Selena was clearly capable of shooting her without the least hesitation. It wouldn't do her any good to scream or fight if it only got her killed. No, Teri determined, she didn't want to die. Better to go along with Selena's plans until a fairly safe escape presented itself. Perhaps she could jump out of the car along the way...
"You drive," Selena ordered, breaking into Teri's thoughts and pushing her toward the passenger door. "Get in and scoot over." She opened the door and pushed Teri forward.
Teri winced at the increased pressure of Selena's fingers around her arm when she was too slow to respond. "But I'm so tired. Remember, you woke me up. I might fall asleep if I'm driving."
Selena paused for only a second before giving Teri another shove that got them both into the car. "I'll keep you awake. I would have let you sleep on the way, but you showed me that I can't trust you right now. If I drive, you might try to jump out of the car, and you could hurt yourself. I can't let you do that. Until I have time to help you understand, I'll have to keep a very close eye on you." She reached into her purse on the floor and handed Teri the car keys.
Just before Selena pulled the door shut and the overhead interior light went off, Teri saw the fresh stains. She told herself they could be from a paint spill... anything but what she instantly knew had caused them. Her hands hovered over the leather-covered steering wheel, but she gagged at the thought of placing them over the same spots where Selena's hands had been... spots stained with Drew's blood. Dear God, help me!
Selena poked Teri's shoulder. "Drive."
Teri tried to put the keys in the ignition, but her hands were shaking too badly. "I... I can't..."
With a cluck of her tongue, Selena grabbed the keys away, inserted the proper one and turned on the engine. "Stop wasting time. Let's go."
Taking a ragged breath, Teri forced her fingers to close over the steering wheel and gearshift, and she obeyed. She felt her mind shutting down from the reality of what was happening to her and knew she couldn't afford that luxury any more than she could afford to get hysterical. Selena had prevented every escape attempt Teri had thought of, and because of her bungled attempts, Selena had no intention of letting down her guard for a while. The only thing Teri could do was hope to convince her that she understood Selena's good intentions as soon as possible. Then perhaps Selena would let her go without a struggle. Unfortunately, though Selena was obviously insane, she was also extremely intelligent, and Teri knew it would take more than a promise of good behavior to wipe out the fact that she had pulled a gun on her... or had broken other promises in the past.
Earlier, Selena had told her they were headed to Ulster County, but now she would reveal exact directions only as Teri needed to know them. In spite of what she told Selena, not only was Teri wide awake, but she was noting everything about the route they were taking so that she could relay it to the police later. Thus Teri made no attempt to converse with Selena, and as they were driving north on the Taconic State Parkway, Selena limited her comments to directions.
"Get off on Interstate 84 and take the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge across the Hudson River. From there you go north on the New York Thruway."
Teri nodded her comprehension, but out of the corner of her eye she saw Selena turn around and shake her head.
"I don't think so," Selena said looking behind them.
"What? Did I miss a turn?" Teri asked, lifting her foot off the gas.
"No. Keep going the way I said. I was talking to Juliette."
Juliette? Teri remembered Selena referring to Juliette after she had awakened her. But there was no one else in the car.
"She wants to meet you, but I think introductions should wait until we get home."
Teri immediately assumed Juliette was some imaginary friend of Selena's, such as a child would have. It occurred to her that if she pretended to see Juliette, she might convince Selena she understood that much faster. "I'd like to meet Juliette now, Selena."
"All right, but don't miss the exit." Selena leaned over the seat and brought Juliette up to sit on her lap.
Teri glanced at the old doll and back to the road. It may have been a pretty plaything at one time, but that had to have been long, long ago. The blonde nylon curls still had a shine to them, but the painted porcelain face was faded and smudged. There was a jagged crack down one cheek, and the movable eyelid on that side hung at half-mast. Teri imagined the lacy evening gown was once quite lovely, but now it was stained, mended, and yellowed with age.
"You don't hear her, do you?" Selena asked in a sad tone. "I had hoped you would."
Teri thought of lying, but there was no way she could pretend to have a conversation with Juliette if Selena truly thought she could hear the doll speak. "I'm sorry. I suppose you'll have to tell me what she says. She's quite... beautiful."
Selena's smile lit up her previously sour face. "Yes, she is. Juliette's the most beautiful doll in the whole world. My mother told me that when she gave her to me on my fifth birthday. Mommy said Juliette would help me not to be so afraid."
Teri noted the changes in Selena's voice and posture as soon as she mentioned her mother. She even thought she saw Selena put her thumb in her mouth, but a second later Selena straightened up and put Juliette on the seat between them. Using the gun as a pointer, she made the formal introductions. "Juliette, this is Teri. Teri, Juliette. Juliette said to tell you you're beautiful too."
Teri tried to remember what Selena had said about Juliette before, but she had been too horrified by everything else Selena had said to recall.
"She's not mad at me anymore," Selena said, triggering Teri's memory. "She said everyone breaks the rules sometimes, and it all worked out okay anyway."
Teri clenched her jaws and squeezed the steering wheel to keep from doing or saying anything to alert Selena to her true reaction to her words. Two, possibly three men were dead by her hand, and she believed "it all worked out okay"?
