**This blog contains adult language.**
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. Please do not continue to read if you don't want to know who the “bad guy” is.
From the Back of the Book: High on a hillside overlooking Salem University, hidden in shadows and shrouded in silence, sits Nightingale Hall. Nightmare Hall the students call it. Because that's where the terror began........ The night Robert Q and Darlene meet, the attraction is immediate. The Big Man on Campus uses all his charm to sweep Darlene off her feet – and then dumps her a few weeks later. After all, he'd just playing around. Poor Robert Q. He doesn't realize that Darlene is playing for keeps. He may think it's over. But he's wrong. Dead wrong.
This book was published in 1993 and this is my first time reading it. It has my favorite kind of cover (the windowed kind). When you open the front cover, you see this.
Man, those pegged jeans are just so late 80's, early 90's. I remember doing and undoing mine half a dozen times to get them just right.
Previous Books in the Series:
The Silent Scream (Nightmare Hall Book One): Jess and Ian arrive at Nightingale Hall only to find it haunted by the spirit of Giselle. They spend the book trying to figure out if Giselle was murdered or if she killed herself and eventually the bad guy is brought to justice by a wet, flying photograph.
The Roommate (Nightmare Hall Book Two): We meet four girls (Danni, Margot, Lacey and Maureen) who share a suite in a dorm that is not Nightingale Hall. Nothing really happens other than Danni claiming to receive threatening phone calls and messages. We spend the entire book listening to her tell us that someone is after her and it ends up she's the bad guy. {{{Blogger note from the future: in this book we meet Pete who was dating Maureen. I only mention it because he shows up in this one.}}}
The book begins with a prologue. Hailey is remembering (dreaming about???) the day that Darlene met Robert. I refuse to call him Robert Q by the way. Hailey tells us that the horror began that night. It's all very dramatic and pointless. Maybe these books were required to have prologues? It seems like most of the PH books from this time period had one. I can't think of any other reason to include this because it had zero effect. At least it wasn't a bad guy POV. I really hate those.
Chapter one opens up with Hailey at Burgers Etc with some people from Salem University. She's watching Robert watch Darlene who is a waitress in a very Hooter's inspired uniform. I'm not entirely sure why she's so focused on him, but she tells us that Robert is the Big Man on Campus (when did that stop being a thing?) and he pretty much runs the school.
Her roommate Nell and Jess and Ian from the first book are also watching Robert leer at Darlene. I guess this qualifies as entertainment at Burgers Etc. It's pretty clear none of them like Robert. Ian says he's loud, “drives like a maniac” and is a pushy asshole. Hailey agrees with all this but mentally adds that he's also a tennis star, a frat bro and he works at the campus radio station. She seems oddly obsessed with him.
Nell thinks it's disgusting how he's drooling over Darlene's tight shirt and short shorts. Hailey theorizes that he's trying to make his ex-girlfriend Gerrie jealous. Whatever his reason is, he's flirting up a storm and Darlene seems receptive to it. The three girls continue to bitch about him but the energy from Nell and Hailey both feels jealous in some way. Hailey, in fact, mentally anguishes about how she hasn't had any luck with guys since coming to college.
Across the room two guys are also observing Darlene and Robert and neither of them look happy. One is our old friend Pete from book two. No Maureen in sight. I wonder what happened there. Hailey doesn't know the other one and asks Ian. He says that it's a fellow freshman named Finn. Hailey thinks Finn must be a good guy because he doesn't seem to like how Robert is treating Darlene.
The bar is low.
We skip ahead two nights. Hailey is in the dorm bathroom (I guess this dorm doesn't have an en suite like the one from the last book) when Darlene walks in. Hailey is surprised because Darlene doesn't attend Salem University. She thinks to herself that Darlene looks 'cheap' in too-tight clothes and wearing too much makeup.
Sigh.
Just once I want to like one of these characters.
