Mrs. Collins marched back to the kitchen, muttering to herself. Paige emitted a few more ragged sobs, then lapsed into hiccups and sniffles. She turned on the television and sat down on the floor two feet away from the screen. Mrs. Collins had warned that if she sat so close, television radiation would blind her, but at the moment she didn’t care. She was miserable. Ripley, usually not one for cuddling, butted her with his head a couple of times before curling up in her lap and purring with abandon when she stroked his back.
Paige was just regaining control when the doorbell rang. Maybe that was Natalie, she thought hopefully. Maybe Natalie knew she was grounded and her world was ending and she’d come again with her guitar for a lesson. That would be great!
She gently scooted Ripley off her lap and ran to the door. She swung it open. A figure smiled. “Hello, Paige.”
It was dark. It had begun to drizzle. The person had pulled up the hood of a poncho.
“Hi,” Paige managed to say, recognition flashing in her eyes. Shock and fear coursed through her, but she smiled and tried to look innocent. “I’ll go get my daddy,” she improvised. “He’s in the kitchen. With his gun.”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” A sigh. “What a shame you had to recognize me.”
II
Jimmy Jenkins sat behind the oak tree on the Meredith lawn. He’d dodged through backyards and over fences to reach the house and avoid the cops that had been posted outside his house and Paige’s after Natalie St. John told the sheriff she thought the killer had seen Paige at the Saunders house. He was taking a chance, but he hadn’t seen Paige since Thursday night. He wasn’t supposed to see her for a month, which was crummy. Not because she was his girlfriend or he missed her or anything. Just because they’d never gotten a chance to discuss their daring adventure.
His parents were still furious. He wasn’t allowed to leave the Jenkins property, but his parents were focused on his little sister Ivy and his little brothers Jason and Joel, who’d caught her cold, so he’d taken advantage of the situation to visit Paige. He had it all planned. As soon as he saw her bedroom light come on, he’d throw little pebbles against the window like always. She’d shimmy down the tree and they’d get to have a good, long talk about Alison Cosgrove and how they’d been responsible for saving her life from the mad killer, even if nobody would give them any credit.
He’d gone out of his house the back way and traveled a circuitous route to the Meredith home, dodging the watchdog cop out front. To occupy his time until he saw her bedroom light, he’d brought a book, Treasure Island, which Paige said he’d like, even though he’d never admit to her he was reading it. He’d reached page ten when a cool drizzle started. He hunched up against the tree trunk, protected by the thick limbs.
A few minutes later a blue car pulled up to the Meredith house. He laid the book aside and peered at the person climbing out, but the hood of a dark green poncho prevented him from seeing a face. The person walked up to the cop in the cruiser, said a few words, and the cop nodded, like it was okay for the person to go to the door. At least it wasn’t the sheriff returning home, Jimmy thought. That would have sent him scurrying. And it wasn’t Natalie. Wrong car. Must be a friend of Mrs. Collins.
III
“Paige, who’s there?” Mrs. Collins called as she passed from the dining room into the living room. Paige couldn’t answer. The figure stood in the shadow beside the stairs, a hand pressed firmly over Paige’s mouth as a sinewy arm held her body like a vise. “If it’s that Jenkins boy, your father will skin you alive! You know you’re not allowed—”
Mrs. Collins crossed the threshold into the entrance hall. The figure stepped forward. Mrs. Collins’s eyes flew wide before a brass plant holder slammed against the side of her head. She stood still for a moment, her mouth a tiny, surprised “O” as she crashed forward onto her face.
“Such an annoying woman. At least she’ll shut up for a while. Maybe for good. And now for you.”
Paige’s rapid heartbeat seemed to shake her entire body. This was it. This was what she’d feared since the night the hooded figure had looked right into her eyes at the Saunders house. Now out would come a knife and slash! She’d been worried about her mother being alone. Maybe she wouldn’t be alone much longer.
The figure took a step away from the railing, dragging Paige along. Suddenly Paige heard a yowl and a black missile flew off the newel post onto her captor. A scream of rage filled the entrance hall. The arm released Paige, but she couldn’t move when she saw Ripley hurled against a wall. “Ripley!” she shrieked. The cat lay motionless as the arm snaked around her again. “You killed him!”
