Beguine” was playing. How often had she seen her mother and father dance to this music?
“Mother and Daddy were the ones who really taught me to dance,” she told Nash. “Sometimes they’d just put on records and fox-trot or waltz. They’re really good.”
His eyes were still kind. They were the eyes she’d seen the other times she’d been with him. As long as he didn’t suspect that she knew about him, maybe he would leave with her, take her to the house for dinner. I’ve got to make him want to keep talking to me.
Mother had always said, “Darcy, you have a real talent for acting. Why do you keep resisting it?”
If I have it, let me prove it now, she prayed.
All her life she’d heard her mother and father discussing how a scene should be played. She must have learned something.
I can’t let him see how scared I am, Darcy thought. Channel my nervousness into the performance. How would her mother play this scene, a woman trapped in the home of a serial killer? Mother would stop thinking about Erin ’s ring on her finger and do exactly what Darcy was trying to pull off. She’d play it as though Michael Nash was a psychiatrist and she was a patient confiding in him. What was Michael saying?
“Have you noticed, Darcy, that when you let yourself talk about your parents you become animated? I think you enjoyed your childhood much more than you realized.”
People always clustered around them. Remember the time the crowd was so great that she lost her mother’s hand?
“Tell me, Darcy, what are you thinking? Say it. Let it out.”
“I was so frightened. I couldn’t see them. I knew that moment that I hated..
.”
“What did you hate?”
“The crowds. Being torn from them…”
“It wasn’t their fault.”
“If they weren’t so famous…”
“You’ve resented that fame…”
“No.” It was working. His voice was his own. I don’t want to talk about this, she thought, but I must. I’ve got to be honest with him. It’s my only chance. Mother. Daddy. Help me. Be here for me. “They’re so far away.” She didn’t know she’d said it aloud.
“Who are?”
“My mother and father.”
“You mean now?”
“Yes. They’re touring in Australia with their play.”
“You sound so forlorn, frightened even. Are you frightened, Darcy?” Don’t let him think that. “No, I’m just sorry that I won’t see them for six months.”
“Do you think the time you were separated from them that day was the first time you felt abandoned?”
She wanted to shout, “I feel abandoned now.” Instead, she turned her mind to the past. “Yes.”
“You hesitated. Why?”
“There was another time, when I was six. I was in the hospital and they didn’t think I was going to live…” She tried not to look at him. She was so afraid the eyes would become empty and dark again.
She was reminded of the character in “One Thousand and One Nights” who had told stories to stay alive.
Chris was engulfed with a sense of helplessness. Darcy had been in this house a few days ago with the man who had killed Nan and Erin Kelley and all those other girls, and she was going to be his next victim.
They were in the kitchen, where Vince had an open line on one phone to the Bureau, a second one to the state police. More ‘copters were on the way. Nona was standing near Vince, looking as though she was about to pass out. The Hugheses, their expressions bewildered and frightened, were sitting, shoulders touching, at the long refectory table. A local cop was talking to them, questioning them about Nash’s activities. Ernie Cizek was in the chopper, which was flying low over the grounds. Chris could hear the sound of the engine through the closed window. They were looking for Michael Nash’s black Mercedes station wagon. Local squad cars were fanning out across the property checking the outer buildings.
Grimly, Chris remembered how lucky he’d been when he bought a Mercedes station wagon last year. The salesman had talked him into having the Lojack system installed. “It’s built right into the wiring,” he’d explained. “If your car is ever stolen, it can be located within minutes. You phone in your Lojack code number to the police, it’s fed into a computer, and a transmitter activates the system in your vehicle. Many police cars are equipped to follow the signal.” Chris had owned the station wagon only one week before it was stolen outside the gallery with a one hundred thousand dollar painting in the back. He’d dashed back inside his office for his briefcase, and when he came out the car was gone. He’d phoned to report the theft, and within fifteen minutes the station wagon had been traced and recovered.
If only Nash had picked up Darcy in a stolen car that could be traced. “Oh my God! “Chris ran across the room and grabbed Mrs. Hughes’s arm. “Does Nash keep his personal files here or in New York?”
She looked startled. “Here. In a room off the library.”
“I want to see them.”
Vince said, “Hold it,” into the phone. “What have you got, Chris?”
Chris didn’t answer. “How long has the doctor owned the station wagon?”
“About six months,” John Hughes replied. “He trades in regularly.”
“Then I’ll bet he has it.”
The files were contained in a row of handsome mahogany cabinets. Mrs. Hughes knew where the key was hidden.
The Mercedes file was easy to find. Chris grabbed it. His exultant cry brought the others running. From the folder he pulled the Lojack pamphlet. The code number for Nash’s black Mercedes was listed.
The Bridgewater cop realized what Chris had found. “Give me that,” he said.
“I’ll phone it in. Our squad cars have the system.”
You were in the hospital, Darcy.” Michael’s voice was calm. Her mouth was so dry. She wanted a glass of water, but she didn’t dare distract him. “Yes, I had spinal meningitis. I remember feeling so sick. I thought I was going to die. My parents were at the bedside. I heard the doctor say he didn’t think I’d make it.”
“How did your mother and father react?”
“They were hugging each other. My father said, ‘Barbara, we have each other.’”
“And that hurt you, didn’t it?”
“I knew they didn’t need me,” she whispered.
“Oh, Darcy, don’t you know that when you think you’re going to lose someone you love, the instinctive reaction is to look for someone or something to hang on to? They were trying to cope, or more accurately, preparing to cope. Believe it or not, that’s healthy. And ever since then, you’ve been trying to shut them out, haven’t you?”
Had she? Always resisting the clothes her mother bought for her, the gifts they showered on her, scorning their lifestyle, something they’d worked all their lives to achieve. Even her job. Was that one-upmanship to prove something? “No, it isn’t.”
“What isn’t?”
“My job. I really do love what I do.”
“Love what I do.” Michael repeated the words slowly, in cadence. A new song had begun on the tape. “Save the Last Dance for Me.” He stood up. “And I love to dance. Now, Darcy. But first I have a present for you.” Horrified, she watched as he got up and reached behind the chair. He turned to her, a shoe box in his hand. “I bought you pretty slippers to dance in, Darcy.” He knelt in front of the sofa and pulled off her boots. Every instinct warned Darcy not to protest. She dug her nails into her palms to keep from screaming. Erin ’s ring had turned and she could feel the impression of the raised E against her skin.
Michael was opening the shoe box and parting the tissue. He took one shoe out and held it up for her to admire. It was an open-toed, high-heeled satin slipper. Gossamer ankle straps were almost transparent bands of gold and silver. Michael took Darcy’s right foot in his hand and eased it into the shoe, double-knotting the long
