Wrong Number 2 Page 7

  Outside, a freezing mixture of sleet and ice had started to fall, making it feel even cozier inside. She phoned Jade to tell her about Steve, but there was no answer. When Jade’s answering machine came on, Deena hung up.

  For a few minutes Deena stared at her history notes. Then she switched on the TV. “Might as well have some company,” she said aloud.

  Bouncy music blared from the TV as a game show ended. Then Deena heard the perky voice of Katy Calloway, a Shadyside news anchor. “A major storm moves into Shadyside. A visitor to town gets a special boost. And a notorious criminal is set free—all on Channel Five News, coming up next.”

  Deena only half listened as several commercials came on. Then she heard the familiar musical theme of the evening news. “Good evening,” began the petite woman anchor. “Our top story tonight concerns the release of a notorious Shadyside murderer. For details, let’s go to Ralph Browning.”

  “Thank you, Katy,” said Ralph. Deena glanced up to see a handsome blond man standing in front of a prison. Deena lowered her eyes to her homework again.

  “I’m at the state prison near Adam Falls,” the reporter said. “Earlier today the justices of the State Supreme Court reversed the conviction of a man jailed here last year for the murder of his wife. Because crucial evidence was found to be inadmissible, Stanley Farberson was set free earlier this evening.”

  “Oh.” A frightened moan escaped Deena’s throat. She stared into the glare of the TV screen—but couldn’t hear another word the reporter said.

  Farberson is out! Deena realized. The words repeated in her mind until they became an ugly, frightening chant. Farberson is out! Out! Out!

  Now what? she asked herself, feeling her entire body shudder.

  Will he come after us? Will he come for Jade and me?

  Before she had time to think about those questions, the phone rang.

  chapter

  16

  “Hello?” Deena answered in a trembling voice.

  “Hi, babe.”

  Deena swallowed hard. “Wh-who is this?” She tried to keep her voice steady. But she stammered out the question shrilly.

  “Is Maria there?”

  “Huh?” Deena cried. “Who do you want?”

  “Oh. Sorry. Wrong number.”

  Deena heard a click. The dial tone returned.

  She replaced the receiver, still feeling shaky. Am I going to be terrified every time the phone rings? she asked herself.

  A sudden noise from the kitchen made Deena jump. Then she realized it was only the refrigerator rumbling on.

  Come home, Mom and Dad, she pleaded silently. Please—come home.

  Outside, the sleet drummed against the windows with increasing force. The sound made her feel vulnerable. If someone did try to break in, I wouldn’t hear them, she realized.

  The phone rang again.

  “Nooo!” Deena stared at the jangling instrument, terrified. “No. Please.” She raised the receiver slowly to her ear. “Hello?”

  “Deena!” Jade cried breathlessly at the other end.

  Deena let out a sigh of relief. She took a deep breath to force her heart to stop thudding so hard.

  “Deena, you’ll never guess what happened.”

  “I saw it!” Deena interrupted. “I saw it on the news.”

  “Huh? It was on the news?” Jade sounded confused. “How would they know about Chuck?”

  “Chuck? What’s happened with Chuck?” Deena demanded.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Jade said impatiently. “After school I went to the hospital. Chuck wasn’t in his room, so I sat down to wait. Well, I waited and waited, and finally the nurse came in. She told me he’d checked out!”

  “He what?” Deena cried in shock. “Chuck couldn’t check out, Jade. The doctors told him he’d have to stay in till Tuesday.”

  “I know,” agreed Jade. “The nurse said he left AMA. That means against medical advice.”

  “My parents are going to love this!” Deena muttered glumly.

  “He isn’t there, is he?” Jade asked.

  “Of course not,” Deena replied. “But where could he be?”

  “He left a message on my answering machine,” Jade told her. “Listen to it yourself.”

  Deena heard a couple of clicks on the other end, and then Chuck’s voice, sounding tinny and recorded, came on: “Hey, Jade, it’s me. I’m out of the hospital now. If you want to meet me, I’m going over to you-know-where to look for you-know-what. See you later.”

