Forever... by Jude Deveraux
“I was awful?” Adam asked, looking at her in disbelief. “Don’t tell me that you got into a car alone with that grease jockey and—”
“You are jealous!” she said, wide-eyed.
“I am not—” Adam began, then stopped. They were standing in the shade in a nice residential neighborhood, and behind them was a low concrete wall, tall hedges above it. Backing up, Adam sat down on the wall. “All right, you’re here, so at least I’ll be able to see that you don’t get into trouble. So maybe we should work together and—”
“Excuse me?” Darci said, not yet willing to forgive him for being so sneaky. It was one thing to do something on the spur of the moment, but to make a plan, then deliberately lie....Well,it was the difference between manslaughter and murder one. “What was that word you just said?” she asked, putting her hand to her ear. “I didn’t catch it. It starts with a t. Together? You and me?”
“Very funny,” Adam said. “You want to help me, or you want to make jokes?”
“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
Adam narrowed his eyes at her.
“All right,” she said, giving a sigh.”What do you propose we do? What were you planning to do alone?” She couldn’t resist one last jab.
“I thought I’d wing it, but now that I’m here, I have no idea how to go about this. Unless....”
“Yes?”
“You’re the same age, more or less, as the girl who died, so maybe you could tell her sister that you were a friend of the dead girl’s. You could act as though you hadn’t heard that she was dead, then you could ask questions. Think you can act that well?”
“I had you going this morning, didn’t I?” Darci asked, smiling. “You believed every word I said, didn’t you?”
“Of course not,” Adam said, but he was looking over her head and not meeting her eyes. “I just....”When he looked back at her, she was smiling smugly.”You keep up with that attitude and I’ll call your little octopus boyfriend and tell him to come and pick you up.”
For a moment, Darci paled.”You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
“You believed me?” he asked in the same tone that she’d used when she’d asked if he’d believed her about his being boring.
“Okay,” Darci said, “that’s one for you. So what do we do? I’m to pretend to be the girl’s friend. And you? Who are you? My father?”
“Keep this up and I won’t give you the present I bought you.”
At that Darci closed her mouth and kept it shut.
Smiling, Adam outlined the plan he’d come up with in the last few minutes. Actually, now that he thought of it, it was much better that Darci was here, as he thought that the sister of the dead girl would more likely talk to Darci than to him.
“You ready?” he asked when he’d finished outlining the plan.
Darci nodded, and they started walking toward the corner to turn down Ethan Way.”Did you really get me a present?” she asked softly.
For a moment Adam was embarrassed. Why had he purchased her a gift? At the time he’d bought it, he thought it might be a parting gift. He’d been thinking that Darci was going to walk out of his life forever—not that he would have allowed her to do that. There was too much danger for her to be unprotected. But he’d thought she wanted to get away from him.
“Actually, I got it for me,” he said gruffly. “Out of self-defense. There may be occasions when I have to arrange to meet you at a specific time, so you have to know what time it is.”
“You bought me a watch?” she asked softly, looking up at him.
Shrugging, as though it were no big deal, Adam pulled the little box out of his jacket pocket and handed it to her. They kept walking, with Adam watching Darci out of the corner of his eye.
When she opened the box and saw the beautiful gold watch inside, she halted. Standing there, she looked down at the watch in its case and didn’t move. She didn’t walk, but she also didn’t seem to continue breathing. If she’d been frozen, she couldn’t have been more still.
“Like it?” Adam asked, smiling, as he stopped to look down at her. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Darci?” his voice full of amusement. Still, she didn’t answer but just stood there staring at the watch. “Darci, are you all right?” he asked, this time with concern in his voice. Then he saw that the color was draining out of her face. He’d once told her that people turn white before fainting, and that’s what Darci was doing now. As he watched, her knees seemed to give way; she was sinking to the ground!
In one swift gesture, Adam picked her up before she hit the ground. His arms went under her legs and back; then, as he was holding her, he looked in disbelief as her head lolled to one side in a faint.
But she was still clutching the box that held the watch in a grip of death.
“Is she all right?” came a woman’s voice, and Adam turned to see a woman of about his age standing there— and, instantly, Adam knew who she was. The photos of the girls who’d been reported missing in Camwell were burned into his mind, and this woman was an older version of one of the missing girls.
“You’re Susan Fairmont, aren’t you?” Adam asked quietly. “You’re Laurie’s sister.” He nodded down to Darci, lying limp in his arms. “She and your sister were friends, and she just found out about Laurie’s death.”
The woman seemed to consider this for a moment, and Adam could see that she was considering what to do—and a wave of guilt swept over him. How many sensation-seekers had tried to get close to her, to ask her questions about her dead sister?
“Come inside,” the woman said at last; then she led the way up the path into her house.
“The police said it wasn’t murder. They said that Laurie may have committed suicide,” Susan Fairmont said with bitterness in her voice, and her soft accent showed her southern origins. “Or maybe she fell asleep at the wheel of her car and that’s why it slammed into that tree.”
