Wicked by Joanne Fluke Page B

out here to hurt her and she climbed another step. The rustling had stopped now and as she climbed the sixth step, a bird flew up into one of the trees that surrounded the courtyard. That must have been what she’d heard.
    Tracie hurried up the remaining two steps and held on to the rail as she moved toward the table. She didn’t want to slip and fall into the water. Scott’s stereo was playing loudly, and she reached out to shut it off. But just as her fingers touched the on–off switch, she heard the rustling noise again.
    â€œIs someone here?” Tracie’s voice was shaking slightly. But no one answered, and she laughed at herself for being foolish. Who would be up here on the deck in the dark? Everyone was still in the house, working.
    Tracie turned off the stereo and it was perfectly quiet, so quiet that she heard the sound of a distant train whistle from the tracks that ran past the far edge of the campus, over two miles away. Someone laughed inside the mansion. It sounded like Jeremy, and Tracie started to grin. He was probably reading over his chapter for tonight. Jeremy always laughed at his own jokes.
    As Tracie stood there, listening, she heard another sound. It was very faint, and it made her shiver, even though the night was muggy and hot. It was a scrabbling noise, like fingernails scratching against a metal surface. It seemed to come from the kitchen, and Tracie drew in her breath sharply. Could it be Cheryl, clawing at the metal door of the cooler, trying to get out?!
    â€œCheryl’s dead.” Tracie spoke the words aloud, just to reassure herself. Marc had checked Cheryl’s pulse and all of her vital signs. He’d pronounced Cheryl dead, and Tracie was sure that he’d been right. Marc was a sports medicine major, and he’d taken all the emergency care classes. Surely they would have taught him the difference between a live person and a dead one.
    But what if Marc was wrong? Tracie shivered and tried not to think of all the stories about people who’d been buried alive. There was a handle on the inside of the walk-in cooler. If Marc had made a mistake and Cheryl was still alive, she could open the door to the cooler and walk right out . . . unless she was so badly injured, she couldn’t walk.
    Tracie shivered again. She couldn’t help imagining her friend, Cheryl, clawing at the door with bloody fingers, using the last of her strength to try to stand up to reach the latch. But that was ridiculous, wasn’t it? Eve would have noticed that Cheryl was breathing when she’d wrapped her in the blanket.
    Eve. What if Eve had found out that Cheryl was planning to blackball her as sorority president? Would Eve have taken advantage of the awful situation and left Cheryl in the cooler to die? Eve could be mean when she didn’t get her own way. Tracie knew that. But was Eve capable of that kind of horrible cruelty?
    No, it was impossible. No one could be that dreadful, not even Eve. Cheryl was dead, and she was just imagining things. She was even imagining that she could hear breathing, coming from the direction of the kitchen. It was raspy and labored, almost as if someone were trying to lift something heavy, and it was coming closer and closer.
    Tracie whirled around, and she gasped as she saw a dark figure reaching out for her. The breathing was real! She hadn’t imagined it! But before Tracie could open her mouth to scream, strong hands struck her in the small of the back and she was falling into the pool.
    Tracie struck out at the hands that were holding her down. It was probably one of the guys, and she was going to absolutely kill him when he let her up for air. This was a nasty trick. Tracie hated to be dunked.
    Tracie reached up to grab the hands, and that was when she realized that the person who’d shoved her was wearing gloves. Why would he wear gloves on a hot summer night?
    She had to take a breath of air! Spots began to swirl