The Sixes

31

BEFORE SHE COULD even form a thought, the back of her body slammed into something hard. She heard a thwack sound as her shoulder blade made contact with the surface, and the wind rushed out of her. Then she was falling again, bounced from the first thing she’d struck. She hit the bottom of the pit seconds later, facedown, with her broken elbow driving into the ground. Pain blistered and then exploded through every inch of her.

She tried but couldn’t even grab a breath. It felt as if a giant snake had circled her torso and begun to squeeze. But she was alive. Above her she knew Wesley must be watching, hoping she was dead.

After a minute she heard him move. There was a fast, scuffing sound of footsteps, gradually receding toward the front of the building. He’s going now, she realized. Somehow she would try to escape. She opened her eyes just a little and peered through the dimness at the wall. Somewhere there must be toeholds that she could use to climb out.

And then all at once every light went out above her. She was lying in the pitch-black. No, no, please not this, Phoebe thought. It was as if she was in that dark space from years ago. But this time no one would ever come to rescue her.

Get a grip, she told herself.

Two minutes later, she detected the muffled sound of a car moving by. And then it was silent. Wesley would be doing everything in his power to get back as soon as he could. She knew she needed to hurry, to get the hell out now.

She commanded her brain to move her legs, but nothing happened. What if they’re broken or paralyzed? she thought, terrified. But after a few tries she realized she could shift them. It was only her elbow that seemed truly damaged. The pain was searing now, like someone burning a hole through the bone with a blowtorch.

With her right hand, Phoebe tried to push her body up. When she’d managed to lift her torso a foot off the ground, she drew her right knee up under her abdomen for leverage. From there she slowly rolled over and pulled herself up into a sitting position. Then she struggled all the way up. As she reached a standing position, her right hand touched something oddly shaped and wooden in front of her. She had obviously landed by one of the gears to the right of the giant paddle wheel. She realized for the first time that she must have bounced off the paddle wheel on the way down. Though she’d smacked her back on it, the wheel had at least broken her fall, maybe saving her life.

Through the dark she inched forward, to the wall. She could feel her panic returning, something old and familiar, and she told herself to just breathe. With her good hand she began to search for any kind of exit or toehold or ladder, slowly moving around the perimeter of the pit. There had to be something like that, she thought; people must have once climbed in and out. But after a search all the way around, she’d found nothing.

Think, she told herself. What had Wesley said upstairs? Water turned the paddle wheel, which then turned the gears, which then turned the grist stones. But there was something else, something she remembered from her conversation with him in the diner. The sluice gate. It’s where they let the water in.

She dropped to her knees and began to circumvent the pit again, but this time feeling lower along the wall, searching with her right hand for the old sluice gate. There would have to be two, she realized, one right behind the paddle wheel and another on the side directly opposite. But she was disoriented now, and wasn’t sure where she was anymore.

Finally her hand felt something—a metal plate in the wall. She ran her hand roughly over it. On either side were two metal handles, clearly for raising the gate. She gave a tug to one of the handles with her right hand. Nothing happened. It might be welded in place, she realized, or stuck from years of disuse. She forced herself up into a standing position and tried again. This time it budged. She felt a surge of relief.

Hobbling to the other side of the gate, Phoebe tugged on the opposite handle. There. The gate inched up a bit more. Suddenly her feet were cold and she knew that water had begun to seep in—not gushing but steady, a slow-moving stream. Then she thought, What if the pit fills with water before I have a chance to fully lift the sluice gate?

Quickly she moved from side to side, hoisting the gate up an inch at a time on each side. The water was around her ankles now, icy cold. But finally the gate was raised enough to let a body through.

It wasn’t going to be easy. She would be fighting the stream—and with only one arm to paddle with. But she had no choice. Wesley would return and kill her.

Phoebe snagged a breath and plunged through the opening. Within seconds she was totally underwater, and the cold force hit her with a wallop. Water rushed up her nose. She struggled futilely to raise her head above the surface. Swim, she commanded herself. She kicked hard and scooped the water desperately with her right arm. Finally her boots scraped against something, and she realized they were dragging against the ground. With her lungs ready to burst, she shoved her head above water. She could see now. She was in the stream just to the right of the building, and above her the sky twinkled with stars. A sob of relief broke in her throat.

She crouched in the water, still gasping for breath, and peered through the darkness. She had begun to shiver. The security light on the end of the building illuminated the edge of the parking lot. Phoebe could see the outline of a single car in the lot—it was hers. Wesley’s car was definitely gone.