“I didn’t mean to.” Genuine regret. “He might be alive, but if he is, one of our local vets will have to fix him up.” A low, creepy laugh. “I’m afraid Natalie St. John won’t be around, Paige, because you’re going to help me lure her to her death.”
IV
“Ripley!”
Jimmy heard the shriek and jumped up. What was going on? What had happened to the cat?
He wanted to go to the door, but of course he couldn’t. Maybe it wasn’t any big deal. Maybe Mrs. Collins had just stepped on his tail or swatted at him or something and Paige got all bent out of shape—
But he’d heard the terror in her voice.
Jimmy crept from the protection of the oak tree and slunk along the side of the house. He couldn’t go up on the porch and look in the big picture window, but if he remembered from the two times he’d been inside the house, there was a little window that leaked light into the entrance hall—
A little window that was about two feet above his head. “Damn it all,” he swore in his best imitation of his father. He looked around. Where was the wooden milk carton always so conveniently present in the movies? While he was pondering this question, he heard the front door open. He shrank against the house, watching while the person in a poncho led Paige out to the police cruiser. The window came down. The poncho person’s hand shot out, and the cop’s head sagged. Then the person dragged Paige away from the cruiser and made her get into the blue car.
Jimmy’s jaw sagged as the car pulled away. For a moment he stood still, stunned. Then he raced to the front of the house, up the porch steps, and in the door. Mrs. Collins lay in the hall, blood pouring from her head. Ripley was a crumpled black lump by the wall. Jimmy dashed for the phone.
“I gotta talk to the sheriff,” he yelped thirty seconds later. “It’s an emergency, I’m tellin’ you. Somebody took his daughter out of her house and drove away with her.” He paused. “This isn’t a joke. I’m tellin’ the truth, I swear. It was a blue car and the license plate started with 3R.” His voice rose and shook in agitation. “Listen, you’ve gotta tell Sheriff Meredith, because this person had a gun to Paige’s head!”
V
True to her word, Natalie had stayed home since finding Jeff Lindstrom, only taking Blaine out once when reporters disappeared to file stories. Andrew had called at five o’clock. “There was a three-car pileup. I have two more surgeries.”
“Are you the only surgeon in Port Ariel?” Natalie had asked only half playfully. Hundreds of times in her life he’d called to say he wouldn’t be home for hours.
“At the moment I feel like I’m the only surgeon within a thousand miles. Keep the doors locked, honey. I have to go.”
By nine-thirty she had reread a third of Wuthering Heights, Paige having started her on a Brontë kick, washed and dried a load of laundry, and was in the middle of her favorite Saturday night program when the phone rang. She clicked the MUTE button on the television and listened to the answering machine.
“Natalie? Are you there? It’s Paige.” The young voice vibrated with fear. “Natalie, if you’re there, please answer.”
Natalie lifted the receiver, cutting off the machine. “Paige, what’s wrong?”
“I . . . I need you to come get me.”
“Come get you? Where? What’s wrong?”
A tiny sob. “I’m real scared.
I think maybe Mrs. Collins is dead.” A bigger sob. “And Ripley, too.”
“Dead! Paige, are you home?”
“N-no. I’m at this spooky place. It’s old and empty and . . . what?” Natalie heard another voice. “It’s called The Blue Lady.”
“The Blue Lady! What on earth are you doing there?”
“Please come. You have to come and you can’t call the police and you have to come alone or . . . or . . .”
“Or I’ll kill her,” a ragged voice said. Then the line went dead.
Natalie sat frozen for an instant. This was not real. This was some silly prank Jimmy had dreamed up.
But Jimmy wasn’t cruel. Impetuous and reckless, but not cruel. He wanted to be like Nick when he grew up. He would never pull such a malicious prank.
She glanced at the notepad on the table beside the phone where she’d jotted down Nick’s phone number. She dialed. The phone rang ten times. “I think Mrs. Collins is dead,” she could hear Paige saying. At nine-thirty either Mrs. Collins or Nick would be home with Paige, but no one answered.