Darlene starts talking to Hailey like they've been best friends all their lives even though they've literally just met. She talks about how excited she is to be here with Robert and how he's nothing like her ex-boyfriend Bo who is jealous and possessive, by the way, and isn't happy she's dating other people. I'm glad Hoh is setting us up with a suspect before anything has even happened. Darlene always wanted to go to college but she didn't end up getting a scholarship like her brother so she's resigned to working at the diner for the rest of her life. She seems pretty bitter about it.
Darlene asks Hailey for tips on how to look more “sophisticated” so she'll fit in better with Robert's preppy crowd. Hailey gives Darlene her room number and says she can come by any time. As she walks away, Hailey thinks that Darlene will never fit in with Puffy and Susan and Lindsay and Richard and.....
Also, Hailey's kind of a bitch.
Back in her dorm room, Hailey tells Nell about the encounter. Nell is mad because Hailey gave Darlene their room number. She doesn't want to get caught up in the Darlene/Robert shenanigans. Nell is at college on a gymnastics scholarship and she has enough to do without anyone's social life adding to it.
Half an hour later, Darlene knocks on the door. Despite her earlier protestation of not wanting to be involved, Nell joins in on the makeover. Hailey puts Darlene's hair in pigtails to keep it out of the way while they wash all her makeup off and reapply it more sparingly. Robert barges in without knocking and is horrified to see Darlene's hair that way. He yanks the band out of one of them, pulling some of Darlene's hair out in the process and then orders her to get her shit together because they're going to a party. Darlene sheepishly removes the other band and he yanks her out of the room by her arm.
Hailey and Nell worry about Darlene but there's a lot of victim-blaming sprinkled throughout it.
For the first week or so, every time Hailey sees Darlene she looks radiantly happy. About two weeks after the makeover incident, Hailey sees Robert at a party with another girl and grumbles to Pete about it. He says the girl IS Darlene and when Hailey looks closer, she realizes it's true. Darlene has changed everything about herself to fit in with Robert's crowd.
Later, Hailey is in the kitchen and she hears Puffy and Susan talking about how Darlene is too stupid know Robert is trying to get back with Gerrie. He's planning to dump Darlene as soon as Gerrie agrees to take him back. Hailey is horrified. So much so, that when Finn walks in, he asks her if she's sick because she's all pale and glassy. Hailey hates that he's seeing her at less than her best because she thinks he's super hot. She introduces herself but then tells him she needs to go warn a friend about something.
Hailey goes to find Darlene, not sure what she'll say but knowing she has to tell her about Robert and Gerrie. That proves unnecessary though. When she finds Darlene, she's watching Robert and Gerrie maul each other on the dance floor. Darlene has tears in her eyes but she tries to justify it to Hailey, saying it's all Gerrie and Robert isn't enjoying it.
A pissed off dude comes barreling into the house at that point looking for Darlene. It's Bo and he insists that she leave with him. Darlene refuses to leave. Bo threatens the entire room, saying they'd better be nice to her and then he tells Darlene he'll wait outside in his truck in case she changes her mind. Everyone laughs at him (and Darlene) as he leaves.
Darlene runs to the bathroom to have a good cry. Hailey follows. At first, Darlene maintains that Gerrie is throwing herself at Robert and he's just being nice. Then they both overhear Robert offering to pay Richard $25 to take Darlene home so she'll be out of the way and he can reunite with Gerrie. It takes some convincing because Richard doesn't want to be seen with Darlene.
Darlene is pissed. She swears to get even with everyone and then she leaves to get a ride home with Bo.
Hailey tries to shake off the incident. She looks around for Finn but can't find him in the crowd. Hailey is hanging around with some random people when she hears shouting from outside. Everyone runs out to find Robert kneeling on the ground beside Gerrie's dead body.
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
Hoh's over here pulling a Stine.
Gerrie is alive, just unconscious. Robert says someone hit her on the head from behind while they were walking toward his car. Someone finds a bloody rock nearby. Puffy (or someone) suggests it was Darlene who threw it.
