It slowed to a stop but Kristi’s heartbeat was rollicking.

The closet door was shut. She licked her lips. Did she dare open it?

What if…?

Holding her penlight shoulder high, she placed her other hand on the handle and yanked hard.

The door swung back.

Revealing a dark, empty space with pegs and a rod, but nothing else. No killer or abductor of women ready to spring out at her, no vampire snarling and showing slick white fangs dripping with blood, no damned ghost child whispering “help me.”

Kristi nearly sank from relief. The power of atmosphere. Wow.

Then she noticed the other door, a glass door separating this room from the next. She walked through and found another room, another girl’s room with a small bed and a table on which a Victorian dollhouse sat, showing off miniature rooms decorated in intricate detail.

She retraced her steps to the hall. The other two rooms were similar, another bedroom with a larger bed and a small wheelchair parked near the iron bedstead, which was covered with stuffed animals, and a fourth decorated as if a boy, interested in boats and fishing, had last resided within. A game of jacks was spread upon a table near an old slingshot.

But, again, no blonde with ashen features fleeing the campus.

Kristi walked to the window and stared out at the night. From this viewpoint, she saw across the quad in the center of the campus and past a few other buildings. Through the trees, she spied the far wall. Beyond that, a roof line was partially visible, illuminated by a street lamp. Dormers peaked from the gables and a light illuminated the room. It was too far to see clearly into the room, but…

Her heart clutched.

Was it her apartment?

She squinted, her heart drumming at the thought that someone standing here could stare straight into…

A shadow passed in front of the window.

Of her apartment.

Inside?

Was someone inside her home?

Anger and fear burned through her and she turned quickly, intent on charging back to her place and confronting whoever was searching her rooms.

And what if he’s got a weapon? What then? Girls have disappeared, you know.

And whoever was in the apartment might even now be going over her notes, logging on to the Internet through her computer, sorting through her belongings, searching Tara’s things….

She started toward the stairs when she heard something. A steady noise. Footsteps?

So she wasn’t alone after all.

Quietly, she hurried down to the second level, where the steady ticking became louder and she realized it was too perfect to have been caused by footsteps. At the landing she saw the metronome clicking off the beats of some unheard musical piece.

Kristi’s blood ran cold.

Someone had set it rocking. Someone knew she was here and was toying with her.

Someone or something.