“Michael.” She made her voice hesitant, confidential. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.” He looked interested.
“The other day, I think you were suggesting that I’ve been making my parents pay for that remark that hurt me so much when I was a kid. Can I possibly be that selfish?”
During the twenty-minute helicopter ride, no one spoke. His mind racing, Vince had gone over every detail of the investigation. Michael Nash. I sat in his office, thinking he sounded like one of the few shrinks who make sense. Was this a wild-goose chase? What was to say that someone with Nash’s money hadn’t some sort of retreat in Connecticut or upstate New York?
Maybe he did, but with all his property, the odds were that he would bring his victims here. Over the whir of the propeller Vince could hear in his head the names of serial killers who buried their victims in the attics or basements of their own homes.
The chopper circled over the country road. “There!” Vince pointed to the right where twin high beams were gleaming upward, making paths through the darkness. “The Bridgewater police said they’d park right outside Nash’s place. Put it down.”
* * *
The mansion was outwardly tranquil. There were lights shining from several windows on the main floor. Vince insisted that Nona stay outside with the pilot. Ernie and Chris at his heels, he ran from the side lawn up the long driveway and rang the bell. “Leave the talking to me.”
A woman answered, using the intercom. “Who is it?”
Vince clenched his teeth. If Nash was in there, they were giving him plenty of warning. “FBI agent Vincent D’Ambrosio, ma’am. I must speak to Dr. Nash.”
A moment later the door opened slightly. The security chain was still in place. “May I see your identification, sir?” The courteous tone of a trained servant, this time a man.
Vince passed it through.
“Hurry them,” Chris urged.
The security chain was released, the door opened. Housekeeping couple, Vince thought. They had that look. He asked them to identify themselves.
“We’re John and Irma Hughes. We work for Dr. Nash.”
“Is he here?”
“Yes, he is,” Mrs. Hughes answered. “He’s been in all evening. He’s completing his book and doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”
Darcy, you really have great introspection,” Michael said. “I told you that last week. You’re feeling a little guilty about your attitude toward your parents, aren’t you?”
“I think I am.” Darcy could see that his pupils were closer to normal size. The blue-gray color was visible in his eyes.
The next song on the tape began to play. “Red Roses for a Blue Lady.” Michael’s right foot began to move in synch with the music.
“Should I feel guilty?” she asked quickly.
Where is Dr. Nash’s room?” Vince demanded. “I’ll take responsibility for disturbing him.”
“He always locks the door when he wants privacy, and won’t answer. He’s very firm about not being interrupted when he’s in his room. We haven’t even seen him since we got home from shopping late this afternoon, but his car is in the driveway.”
Chris had had enough. “He’s not upstairs. He’s driving around in a station wagon doing God knows what.” Chris started for the staircase. “Where the hell is his room?”
Mrs. Hughes looked pleadingly at her husband, then led them up the stairs. Her repeated knocking brought no response.
“Have you a key?” Vince demanded.
“Doctor has forbidden me to use it when he leaves his door locked.”
“Get it.”
* * *
As Vince had expected, the massive bedroom was empty. “Mrs. Hughes, we have a witness who saw Darcy Scott get into the doctor’s station wagon tonight. We believe she is in imminent danger. Does Dr. Nash have a studio or a cottage on this property or some other place he might have taken her?”
“You must be mistaken,” the woman protested. “He’s brought Miss Scott here twice. They’re great friends.”
“Mrs. Hughes, you haven’t answered my question.”
“On this estate there are barns and a stable and some storage facilities. There’s no other building where he’d bring a young lady. He also has an apartment and office in New York.”
Her husband was nodding in agreement. Vince could see they were telling the truth.
“Sir,” Mrs. Hughes said timidly, “we’ve worked for Dr. Nash for fourteen years. If Miss Scott is with him, I can assure you you have nothing to worry about. Dr. Nash wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
How long had they been talking? Darcy didn’t know. The music was soft in the background. “Begin the 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 straps. He reached into the box, removed the other slipper, and caressed her ankle as he guided her foot along the insole.
When she had both shoes on, he looked up and smiled. “Do you feel like Cinderella?” he asked.
She could not answer.
The radar indicates the wagon is parked about ten miles away in a northwest direction,” the Bridgewater cop said tersely as the squad car raced down the country road. Vince, Chris, and Nona were with him.