Paramedics arrive and Robert reluctantly goes with Gerrie, bitching the entire time about missing the party and leaving his Miata unattended. He asks Richard to look out for his precious baby.
Hailey bumps into Finn again and he asks her if she wants to get a coffee with him. He explains that she'll have to drive because he doesn't have a car on campus. She suggests they walk instead because it's not far away. They get to know each other a little over coffee at a nearby restaurant. We learn absolutely nothing we didn't know before. It's riveting.
Eventually other people from the party show up and it gets loud, so they head back to Hailey's car. She offers him a ride home but he says he'll walk since he doesn't live far. He never actually tells her where he lives. Which is probably smart since he doesn't really know her.
Hailey gets back to her dorm and decides to compile a list of suspects because she doesn't want to believe it's Darlene. Bo is the only name she comes up with. Let's give her a hand, shall we?
I'll just throw on everyone we've met that's been given a speaking line, roughly in the order we met them. Except Jess and Ian. Jess is a sweetheart and Ian is perfect. He's practically Connor. (You get a gold star if you got that reference.)
Odds Hailey is the bad guy: 5%. She was with other people at the time.
Odds Nell is the bad guy: 5%. No motive.
Odds Darlene is the bad guy: 5%. Hoh is making her too obvious.
Odds Robert is the bad guy: 20%. He had opportunity and motive if Gerrie rejected him.
Odds Pete is the bad guy: 5%. He was glaring during the diner scene but no obvious motive.
Odds Finn is the bad guy: 40%. He's hiding something for sure.
Odds Bo is the bad guy: 10%. I think he'd hit Robert instead.
Odds Richard is the bad guy: 5%. Again, no motive.
Odds Puffy is the bad guy: 5%. Another one with no motive.
I think my math was right on that one but don't come for me.
The next morning Hailey tells Nell what happened at the party. Nell is oddly unsympathetic. She's says that Gerrie probably deserved it for being an awful person. Maybe I should have bumped Nell up a few percentage points.
Nell goes on her daily 30 minute run but doesn't come back. Hailey frets a bunch. After an hour passes, she decides to go look for Nell. She's imagining all kinds of sinister things and is about to start searching the woods around campus when she sees Nell come out of the science building. Nell says she was headed back to the dorm to shower and get ready for class when she was waylaid by Darlene. She says that Darlene ranted for 45 minutes about how awful Gerrie is and Nell ended up having to go straight to class in her running gear so she wouldn't be late. (Nell can't slack off with her classes because of her scholarship and gymnastic eligibility).
Nell admonishes Hailey for overreacting and acts like this is a common occurrence.
I swear, Hoh, if you just recycle the plot from book two, I'm going to riot.
Apparently Darlene heard about Gerrie from her brother who goes to Salem U. Hailey asks Nell if she knows who Darlene's brother is but Nell doesn't.
You know, I'm reminded about the two young men who were watching Robert flirt with Darlene in the diner. The one's who looked pissed off.
Odds Finn is Darlene's brother: 50%
Odds Pete is Darlene's brother: 50%
Nell tells Hailey that Darlene is determined to get Robert back. She also mentions how shitty it is that Darlene doesn't seem to care about Gerrie's injuries (which include a concussion and blurred vision that doesn't seem to be resolving).
Bitch, you just said Gerrie deserved it. Don't try me.
Later, Darlene calls Hailey. She blames Susan, Puffy and Richard for trying to keep her and Robert apart. She says they are the reason he broke up with her to get back with Gerrie. Hailey doesn't even try to reason with her. Darlene says she's throwing a pizza party that night to take everyone's mind off Gerrie. Hailey thinks it's super insensitive but she's too chickenshit to say it out loud.
Hailey tells Nell about the party and says they have to go to support her. Nell says fuck that. She has a paper to write and Darlene is out of her damned mind if she thinks anyone will show up. Hailey gets really pissy with her despite the fact that she also thought this was a bad idea.
Lots of pots and kettles in this book.
