Fatal Bargain Read Online Free PDF

it worse?” whispered Sherree. Sherree tried to make herself smaller and smaller, but it was no good; she had spent a lifetime trying to show herself off, and she did not know how to go into reverse.
    “I’ve seen what’s out there,” said Bobby.
    Lacey had not seen.
    Only heard.
    That was enough.
    Bobby’s voice was like cement. “Don’t go out the door,” he said. “Nobody go out the door.”
    Roxanne felt as if the cement were around her feet and some gangster were going to throw her into the reservoir and drown her.
    Bobby read her thoughts. “No,” he said, his voice as drowned as the vampire’s previous victims. “It’s worse than that, Roxanne. Don’t go out the door.”
    Sherree grabbed her boyfriend’s shoulders. “Then how will we get out of here?” she screamed.
    She could just see his eyes in spite of the dark but she wished that she couldn’t.
    “We won’t,” said Bobby.

Chapter 4
    L ACEY’S YOUNGER BROTHER, KEVIN, who was in eighth grade, could not believe how long it had taken Lacey to get out of the house. Kevin dimly remembered Lacey telling Mom and Dad she was going to stay at Roxanne’s, but apparently she was going to Sherree’s instead. Kevin had never heard of either girl and his only interest was being alone in the house at last. Once the house was empty, Kevin had a telephone call to make.
    The telephone call.
    Kevin was deep in his first real crush.
    He had told nobody about the crush, since he had nobody to tell.
    His best friend, Will, had made such a complete idiot of himself last spring when Will got a crush on Lauren that Kevin trembled at the mere thought of following in Will’s footsteps. Kevin was not going to start by buying a huge silver bracelet for a girl who did not even like to sit near him. He was going to start with a simple telephone call.
    He was doing his homework, Kevin would say casually, and he remembered that Mardee…
    Kevin rehearsed the call over and over. Sometimes his voice sounded triumphantly interesting, and sometimes it sounded as if Kevin were the flake of the century.
    “We’re going, dear,” said his mother. “Here’s the phone number if you have to reach us. We’ll be home around one a.m. Be sure to keep the doors locked and don’t watch anything disgusting on television.”
    “Okay, Mom,” said Kevin, who always watched disgusting things on television the instant his parents were out the door. The thud of the closing front door and the clack of the closing lock were music to his heart.
    He kept the TV on very low volume, for company, and looked up Mardee’s number again, although he knew it by heart.
    It took him a full hour to manage the actual call. The sixty minutes were filled with half-dialed numbers, self-scolding and swearing, hysterical laughter and deep despair. Kevin knew that if anybody could see him they’d figure he was a maniac. I am a maniac, he thought, I am insane about Mardee. His fingers completed all ten digits this time and to his horror the phone at the other end was actually lifted. “Hello?”
    Kevin’s tongue felt like a lost mitten. “Hi — Mardee?”
    “Yeah?”
    “This is Kevin.”
    “Kevin?”
    “From school. Kevin James?”
    “Oh, yeah. Hi, Kevin, how are you?”
    “Fine.” His voice was not fine. His hands were sweating so badly they had soaked right through his jeans where they pressed down. Disgusting. What girl wanted to hold hands with a water faucet?
    “It’s funny you should call,” said Mardee. “I was just thinking about you.”
    “You were?” Kevin was absolutely thrilled.
    “My older brother, Bobby, is at a party with your sister, Lacey, tonight.”
    Kevin was puzzled. “Can’t be. Lacey’s over at Sherree’s.”
    “That’s the story,” said Mardee. “But you didn’t believe it, did you?”
    Kevin had always believed every single thing his big sister said. Lacey was the most straightforward and uninteresting person in America.
    “Weren’t you suspicious when