It was twenty minutes later, and they were inside Susan’s house, and surrounded by her Early American antiques. Darci and Adam were sitting on a sofa that could have been used in Williamsburg. In a wing chair across from them sat Susan, a cup and saucer in her hand. She had made them tea, serving it in a pretty floral pot. Darci was still white and still seemed a bit shaky on her feet, so Adam was sitting close to her in case she decided to pass out again. She was holding her cup of tea with one hand, but he knew that her left hand, tucked under her skirt, was still tightly clutching the box containing the watch he’d given her.
“You look a bit like Laurie,” Susan had said to Darci as soon as they were seated, and when all Darci did was nod, Susan had seemed satisfied with that—which furthered Adam’s feeling of guilt. They had lied to this nice, trusting woman.
“It was horrible,” Susan said, putting down her tea. “Laurie disappeared while photographing an old church in that odious town of Camwell, and, right away, the world assumed that it was witchcraft.”
“You don’t think it was?” Adam asked.
For several long moments, Susan sat there and looked at them in silence. She seemed to be considering something. “I don’t say what I think because, you see,” she said so softly they could barely hear her, “I’ve been warned. I’ve been warned to keep my mouth shut.”
“Who told you to do that?” Darci snapped, indignity in her voice, and at last coming alive.
“The police and a man from the FBI.”
“FBI?” Darci asked.”What did they have to do with this? Especially if the local police said they believed it was a suicide?” There was such a sneer in Darci’s voice that Adam looked at her in speculation. Was it real, or was she acting?
“I think the FBI’s been investigating the witches in Camwell for years, and—”
“Then why haven’t they done anything about them?” Darci asked quickly. “How many more people have to die before they actually stop them? Did you know that they have underground tunnels where they meet? Huge tunnels.”
Adam wanted to put
“Yes, of course I know,” Susan said. “Anyone who lives this close to Camwell knows that. It’s a big organization, and they recruit people to join them. The prospect of great power is a strong enticement.”
“So why doesn’t the FBI—”
It was Susan’s turn to interrupt. “Why don’t they go in there with bulldozers and level those tunnels and stop all this?”
“You can destroy the hive, but if you don’t get the queen, they’ll just rebuild,” Adam said softly.
“Are you an FBI agent?” Susan shot at him.
“He just thinks like one,” Darci said. “So what were you told not to say?”
Once again, Adam was astonished at Darci’s audacity. But this time he wasn’t shocked when Susan answered. He’d already seen that Darci had a way of getting close to people.
“I was told that my theories were my own personal opinions and that if I spread them around, it could cause a lot of problems. One of the sheriff’s deputies from Camwell asked me if my taxes were in order. The hint was that he’d see that I was audited.”
“Yeow!” Adam said.”Blackmail of the lowest kind. What American isn’t afraid of the IRS?”
“Exactly,” Susan said. “So I’ve kept my mouth shut for the whole two years since Laurie disappeared. And I’ve kept it shut since my sister’s body was found months later mangled in her car that was wrapped around a tree. They said that she’d probably met a man in Camwell, run off with him, and later she’d been driving and fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed.”
“Or maybe she’d broken up with the man and killed herself in despair,” Darci said softly.
“Exactly. That’s exactly what I was told. But I know Laurie. She was my sister! The evening she disappeared, she was planning to come here to my three-year-old’s birthday party. Laurie loves . . . loved her niece, my daughter, very much, and she wouldn’t have missed the party for anything. The party was hectic, sixteen three-and-under kids here, but, even so, I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t realize that my sister wasn’t here. Later, after my husband and I had cleaned up, I went in to check on my daughter in bed and she was crying. When I asked her why, she said it was because her Auntie Laurie hadn’t come to her party.”
When Susan stopped speaking, Darci asked softly, “What did you do?”
“I calmed my daughter down by making some promises that I haven’t been able to keep, but inside I was panicking. I knew that something was wrong. You can’t imagine how much Laurie and my daughter loved each other. I knew that only something horrible would have kept Laurie from being here on that special day. I grabbed the phone and called Laurie’s cell number, but there was no answer. That’s when I nearly went hysterical. John, my husband, said that maybe she’d left the phone in her car while she was in a hotel somewhere sleeping.”
“But you knew that wasn’t true,” Adam said.
“Yes. Laurie was a creature of habit. She loved schedules, and she knew where she was going to be when four months ahead of time. But then, she had to live like that if she was going to be the photographer that she wanted to be. She—” Breaking off, Susan got up, walked to a bookcase behind her and withdrew a tall, thin book, then turned and handed it to Darci. “You might have seen this.”
It was a big book called Time and Place, with photography and text by Laurie Handler.
“She said it was being in the right place at the right time,” Susan said, “and doing that took timing and it took giving up any thought of a personal life. My daughter and I were all that Laurie had outside of her work.”
Putting the big book down on the coffee table, Darci opened it. Inside were large black-and-white pictures, and each one told a story. The first one she opened to was of a couple holding each other in front of a house that had been destroyed by a hurricane. But in spite of the tragedy of the subject matter, there was a tiny sparkle on the man’s wedding ring, as though a ray of sunshine were hitting it and nothing else. The ring cut into the man’s flesh, showing that he’d had the ring on for a very long time. The ring led the viewer’s eye to the way the man and woman held each other, their faces hidden in shadow, with complete trust in each other, with complete familiarity.