Hailey arrives at the party a little late and absolutely no one is there. Darlene decorated and bought a bunch of pizzas but no one bothered to show up. Darlene grabs Robert's letter jacket (he loaned it to her one evening and she never gave it back) and starts slashing it to smithereens with a pair of scissors. Hailey is terrified. Darlene screams “he said he loved me” over and over as she destroys the jacket violently.
Hailey manages to calm her down and Darlene instantly flips a switch saying that none of this is Robert's fault. Hailey urges her to forget Robert and move on but Darlene says she can't do that because they love each other.
Hailey stays until Darlene's parents arrive home and then she heads to the library to work on a paper. At one point, she looks out the window and sees a bunch of people running by. She goes to see what's going on and discovers Robert's precious Miata baby is on fire. He burned his hands trying to open the door to get a jacket or something out of it.
Finn appears behind her just as Puffy and Susan start screaming that Darlene did it and she should be locked up in a mental institution. Hailey sticks up for her. Later Finn tells her how great she is for being kind to Darlene.
Odds Finn is Darlene's brother: 99.9%
Odds Pete is Darlene's brother: 0.1%
Is that how math works? I don't care.
Darlene calls Hailey the next morning. Her brother “Mike” told her about the fire and Robert's injury. She seems.....gleeful? She says she has to go care for her grandmother in another town for awhile and asks Hailey to tell Robert she'll be gone. She apparently tried to call his frat house first but they wouldn't let her talk to him. She gives Hailey her grandma's number and asks her to pass it on to Robert. Hailey has zero intention of doing so but doesn't tell Darlene because she's too afraid of her reaction.
On campus, everyone is calling Darlene a “scorned woman” and talking about how she fled town to avoid getting arrested. How the hell does everyone know she's gone? She doesn't live on campus. She doesn't even go to school there.
Make it make sense, Hoh.
All of a sudden, we get a block of text telling us that Hailey and Nell never lock their dorm room because Hailey is super irresponsible and keeps losing her dorm key. Why do we suddenly get this information?
When Hailey gets back to her room, she finds it trashed. There's black paint on the walls and on their clothes. Their bedding has been slashed and their dresser drawers are completely smashed to bits. Hailey collapses. Finn appears out of nowhere and helps her stand up. He tells someone out in the hall to call campus security. Nell and security arrive pretty close together. The room has to be left like it is until police can investigate so the girls are moved to a room on the fourth floor. Security asks if anyone might have wanted to upset them and Hailey mentions Bo who is still at the top of her suspect list. He's still near the bottom of mine.
The fourth floor girls gather extra towels and school supplies for them which is really sweet. Finn offers to take them out to dinner. They go to the diner because Finn gets an employee discount there. Robert is there with his new Miata. They all remark on his daddy's efficiency. Finn says Gerrie is dropping out of school. She's still having issues with her vision and might require surgery. No one bothers to ask how he knows this. Robert has moved on and is dating a new girl. We don't learn her name.
We skip to the next morning. Security asks them to come downstairs and check to see if anything is missing from their old room. Hailey notices nothing but Nell is more observant. She lies to security and says nothing is missing but later tells Hailey that their hair products and makeup are gone. I have no fucking idea why she didn't tell security this. Nell thinks it's odd that only the things they used to give Darlene her makeover are missing. She theorizes that the bad guy was upset that they tried to change Darlene for Richard.
Nell is actually pretty smart considering she's trapped in one of these books.
Not high on the empathy/sympathy scale, but smart.
Nell wonders if maybe Darlene is the culprit. Maybe she resents them trying to change her. Hailey says she's out of town but Nell isn't convinced Darlene didn't just lie about that.
They decide to go to the mall after classes to replace all the stuff that got destroyed or stolen. It's snowing pretty heavily and the roads are bad so they decide to take the shuttle instead of driving. Finn, Robert, Puffy and Lindsay are also on the shuttle. To be honest, I have no fucking idea who Lindsay even is. She's just around sometimes. I don't think she's said a single word and I have no context for her.