She dialed 911, asked that an ambulance be dispatched to Meredith’s address, gave her name, then hung up when asked to repeat the information. She didn’t have time to waste. Next she called police headquarters. A pleasant-voiced woman answered. No, the sheriff wasn’t in. No, Ted Hysell wasn’t in. Would she like to speak with another deputy?
Natalie hesitated. Going to The Blue Lady alone was dangerous, but alerting a deputy who might arrive with the siren screaming could mean death for Paige. She calmly said she wasn’t in need of help and hung up, wondering whom she could call instead. Lily? No. Much as she hated to admit it, she had doubts about Lily. Her father? He was in surgery. Harvey Coombs? Ridiculous.
Tearing through her purse looking for her car keys, she cursed the fact that there was no one to help her. Blaine followed her to the door. “I can’t even take you this time,” Natalie said. “A big dog might spook whoever has Paige.”
But what would she do? she asked herself as she wheeled desperately out of the driveway and headed the short distance to The Blue Lady. She had no idea whom she was up against. And the gun! She’d been so flustered, she hadn’t even retrieved her gun from the suitcase. She almost turned and went back for it, but there wasn’t time. Besides, what if the killer searched her as soon as she entered The Blue Lady? Finding the gun could spark a violent reaction, and Paige’s life was at stake. No, she’d face this without police, without a weapon. She had no choice.
Darkness shrouded The Blue Lady dance pavilion. Over the years, owners of the hotel had hauled in truckloads of sand to create a beach along the lakefront. No one had bothered since the fire in the seventies, though, and now the narrow, eroding strip of sand looked desolate bathed in weak moonlight and cool drizzle. It was almost impossible to imagine this dismal place as a scene of fun and glamour. Natalie had the sudden, chilling impression it had sat brooding here all these years, waiting for something awful to happen inside its rotting walls.
She got out of the car and glanced around. Tattered clouds floated across the moon. Off to the side of the building sat a car mostly hidden by shadows. She could tell that it was blue, but she didn’t make an effort to identify it. What was the point? Yellowish light from the sodium vapor lights of the nearby convenience store drifted dimly over the portico of the pavilion. Business was slow at the 7-Eleven tonight. Two cars and nobody entering or leaving. No one to see her go into The Blue Lady. No one to call the police. Maybe that was good.
Natalie had forgotten to put on a sweater or windbreaker. The cool, damp air clung to her bare arms; mist coated her face. She trembled, but she didn’t know if it was from the sixty-degree temperature or from fear.
She had no idea what she would do when she entered the pavilion. Maybe her mere presence would be enough and the killer would let Paige go because her purpose as bait had been fulfilled.
But Paige could identify her captor. The chance of the killer letting her go was zero. And what could Natalie do about it? She was unarmed and help was not on the way. The killer had been playing games with her for days. Tragically, Paige had been drawn into the game.
The padlock hung loose. Natalie drew a deep breath and pushed open the door. “Paige?” Nothing. What had she expected? That the child would run into her arms and they could return to the safety of the car? She took two more steps into the cavernous room. Three candles burned on the dais. A voice floated out of the near-darkness. “Close the door behind you.”
Natalie stepped back, never taking her eyes from the candles, and pushed shut the door. “Now what?”
“Come to the dais.”
The dais with its three candles looked far away. She walked slowly, glancing up at the mirrored ball throwing glittering reflections from the candle flames onto the empty tables and walls. A faint scent of roses floated from the candles. The night she had followed Blaine to The Blue Lady and heard the voice so like Tamara’s threatening to kill her, she had smelled roses. But tonight not even the sweet floral aroma could hide the smell of mildew and decay hovering in the abandoned pavilion.
Natalie reached the dais. “All right. I’m here. Why don’t you show yourself?”
A low snicker. “I’ll be happy to.” A figure stepped from the shadows, dragging along a whimpering, terrified Paige. “Good evening, Natalie.” Ruth Meadows said.