Somehow, Laurie Handler had made the photo of a disaster into a portrait of love, real love, not lust, but the kind of love that endures forever. When Darci looked at it, she thought—and couldn’t resist sending to Adam—I wish someone loved me like that. Someone who loved me all of the time and forever. But when she looked up at Adam, he had that look on his face that told her to behave herself and tend to what they were there for.
All the pictures in the book were the same. No matter what the circumstances, no matter how bad the subject matter and the background, Laurie seemed to be saying that there was still love in the world, deep, enduring love.
“My goodness,” Darci said as she closed the book. “The pictures made me feel....”
“Like love conquers all?” Susan said bitterly.
“Well, yes, I guess so,” Darci said. “Is that bad?”
“It is if you’re an FBI agent. They said that these photos were proof that Laurie was a romantic, which was proof that she probably ran off with some man; therefore her disappearance probably had nothing to do with whether or not there’s a witches’ coven in Camwell.”
“But you know that isn’t true, don’t you?” Adam asked. “Do you know that just because Laurie wouldn’t have missed her niece’s birthday, or do you have some other reasons for believing there was foul play?”
“Laurie wasn’t a person to ‘run off’ with someone,” Susan said, then looked at Darci. “You knew her. Tell him what she was like.”
At that Darci was speechless. Turning, she blinked at Adam. Help me, she said to him in her mind. What do I say?
“Darci is—” “Oh, don’t bother to lie,” Susan said, waving her hand in dismissal. “I know neither of you knew Laurie. You’re not her type. Both of you are too pretty, too clean-cut, too average American. And you,” she said, looking at Adam, “reek with money. Am I right?”
At that Adam’s back went ramrod straight, but Darci laughed. “Masses of it,” she said happily. “He has loads and loads of it. Old money, and he—”
“Would you mind!” Adam said stiffly.
“It’s all right,” Susan said.”I don’t know exactly why I let you in except that you are my type. I figure that if you’ve performed this little charade to get in to see me, it must be personal.” She paused for a moment. “So what are you really after?” Susan asked.
Darci spoke first. “He wants to break up the witches. He has some personal reason that makes him want to do this, but he won’t tell me what it is. I haven’t been able to get it out of him yet, but—”
Adam cut her off. “What Darci means is that, yes, this is very personal to me. To us, actually, and we’d appreciate any help you can give us. If you could tell us anything that you know, or even something that you think might have had anything to do with Laurie’s death, we’d appreciate it. Anything at all.” He gave Darci a quelling look to tell her not to give away too much.
Darci ignored him. “Was there anything odd about Laurie’s left hand?”
At that Susan’s eyes widened and she drew in her breath sharply. “Her left hand was ...cut off in the car wreck. The police said that her hand went through the windshield and was severed. But they couldn’t find the hand. The police said that since the accident happened on a country road and it was hours before anyone found her, they thought that . . . that ...maybe wild dogs had....”
“I see,” Adam said.
Ask about the moles, Darci said in her mind.
“I’d like to ask you an odd question. Was there anything unusual about your sister’s left hand?”
“No,” Susan said, frowning. “She didn’t have an odd-shaped birthmark, didn’t have an extra little finger, if that’s what you mean. There was nothing strange about my sister at all. Except her tale
“I didn’t mean anything bad,” Adam persisted. “I meant—”
“Like this,” Darci said, as she held out her left hand, palm upward.
For a moment, Susan just sat there blinking, looking at Darci’s palm uncomprehendingly. Then she understood. “Yes,” she whispered. “Laurie had moles on her hand just like that. They made a duck.”
“What?” Adam asked.
“When we were kids, we used to take a pencil and connect the moles on Laurie’s hand, and one way we connected them,they formed a duck.We used to....”Trailing off, Susan’s eyes filled with tears. “It was silly, but we used to call her Ducky Doodle and she used to make a little duck noise like—” Susan stopped talking because she was choked by tears.
“I think we better go,” Adam said as he stood up, and Darci got up too.”Thank you,” he whispered, then he looked down at Darci and saw that she was staring hard at Susan, who had her head bent, a tissue to her eyes. Adam knew that Darci was using her power, her True Persuasion, on the woman, and his first thought was to do something to break her concentration to make her stop. But his intuition told him that whatever Darci was doing, she wouldn’t hurt Susan.
A moment later, Susan looked up and she was smiling, the tears still in her eyes, but the smile was real. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I just had the oddest thought that Laurie was here with me and she was telling me that she was all right. I wish I could believe that, and that....”
“What?” Adam asked as Darci was still staring hard.
“I wish that this could be stopped. Did you know that in the last four years some children have disappeared in the Camwell area as well as adult women? No one can prove that the witches had anything to do with them, but when I think of my little daughter and— Are you all right?” Susan asked Adam.
“Fine,” he said, but his voice was harsh. “Thank you for your time. Thank you for everything.” Abruptly, he turned and walked out the front door, leaving Darci behind.