* * *
“The signal’s getting stronger,” he said a few minutes later. “We’re getting closer.”
“Until we’re there, we’re not close enough,” Chris exploded. “Can’t you go faster?”
They rounded a curve. The driver slammed on the brakes. The squad car skidded, then straightened. “Oh hell!”
“What’s the matter?” Vince snapped.
“They’re digging up the road down here. We can’t get through. And the damn detour will waste time.”
Music filled the room but could not drown out his maniacal laugh. Darcy’s footsteps were flying in synch with his. “I don’t often do a Viennese waltz,” he shouted, “but tonight it was what I planned for you.” Twirling, bobbing, turning. Darcy’s hair flew around her face. She was gasping but he seemed not to notice.
The waltz ended. He did not remove his arms from around her. His eyes were glittering, dark, empty holes again.
“Can’t Get Started with You.” Easily, he slipped into a graceful fox-trot. Effortlessly, she followed him. He was holding her tightly, crushing her. She couldn’t breathe. Is this what he did to the others? Got them to trust him. Brought them to this desolate house. Where were their bodies? Buried around here somewhere?
What chance did she have to get away from him? He’d catch her before she could get to the door. When they came in, she’d noticed the panic button. Was it hooked up to a security system? Knowing that someone was on the way, he might not kill her.
Now there was a growing urgency about Michael. His arm was like steel as he glided and stepped in perfect time to the music. “Do you want to know my secret?” he whispered. “This isn’t my house. It’s Charley’s house.”
“Charley?”
Backstep. Glide. Turn.
“Yes, that’s my real name. Edward and Janice Nash were my aunt and uncle. They adopted me when I was a year old and changed my name from Charley to Michael.”
He was staring down at her. Darcy could not bear to look into those eyes.
Backstep. Sidestep. Glide.
“What happened to your real parents?”
“My father killed my mother. They electrocuted him. Whenever my uncle was mad at me, he said I was getting just like him. My aunt was nice to me when I was little, but then she stopped loving me. She said they’d been crazy to adopt me. She said bad blood shows.”
A new song. Frank Sinatra crooning, “Hey there, Cutes, put on your dancing boots and come dance with me.”
Step. Step. Glide.
“I’m glad you’re telling me this, Michael. It helps to talk, doesn’t it?”
“I want you to call me Charley.”
“All right.” She tried not to sound tentative. He mustn’t see her fear.
“Don’t you want to know what happened to my mother and
father? I mean, the people who raised me?”
“Yes, I do.” Darcy thought of how tired her legs were. She was not used to the spike heels. She felt as though the tight ankle straps were cutting off her circulation.
Sidestep. Turn.
Sinatra urged, “Romance with me on a crowded floor. . . ”
“When I was twenty-one, they were in a boating accident. The boat blew up.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not. I rigged the boat. I am just like my real father. You’re getting tired, Darcy.”
“No. No. I’m fine. I enjoy dancing with you.” Stay calm . . . stay calm.
“You can rest soon. Were you surprised when you got Erin’s shoes back?”
“Yes, very surprised.”
“She was so pretty. She liked me. On our date I told her about my book and she talked about the program and about how you and she were answering personal ads. That was really funny. I’d already decided you’d be next after her.”
Next after her.
“Why did you choose us?”
“And while the rhythm pings, what coo-coo things I’ll be saying,” Sinatra sang.
“You both answered the special ad. All the girls I brought here did. But Erin wrote to one of my other ads too, the one I showed the FBI agent.”
“You’re very clever, Charley.”
“Do you like the spike heels I bought for Erin? They match her dress.”
“I know they do.”
“I was at the Playwrights’ Benefit too. I recognized Erin from the picture she sent me and I looked up her name on the seating list to make sure I was right. She was sitting four tables away. It was fate that I already had a date to meet her the very next night.”
Step. Step. Glide. Turn.
“How did you know Erin’s shoe size? My size?”
“It was so easy. I bought Erin’s shoes in different sizes. I wanted just that pair for her. Remember last week when you had a pebble in your boot and I helped you take it out? I saw your size then.”
“And the others?”
“Girls like to be flattered. I’d say, ‘You have such pretty feet. What size are you?’ Sometimes I bought shoes specially. Other times I’d take them from the ones I already had.”