"Just rest here, okay? I'll be back," I told her, hurrying out of her office before she could protest. When I reached the Student Union, the movie had ended and kids were picking up sandwiches. Brian was talking to Walker, both of them laughing over something Brian had said.
I knew that Maggie was a worrier and, at the moment, exhausted. When people are tired, problems and fears become exaggerated. But what if Brian wasn't trustworthy? What if he leaked my identity and my purpose for being here? I remembered his description of the way people worked: in the end, everyone is out for himself, he had said, and sometimes that makes people seem for you, and sometimes it makes them seem against you.
"Where did you go, Jenny?"
I jumped and Tomas looked at me curiously. "Didn't mean to scare you," he said. He had two large sandwiches on his plate.
"I was at Stoddard talking to Maggie. She's pretty upset, Tomas, and hasn't eaten all day. May I have one of your sandwiches to take back to her?"
"Sure. Want me to come with you?"
"No."
He handed me the paper plate with the untouched sandwich. "People keep disappearing," he said. "You, Mike, Paul."
I glanced around. "Did Mike and Paul come back?"
"Haven't seen them. I can't figure out why Walker isn't saying anything about it."
Perhaps, I thought, because the two of them were doing something for him.
"Maybe because he leaves that kind of stuff to Maggie," I said aloud. "She's waiting for me back at her office. Catch up with you later, okay?"
Tomas looked puzzled. "Okay."
I hurried back to the theater and let myself in the back door. When I reached Maggie's office, both her door and Walker's were closed, but her light was still on.
"Just me," I said, tapping lightly on the glass.
She didn't respond to my voice or to a harder knock, so I opened the door. She was gone. I walked over to her desk to set down her food and saw a note lying on the seat of her chair. I picked it up to read.
I'm sorry, Brian. I can't go on.
I can't try anymore.
My will is with the lawyer.
Everything should be in order.
I stared at the short sentences, their meaning sinking in slowly. It was a suicide note.
"Maggie?" I called. "Maggie!"
I rushed out of her office, then stopped, not knowing which way to turn. There were too many rooms in this place for me to check them all quickly. And she might not even be in the building. Get Brian, I thought. No, call security to get people to search the building and send the police to her house.
I turned back to make the calls, then spotted her scarf on the floor, halfway down the hall. I noticed the door at the far end was open. The tower door! I ran toward it, hoping I wouldn't be too late.
Maggie!" I shouted from the bottom of the iron stairs. "Maggie, I have to talk to you!"
I thought I heard movement far above me and hurried up the steps. "Maggie, listen to me. Things will get better. I'll help you. I'll find someone who knows how to help you."
I climbed as fast as I could, turning every five steps to rush up the next five, panicking that I wouldn't get there in time. I was out of breath from calling to her. It seemed as if I'd climbed a hundred stories. Just four, I told myself, the four stories of Stoddard. Then the walls began to narrow. I figured I was entering the top of the brick portion of the tower, the area with the shingled roof that was surmounted by the clock.
The stairs became a spiral here, worming their way up through the shrinking space, then on through an area with narrow platforms and square casements containing the clockworks, one facing each direction. The triangular steps were difficult to climb, so narrow on the inside, my feet slipped off. The spiral became a simple ladder to a trapdoor. It was dark, but I felt a splash of night air coming from above. I climbed through the open door and found myself in a space like a covered porch, enclosed by three-foot walls with a pillar at each corner and a roof.
Maggie was sitting sideways inside one of the four bays, her feet drawn up on the sill, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. Her body shook. I was sure she heard me, but she kept her head turned away from me. If she rolled to the right, she would fall six stories.
"Maggie," I said softly, "I saw your note."
She turned her head jerkily. In the darkness the pupils of her eyes were large. Her mouth trembled.
The tower was no more than five feet across, but I was afraid to move toward her too quickly. If I reached for her suddenly, she might panic and fall.
"I can help you."
"You?" The laughter that spilled from her jangled out of tune.
"I'll find someone to help. Let's go down now."
"No one can help me," she said, her voice pitching high. "I can never get back what I've lost!"
"You mean Brian? You mean your trust in him?"
She laughed again, and this time it was my nerves that jangled. Something was terribly wrong.
"Tell me what's going on," I persisted. "Tell me and maybe I can figure a way-" "There is no way out for you."
I replayed her disquieting words in my head, confused.
She lowered her feet to the floor and took two steps toward me, extending her arms, reaching to touch my hair. "Such a pretty girl," she said. "And a nice girl, not like your sister."
"Brian told you who I am."
"Such a shame."
She toyed with my hair, making me increasingly nervous. When she touched my cheek, I flinched.
"You shouldn't have come here, Jenny. Liza is gone. What were you looking for?"
"Peace."
Maggie stroked my face with a thumb that felt like cold sandpaper. "Don't you know, there is no peace for those who have lost someone too soon. I still hear Melanie calling me. In the middle of the night I awaken and hear her. Don't forget me, Mommy. Don't forget, she says, just as she did when I'd work long hours away from home. In the middle of the night I feel her soft breath on my cheek. Sometimes she tells me what to do."
"What to do-like what?" I asked warily. Maggie was acting strange but not necessarily suicidal. I wondered if she had written the note to lure me up here.
She tilted her head and gazed at me solemnly. "It shouldn't surprise anyone, Jenny, that you became upset at camp. You kept hearing about Liza. You were having dreams about her. And someone was playing pranks, haunting the theater like the ghost of Liza. No wonder you became confused and depressed."