#where'sRichard
When Hailey points out that it's weird that Richard isn't with them, Finn says he and Robert argued earlier in the cafeteria. Robert said that Hailey and Nell deserved what they got and Richard accused him of being the one to trash their dorm room. Hailey gets excited when she hears this, eager to pin it all on Robert but Nell points out that Robert doesn't seem the type to steal a bunch of makeup and hair gel.
Maybe he just wanted to look pretty?
Also, what IS the type to steal makeup and hair gel?
Finn and Robert both get off at the diner – Finn to work and Robert because he's hungry and doesn't want to eat at the food court in the mall. Everyone else continues to the mall. While Hailey is looking at blush, she sees someone who looks like Darlene in the next aisle. She literally chases this woman all around the drugstore but never gets a good look at her. In the end, she can't decide whether it was Darlene or not.
Hoh's really fond of this particular species of fish.
Hailey and Nell go to the food court to get something to eat. They hear the mall might close early because the snow is getting so bad so they decide to cut their visit short. They go out to meet the shuttle and end up standing with Puffy, Lindsay and a few more people from Salem U. One of the random guys points to a car in the parking lot with its lights on and says that it belongs to Richard. They figure he just got there but then he walks out of the mall. They all tease him about leaving his lights on but he says he remembers turning them off. Puffy yells that someone is stealing his car and he runs into the parking lot to intercept them.
The snow is really heavy and blowing around so none of them get a perfect look at what happens next. The general consensus is that the car starts moving and Richard runs out in front of it like it an idiot. They all scream at him to move but he just stands there. The car hesitates and then lurches forward, hitting Richard and sending him flying into a wooden planter near the crowd. The car speeds off. Richard dies.
Like actually dies. For realsies.
I guess we can cross some people off our suspect list since Hailey, Nell, Puffy and Richard were all visible during this event and couldn't have been behind the wheel of the car. I still think Hoh is trying to make Darlene and Bo too obvious but I don't have a good read on the others yet.
Odds Darlene is the bad guy: 5%
Odds Robert is the bad guy: 30%
Odds Pete is the bad guy: 30%
Odds Finn is the bad guy: 30%
Odds Bo is the bad guy: 5%
Lindsay blames Hailey for Richard's death, saying that Hailey encouraged Darlene's obsession with Robert and now she's a “maniac out for revenge”. Lindsay swears she saw Darlene behind the wheel but Hailey tells her it wasn't possible to see anything due to the snow. She still thinks it was Bo because she believes Hoh's propaganda.
The police arrive and question everyone and then they all take a shuttle back to campus.
Hailey decides to call Darlene's grandma's house to confirm Darlene is still there. The roads are so bad that there's no way Darlene would have had time to drive to town, steal Richard's car, kill him and drive back in the span of time that's passed. If she's there, then she didn't kill Richard. Unfortunately, Hailey can't find the phone number. She thinks it might have been in her purse but she can't find her purse either. She realizes she left it hanging on the back of a chair in the food court. Nell is PISSED. Hailey's lost their dorm key AGAIN. Not only is the key in her purse but Hailey has stupidly put it on a tag that has her dorm name and room number.
This isn't the brightest star in the sky, y'all.
Nell wonders why Richard didn't get out of the way of the car. She thinks he must have recognized the driver and didn't think they'd run him over. All three of our main suspects would work here. Richard knew all of them.
Finn calls to check on Hailey. Word of Richard's death has reached the diner apparently. He says that classes are going to be canceled the next day due to the snow. Hailey is glad to have an excuse to just sit around her dorm and do nothing.
Girl, SOMEONE HAS THE KEY TO YOUR ROOM. PLEASE FIND A BRAIN CELL AND SLEEP SOMEWHERE ELSE!
