Read Deadly Visions (Nightmare Hall) for Free Online Page B

she wasn’t in bed by midnight.
    And, of course, there was what Rachel thought of as “the art thing.” It wasn’t as if she didn’t like art. She just didn’t know much about it, while Aidan seemed to eat, breathe, and sleep it.
    They should not have been attracted to one another.
    But they were.
    The following day on campus, she had met Joseph through Aidan, and that evening he had invited her to the art exhibit.
    She had no idea why Aidan was interested in her, if he was. Right now, he seemed far more interested in Samantha, who was discussing not art, but music with him. They had the same tastes, while Rachel had never heard of the performers whose names they tossed around with easy familiarity.
    She was feeling as left out as if they’d been discussing art, after all.
    But she knew that wasn’t the only thing bothering her. Try as she would, she couldn’t completely erase the image of the screaming face on the staircase in the still life painting.
    “You’re awfully quiet,” Aidan said suddenly. “Anything wrong, Rachel?”
    They were all looking at her.
    “I’m just anxious to get outside, that’s all. It’s such a great day. I hate to waste it.”
    The others agreed, and Rachel was happy to hear Samantha sigh and say regretfully that she had work to do at the art building. Joseph had errands to run, and Paloma was going into town to check out the jewelry displays in the only two jewelry stores in the small community of Twin Falls.
    “Too bad you guys all have things to do,” Rachel said, secretly pleased. If Aidan had no plans, she’d have him all to herself on this gorgeous spring day.
    He had no plans.
    Rachel never knew what possessed her, talking him into going to the waterfall with her. She hadn’t intended to, hadn’t even thought about going there. The whole idea of being with Aidan was to keep her mind off the seascape and Ted and the still life.
    But they were walking across campus, past a raucous game of volleyball taking place on the Commons, when an irresistible urge to view the scene from her nightmare came over her and propelled her feet in that direction.
    Puzzled, Aidan went with her.
    She had no idea what she expected to find when they got there. Some sign, some clue that, as in her dream, there was more to Ted’s accident that anyone suspected? Maybe the cruel baseball bat, buried in mud along the shore? A piece of black fabric from the cape hanging from a sapling branch at the edge of the woods? Footprints?
    She saw none of those things. There was nothing there. Nothing but the worn, muddy path, the dense, sun-dappled woods on their right, the locomotivelike roar of the waterfall just up ahead, the hill rising up out of the water on the opposite shore.
    Nothing unusual. It could have been a picture on a postcard.
    “I don’t know why I wanted to come here,” she said to Aidan as they moved on toward Lookout Point. “Seems kind of morbid now. I mean, someone was killed here.”
    He turned on the path, stopped, and looked at her. “That’s the second time you’ve said that.”
    Rachel stopped, too. “Said what?”
    “That someone was killed. Everyone else says Ted died. You say killed. How come?”
    Rachel felt her cheeks growing warm. “I … I don’t know.” She still didn’t want to tell him about the nightmare. Bad enough that he thought she was an art ignoramus. She didn’t want him thinking she was a flake who believed in dreams, too. “It’s just … well, the fall did kill him, didn’t it? So he was killed, right?”
    Aidan thought for a minute. “Oh, yeah, I guess. But … when you said it, it sounded like you meant it wasn’t an accident.”
    Rachel felt as if Aidan’s brilliant blue eyes were seeing clear through to her soul. “Why would I think that?” she asked lightly. “No one else does.” Then she added quickly, “Listen, I don’t want to be here, after all. It’s creepy. Can we just go? I feel like playing some volleyball; how about