Free The Biker (Nightmare Hall) by Diane Hoh

for a second or two before plummeting down, down, straight down.
    The haunting wail of Nancy Becker’s voice giving up all hope wrapped itself around the car during the long descent.
    When the bright red machine landed in a deep ravine across the highway from campus, it bounced several times like a red rubber ball, then exploded in a giant red and yellow fireball.
    The roaring flames consuming Polk’s beloved red Miata were no threat to Nancy Becker and Polk Malone, though. Because they were both already dead, killed instantly in the violent impact.
    The biker sat at the very edge of the overlook and watched as, far below him, flames gobbled up the Miata and its occupants.
    Then he sped away into the gray-blue dusk, leaving a trail of black smoke in his wake.

Chapter 8
    “Y OU’RE GOING OUT WITH who?” Trixie asked in disbelief.
    “Whom,” a nervous Echo corrected automatically. She wrestled her hair up into a haphazard topknot. “I keep forgetting you’re not an English major.”
    “No. Psych. And I wish I’d learned enough already to figure out why on earth you’d be going out with someone like Aaron Pruitt. Deejay and Marilyn couldn’t believe it, either, and Ruthanne almost had a stroke. He’s a friend of theirs, I guess, but he’s so … so …”
    “So not gorgeous and not charming and not athletic?” Echo suggested, an edge to her voice. “Well, that’s okay, Trixie, because as you and I both know, I’m not exactly Miss Popularity, myself.” Of course that didn’t make her a maniac, like Pruitt.
    Trixie had the decency to flush. “I … I didn’t mean …”
    “Whatever.” Echo dug into her scalp with the edge of a bobby pin and winced. But it was her anger she felt the most. Until now, she had planned to make it clear to everyone who saw her at the rec center that night that she wasn’t with Pruitt willingly. She hadn’t been sure exactly how to do that, except by looking as if she were having a lousy time, which she was sure wouldn’t be a problem. But now, she felt a sudden, fierce need to defy Trixie. It would be different if Trixie knew what Pruitt had done. Then she’d have reason to hate and fear him. But Trixie didn’t know that. Only Echo did.
    The trouble was, she had no idea what to do with that knowledge.
    “Anyway, I finally found out how Pruitt got into a fraternity,” Trixie said. “I always wondered. He doesn’t seem like the type. But Deejay told me his father is loaded. Pruitt and Banner Investments?”
    “Never heard of them.”
    Trixie’s expression said, “Well, no, you wouldn’t have, would you?”
    “Pruitt, Senior, is a Salem alumnus. And a Sigma Chi. That’s how Pruitt, Junior, got into Sigma Chi.”
    “Thank you for sharing that, Trixie. See ya!” And Echo was out the door.
    Mistake, she told herself angrily as she entered the elevator. Big, big mistake. I should have said she was right about Pruitt and I was only going out with him as an experiment, to see what makes a geek like that tick. Trixie will remember I got defensive. It’ll be the first thing she thinks of if I find that motorcycle and turn Pruitt in to the cops. I can just hear her telling everyone, “Well, you know, there were two people on that bike in front of Johnny’s Place and one of them could have been a girl, and Echo was dating Pruitt, and did she ever get ticked when I made a silly little crack about her going out with him. She got very defensive.” Trixie would toss her head in that way she had and add, “Of course, since I’ve lived with her since the very beginning of the year, I know her better than anyone on campus and I can tell you that becoming a wild biker is just the sort of thing that would appeal to Echo Glenn!”
    When am I going to learn to keep my mouth shut? Echo asked the mirror in the lobby when she passed it.
    The minute she stepped outside, she heard sirens. More than one. Off-campus, but close enough that the sound was unmistakable.
    Echo stopped,