Darlene calls the next morning and the dorm phones have no caller ID so Hailey has no way to figure out where she's calling from. She heard about Richard on the news and she expresses sympathy for Robert and Gerrie. When Hailey asks why she feels bad for Gerrie, Darlene tells her that she has a friend who works at the hospital and the friend told her that Richard has been visiting Gerrie regularly. The friend says she even saw Robert and Richard fighting about it one day in the hall.
So Darlene has a hospital source. Could this be how Finn had all the info on Gerrie? You know, because HE'S HER BROTHER.
Darlene says that she'll soon be the only friend Robert has left and the comment makes Hailey's blood go cold. Darlene again asks Hailey to pass her grandma's number on to Robert because the guys at the frat house won't let her talk to him. Hailey writes it down again but has no intention of giving it to Robert.
Finn and Pete arrive at the dorm to see if Hailey and Nell want to play in the snow. Pete has Hailey's purse. He says when he signed in to come upstairs, the person at the reception desk asked him to deliver Hailey's purse to her. It had been left there at some point during the morning. Hailey checks it and nothing seems disturbed.
I'm so exhausted. Hailey, you absolute fool, someone could have made a copy of your dorm key. Please. Locate just one brain cell. I'm begging you.
The four of them spend all morning goofing off in the snow. Hailey thinks Nell and Pete might become a thing. I still want to know what the fuck happened to Maureen. It seems to be the same school year which means the events of book two just happened a few weeks ago. He was dating Maureen at the end of that book. What did he do with her?
Hailey spends the afternoon at the library catching up on homework and then decides to go to the Admin building to see if they have any information on Mike. I'm not sure why she thinks anyone will be there when classes were canceled. For that matter, why was the library open?
Anyway, she passes the Dean's office and overhears Puffy and Susan being accused of cheating on a test. Apparently they got the exact same score and an anonymous tip was called into the school telling them to check Susan's locker. Inside was a copy of the test answers or something. They both adamantly deny cheating but the dean isn't convinced. Hailey believes them. Susan is the best student in the class and would have no reason to cheat. She's completely ignoring the possibility that Susan might have stolen the answers for Puffy.
Hailey goes back to report the gossip to Nell. Nell is delighted to hear that Puffy and Susan are in trouble. Nell might be smart but she's kind of vicious and petty.
The next day the entire campus is talking about the cheating scandal. HOW DID THEY FIND OUT? I seriously doubt Susan or Puffy said anything. Either Nell has loose lips or Hoh forgot this wasn't public knowledge. Hailey calls Darlene for some reason and even Darlene has heard the news. She's gleeful that they'll probably get kicked out of school. Hailey says they might have been framed and that pisses Darlene right off. She starts shrieking because it's a requirement to have at least once character shriek in these books. Darlene says Robert must be so sad that all his friends are gone and she wishes she was there to comfort him.
Hailey is disturbed by Darlene's behavior and really wants to talk to someone close to Darlene about it. She asks around campus about Mike but no one seems to know who she is talking about.
Because his name is FINN, Hailey.
She goes back to her room to find her window cranked open and her screen removed. Does she immediately leave and contact campus security from a safe place? No. No, she does not. She goes over to close the window and someone pushes her out. Luckily she doesn't fall far. The strap from her crossbody purse catches on the window crank and she's suspended four stories above the ground.
I refuse to believe a purse strap is strong enough to hold the weight of a grown woman like this.
Eventually Finn, Nell and Pete all show up at once and pull her back into the room. Police are called. Hailey suspects Bo again but the police tell her that he left town and no one knows where he is.
If no one knows where he is, how do they know he left town?
A couple of days pass. Hailey goes back to the admin building to ask about Mike. There are no records of a Michael or Mike Riggs attending the university. She decides to go to Darlene's house to look for him. She finds Finn coming down the front steps. Does she get a fucking clue? No. No, she does not.
Finn tells her he came to ask Darlene about Bo but she's still at her grandma's. Does she ask him how he knew were Darlene lives? No. No, she does not. Instead she gets all swoony about how much Finn must care about her if he's trying to track down her assailant.