But there was no point in trying to reach her own car. She didn’t have her purse with her car key in it, and even if she did, she knew it would be risky to cross the lot—Wesley might come back at any moment. She turned and searched the area behind her with her eyes. There was an embankment on this side of the stream that reached up to an area of ragged shrubbery. Phoebe staggered out of the stream, her wet clothes sucking at her body, and struggled up the embankment. Each step jarred her elbow, making her moan in pain.

As she reached the top, she realized that the small town of Springville was behind her, opposite the direction she was moving, but there were two houses ahead, each just off the road. One was dark, except for a bulb burning on the front porch, but lights were on throughout the other one. Phoebe stumbled toward it. She was shivering forcefully now, and her heart was beating hard from the effort of climbing. Water ran into her eyes. She reached up to wipe it from her face and smelled that it was actually blood.

As she neared the house, Phoebe could hear a TV going inside, and through the window she saw an older couple plopped on the couch, faces aimed at the TV and their expressions listless. She dragged herself up the steps of the porch and knocked hard on the door. You have to seem sane, she told herself. Or they will never let you in. Through the window she saw the shapes of both people rise from the couch and move toward the door, hesitant and uncertain.

“Who is it?” the man called without opening the door.

“I’m a teacher at Lyle College,” Phoebe yelled through the door. “And someone tried to kill me. I need your help.”

There was no reply, though behind the door she could hear the couple squabbling. Finally the door opened a crack, with the chain still in place. All she could see were two spiky white eyebrows.

“We’ll call nine-one-one,” a man’s voice said. “Just wait on the porch there.”

The road was just ten yards behind her, and Phoebe heard a car shoot by. When Wesley returned and saw the water in the pit, the first place he would look for Phoebe would be along the road.

“Please,” Phoebe begged. “I’m afraid he’ll find me out here. Can you let me in?”

She heard the woman tell the man no, but the man argued, and finally there was the sound of the chain bouncing against the doorframe. The door swung open, and the man ushered her inside. Phoebe stumbled into the hallway. The woman gasped in shock, and Phoebe sank slowly to the floor. She could see in the light that her left sleeve was soaked in blood.

The man commanded the woman to call 911 and then grab a blanket. He stooped to the floor, scanning Phoebe’s body with his eyes.

“Your husband do this to you?” the man asked solemnly.

For a brief moment Phoebe felt like laughing. She was tempted to tell him, between chattering teeth, Yeah, we got into a domestic spat using a garden hose, but she knew she was lucky he’d let her in and she shouldn’t rock the boat.

“No,” she said, “not my husband.”

A few minutes later the woman scurried back with the blanket and laid it over her. The shivering began to slowly subside. It took about fifteen minutes for the ambulance to arrive. Until then Phoebe lay in the hall, eyes closed, with the couple murmuring endlessly nearby. They never asked if she wanted to move to a chair or couch. As far as they know, Phoebe thought, I could be a lunatic. She kept wondering if Wesley had returned and would come banging on the door of the house, suspecting that’s where she had escaped to.

Only when she was in the ambulance did she feel safe. She let her mind go nearly blank, except to think about the pain.

There seemed to be tons of people waiting when they reached the hospital, though their faces were mostly a blur. Phoebe guessed it was the same hospital she’d been taken to before. After she was lifted from the ambulance, she found the eyes of one of the nurses who now moved along the side of the stretcher.

“Please call Glenda Johns,” Phoebe murmured, “at Lyle College.”

“HEY THERE,” SOMEONE said. Phoebe forced her eyes open and squinted toward the voice. It was Glenda’s.

“Hey,” Phoebe muttered back.

“How do you feel, Fee?”

“Like hell. What’s going on?”

“You remember that they operated on your elbow, right? It was shattered, and part of it was poking through your skin.”

“Right,” Phoebe said. She closed her eyes again, trying to wedge the memories free. She pictured herself being wheeled into the recovery room. A nurse comforting her. Then she remembered the water and plunging through it. And before that, being hurled into the pit.

“Wesley?” Phoebe whispered. “Did they catch him?”

“Yes, they nabbed him,” Glenda said. “Craig says they’re putting the pieces together.”

At the mention of the detective’s name, another memory shoved its way into Phoebe’s brain: Michelson and a colleague—someone other than Huang this time—floating above her while she was still in the ER.

“What about Blair—and Gwen?” Phoebe asked.

“We’ve heard through their lawyers that they’ll probably be released soon. I imagine the cops are waiting to be sure that Wesley is their guy.”

“Wait—and Ginger,” Phoebe said anxiously. “Has anyone been to my house?”

“Don’t worry, I arranged for your lovely cleaning woman to let me in, and the dog’s with us. Brandon hasn’t let her out of his sight.”

Phoebe tried to scooch herself up in bed without much success. Glenda located the button that automated the bed and raised the back.

