a while.”
Right then, something in the corner caught my eye. Squinting into the darkness, I crept over and dropped to my knees. It was my ballet slipper necklace, still lying where Erik had thrown it. I picked it up and saw the clasp was broken, but the charm was still there. I closed my hand around it and made a promise to myself before cramming it into the tiny pocket of my sweater. I would get it fixed and never take it off.
“Awww, shit!” Jenna exclaimed.
I jumped to my feet and jerked about, half expecting to see Erik standing there.
“What?” I demanded, when I saw it was just her.
“You need to see this.” She motioned for me to join her, and I almost wished I hadn’t.
On the floor beside Erik’s bed was an upended cardboard box. Displayed across it was an array of my things, my missing purple shrug, the bracelet I’d lost the night Raoul and I’d gone to Discovery Green, and a large frame with one of the better, more elaborate, sketches of me in it.
“It’s a shrine,” Jenna observed.
“We have to get out of here.” I moved to the computer to start deleting the video files. “Grab all that stuff,” I instructed. “We can’t leave anything behind.”
Taking the mouse in hand, I searched for any related files and saw Erik had several windows minimized on the taskbar. I restored the first one I came to. It was the animated sketches video. I deleted it, and then went to Documents and simply deleted everything there. It was the quickest, easiest way to be sure I got anything related to me. Then I cleared out the Recycle Bin.
To be absolutely sure everything was gone, I clicked on another icon on the taskbar, and it took a minute for it to register what I was looking at—a multi-view screen of the entire Rousseau-Wakefield complex. There were shots of the school’s halls, outside the theater’s exit, and even the parking garage. He’d tapped into the security system. No wonder he could come and go as he pleased without being seen.
“Jenna, you have to see this.”
“What?” She scurried up beside me.
I pointed to the screen. “He’s been spying on everyone.”
She moved in for a closer look. “What the…”
“This must be how he knew Raoul was in the parking garage and went there to wait for him,” I said.
“The dude is freaking nuts,” Jenna mumbled. Then she shifted to peer at the back of the computer tower. “You know what, I bet this is…yep, this is one of the school’s computers. He’s the one who broke into the office.”
Clicking the mouse to the next screenshot, I gasped and shrank back. To my horror, I was staring into my own bedroom from Erik’s computer. If there was any doubt it was a live shot, it was wiped away when I saw the half-empty glass of orange juice I’d left on the nightstand just that morning. Vaulting to my feet, I shrieked, “Omigod, omigod, omigod!”
“That looks like your…”
“It is!” I cut her off. “He’s been watching me, too. Somehow he hacked into my laptop and has been watching everything I do.”
Jenna clicked through the different screens then. “You have to tell the police.”
“That’s how he knew I was still with Raoul,” I said. “And the Xanax. Everything.”
Fixed to the floor, I stared at the computer, and Jenna said again, “You have to tell the police.”
“Yeah—y
eah, I will.” I turned to her then. She had wadded the sketches and everything from the deranged shrine into the purple shrug. I snatched the bundle from her and said, “Go back to class. Make some excuse for me.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
“I’m taking this stuff home, calling Mom and Dad, and then the police. I have to do this, but I don’t want it to be here at the school.”
Jenna nodded her understanding.
We hurried out of the room then. When we reached the outside again, Jenna said, “Good luck. Call me if you need me.” And she took off jogging for the school entry.
Looking down at the stolen pieces of my life wrapped in a piece of my clothing, I tucked them under my arm, started running, and didn’t stop until I reached Templeton Towers.
Chapter Seventy Two
Since I’d left my bag at the school, I had to ask the concierge for help to get into the apartment. When he’d unlocked the door, I sputtered a quick thank you and practically slammed the door in his face. I ran to my room, coming to a dead stop at the threshold. The realization of Erik watching me there in the most intimate of places made my skin crawl, the times I’d undressed, Raoul and me making out, Raoul visiting after I’d tried to break up with him, and then it hit me. My laptop must have been open that day and probably why he went after Raoul like he did. There was no way to determine how much of my life he’d seen through that monitor because there was simply no telling when it was open or closed.