"Juliette knows I've always listened to her before. I do everything exactly like she says and nothing ever goes wrong."
Teri's heart tightened in her chest as she analyzed Selena's words. Juliette—the doll—told Selena what to do and how to do it. She didn't need to be a psychiatrist to understand that Juliette was some evil part of Selena's personality. But she thought that kind of situation occurred only in horror movies or sensationalist tabloids. She wondered if it meant that eliminating Juliette would prevent Selena from hurting anyone else, herself included, or if it would cause Selena to lose completely whatever slight grip on reality she still had.
For the remainder of the trip, Teri had to pay close attention to Selena's instructions. Once they had left the thruway at Kingston and driven beyond that city, there were no more streetlights and the winding two-lane roads seemed narrower than they were because of all the trees along the sides. Teri noted each turn she made that took her further away from civilization, but it soon became obvious that Selena was guiding her by landmarks rather than street signs. As dark as it was, Teri realized Selena could be directing her in circles. She soon began to doubt whether she would be able to find her way back to Kingston.
Checking her watch, Teri noticed it had taken about an hour and a half to get to Kingston from White Plains, and they'd been driving about a half hour since. They were near water now. She caught glimpses between the trees of what looked like a lake, but which lake, she had no idea, as she had never been to Ulster County before. Occasionally she saw a house or a light through the trees that indicated a building off the road somewhere, but they were few and far between.
"Stop!" Selena ordered. "Back up slowly."
Teri did as she was told, but had no idea why. There had been nothing on either side of the road but pine trees and weeping willows for at least the last five minutes.
"There!" Selena said, pointing to Teri's left. "Turn up that drive."
Teri squinted at the overgrown dirt path that didn't resemble any of the driveways they had passed along the way, and there was no sign o
f any house beyond the woods, but she turned and eased the Cadillac up the hill, over the ruts and through the drooping tree branches. Another minute passed before the headlights illuminated a small, single-story redwood house.
"Pull around to the back of the house," Selena told Teri.
Selena took the keys from Teri as soon as she turned off the engine, but Teri watched her drop them in her purse and decided it would not be that hard to get hold of them again. She just had to stay awake longer than Selena, which shouldn't be too hard, since Teri had already had a little nap and was far too overwrought to fall asleep under the same roof as a murderess.
Though Selena kept the gun pointed at Teri as they walked around to the front of the house, she no longer bothered to hold onto her. They both knew Teri wouldn't get far if she tried to run.
"It's probably a little dusty," Selena said as she unlocked the door and held it open for Teri. "But I'll have it good as new in a few days, you'll see."
Teri walked inside and was surprised a second later when a light clicked on.
Selena switched on several more lamps around the room. "I never turned off the electricity. Tomorrow I'll go get groceries someplace where they won't know me. But for tonight I can at least offer you some tea."
Teri looked around the living room. The sofa and chairs had been covered by sheets, but the tables, lamps, and knickknacks were covered with dust and spider webs. She followed Selena to the kitchen and stood by as Selena tucked the gun into the waistband of her skirt, then removed the sheet that was covering the sofa.
"Have a seat. It'll only take a minute to wash out a teapot and two cups."
The suggestion of tea made Teri aware of what she hadn't taken care of before they'd left her house hours ago. "I need to use your bathroom. All right?"
"Sure. It's just past the living room in the hall. There's only one."
Since Selena suddenly seemed to trust her again, Teri gave a moment's thought to running right then, but Selena had her purse with the car keys in the kitchen. If she had to leave on foot, she'd have a better chance after Selena was asleep. Besides, she really did need to use the bathroom.
There were also two bedrooms off the hallway, and Teri took a peek inside each. One clearly belonged to an adult, the other, a little girl. When she saw the photograph on the wall of two adults and a white-haired child, Teri knew they were in Selena's mother's house. She didn't dare dwell on the fact that Selena's room was still decorated for a very young girl, even though she had left this place only a year ago. Nor did she want to think about why Selena would have left the utilities on, as if she intended to return all along.
By the time Teri wiped up the bathroom enough to use it and returned to the kitchen, Selena had teabags steeping in two cups of steaming water.
"Feel better?" Selena asked cheerfully.
Teri did her best to answer likewise. "Yes, but I am awfully tired. I'll help you change the linens—"
"No need. You just have your tea and I'll get our beds ready. I already added sugar to your cup, but I won't have milk until tomorrow."
"This is fine," Teri said, straining her teabag, then taking a sip to prove her words. She looked at the label, satisfied to see that this was ordinary black tea, full of caffeine, and not a nice, relaxing herbal. But as the minutes stretched by, she finished her tea and found it relaxing her anyway. When Selena came back to the kitchen, Teri didn't need to fake the yawn that she had planned to convince Selena it was time to go to sleep. She could barely keep her eyes open.
"Well, look at you!" Selena said with a laugh. "If I'd taken two more minutes, you'd have been asleep where you're sitting. Go on. You can have my mother's bed."
Teri got up from the chair, but swayed back and forth before taking a step toward the bedroom. As Selena gripped her elbow, Teri told herself she had better take another short nap while waiting for her kidnapper to fall asleep.