“Don’t overdo it, okay?” Glenda said. “By the way, the doctor said they ended up putting a pin in your elbow. The healing time’s a bitch, but it should be as good as new eventually.”

“I’m just lucky that I struck the paddle wheel first,” Phoebe said. “That managed to break my fall. If I hadn’t, I’d probably have broken my neck when I hit the ground.”

“Do you feel up to telling me what happened?” Glenda asked.

Phoebe sketched out the basic details, and also filled in some blanks about Wesley. When she was finished. Glenda stroked her good arm.

“So is Wesley a serial killer, then?” Glenda asked. “Is that how you’d define him?”

“He probably didn’t wake up each day with an urge to commit a horrific murder. But when someone got in his way—like Trevor—he killed without any regrets. He’s a sociopath, I’m sure—a Scott Peterson type who on the outside looks and acts like the boy next door but inside is hollow and emotionless.”

“Did you ever have even a hint?”

“There was just one tiny moment. After I met him at the diner and he told me that Blair had actually been at Cat Tails the night he’d ended up in the river, something started nagging at me. But I could never put my finger on it. I think what bugged me deep down was how convenient it was for him to suddenly recall that Blair had been in the bar. He was starting to scramble a little, and I sensed it on some level.

“Of course, I could kick myself for missing the truth, but it’s easy for guys like him to fool you,” she added. A phrase Duncan had used surfaced in her mind. “They wear the mask of sanity. Like a few damn actors I’ve known.”

Phoebe closed her eyes again. She felt woozy suddenly, as if she had just stepped close to the edge of a precipice and looked down.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” Glenda asked.

“No,” she said, opening her eyes again. “I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days, and I want to know what’s going on. Talk to me. Is your job safe?”

“Don’t know. The board isn’t asking for my head yet. They certainly can’t blame me for Wesley, but the Sixes are another story. They were formed during my tenure. As long as nothing else happens, I may be okay—which of course, will drive Stockton crazy because he seems to want me to fail.”

“I’m so relieved, G.”

“Oh, there’s one piece of interesting news that I wanted to share. After I saw you at the soccer game, I went back to my office, and Val Porter paid me a visit. She had something to confess.”

“Do tell.”

“She said that last spring she’d engaged in some lip locking with a student—a female. They both had been drinking. This fall the young woman ended up in one of Val’s classes, and she began to feel the tiniest bit of pressure from the girl. After you filled Tom in on the circles, he told Val about them, and she began to suspect that the girl was in the Sixes, and had targeted Val to be part of the girl’s fifth circle. Val swears she never altered the girl’s grade. But she was hysterical she might have jeopardized her job.”

“That may explain why I heard her tossing her lunch in the ladies’ room,” Phoebe said. She looked off, thinking. “Do you think she’s only telling you part of the story? I heard that Blair used to consult with someone, that there might be another person pulling the strings for the Sixes. Do you think it could have been Val? It would make sense if you think about her interest in woman’s empowerment.”

Glenda shook her head slowly.

“I don’t think so. Val seemed borderline hysterical to me.”

“What about the girls in the Sixes?” Phoebe asked. “Are you putting names together?”

“We still can’t establish for sure that anyone’s a member—even Blair and Gwen. There’s no proof. One of them is going to have to be willing to tattle.”

“Damn. There’s one girl who I may be able to put pressure on, but first I need to use her for something else.”

“Leave that alone for now. You need to think about recovering. In fact, why don’t I let you rest again? I can see you’re sleepy.”

“Okay, Mom.”

“There’s just one other thing I wanted to tell you. Duncan called me as soon as he heard the news about you.”

“Really?” Phoebe said quietly.

“He told me that you two were no longer seeing each other, but he wanted to make sure you were all right. And he wanted me to tell you he’d asked about you.”

Phoebe leaned her head back on the pillow, hesitating.

“Yeah, he didn’t take too kindly to me insinuating that he might be a murderer. I guess that’s not something you find in a Cosmo article on ‘50 Ways to Turn Your Man into a Mush Ball.’ ”

Glenda smiled wanly. “I’m sorry, Fee,” she said. “Maybe it’s for the best, though. After all, you won’t be here forever. And now, I’ll have to beg to even have you stay next term.”

After Glenda had left, Phoebe forced herself to eat the soupy ice cream in the container on the tray. A nurse stopped in and checked her vital signs. Phoebe lay back ready to sleep, but she seemed too jumped up inside.

Wesley was in jail. She had nothing to fear from him now. But there wasn’t really closure. The Sixes were still out there, unfettered. With Blair and Gwen back in the mix, they might gather strength again, wreaking havoc.

And somewhere on the campus, someone knew about Fortuna.