“Why didn’t you taunt the others like you did me?”
“It would have made everyone too careful. Besides, I wanted to hurt you the most.”
The creak of a door. A soft whisper of air. Someone entering the building. “But how did you pull off the things you did to me?” Natalie asked loudly. “The anonymous phone calls, for instance.”
“I told you, Natalie, I knew Tamara. I’ve always been good at mimicry. I could imitate her voice. I called you the afternoon you found her body. I have call block—I knew you couldn’t call me right back. Then there was the day you supposedly received the call from Lily telling you to come to Tamara’s. I simply called your number using my cell phone while you were in the shower.”
“You tried to talk me out of going!”
“Natalie, I’d heard enough about you from your father to know arguing would only make you more determined to do as you pleased!” She frowned. “Of course, when I sent you to Tamara’s I didn’t expect Jeff to be wandering around there, but it was really an added bonus because he frightened you.”
“And the night I came here to the pavilion and you hid, saying you were Tamara and threatening to kill me? You couldn’t possibly have known I’d be walking along the shore that night.”
“That wasn’t planned. I was here working. I’d already finished with the ball”—she looked up with pleasure at the sparkling, mirrored ball—“but there were so many other things to do to restore this place. I’d been here for hours, working by candlelight, and I needed a breather, so I walked along the lake. You know I’d made friends with Blaine earlier. She saw me and started toward me. I had no good explanation for being on the shore so close to your home that late at night, so I ran for the pavilion. The dog chased me. I guess she thought it was a game. And then you came to the pavilion. I was flustered at first. I was trying to hide when I stepped on something and yelped. In you charged, wanting to help, Natalie to the rescue! So I decided to take advantage of the situation.” She laughed again, that awful, brittle sound with a note of hysteria capering underneath. “I never expected to almost get shot!”
“And you broke into our house.”
“I let myself in with keys. I’d stopped by your father’s office one day. The place was so busy no one noticed me poking through the desk drawers. I had copies of the keys made, then I made another little surprise visit and returned the keys. I went to your house several times before that night.”
Andrew had told her Ruth had only been to the house once, but the day Natalie met her she’d referred to the framed photo of Natalie and Clytemnestra in her father’s study. And the day she brought the cherry pie, she’d known which drawer the towels were kept. Why didn’t I notice these things? Natalie asked herself.
“Anyway, you shouldn’t be angry about the night I tore up your clothes and the picture and left the blood and the skull,” Constance went on. “I could have hurt Blaine, but I didn’t. I told you I love animals. But I’d frightened her. I made a point to never be around her again.”
“You were very clever, weren’t you . . . Constance?” Andrew said.
She looked up, but Natalie didn’t want to make any swift movement that might cause Constance to fire the gun held so close to Paige.
“Andrew,” Constance said calmly. “You don’t usually drive so slowly. You didn’t bring the police, did you? Or were you just considering whether or not you wanted to risk your life to save your daughter?”
“I won’t even answer the last question.” His deep voice echoed around the huge, empty room. “And I didn’t bring the police. Why are you doing this?”
“I already told Natalie. You’re going to watch me kill her.”
“You’re going to kill my daughter because your son killed himself?”
“You killed my son!” Constance flared. “You killed him on the operating table.”
“I did no such thing. I knew he was a lost cause as soon as I looked at him, but I tried.”
“That nurse said—”
“That nurse was furious with me over another matter. She was also out of her head over Eugene’s death.”
“You killed my son, Andrew. My only child. And now you’ll know the pain of losing your only child. An eye for an eye.”
“You’re very fond of quoting the Bible,” Natalie piped up. “Nice little quote you left at the murder scenes about their throats being an open tomb.”
“The quotation was apt. Max Bishop, Oliver Peyton, Viveca—none of them has ever done anything that’s good.”
“And my father has never done good?” Natalie asked.
“ ‘Their feet are swift to shed blood.’ Your father raced to the hospital to shed my son’s blood on his operating table.”
“That is a damned lie!” Natalie shouted, suddenly losing control. “You twist the words of the Bible to mean whatever suits you.”
