MOON FALL by Tamara Thorne Page A

Go, do not collect two hundred dollars." He leaned in conspiratorially. "Slit her wrists, you know. Did it right here in this room-that's why I had to paint the place and getcha the new mattress. That's where she done it, on the bed . Squirted the walls, yes, rna' am. And the floors and the bed."
    He went on, spouting details, but Sara barely heard him. She was thinking about Jenny Blaine, her best friend and roommate when she'd lived here in the mid-eighties. She'd died the same way, and Sara was the one who had found her. "Basil - Bob," she began.
    He stopped talking and stared at her. "Yup?"
    "I really can't talk any longer right now." She tried to keep her voice steady. "We'll speak later, if you like."
    ''Sure thing." He turned on his heel and strode silently down the shadowed corridor. She watched him until he reached the stairs, where his Reeboks squeaked as he turned.
    Back in her room, Sara pulled the door closed behind her. She decided that after her meeting, she'd go into town and at least buy some sort of lock for her room. The bed where her predecessor had sat to slit her wrists was as pristine as the white walls. She wondered how many coats of paint it had taken to cover the bloodstains. When Jenny had died, she'd scrubbed and painted over the stains herself, five coats, but when the light was just right, she'd thought she could still see them, dim red shadows across the walls.
    Jenny Blaine was the reason Sara Hawthorne had returned to St. Gertrude 's Home for Girls. Jenny hadn’t kill ed herself; she was murdered, of that Sara was sure. Her death, along with other foggy memories of other girls' disappearances - runaways, the nuns said-still haunted her. At sixteen, three months after Jenny's death, she'd run away herself, unable to sleep another night in the room where Jenny had died. She'd hitchhiked to San Francisco and had herself legally emancipated, so that she could work and attend school. Her new freedom should have been wonderful, despite the hard work, but she'd taken the horror with her.
    Sara's insides felt hot and liquid as she quickly brushed her dark brown hair and reapplied lipstick. Despite the therapists, despite her attempts to write down her memories, they all eluded her, except for the vision of that bloody room, of Jenny. She was haunted, not by ghosts, but by the past, and now it was time to see justice done for Jenny Blaine and to exorcise her own demons, the ones that caused the nightmares and the nervousness with which she met each day.
    After she received her teaching degree, she worked in Marin County, California, for a middle-grade school, thinking that now that she had her career, she would finally forget. But it didn't happen. Finally, she sent a resume to St. Gertrude's, hoping that giving herself a chance to solve the mystery of Jenny's death would soothe her nerves. She never really expected to hear back from the home, but a few months later, Mother Superior Lucy Bartholomew - the selfsame nun she'd so feared when she was a student - wrote to her. Shortly after, they interviewed by phone and Sara was offered the position. And here I am, only slightly in shock. What the hell am I doing here? It had all happened so fast she'd barely had time to think about her actions.
    Shaking her head, she took her briefcase from her flight bag, glanced in the small, round mirror over the chest of drawers, then squared her shoulders and walked out the door to make her appointment. Coming back here was the hardest thing she'd ever done, but now that she was here, she decided, nothing - nothing-would stop her from finding out what had really happened to Jenny Blaine.

 
    Sixteen
     
    Mother Superior Lucy Bartholomew's office was the same dark and depressing chamber it had been when Sara was a girl. Both the office and Mother Lucy appeared to be untouched by time .
    The office and outer room, where Mother Lucy had kept her waiting for forty-five minutes before admitting her to the inner s anc tu