  “Oh, no!” Deena groaned.

  “Oh, yes!” Jade replied. “He went to Farberson’s house to find the money. Do you believe he’d go over there when he’s still injured? Not to mention the major storm we’re having.”

  “We’ve got bigger worries than the weather!” Deena moaned.

  “What do you mean?”

  Quickly Deena told Jade what she’d heard on the evening news.

  “Huh? They let Farberson out? You can’t be serious!” Jade shrieked. “But that’s horrible!”

  “Farberson is probably on his way to his house right now,” Deena said, a chill plunging down her back.

  Jade fell silent a moment. Deena could almost hear her brain whirring through the line.

  “The state prison is near Adam Falls,” Jade said finally. “It won’t take Farberson more than a couple of hours to get to Shadyside.”

  “I know, and Chuck is digging around in Farberson’s house right now.”

  “Oh, wow!” Jade said, and became silent all at once. “Chuck. Crazy Chuck,” she murmured finally.

  “Of course the storm might slow Farberson down,” Deena said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jade replied. “No matter when he gets home, if he finds Chuck in his house . . .” She didn’t finish the sentence.

  She didn’t have to.

  Farberson was a murderer. He had killed once—and gotten away with it.

  What would stop him from killing an intruder in his house?

  The wind whipped the trees low on the side of the Martinson house. Deena imagined she heard someone at the window.

  “Deena—are you there?” Jade asked.

  Deena struggled to remain calm. “Of course I’m here.”

  “Deena, you know what we have to do,” Jade said softly.

  “Yeah. I know,” Deena replied in a small voice. “We have to go to Farberson’s, don’t we? We have to get Chuck out of there before Farberson gets home.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Jade murmured. “We have to save Chuck.”

  “What if Farberson is already there?” Deena asked.

  chapter

  17

  Deena ducked her head against the wind as she headed down her driveway toward the street. She was bundled up in a ski jacket, wool ski hat, and heavy scarf. But the icy wind still stung her face.

  Neither she nor Jade could get a car. So they had agreed to meet on the South Shadyside bus.

  Deena waited, huddled under the bus shelter, as freezing rain and sleet fell around her. Her teeth chattered while the wind howled and swirled.

  She tried to remain calm, but her mind was a confusing jumble of thoughts and fears. How could Chuck do such a foolish thing? she asked herself again and again.

  She kept thinking of Farberson, on his way to Fear Street from prison. She could see him again as he had been the year before, fury and madness on his face as he lurched toward Jade and her with his grinding, roaring chain saw.

  It’ll be okay, Deena, she told herself. You’re not going to see Farberson. You’re going to find Chuck, get him out of that horrible house. Then the three of you will go back home.

  Yes, she assured herself. In another hour we’ll all be warm and cozy at home.

  At last she saw the bus coming up the hill, its headlights dimmed in the falling sleet.

  There were only a few other passengers. Deena took a seat in the back, near the heat. Three stops later Jade climbed on. She was wearing a shiny green
parka and matching scarf, with high black boots over her jeans.

  As she dropped down beside her friend, Jade unwound the scarf. Deena could see that she had put on makeup, as if she were going on a date!

  “I don’t believe we’re doing this again,” Deena said, shivering.

  “Me neither,” Jade agreed.

  “I mean, the only difference is—last time it was raining and this time it’s sleeting.”

  Jade looked around the nearly empty bus. “By the way,” she said, “I called Linda Morrison just before I left the house, to make sure she’d heard the news. About Farberson.”

  “Had she?”

  “Her number was disconnected.” Jade shrugged. “So I guess she already left town.”

  “I wish I could leave town,” Deena muttered.

  “Don’t worry, Deena,” Jade replied softly. “We’ll be okay. There hasn’t been time for Farberson to get back to Shadyside.”

  “You hope.” Deena sighed. “Why did Chuck have to pick tonight to break out of the hospital and go search for the money?”

  Jade didn’t reply.

