By the time they reached the sixth floor landing, Moira’s legs were trembling so hard she could barely stand. “I’m too old for this, Grace. I’ve got to rest a minute.” She stopped and leaned against the railing, struggling to catch her breath. Then her left leg suddenly folded beneath her and she dropped heavily to the floor. “Da . . . drat! I knew this was going to happen!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Charley horse, in my left leg. I don’t think I can stand on it.”

Grace climbed up the last step and joined Moira on the landing. “Give me your leg, Moira. I’ll rub it for you.”

As she kneaded the trembling muscle in Moira’s leg, Grace gave a defeated sigh. There was no way Moira’s rebelling muscles would make it any farther.

“I think it’s a little better, Grace.” The pain in Moira’s eyes belied her words. “Maybe I can lean on the railing and pull myself up.”

Grace shook her head. “You’ve got to rest or you’ll injure the muscle.”

Moira frowned and pulled herself to her feet in spite of Grace’s protests. She hobbled one step and turned to Grace with a stubborn expression. “There’s no time to rest. Come on, Grace. I think I can . . .” Moira stopped in midsentence as the door to the hallway began to open. “Oh, my God! It’s Betty!”

“Okay.” Jayne turned to a blank page in her music notebook. “Turn it on, Paul. I’m ready.”

Paul flicked the switch on the piano Johnny had given her, and the strange atonal music began to play. The melody had been bothering him ever since he’d heard it, and tonight he’d remembered the game his violin teacher had taught him, creating a melody from the letters in a name.

Jayne frowned as she transcribed the melody into musical notation. “The lower octave is normal and the upper ones follow the rest of the alphabet. Is that right, Paul?”

Paul nodded. “A through G are obvious. The letter H is high A, and the letter I is high B and so on.”

“This’ll take a minute.” Jayne turned back to her notebook. “I hope you’re right, Paul. Johnny’s song has been driving me crazy, too.”

Just then there was a knock on the door. Paul went to answer it and came back with Ellen.

“Ellie, honey. You look worse than a whipped puppy.” Jayne dropped her notebook and hurried to help Ellen into a chair. “What’s wrong?”

“I . . . I looked in the backpack and I found this!” Ellen drew the gun out of her pocket.

Jayne grabbed for the barrel and lowered it. “Careful with that thing! It might be loaded!”

“Of course it’s loaded.” Ellen started to laugh, but it came out as a sob. “He couldn’t kill us without the bullets, could he?”

“Whoa!” Jayne took the gun and handed it to Paul, then patted Ellen the way she’d calm a nervous filly. “Easy there, honey. Who couldn’t kill us?”

“Walker. He was using my mannequins to ship drugs. And then I found his gun and I . . . I took it.”

Paul frowned. It was difficult to believe that Walker had been dealing in drugs, but Ellen was clearly terrified. “You are safe now, Ellen. Where is Walker?”

“Still sleeping. But when he wakes up . . .”

The intercom buzzed, startling all three of them. Jayne hurried to answer it and when she came back, she looked dazed. “We’ve got to get down to Betty’s right away. Grace and Moira just found her crawling out in the hall.”

“You’re all right now, Betty.” Jayne held her hand. “Do you know where your nurse is?”

Betty frowned and tried to force out the word, but she was too exhausted to talk. She just knew she didn’t want to go back to sleep, not when the awful movies might start to play again. She had to find some way to tell them. But what was the word for what had happened to Nurse?

“Cold!” Betty frowned. That wasn’t right.

“Of course you are.” Moira reached for a blanket and covered Betty’s shoulders. “Your nurse is here, isn’t she?”

“Hot!” Betty nodded. That wasn’t the right word either, but it would have to do. Nurse was here. Right there in the bathroom with the door shut. And her secret friend had killed her.

“Jayne?” Paul came into the bedroom looking puzzled. “The nurse is not here in Betty’s apartment.”

“It’s three in the morning, for Pete’s sakes! Where could she be?”

“Hot!” Betty managed to get the word out again.

“Would you like a drink of water, Betty?” Grace did her best to understand.

Betty could feel her face light up in a smile as the dancer took a glass and opened the bathroom door. She flicked on the light and then she screamed, a much better scream than the ones Betty usually heard in the movies.

Jayne rushed to the bathroom to look and then she pulled Grace out by the arm. “Betty’s nurse is dead and that’s why she was out in the hall. She was trying to tell someone!”

“Do you know what happened to the nurse, Betty?” Paul leaned over to ask.

Betty nodded. She knew. But how could she tell them?

“Did your nurse have an accident?”

Betty shook her head. No, it wasn’t an accident, but she’d forgotten the word. She had to make them understand about the scary movies. It was terribly important, although she couldn’t remember why. Suddenly she had an idea and she reached for the remote control. If she couldn’t tell them, she could show them. She turned on the set and pressed the button for forbidden channel nine.

“That’s our living room.” Jayne blinked as she stared at the screen.

Paul nodded. “It a closed-circuit surveillance system. The monitors in the security office broke in the avalanche, but it still works here. Jack must have run a second cable up here and hooked it to Betty’s television set so he could keep an eye on things when he was visiting her.”

Betty switched to forbidden channel zero and used the outside camera that was focused on the hill. Would they recognize what it was?

“I see it, Betty.” Moira peered at the screen. “There’s something hidden behind that tree on the ridge. What is it?”

Betty frowned. She’d forgotten the word, but she knew the sound it made. “Brmmmmm!”

“The snowmobile!” Ellen gasped. “You’ve got to tell us, Betty! Do you know what happened to Clayton and Rachael?”

Betty nodded. She switched to forbidden channel five and pressed the control for the camera in the rose garden.

“That’s Darby’s rose garden.” Jayne identified the image on the screen. “And somebody’s been digging out there. See that loose dirt in the back?”

Grace began to shiver as she stared at the screen. “It looks like a . . . a grave.”

Betty frowned in concentration. They almost had the connection. And then she remembered the word that would explain everything.

“Murder!” she said, as she zoomed in on the grave.

Jayne helped to push the snowmobile up to the top of the ridge. There were tears on her cheeks and the bitter wind turned them into streaks of icy cold.

Paul gave her arm a squeeze. “Just a little farther, Jayne. We can make it.”

“I still don’t think we should have left them.” Jayne wiped her cheeks with her mitten and bent down to push again. The nurse’s boots were a size too small, but they hadn’t dared run upstairs for their own. Paul was wearing the nurse’s parka, which had a hood. And she had Betty’s mink coat and a woolen scarf.

“They told us to go,” Paul reassured her. “I have knowledge of this snowmobile.”

“But what if Walker finds them? They’ll be trapped up there!”

“We will be back with the police in less than an hour.” Paul swore in Norwegian as the snowmobile hung up on the drift. “Push, Jayne.”

Jayne dug her heels in and they heaved at the heavy snowmobile until it had cleared the drift. It was tough going, and they had to reach the crest of the ravine to muffle the noise of starting it.