Selena helped Teri to bed, then smiled as she watched her dear friend drift into a deep sleep. A half hour later Selena had brought everything in from the car and put it all away in the proper places. Everything would be ready when Teri woke in the morning. Selena couldn't guess how long she would sleep. The pill she'd crushed in Teri's teacup was one the doctor had prescribed for her mother last year, but that woman had been much bigger than Teri.
Taking Juliette into her mother's bedroom, Selena whispered, "See how happy she is now? Nothing bad will ever happen to her again."
And no one will ever again come between us.
"Doesn't she remind you of Mommy lying there?"
Before Tom, Juliette amended. We were all happy before he twisted her mind. Remember how we used to cuddle together?
Selena smiled, letting the pleasant memory warm her. "I don't think Teri would mind, just for this one night." Carefully, Selena crawled onto the bed, curled up behind Teri, and hugged her close.
It was just like having Mommy back again.
Chapter 20
Captain Benjamin Hart rarely read the reams of reports that flowed through the police station, unless a felony was involved or one of White Plains more public citizens required special handling. And, under normal circumstances, he would never see a report from another city's police department. The papers handed to him the moment he arrived that morning were definitely an exception to the norm. The incident had occurred in Tarrytown, not White Plains, and the victim was no one special in the usual sense of the word, but his name demanded Hart's personal attention nonetheless.
Rather than dealing strictly in hard facts, a good detective also relied on his curiosity, intuition and blind luck. The only reason Hart had received this particular report was because his day-shift desk sergeant, Ross Parkins, was curious, intuitive and married to a Tarrytown police officer. Rumor had it Parkins was bucking for detective.
Hart knew Parkins had been studying Kidder's case files on his own time. He didn't consider whether he'd been discussing them with his wife. She'd been working the desk at her precinct last night when the fingerprint identification had come through on a mugging victim. His name had rung a bell and she'd called her husband. Because of Hart's friendship with Detective Kidder, Parkins thought the captain would want to know about the coincidences he was certain were tied together somehow.
Rico Gambini had been with a blonde just before his murder.
Drew Marshall accompanied Mrs. Gambini to the police station to report her missing husband and helped her look through the mug shots. Hart added his own note that Marshall was also with Mrs. Gambini the day he went by her house.
Detective Kidder was investigating the Gambini murder when he was killed.
Detective Kidder's tape-recorded notes, found in his house, indicated his conviction that Drew Marshall and Teri Gambini were lovers and had plotted her husband's murder. Because Kidder's theory was completely unsupported, except in his biased mind, and because the evidence pointed so strongly to the mob, the notes had been dismissed.
Drew Marshall was assaulted and robbed after having dinner with a tall platinum blonde, possibly the same person driving the car that several witnesses saw speeding away from the scene.
Benjamin Hart decided young Parkins' instincts were valid. There was a connection here, and it wasn't just the mention of a blonde. Teri Gambini was sitting right in the middle of the coincidence pie. Either she was guilty as hell, or she was the next one due to become a victim.
Although it went against policy to interfere in a case that was out of their jurisdiction, because of the coincidences and Parkins' good work, he ordered the man to follow up on Marshall's assault. Normally, Hart wouldn't be involved at all, but Bill Kidder had been a good friend for many years and Hart still held himself partly to blame for his death.
As he was going over Parkins' analysis of the three cases, the sergeant himself appeared in the office doorway.
"Excuse me, sir?"
Hart waved the slightly built redhead toward a chair on the other side of his desk. "What have you got?"
"Drew Marshall's out of surgery, but he's listed as critical. The knife punctured a lung. The only reason he's alive is that the knife wasn't pulled out... plus, the paramedics got him to the hospital in record time. The nurse I spoke to said it's the head injuries that are the real problem now. She couldn't give me any guess about when he might regain consciousness."
Hart grimaced. Drew Marshall knew the explanations behind the coincidences and might not live to reveal them. "Anything more on the blonde or the white car that sped away from the scene?"
"Nothing yet, but I'll hear if Tarrytown's detectives uncover anything more. The woman was apparently very striking, because several people gave similar descriptions of her, which as you know rarely happens. Unfortunately, the only information the witnesses agreed on about the car was that it was white, bigger than a compact and had a New York tag. No one caught the numbers or saw who was inside."
"Okay. How about Teri Gambini?"
"I had a patrol car go by her house. There's a car in the driveway registered in her name, but no one answered the door, and all I got was her voice mail when I called. I thought I'd go by later today and, if there's still no sign of her, I'll talk to the neighbors."
"Good. Just keep me advised." As Parkins got up to leave, Hart told him, "You're going to make a good detective, son. Probably as good as Bill Kidder ever was, and that's high praise, coming from me."
Parkins' freckled face pinkened a bit, and Hart thought the young man grew an inch taller as he exited the room.
* * *
Awareness crept into Teri's consciousness one heartbeat at a time. Her mouth was so dry her tongue stuck to her teeth. As soon as she tried to move, she became aware of throbbing pain in her shoulder and back. For a second she thought she had fallen asleep on the day bed in her studio again. Then she remembered.
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