The Bone House - Brian Freeman [69]
The two girls stretched out their legs and relaxed. A bright red cardinal flicked among the bare branches of the trees and sang to them.
'You still going to Gary Jensen's house tonight?' Katie asked.
'Yeah.'
'You want me to go with you?' 'No, I'll be OK.'
'I'm still not sure what you think you're going to accomplish.'
'I just want to see how he reacts,' Amy said.
'What, you're going to blurt out, "Hey, Gary, did you strangle that girl on the beach in Florida?'"
'No, don't be stupid. I want to drop some hints and see what he says. I'll know if he's lying.'
Katie shook her head. 'Some liars are pretty good at it, Ames.'
'We'll see.'
Her roommate shivered as the cold air began to overtake the warmth of the run. 'I did a little poking around on my own.'
'About Gary?'
Katie nodded. 'I had coffee with a secretary in the PhyEd department. I said it was for a follow-up story on the dance competition in Florida, but we did a little gossiping, too. Mainly about Gary's wife.'
'What did she tell you?'
'Well, the rumor is he was having an affair. Hot and heavy.'
'You mean before his wife died?'
'Yep.'
'Who was the other woman?'
Katie shrugged. 'Don't know. It may not even be true.'
'I can't believe no one told the police.'
'People aren't going to call the cops about hunches and suspicions. That's all you've got, you know. I haven't found anything to link Gary to Glory Fischer. You saw him with a girl who may have been Glory, but maybe not.'
'I heard him coming back to his room late, too.'
'Are you sure? My room was a couple doors down, and I didn't hear anything.'
'It was him,' Amy insisted. 'I heard his door open and close.'
'It doesn't prove anything.'
'I know.'
'Did you talk to your old coach about any of this? Hilary Bradley?'
'Not yet. I don't know if I have anything to tell her.'
Katie stood up and tugged her damp shirt away from her chest. She stubbed out her cigarette on the ground. 'Well, don't make an ass of yourself.'
'Yeah.'
'You coming back to the room?'
Amy shook her head. 'I'll do a couple more miles.'
'Jeez, you're extreme. I'll see you later tonight.' 'OK.'
Amy watched Katie head across East Circle Drive toward the dorms. She got up and stretched her legs, which had begun to tighten in the cold morning air, and then she followed the path back into the arboretum. The asphalt was slick, and she walked rather than risk twisting an ankle. Fifty yards later, she came to a T-junction where the path ended at a soft trail made of bark, moss, and dead leaves. The trees grew over her head, and the trail was dim and narrow, as if she were disappearing into a train tunnel. Where the trail curved, she couldn't see round the next bend.
She took a few tentative steps, but she stopped with a strange sense of discomfort. The down on the back of her neck stood up, as if the little hairs were iron filings drawn by a magnet. She felt eyes following her from somewhere in the forest.
'Hello?' she called.
Amy turned round slowly. She was alone, but the trees were big and wide enough here to hide someone. Those were crazy-making thoughts; she was letting herself get paranoid. She inhaled, smelling nothing but mold and the dewish sweat of her body. She didn't hear anything. '
She waited. Everything was still. There's nobody, she told herself.
Amy shook off her fears and jogged. She got into a rhythm as she ran, enough to crowd out other thoughts. Running was pure escape for her, in which she was conscious of nothing but the noise of her breathing and the vibrations as her feet hit the ground. She made two loops round the east section of the arboretum, following the border of the escarpment. It added almost two miles to her route, and when she finished