“C U N seven, seven, three four R M C V,” she said aloud, the water spraying around her. It meant nothing. Just weird letters put in front of letters. She repeated the message again as steam filled the room. Her mind kept turning the message over and over and . . . Wait! She repeated the scribbled note again. When she said the numbers aloud, she remembered something from her childhood, something from the orphanage at St. Elsinore’s. One little girl, the one who had barred Val from the slide—hadn’t her name been something like Darlene or Eileen?—had said slyly, “You know what seven-seven-three-four is, don’t you?” She looked sideways at her curly headed friend with the massive overbite. “It’s hell.”

The other girl had giggled wildy. “No.”

“Sure.” Glancing over her shoulder to make certain the old nun on the playground was looking the other way, the snotty girl had drawn the numbers with a stick. “Read them backward!”

Overbite had whooped, then placed her pudgy fingers over her mouth and curled her shoulders inward. “You’re right!” she’d whispered, reading the letters in the dust just as the nun, Sister Anne, the kind one on playground duty that day, had looked over.

Quickly, the snotty girl had scribbled through her naughty little note. “Seven-seven-three-four,” she’d said to Valerie, then run off, dropping her stick as the horrid loud bell had clanged that recess was over.

“Hell,” Val said now, and heard Bo give out a sharp, gruff bark. She barely noticed as she remembered the weird notations in the diary. C U N hell, C V. So . . . “See you in hell?” Was that what Camille meant? “See you in hell a hundred and five?” What did that mean? In a hundred and five years? No, that wasn’t right.

But it was close. . . . She just had to think hard. She took the loofah to her shoulders, sudsing up, rubbing hard against her skin. “What, Cammie? What were you—”

Bo barked again. More loudly.

And then . . .

Val stopped scrubbing, the loofah tight in her hand, water raining over her. Her ears strained over the sounds of rushing water and the gurgling drain.

Did she hear something?

Her wet skin crinkled.

Her muscles tightened.

Was the sound inside the house?

Her throat closed.

There it was again. A soft scrape. Footsteps?

Lather and warm water ran down her back, and she felt a needle of fear prick her brain.

It was probably Slade.

“Hey, I’ll be out in a sec!” she called.

But hadn’t he said to meet him in the foyer of the main house? Creeaaak.

Definitely the floorboards groaning with someone’s weight.

“Hello?”

She waited, water dripping from her chin and elbows.

No answer.

Nothing.

Just the shower’s spray hitting her body and the tile walls.

She swallowed hard, listening.

Had she locked the back door?

Even latched the screen?

She couldn’t remember.