Stumbling into the room, I collapsed into the chair in front of it. Then without warning, the video chat alert sounded and I jolted. “Please let it be Marisol, please let it be Marisol,” I muttered, knowing she would be at school at this time of day. When I clicked the answer button, Erik’s battered face appeared, and I gave a startled yelp.
“If I had known you were coming, Chrissy, I would have been here to greet you.”
He knew I’d been to the boiler room. I stared at the laptop and contemplated closing it and shutting him out, but that wouldn’t make him go away.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” I demanded.
“What I’ve done? You are the one who has destroyed me. They’re up there now, organizing searches to ferret out the leather-faced phantom haunting the theater.”
“I didn’t tell anyone about you. It’s what you did to Mrs. Hahn. That’s why the police are looking for you.”
“Ha!” He leaned in to the screen, making his bulbous eye appear even more distorted. “You lie! You’re just like her, always shoving me aside for another.”
“I don’t know what your twisted relationship with Elaina Hahn is, but I never wanted this to happen. I never used you, and I hadn’t told anyone about you—yet. But I will. I’m going to tell my parents, the police. And I’m going to tell them what you did to Raoul, too.”
Nonchalantly, he settled back in his seat, snapped his head, and tossed his long, unkempt hair out of his face to reveal patches of scaly, bald scalp. Not bothering to conceal the scars anymore, he snarled, “You are the one who sent that boy down here to spy on me. I had to defend myself from his fit of jealousy. The police would understand that it was self-defense.” He took a wheezing breath. “It’s too late to worry about it now, though. It’ll be over soon enough. You won’t be able to hurt me anymore, Chrissy.”
My mind raced, trying to track everything he said. “What are you talking about? Are you accusing Raoul of coming after you?”
He raked a hand across the slack side of his mouth where saliva had pooled, and a conniving grin split his lopsided face. “I had a surprise for the quarterback—to finish him off—but unfortunately, circumstances have forced my hand.”
Dread turned my insides frigid. Raoul had been mistaken to think a simple scuffle was enough to frighten Erick away. He was insane, and I had to notify the police and warn Raoul as soon as I could.
Slouching forward then, he gripped the sides of his monitor and whimpered, “We could have been so good together, ballerina. You would have been a star—my star.” For a split second, he seemed to soften, some of the anger abated, but then he blustered, “But no, you couldn’t be with the freak. So it’s over, or it will be when I’ve hurt you the way you’ve hurt me.”
A grenade of fear exploded in my stomach as a thousand different scenarios tore through my mind. His threat wasn’t against just me, but everyone who meant anything to me.
“Don’t do something you’ll regret, Erik,” I pleaded. “We need to get you help. You can see a doctor.”
“Again with the doctor. Can’t you see? There’s no hope for this monster.” He gestured to his face.
“What are you going to do? Please don’t hurt Raoul.”
“Don’t worry. I won’t harm him. But this”—he arced an arm out across the spans of the boiler room—“this will be the end of the school, the theater, and the leather-faced phantom.”
Sweeping to his feet, he angled the computer so I would see his next moves. Then he tramped across the room to stand before a row of pipes. Glancing back at the monitor once, he then proceeded to kick one of the pipes. Grunting and howling, he kicked it several times until it gave way and broke free, splitting open and making a chilling hissing sound.
Gas.
“Erik!” I pitched forward and grabbed my laptop. “What are you doing?”
Strutting back, he leaned into the webcam. “This is the end, my love. I refuse to live without you.”
“Get out of there,” I yelled.
“You will always know that I loved you. I died for you.”
Backing up a step then, he pulled a book of matches from his pocket. And before I could utter another word, I saw a tiny flash followed by an enormous explosion, and the screen went black.