20
Natalie stood stunned, her mouth so dry she couldn’t swallow. She thought she’d been stupefied to come home from school to find her mother missing. She thought she’d been flabbergasted to walk in on Kenny making love to another woman. None of those things compared to finding the bodies of Tamara and Jeff. And even those grisly discoveries didn’t cause the immediate, profound shock of realizing Ruth Meadows was a murderer.
“I don’t understand,” Natalie said stupidly.
Ruth smiled. “Then I did a good job.” She wore a dark poncho with the hood down. Her short, silver hair shone in the candlelight. She held Paige close. The child’s lower arms disappeared behind her back. Her wrists were tied or handcuffed. “You never guessed who I really am,” Ruth said.
Natalie stared at her, images and phrases flashing in her mind. Their gazes met and held, one aqua and glinting, the other dark and steady. “You told me to have golden dreams,” Natalie said slowly. “Viveca said Eugene Farley told Alison to have golden dreams. You’re Constance Farley.”
The silver-haired woman nodded. “Right you are, dear. It’s a shame you didn’t realize it sooner.”
“You can’t be Constance Farley. Nick talked to her in Knoxville.”
“The sheriff talked to a woman who claimed to be Constance Farley.”
“But the police questioned her neighbors.”
“Natalie, you’re a bright girl. Use your head. How long has this woman lived in Knoxville? Six months. She introduced herself to her neighbors as Constance Farley. They had no reason to doubt her.”
Her voice was so cold, her grip on the child so tight. “Why don’t you let Paige go, Constance? I’m the one you want, not her.”
“Now you know I can’t let her go,” the woman who was Constance Farley said in a patronizing voice. “Besides, there’s something I want you to do.” She nodded at an object on the floor near Natalie. “My cell phone. I want you to call your father and tell him to come here.”
“Here? Why?”
“Because he’s going to watch me kill you.”
Paige whimpered. Natalie stiffened. “I will not call my father.”
Constance’s hand raised to Paige’s head. She held a gun. “You will call him or I’ll shoot her.”
“You won’t,” Natalie said desperately.
“Won’t I? Don’t forget Warren and Charlotte and Alison and Jeff. And of course your dear friend Tamara.” Constance paused. “You know, I actually liked Tamara, but I still slit her throat and left her to bleed to death on a dirt road. So don’t tell me what I won’t do.”
Natalie glar
ed into the unflinching aqua eyes. Had they looked so hard all along and she simply hadn’t noticed? Or was the difference that Constance Farley gazed openly at her now, not disguised behind the mask of sweet Ruth Meadows?
Natalie picked up the cell phone and punched in her home number. What if her father was still at the hospital, perhaps in surgery? Would Constance hold her and Paige prisoners until he finished? If so, would Natalie get a chance to overpower her? Doubtful. Constance had a gun to the child’s head. Natalie had nothing except her wits, which at the moment seemed paralyzed.
On the eighth ring her father picked up, sounding breathless. “Dad.”
“Just walked in the door.” He paused. “What’s wrong? You sound strange.”
She swallowed. “I’m in trouble. Actually, Paige and I are in trouble.”
“Trouble?” Andrew repeated. She heard the dread in his voice. “Just tell me.”
“First of all, you must promise me you won’t call the police. If you do, Paige and I will die.”
“Die? Die? What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Dad, don’t shout. Listen. Do not, under any circumstances, call the police.”
He took a deep, shaking breath. “All right. No police. I swear. Now what is this about?”
“The murderer kidnapped Paige. She used her as bait to get me to come to The Blue Lady.”
“The Blue Lady!”
“Yes. She wants you to come here, too.”
“She?”
Natalie’s eyes flicked to Constance’s. “Dad, it’s Ruth.”
“Ruth?” he said blankly. “Ruth Meadows?”
“Yes.”
He emitted a little gust of air. “Natalie, this isn’t funny.”
“She isn’t really Ruth Meadows, Dad, she’s Constance Farley.”
“Constance Farley? Eugene Farley’s mother? Someone is pulling a stupid joke on you. I have seen Constance Farley.”
Don’t Close Your Eyes Page 34