“You shut up!” Constance raged. Her arm tightened around Paige and she shook the little girl with such ferocity that her head snapped back. Her neck, Natalie thought in horror. She’s going to break Paige’s neck.
Natalie had not been aware of her father stepping off to the right until she heard him yell, “Constance!”
The woman whirled. Paige swung to the side, no longer providing a shield. Something roared past Natalie’s ear and she caught a glimmer of muzzle flash. Constance jolted, her eyes flew wide, and liquid splattered from her right shoulder.
Dad has my gun! Natalie thought in the startled moment before Paige broke free of Constance’s grasp and lunged away. She managed two stumbling steps before her feet tangled and she crashed to the floor of the dais. Constance fought to regain her balance, waving the gun before she dropped it from her injured right arm. She kneeled and grabbed for the gun, her fingers curling around the grip.
“Dad, shoot her!” Natalie pleaded. He fired, but the shot flew wild. Constance laughed. Natalie shuddered at the laugh of a maniac.
A crash somewhere in the distance. A male voice yelling “Police! Freeze!” one second before a gunshot blasted through the room. Constance whirled again, gun raised, firing blindly before two more shots hit her. She crumpled into a heap with a soft laugh bubbling in her throat.
EPILOGUE
Natalie and Paige sat at the piano in the Meredith living room. Natalie finished Sarah McLachlan’s “I Will Remember You” with a slight catch in her voice. Paige looked up at her. “You were thinking about someone special, someone you won’t see again.” Natalie nodded, picturing Kenny’s handsome face. “Just like I won’t see my mommy.”
The pain Natalie felt knowing she would never return to Kenny couldn’t possibly compare with Paige’s pain over the death of her mother. Natalie put her arm around the child’s shoulders. “Paige, life is full of good-byes. They hurt. But life is also full of hellos.” She smiled. “If I hadn’t said goodbye to someone a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn’t have met you.”
“And you’re glad you met me?”
“You bet I am!”
“And Daddy and Ripley?”
“Them, too.”
“That’s good to know,” Nick said.
Natalie hadn’t heard him come in. He looked tired after the recent events, but also relieved. “Daddy, guess what?” Paige asked excitedly. “We just got back from Dr. Cavanaugh’s and he says Ripley gets to come home tomorrow!”
Natalie smiled. “Ripley is doing fine after his surgery. He hurts, and he’ll need to rest in a cage for at least a week. Before you know it, though, he’ll be jumping off the newel post again.”
“Oh, great,” Nick groaned. “That’s one particular trick of his I could do without.”
Paige beamed. “I’m gonna go call . . . some friends and tell them about Ripley.”
When she left the living room, Nick motioned toward the couch. Then he sat down close to her. “Hard to believe that forty-eight hours ago Paige was in the hands of that maniac. You’d think nothing had happened to her.”
“She’s resilient but not
indestructible. I think there might be repercussions.”
“That’s why I’m taking the week off. We need to be together. Also, my ace babysitter is in the hospital.”
“I hope when she’s released she won’t be coming back to work here.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “No way in hell. I’ve been talking to a few women who might work out. Before I hire one, though, I’m going to learn a lot more about her than I did Mrs. Collins. I’d like to have someone who would actually watch over my daughter, not tie up my phone all day.”
“Well, I know Paige will be glad to see the last of Mrs. Collins. She’ll also be delighted to have you to herself, and this is one week when you won’t worry about her.”
“I’ll always worry about her, especially after everything that’s happened. I don’t want to be her jailer, though. She’ll start to hate me.”
Natalie smiled. “And that’s why you’ve decided to let her talk to Jimmy again. You know that’s who she’s calling.”
“No kidding?” He grinned. “I guess Jimmy’s not so bad. Besides, if it hadn’t been for him, I would never have known where to find Paige that night.” His face grew serious. “After dispatch let me know she was missing, I went tearing to the Saunders house I would have ignored the report of a disturbance at The Blue Lady by that guy at the convenience store if they hadn’t said a blue car was parked outside. Jimmy had described the car she was taken away in.”
“That officer posted outside also might have bled to death if help hadn’t arrived so fast.”