Chapter Seventy Three
I bolted for the kitchen, grabbed the cordless phone, because I’d left mine in my bag at school, and dialed nine-one-one. Leaving the apartment, I took the phone into the hallway with me, where I punched the elevator button repeatedly.
When the emergency operator came on I sputtered, “There’s been an explosion in the underground garage at the Wakefield Center. You have to get the kids out of the school and anyone who might be in the theater.”
“Ma’am,” the operator tried to interrupt.
“Hurry. There’s no time.” I hung up and tossed the phone next to our apartment door. Then, giving up on the elevator, I took the stairs, skipping two and three steps at a time.
On the street, I sprinted toward the school. I’d made it a few blocks when I heard sirens and said a quick thank you prayer. Maybe they would get everyone out safely.
Rounding the corner, I saw smoke billowing from the parking garage. Fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars lined the street. A stitch had formed in my side, but I ignored it and raced by the garage, pushing on for the school. I almost fainted with relief when I saw everyone outside, across the street, a safe distance from the school and theater. No one noticed as I joined them and began searching the crowd for Jenna.
“Christine!” I spun around to see her waving her hand. “Over here.”
Zigzagging through the throng, I all but stumbled into her before I stopped.
“Did you hear?” she asked. “There’s been a bomb threat.”
“It’s not a bomb. It was Erik.”
“Seriously?”
“He busted a gas pipe and then lit a match—on purpose.”
Jenna’s hand flew to her mouth and she mumbled through it, “Is he dead?”
“I—I’m sure.” I gulped back a sob, still shocked by what he’d done.
“Oh, no.”
Right then, another EMS vehicle pulled up, and we stared across the street and watched a dozen firefighters come and go from the school, the theater, and the garage.
Gradually, parents began arriving to take their children home. Some of the younger children were crying, while I noticed older ones talking behind their hands and looking my way.
After a while, I saw an ambulanc
e emerge from the underground garage, and I shuddered, wondering if Erik’s charred body was inside.
“This is unbelievable,” Jenna commented as the ambulance sped past us. “Why did he do it?”
“He’d threatened suicide before,” I said softly, resisting the urge to feel responsible. “But I didn’t believe he would actually do it, much less try to harm anyone at the school. I watched him on my laptop at home. He orchestrated the whole thing for my benefit. He wanted to die and he wanted me to see it.”
My entire body shook, and I couldn’t catch a breath as I recalled it all. Jenna threw her arms around me then, and held me up while I had a meltdown. Clinging to her for strength, I heard my name called, and I pulled out of her grasp. Then I turned to see my parents running toward me. Beyond them, I saw Jenna’s mother had arrived and was rushing our direction, as well.
“Are you hurt?” Dad asked, grasping my shoulders and inspecting me.
“No, I’m fine, but I have to talk to the police.”
“Why?” Mom asked.
“Because I know who did this.”
Chapter Seventy Four
The following week, the city building inspector closed the school and Wakefield Center while they investigated the facilities. During that time, to stay in shape, Jenna and I went to the Street Feet Studios to practice.
One day after she’d dropped me at home, I was surprised to see Mom and Dad sitting at the kitchen table. Dad’s visits had become more frequent, but this was a week day afternoon. They should have been at work. Something was up.
“Hey, Tina Ballerina,” Dad greeted with a forced pleasantness.
Mom gave me a peculiar look, like she was concerned, and said, “Maybe we should go in the living room.”
Something was definitely up.
Tagging behind them, I dropped my bag on the floor and sat on the sofa. “What’s going on? Why are you here?” I glanced at the clock. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Christine,” Dad said, “Mrs. Hahn is on her way here to talk to you—to us.”
“She’s not coming here to kick me out, is she?”
Ever since her assault, I’ve worried that the woman blamed me for what Erik did to her.
“No,” Mom replied, “that’s not why.” Then they exchanged anxious glances. “I think we should wait until she gets here.”