They go to the diner and run into Jess and Ian again. Hailey is pissed because she wants to spend time alone with Mike......ahem......I mean Finn. Hailey tells them about the window incident and Jess asks how someone got into her room to open the window and remove the screen. She accuses Hailey of leaving the door unlocked again but Hailey says she's been locking it. She hasn't even lost her keys. Well, she amends, she kind of lost her keys once when she lost her purse but it got returned so everything's okay. Ian, who possesses lots of brain cells, points out that someone could have made a copy of her keys before returning her purse.
This is why Ian's my favorite.
The next day, Hailey decides to ask Finn and Pete about Mike. She goes to Lester (a dorm) first which is where Finn told her he lived. The reception desk says there is no Finn Conran living in that dorm. Confused, she leaves and runs conveniently into Pete. She ask him if Finn lives in Lester and he says 'yes'. He says the people at the reception desk are lazy and probably just didn't want to look up Finn's room number. He takes off without giving Hailey the room number, though. A girl from one of her classes comes out of Lester and Hailey runs up to ask her if she knows what room Finn is in. I have to tell you, I lived in a dorm once. There were seven floors and like sixteen rooms on each floor. There's no way in hell I knew where everyone lived. Hell, I barely knew where the people on my floor lived. Anyway, random girl says she doesn't think Finn lives in Lester.
Man, this book is getting repetitive. It was going pretty good for awhile there but now we're just doing the same things over and over.
Finn calls later to see if Nell and Hailey want to have dinner with him and Pete. Nell can't go so Pete drops out as well. Hailey is excited to go somewhere alone with Finn. He asks her to pick him up outside of Lester so she reasons that he must live there. You know, because there's no way he could just come to campus and stand outside of a random building or anything.
They go to dinner and start recapping the book for us. Hailey suddenly gets paranoid that something might happen to Nell if she's all alone in the room. They rush back to the dorms. Finn knocks on the dorm door as Hailey tries to find her keys. Nell doesn't answer. Hailey finally gets the key in the door and opens it to find Nell face down on the bed with her pillow over her head. Hailey yells her name but there's no response. Nell has been suffocated!!!
{{{GASP}}}
LOLZ
She's just asleep with headphones on.
Finn tells Hailey that he needs to go to the library to work on a paper but he'll call her later. She tries to get his number so she can call him instead and he ducks the question and leaves in a hurry.
We already know why he can't give it to her. If he does, she'll realize it's the same as Darlene's because HE'S HER BROTHER.
Hailey looks out the window after he leaves and sees him getting on a shuttle headed downtown. She hurriedly asks another girl on the floor to sit with Nell and then she runs to her car to follow the shuttle. Finn gets off at a stop near Darlene's house and walks right up to the door. Hailey stops watching him for a few seconds, figuring that he's there to ask about Bo again. Then she worries that Bo might be there, so she looks again to see Finn talking to Darlene's mom. Relieved, she heads back to campus.
This one is a special kind of stupid, y'all.
When she gets back to the dorm, the girl watching Nell says Finn called and was upset to have missed her. Does she wonder how he managed to finish up his conversation at Darlene's, walk back to the shuttle stop, catch a shuttle, arrive back on campus, walk to his dorm and call her all before she got back home? No. No, she does not.
The next morning, Hailey calls Darlene's house and her mom answers. Hailey asks for Darlene first but her mom says she's still out of town. Hailey then asks for Mike but is told he's already left for class. She makes up some story about needing to give something to him and asks what class he's headed to. Darlene's mom gives her the info and then adds that Mike is wearing a blue, knitted sweater.
Armed with this info, Hailey heads to the building and arrives just as the class is letting out. She hides for some reason and watches everyone leave the room. Unfortunately, everyone is wearing a coat so she can't tell if anyone is in a blue sweater. (Ian, Finn and Pete are all in the class in case you're still weighing your options for Darlene's brother.)
