Midnight Games(28)

“Hey—” I uttered a shocked cry. Pain shot through my body.

“Oh. Sorry,” Whitney said in this fake tone. “It got away from me.”

I knew she deliberately heaved it at me. I wanted to jump up and strangle her!

“I’m okay,” I said.

Shark picked up the ball and tossed it downcourt to Yuri. The game started up again. Whitney was the best player on the floor. She seemed to be beating everyone single-handedly.

After a while, I heard someone shouting my name. I turned to the gym doors and saw Jamie waving at me. “I’m going to my pottery class,” she shouted. “See you later!”

I waved to her. When I turned back, the game was breaking up. “Dana—I’ll be right out,” Nate called. He followed Shark and Yuri to the locker room to get changed.

The girls were trotting off the court too. “Whitney, are you coming?” one of them called.

“In a few minutes,” Whitney shouted back. “I keep messing up these jump shots.”

Whitney and I were alone in the gym now. I leaned back against the bleacher and watched her do jump shot after jump shot. She never looked my way. She was totally intent on getting her jump shots right.

I suddenly felt a wave of nausea roll down my body. I blinked, feeling dizzy. I felt my heart jump in my chest.

Why do I feel so weird? I wondered.

I shut my eyes. I rested my head in my hands, waiting for the strange feeling to pass by.

Everything went gray. Like a thick fog.

Did I pass out? I don’t know.

The next thing I knew, Nate was shaking me hard by the shoulders. “Dana? Dana?” He kept repeating my name in a high, tense voice.

I opened my eyes. I shook my head, trying to clear it.

“Nate? What’s wrong?”

He turned. It took a while for my eyes to focus. When they finally did, I saw a girl. Lying on her back on the gym floor, arms and legs outstretched.

“Ohh.” I uttered a low moan. I recognized Whitney’s bright red sneakers.

And then I saw the blood. A bright red puddle spreading over the floor at her shoulders. Her shoulders . . . her neck . . .

I jumped to my feet. My legs trembled. My breath caught in my throat. “Nate—?” I gasped.

I stared at the headless body on the floor. And then I raised my eyes and saw the head—blond hair falling over her face . . . I saw the head up in the basket.

Whitney’s head staring blankly down at me from the bloodstained net.





Part Four





24

I had no one I could talk to after that. Even Nate sounded different when I talked to him.

I called his cell late Wednesday night. I didn’t want to go to Nights, but I couldn’t bear to be alone, either. “I just need to talk,” I told Nate.

“You kinda woke me up,” he said.

“I don’t care,” I snapped. I was in bed with the blankets pulled up over my head. But I still didn’t feel safe. “You have no idea what my life has been like,” I said.

I heard Nate yawn. “Listen, Dana—”

“Thank God Jamie’s dad is a lawyer,” I said. “He’s been so wonderful. He sat in while the police questioned me. He took care of everything.”

“Great,” Nate said sleepily. “That was lucky.”

“I called my own dad,” I continued. “I told him I was in major trouble. Know what he said? He said he was on a big business trip and couldn’t make it. Do you believe that?”

“Weird,” Nate replied.

What was with the one-word answers? Was he deliberately acting cold to me?

He couldn’t believe I killed Whitney—could he?

I didn’t care. I had to talk to someone. I had to let it all out.

“The police were tough,” I continued, squeezing my cell against my ear. “They think they see a pattern. So far, two girls competing for the Collingsworth Prize have been killed: Ada and Whitney. They know how desperate I am to win that prize. So . . . I have a motive. A motive for killing those two.”

“Oh, wow,” Nate murmured.

“I don’t think they believed me about my blackouts. About how dizzy and faint I felt. How I kinda passed out and everything went gray. They’re checking with my doctor back home. But it never happened to me back home!”

I took a deep breath. My heart was hammering in my chest. “Sure, the prize means a lot to me,” I told Nate. “But I’m not a killer. And I’ll tell you one thing the police never mentioned.”

“What’s that?” Nate asked.

“If someone is killing all the Collings-worth contestants, I could be next. Don’t you see? I could be the next victim!”

“Don’t think like that,” Nate said. “You’ll be okay.”