“Yes, and he has a wife and two kids. I don’t know what they would have done without him.”
“So Jimmy has redeemed himself.”
“Partially.” Nick frowned. “Of course, Paige wouldn’t have been in any danger to begin with if he hadn’t talked her into sneaking out—”
“Part of Jimmy’s trouble is that his parents are so wrapped up in the younger kids, they don’t give him the supervision he needs,” Natalie interrupted. “I think that situation will change now. I also think both Jimmy and Paige have learned their lesson.”
“Then they’re the only ones who got anything good out of this tragedy,” Nick said. “Richard Hunt lost a son, and the Bishops and Oliver Peyton each lost a daughter.”
“Oliver might have lost two. When Alison regained consciousness and told her mother she’d listened to Oliver and Max Bishop talking on the phone—”
“About how old Max had paid Peyton to do a lousy job of defending Eugene Farley?” Natalie nodded. “I don’t get it. Peyton has money.”
“Not as much as he claimed. He’s in debt and he needed the bribe money Bishop offered. That’s what Alison was raving about the day of Tam’s funeral. I remember Oliver looking like he was going to have a heart attack. He knew that she knew what he’d done. I wonder why she sat on that information—but then, Alison has her own incomprehensible reasons.”
“Do you think Viveca will stay with him?”
“Lily told me she’s already bade him a crushing farewell. I guess Viveca has higher standards than I gave her credit for. Lily is also badly disillusioned. She’s not speaking to her father. I believe she’ll forgive him, but not for a long time.” Natalie sighed. “And then there’s my father. I think he’s sworn off women for good. First Kira, then Viveca, then Ruth . . . I mean Constance.”
“God—what a shock. She had everyone fooled.”
“Except Jeff, and look what happened to him.”
“Yeah,” Nick said slowly. “I thought of something a few hours too late to be of any use. Lindstrom’s driver’s license said his name was Jefferson. The woman in Knoxville called him Jeffrey. I should have picked up on that.”
“It’s a pretty small detail and there was a lot going on. What will happen to the real Ruth Meadows?”
“She’s missing. I think my phone calls spooked her. Then Constance probably missed a couple of phone calls and Ruth decided something had gone wrong. When the Knoxville police got to the house Sunday morning, her clothes and personal effects were gone. She left the dog she’d walked every day so she’d be seen. One of the neighbors is taking it in.”
Natalie smiled. “Just like you’re taking in Constance’s cat Callie.”
Nick tried to scowl. “It wasn’t my idea. When Paige heard there was a homeless cat, she decided Ripley needed a girlfriend.”
“You could have said no,” Natalie said innocently.
“I couldn’t and you know it. So now we’ll have two cats.”
“And I have a dog. No one answered the ad for Blaine.”
“To your tremendous disappointment,” Nick laughed, then sobered. “So what are you going to do with her in Columbus?” he asked softly.
Natalie looked down at her pearl ring. “Have you seen that empty building on Dawn Street?”
“The little brick place beside the park?”
She nodded. “I think it would be a great place for a clinic with boarding facilities. The dogs could be walked in the park each day.”
“Natalie, what are you trying to say?”
“I’m going to buy it.” She glanced up. “I believe there’s room for another vet in this town.”
Nick’s dark blue eyes widened. “Are you joking? You want to stay here and open a clinic?”
“Yes. My life in Columbus is over.”
“I thought you had someone there. Someone you cared about.”
“I never told you that.”
“I did a little investigating.” Natalie raised her eyebrows. “Not for personal reasons. There was a murder investigation and—”
She held up her hand. “It doesn’t matter. There was someone, but there isn’t anymore. I’ve already told him. And the funny thing is that I’m not all that upset about it. I suddenly realize I haven’t been happy for quite a while, and not just with my personal life. With my own clinic, I can give more personal care and run the place exactly as I please. And in Port Ariel are my father, and Lily, and . . .” She smiled. “Well, I just believe it’s time to come home.” She paused. “I might be making a big mistake . . .”
Nick reached out and ran a finger over the curve of her cheekbone. “Then again, you might not,” he said gently. “There’s only one way to find out.”
Don’t Close Your Eyes Page 36