Hailey keeps asking around about Mike and someone finally tells her that Darlene's brother's last name isn't Riggs. He's her half brother so he has a different name. Frustrated, she ends up calling Darlene. Before she can get a word in, Darlene excitedly tells her that Bo is there. They're madly in love again and Darlene thinks Robert is a mega creep.
Hailey isn't sure what to do with that either. She asks Darlene what Mike's last name is. Darlene says his name is Michael Finn Conran. They still call him Mike at home but he goes by Finn at school.
This reveal shocks Hailey and she starts to think that maybe Finn is the bad guy. Pete comes by the room, saying he's looking for Nell. Hailey says Nell is at the pep rally and then confronts Pete about Finn being Mike. Pete says that Finn initially asked him to keep the secret because he wanted to investigate Gerrie's attack and he figured that no one would talk to him if they knew he was Darlene's brother. Later he started keeping the secret because he said it would put Hailey in danger if she knew. I'm not sure how. Pete doesn't seem to know either.
Hailey tells Pete that she suspects Finn and he fucking runs with it. He tells her that Finn left the diner early on the day Richard was killed and that the day Hailey was pushed out the window, Finn was already on the fourth floor when Nell and Pete got there. Hailey is scared that Finn might attack Nell, so they run off to make sure Nell is okay. She is and she's with a bunch of other people so it seems like she's relatively safe. Hailey says she wants to find Finn next to confront him. Pete says he isn't on campus. He had a photography project to finish for school so he's at home in the darkroom in his basement.
It's really nice of Pete to just volunteer all this information.
Cleary he's the bad guy.
Shit.
You want to know something hilarious? I almost didn't put him in the recap. At first he was just kind of hanging around and I couldn't be bothered because there were too many characters in this damn thing already. Then he started coming around with Finn but I still didn't add him in. I just kept calling him “Finn's friend”. I was just going to leave him out of the recap entirely and he fucking turns out to be the bad guy. I had to go back just now and add him in to all the places he should have been so you wouldn't know I fucked up.
Way to go, me.
Pete makes her stop off at the library so he can 'call the cops and tell them to meet them at Finn's'. He definitely doesn't but Hailey thinks he does. Pete drives her to Finn's house and then just leads her right inside. Does she question this? No. No, she does not. He leads her to the basement but there's no Finn in sight. Pete picks up a dumbbell and launches into his bad guy monologue. Basically he calls Finn a pussy for not doing anything to fix things for Darlene. Pete's been in love with Darlene forever but she has him firmly in the friend zone because he's her brother's best friend. He did everything to prove his love to her.
Pete was originally going to take credit for everything to show Darlene how dedicated he is to her but now that she's back with Bo, he figures he'll just frame Finn for it all instead. He tells Hailey that he's going to kill her here in the basement to implicate Finn. Hailey manages to run into the darkroom and lock the door behind her.
Pete starts bashing the door with the dumbbell, screaming that he could have made Darlene love him if everyone else hadn't gotten involved. A hole starts to form in the middle of the door. There's no other way out of the darkroom so Hailey looks around for a weapon. There's a ton of chemicals, so she picks one with a warning label on it and pours some into a basin. Pete manages to knock a hole in the door and he reaches through to turn the lock. He opens the door while smugly saying “Hi, honey, I'm home” for some dumb ass reason. Hailey throws the chemicals in his face. Pete screams in agony and begs her to help him as she runs upstairs.
Hailey locks the basement door and then shoves a table against it for good measure before calling the police. She goes to sit on the front steps to wait for them to arrive because she can't stand the way Pete is yelling for her. While she's sitting there, she sees Finn walking up the street. She wonders if she can forgive him for lying to her and decides they can probably work it out. Pete will get help and she and Finn will work on their relationship.
The book just ends there.
I'll admit that Hoh sneaked the bad guy under my radar this time. She loudly telegraphed the Finn/Mike thing but she managed to hide Pete.
I still want to know what the fuck happened to Maureen though. I hope she's not buried in the woods or something.
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