  “Maybe Farberson won’t go to his house,” Deena continued, thinking out loud. “Maybe he’ll go to Linda Morrison’s instead. Why would he want to go to a cold, deserted house?”

  “That makes sense,” Jade agreed.

  “Sure it does,” Deena said, talking herself into it. “And he’ll get a big surprise when he finds out she’s gone.”

  “He’ll get an even bigger surprise if he goes to his own house and finds Chuck,” Jade murmured grimly.

  Deena peered out the rain-smeared window into the heavy blackness, “We just passed Canyon Drive. Fear Street is the next stop.”

  The bus picked up speed on Old Mill Road, swaying with the curves. Neither girl spoke again until it began to slow.

  “Here goes,” Deena said, sighing. She pressed the bell.

  Jade rewound the green scarf around her neck and face, then stood up. “Here goes,” she repeated softly.

  Nothing to be afraid of, Deena assured herself, stepping off the bus. We have a big head start on Farberson. We’ll be out of here long before he gets to Shadyside. Piece of cake. A piece of cake.

  So why did the wind seem so much colder, the sky so much darker on Fear Street? And why did she feel that she was walking to her doom?

  “Wait a minute,” Jade said. “My scarf is slipping.” The girls stepped into a bus shelter while Jade fixed the scarf. “Ready?” she asked when she was once again bundled up.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Deena muttered.

  They stepped back out into the driving sleet.

  The streetlights cast a dim glow on the cracked sidewalk. The houses on either side of Fear Street were large but run-down. Most of them dark. The bare trees shivered and shook in the swirling wind.

  “I’m sure glad I don’t live on Fear Street,” Jade said in a hushed voice, echoing Deena’s thoughts.

  The Farberson house loomed ahead in the sleet. To Deena it looked more than ever like a haunted house, with its broken windowpanes, boarded-up windows, and loose shingles.

  “I don’t see a light,” she whispered as they got closer.

  “Maybe Chuck is in one of the boarded-up rooms,” Jade suggested.

  “Or maybe he never went here at all,” Deena said. “Maybe—”

  “Stop it!” Jade snapped. “Don’t start with your maybes. Let’s just go in and find him—okay?”

  The sleet had turned the snow on the lawn into a sheet of ice. Deena and Jade held on to each other as they crossed the slippery surface.

  Both girls were silent climbing the broken steps to the front porch. Jade stepped up to the front door and tried the knob. “Locked,” she reported.

  “Maybe he’s not here,” Deena repeated hopefully.

  “No maybes,” Jade reminded her. “You know Chuck. If he made up his mind to come here to find that money, he’s here. The only question is how he got in.”

  “Maybe he went in through the back door,” Deena suggested. Pulling a flashlight from her coat pocket, she aimed the light just ahead of her feet, and led Jade around the back of the house.

  “Look!” whispered Jade.

  Deena followed her friend’s gaze. The back door hung open.

  They made their way up to it. Beyond the open door was the kitchen and other rooms, all dark as the inside of a tomb.

  “How do you suppose Chuck got it open?” Deena whispered.

  “Maybe he found it that way,” Jade replied. “Come on.”

  “What if it wasn’t Chuck who opened it?” Deena demanded, holding back. “What if it was Farberson?”

  “Farberson couldn’t have gotten here so fast, not in this storm,” Jade insisted. “Now, come on, let’s go in before we freeze to death.”

  Holding her breath, Deena followed Jade into the kitchen. Her flashlight highlighting the linoleum smeared with dirt. “Jade—” Deena started.

  “Shhh!” Jade instructed. “Be quiet. Let’s see if we can hear anything.”

  Both girls stood frozen by the doorway, listening. But there was no sound, except for the rush of the wind and the pounding of the sleet against the walls and windows.

  “I don’t hear a thing,” Deena whispered. “I think the house is empty.”

  “Let’s look around,” Jade suggested.

  Gingerly, Deena stepped farther into the kitchen. She aimed her light around the small room. “Wow,” she murmured. “This place is a wreck.”

