“Yes, Nan Sheridan. After I graduated from Stanford, I spent a year in Boston before I started med school. I used to drive down to Brown a lot. That’s where I met Nan. She was a wonderful dancer. You’re good, but she was wonderful.” The familiar opening bars of “Good Night, Sweetheart.”
No, Darcy thought. No.
Backstep. Sidestep. Glide.
“Michael, something else I meant to ask you about my mother,” she began. He pushed her head down on his shoulder. “I told you to call me Charley. Don’t talk anymore,” he said firmly. “We’ll just dance.”
“Time will heal your sorrow,” floated through the room. Darcy didn’t recognize the singer’s voice.
“Good night, sweetheart, good night.” The last notes faded into the air. Michael dropped his arms and smiled at Darcy. “It’s time,” he said in a friendly voice, although his expression was blankly terrifying. “I’ll give you to the count of ten to try to get away. Isn’t that fair?”
They were back on the road. “The signal is coming from the left. Wait a minute, we’re going too far,” the Bridgewater cop said. “There must be a side road here somewhere.” The wheels screeched as they made a U- turn. The sense of impending disaster had grown in Chris to the explosive point. He opened the car window. “There, for God’s sake, there’s a driveway.” The squad car ground to a halt, backed up, turned sharply right, raced along the rutted ground.
Darcy slipped and slid on the polished floor. The high-heeled slippers were her enemies as she ran for the door. She took a precious instant to stop and try to yank the shoes off, but she couldn’t. The double knots on the straps were too tight.
“One,” Charley called from behind her.
She reached the door and tugged at the bolt. It did not release. She twisted the knob. It did not turn.
“Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. I’m counting, Darcy.”
The panic button. She jammed her finger against it.
Hahahahahahaha… A hollow, mocking laugh echoed through the room. Hahahaha.
… The sound was coming from the panic button.
With a shriek, Darcy jumped back. Now Charley was laughing too.
“Seven. Eight. Nine…”
She turned, saw the stairway, began to run to it.
“Ten!”
Charley was rushing toward her, his hands outstretched, his fingers bent, his thumbs rigid.
“No! No!” Darcy tried to reach the staircase, skidded. Her ankle turned. Sharp, stabbing pain. Moaning, she hobbled onto the first step and felt herself pulled back.
She didn’t know she was screaming.
There’s the Mercedes,” Vince cried. The squad car slammed to a stop behind it. He sprang out of the car, Chris and the cop with him. “Stay back,” Vince shouted to Nona.
“Listen.” Chris held up his hand. “Someone’s screaming. It’s Darcy.” He and Vince threw themselves against the thick oak door. It didn’t budge. The cop pulled out his gun and pumped six bullets into the lock.
This time when Chris and Vince attacked the door, it opened.
Darcy tried to kick Charley with the sharp stiletto heels. He spun her around, seeming not to feel the heels stabbing at his legs. His hands were around her neck. She tried to claw them away. Erin, Erin, is this the way it was for you? She couldn’t scream anymore. She opened her mouth, frantic to gulp in air, and could find none. Were those moans coming from her? She tried to keep fighting but couldn’t raise her arms again.
Vaguely, she heard loud staccato sounds. Was someone trying to help her? It’s.
.. too… late… she thought as she felt herself fall into darkness.
Chris got through the doorway first. Darcy was dangling like a rag doll, her arms drooping at her sides, her legs buckled under her. Long, powerful fingers were squeezing her throat. Her screams had stopped. With a cry of rage, Chris flew across the room and tackled Nash, who sagged and fell, pulling Darcy with him. His hands convulsed, then tightened their grip around her neck.
Vince threw himself next to Nash, snapped his arm around Nash’s neck, forcing his head back. The Bridgewater cop grabbed Nash’s thrashing feet. Charley’s hands seemed to have a life of their own. Chris could not pry his fingers loose from Darcy’s throat. Nash seemed to be possessed of superhuman strength and impervious to pain. Desperately Chris sank his teeth into the right hand of the man who was snuffing out Darcy’s life. With a howl of pain Charley yanked back his right hand and relaxed the left one. Vince and the cop twisted his arms behind him and snapped handcuffs on his wrists as Chris grabbed Darcy.
Nona had been watching from the doorway. Now she rushed into the house and dropped to her knees at Darcy’s feet. Darcy’s eyes were not focusing. There were ugly red bruises on her slender throat.
Chris covered Darcy’s mouth with his own, pinched her nostrils closed, forced breath into her lungs.
Vince looked at Darcy’s staring eyes and began to pound her chest. The Bridgewater cop was guarding Michael Nash, who was handcuffed to the banister. Nash began to recite in a singsong voice, “Eeney, meeney, miney, mo, Catch a dancer by the toe…”
She’s not responding, Nona thought frantically. She grasped Darcy’s ankles and for the first time realized Darcy was wearing dancing slippers. I can’t stand it, Nona thought, I can’t stand it. Almost unaware of what she was doing, Nona began to struggle with the knots on the ankle straps. “One little piggy went to market. One little piggy stayed home. Sing it again, Mama. I have ten piggy toes.”
We may be too late, Vince thought furiously as he searched for some response from Darcy, but if we are, you lousy bastard, you’d better not think that spouting nursery rhymes now will help you prove insanity. Chris raised his head as he gulped in air and for a split second stared at Darcy’s face. The same look as Nan when he found her that morning. The bruised throat. The blue-white tone to her skin. No! I won’t let it happen. Darcy, breathe. Nona, weeping now, had finally untied one of the ankle straps. She pushed it back and began to pull the high-heeled slipper from Darcy’s foot. She felt something. Was she wrong? No.
“Her foot is moving!” she cried. “She’s trying to get it out of the shoe.” At the same instant, Vince saw a pulse begin to beat in Darcy’s throat and Chris heard a long, drawn-out sigh come from her lips.
XXIII THURSDAY March 14
The next morning, Vince phoned Susan. “Mrs. Fox, your husband may be a philanderer but he’s not a criminal. We have the serial killer in custody and we have absolute proof that he is solely responsible for the dancing-shoe deaths starting with Nan Sheridan.”
“Thank you. I guess you can understand what this means to me.” “Who was that?” Doug had stayed home from work. He felt lousy. Not sick, just lousy.
Susan told him.
He stared at her. “You mean you told the FBI you thought I was a murderer! You actually thought I killed Nan Sheridan and all those other women!” His face darkened in incredulous rage.
Susan stared back at him. “I thought that was a possibility, and that by lying for you fifteen years ago I might also be responsible for those other deaths.” “I swore to you that I never went near Nan the morning she died.”
“Obviously you didn’t. Then where were you, Doug? At least level with me now.” The anger faded from his face. He looked away, then turned back with a cajoling smile. “Susan, I told you then. I repeat it. The car broke down that morning.” “I want the truth. You owe it to me.”
Doug hesitated, then said slowly, “I was with Penny Knowles. Susan, I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to know
