“Let me take a look at you to make sure you don’t need to go to the hospital.”
Everyone moved away to let the doctor work. Delilah noticed how pale Ashley looked.
“It’s okay,” Delilah assured her terrified witness. “We’ll protect you.”
Ashley sank onto a chair. Her breathing was shallow.
“He’s going to run, Ashley,” the DA said. “The first time he was captured he was in Nebraska. Maxfield doesn’t want to be anywhere near you. He wants to get as far away from Oregon as he can.”
Ashley looked like someone who had seen her own death. “Maybe he’ll run now,” she said in a voice devoid of energy, “but he’ll come back for me. He’s killed everyone I love and he’s tried to kill me. I don’t know why he wants me dead but he does and he won’t stop.”
Chapter Fifteen
Larry Birch stopped at McDonald’s to get Ashley dinner before driving her to the dorm. By the time they arrived, a policeman was sitting outside her room. Birch told her that another officer was patrolling the grounds.
Ashley did not like being the only person in the dorm. After Maxfield’s arrest, she was lonely and bored. With Maxfield on the loose, the empty building felt threatening. It was old and musty, with dark wood paneling and little natural light. Without the noise made by the students, Ashley could hear the eerie whine the wind made when it slipped through cracks in the wall. The building creaked, and Ashley was certain that she’d heard scuttling sounds in the walls.
Before she went to bed, Ashley turned out the lights in her room and stared out the window. The dormitory was next to the science building, and the front faced the quadrangle. Ashley’s room was at the rear of the building and faced the woods. Streetlights illuminated a lot of the campus, but there were no lights in the dense forest. When the dorm was full, ambient light from the rooms cast a glow over the trees. The rooms were deserted now, and the only light came from the dim glow of a quarter moon.
Ashley watched the trees sway in the wind. She looked up at the stars. Where were her mother and father? She hoped that there was a heaven or some kind of afterlife where they were together and happy. She wanted to believe that they weren’t simply decomposing; that there was something more than rotting flesh and naked bone to mark their time on Earth. A friend of hers was into New Age stuff. She spoke of auras and spiritual energy left behind by the dead. Ashley remembered how she used to feel her father’s spirit inside her when she was little and he could not make it to her soccer game, but the brutal murders that had taken her parents from her had also murdered her belief in magic. Ashley had searched for some trace of her parents-their spirit, a soul that lived on when the body was gone-but all she felt was an absence; a cold, hollow feeling that was the opposite of life.
Ashley closed her shades and got into bed. She cried silently as she pulled up the covers. She used to say a prayer at bedtime, but she had not been able to since her father died. Now she just hoped that she would sleep without dreams.
The bedside clock read 2:58 when Ashley woke up. She had finished off a large Coke at McDonald’s and had to go to the bathroom. It was hot, and she’d slept in panties and a T-shirt. She remembered the guard and pulled on sweatpants.
The policeman who was guarding her room stood up when he heard the knob turn. He was in his mid-twenties and wore his blond hair in a crewcut. He looked strong. He had been reading Sports Illustrated, and Ashley caught him trying to hide it.
“I’m just going to the bathroom,” she said, a little embarrassed about having to discuss her toilet habits.
“Okay,” he said. Then he smiled. “I’ll be here all night.”
Ashley closed the door behind her. Low-wattage bulbs created a pattern of shadows and dimly lit spaces on the floor as she shuffled groggily down the hall. The bathroom was just beyond the stairs. Still half asleep, Ashley went into one of the stalls and peed. She was wiping when she heard a noise. It was so quiet in the dorm that she could hear sounds from any place on the floor. She had no idea where this one had come from, but it unnerved her because it sounded like a gasp of pain.
Ashley told herself that she was being paranoid but that wasn’t true. She had a lot of justification for her fear. She decided to wait before flushing. If someone was out there she didn’t want him to know where she was. She opened the bathroom door wide enough to let her peek into the hallway. Ashley could see the hall outside her room. The guard was still in his chair but he was slumped sideways at an odd angle as if he was sleeping, which made no sense. She had just talked to him. He knew that she was only going to be gone for a few minutes.
Ashley was attracted by a red glow to the left of the police officer. It took a moment to figure out that she was seeing the digital clock on her nightstand. That meant that the door to her room was open. She was certain she had shut it. The digital glow disappeared then reappeared. A shape had passed in front of the clock. Ashley’s heart raced. Joshua Maxfield had killed the guard and he was in her room.
Ashley had to fight to keep from racing down the stairs. She forced herself to move quietly. Halfway to the second-floor landing she heard the sound of her closet door slamming against the wall. She moved faster. Moments later, footsteps pounded along the third-floor landing toward the bathroom.
Ashley stopped in the shadows in the entry hall. Maxfield was going to figure out that she wasn’t on the third floor and come looking for her. She could try to hide in the deserted dormitory but it would be easier for Maxfield to trap her in a confined space. There were many more places to hide outside. And there was the officer who was patrolling the grounds! She’d find him and he would radio for help.
Footsteps thudded down the stairs from the third floor. Ashley ran into the night and around the side of the dormitory. Her feet came out from under her and she sprawled on the ground. When she rolled over to stand up she found herself staring into the dead eyes of the other patrolman. His head lolled to one side. The material in the front of his shirt was ripped open where the officer had been stabbed repeatedly. There was also a red gash that started at one side of his neck and ended on the other side.
Ashley fought the urge to throw up and struggled to her feet. Maxfield would be coming fast. She had to run. Ashley raced toward the woods, which were dark and offered many places to hide. When her guards didn’t check in someone was bound to come to find out why. Maxfield would not hunt for her all night and risk being discovered. If she stayed concealed until morning she would be safe.
A path led into the woods. Ashley did not take it. She ran along the edge of the forest for several steps then disappeared between two trees. She was just in time. A figure darted across the front lawn of the dormitory and stopped on the quadrangle. He passed under two streetlights and Ashley got a good look at him. He was wearing a ski mask and gloves. Ashley couldn’t see his face but he had the height and build of Joshua Maxfield and he looked identical to the man who had killed her father.
The man turned slowly in a circle. He stopped when he faced the woods. He seemed to be staring right at her. Ashley held her breath. She prayed that he would not come searching for her. Her prayers were answered. As Ashley watched, the intruder disappeared into the night.
Ashley suddenly remembered Henry Van Meter and the other people in the mansion. She had to warn them about Maxfield. Ashley was barefoot, and the forest floor had done some damage to the soles of her feet. Fortunately, the Academy was a field of green with lawn everywhere. She hugged the buildings and crept along the side of the dormitory until she reached the dead policeman.
Ashley gagged, squeezed her eyes shut, and took a deep breath. She could not afford to panic. She knelt down and searched for the officer’s radio. It was missing. If she was going to warn Henry Van Meter she would have to go to the mansion.