  A year ago the house had been messy. But now it was a disaster area. Cans, bottles, dishes, pots, and pans were strewn everywhere, along with empty, crushed boxes of cereal, flour, and rice. Deena shuddered as her light swept over small animal footprints on the floor.

  “I don’t think the Farbersons were such good housekeepers,” Jade joked.

  “I bet Linda did all this,” Deena replied. “When she was searching for the money.”

  “She was thorough,” Jade said. “She searched everything.”

  Deena kept the flashlight beam aimed ahead of her as they moved into the living room. This room was even more torn apart than the kitchen.

  Furniture had been overturned. Books and pillows littered the floor. The sofa had been cut open and its stuffing pulled out and tossed all over.

  Deena spotted a faint brown stain on the rug near the hallway. She moved the light away. She remembered it was the place where they had discovered Mrs. Farberson’s stabbed body.

  “There are more rooms downstairs, aren’t there?” Jade asked.

  Deena tried to remember the house. “There’s a dining room and I think there’s a closet over next to the stairs,” she replied.

  She cautiously opened the dark wood door next to the stairs, to reveal a hot-water heater and several pieces of luggage, all ripped open.

  “I wonder if she tore everything apart upstairs,” Jade said after they searched the dining room.

  “Probably,” Deena replied. “She told us she’d been all through the house.”

  Deena had breathed a little easier as they finished wandering through the downstairs rooms. But now, as they started up the creaky wooden stairs, she felt panic rising again. Each time she placed her foot on a creaking step, she remembered the sound of Farberson climbing the stairs to get them last year.

  They stopped halfway up the stairs. “Why don’t we hear Chuck moving around?” Jade wondered out loud.

  “Maybe he’s deliberately keeping silent. Maybe he hears us and thinks we’re here to stop him,” Deena suggested.

  “Maybe,” Jade agreed. “Chuck!” she suddenly called. “Chuck, it’s us! Jade and Deena!”

  No answer.

  They made their way up to the landing. Deena couldn’t see light from any of the upstairs rooms. The air felt even colder on the second floor. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in my life!” she complained, shivering.

  “Just keep moving,” Jade instructed. “Chuck!” she called again. “Chuck, ar
e you up here?”

  Silence.

  “No one here,” Deena murmured. “Maybe he already found the money and left.”

  “Maybe,” Jade said. “Come on, let’s check out the bedrooms.”

  The first bedroom had been Stanley Farberson’s office. Deena felt her stomach turn over as she recognized the beat-up desk, the overturned file cabinets, and the closet where she and Jade had hidden.

  “Yuck. This brings back bad memories,” Jade whispered.

  “It looks like someone has gone through all this stuff,” Deena replied, sweeping her light over the room. “There’s no way to tell if it was Linda Morrison or Chuck.”

  “It might have been both of them,” said Jade. “But no one’s here now—at least not in this room.”

  The next room had a broken card table leaning against one wall. No other furniture. The closet was dark and empty. Someone had cut through the wallpaper with something sharp.

  They stepped into a tiny bedroom. It looked as if it might have been a guest room, with a single bed and a low, two-drawer dresser.

  Jade kneeled down and searched under the bed. Nothing there.

  “We’re running out of rooms,” Deena whispered.

  “One more,” Jade replied grimly. “I’m sure you remember it.”

  Deena nodded. She could never forget the fourth bedroom. Farberson had trapped them in that room when he’d discovered them hiding in the house.

  The room was a complete wreck. The contents of the dressers had been emptied onto the floor, and the mattress had been slashed open.

  A tall pile of trash had been shoved against the closet door. Deena kicked it aside. She swept her light into the closet.

  Empty. Except for a heap of women’s clothes on the floor.

  “Chuck’s not here,” she told Jade. “In fact, I don’t think he ever came.”

  Jade sighed. “When he left the hospital, he must have decided the weather was too awful to travel here.”

  Deena uttered an angry growl. “He’s probably home safe and warm—while we’re here freezing to death. I’ll kill Chuck when I see him.”

  Jade giggled. “Not if I get my hands on him first!”