Valentine (32 page)

He stepped inside the house, pulling the door closed behind him. Then he reached into his other coat pocket and produced his other purchase. Snapping on the flashlight, he cast its bright beam about him. He was in the kitchen, a small, narrow room with gold-flecked white vinyl tiles and cheap-looking appliances: refrigerator, range, and a big, old-fashioned round washing machine with a wringer on top squatting in one comer. There was a wooden dinette set in another comer, and he tried to imagine the boy in the mug shots sitting there with a fierce-looking factory foreman and a silent woman who all but ignored his presence.

He moved forward through the swinging kitchen door and found himself in the large front room. A dining table stood just before him, and beyond it, a couch and two armchairs covered with sheets. He shone the torch across the surface of the table. It was not covered: the sheet that had once been used for that purpose was lying crumpled in a comer of the room. Two candles in porcelain holders stood on the table, and when he reached down to run his finger along the surface, it came away remarkably free of
dust. A shiny brown stain on the lighter brown wood caught his attention. He leaned forward and sniffed: ketchup. Yes, he thought. The old woman was right. Someone had eaten at this table, and recently.

The living area was cramped and unappealing. He lifted the sheet on the couch and saw what he expected. Cheap, well-worn upholstery. The sheet on one armchair was no longer draped loosely over it, but fitted snugly in the seat area, as if someone had lately sat in it without bothering to remove the covering. A sheet-covered spinet piano crouched in a comer. There was one painting on the wall above the little table that had probably once held a television—a terrible portrait of Christ gazing mournfully out at the room, His eyes reflecting only His pain and suffering, and none of His benevolence. Barney shuddered and moved over to the stairs.

When he shone the flashlight slowly up the staircase, he saw what he had expected to see. The stairs were coated with dust, but there were footprints disturbing it on each tread. Nodding to himself, he ascended.

There was a short hallway at the top of the stairs, with one large door on the left and two smaller doors on the right. On the back wall in front of him was a window looking out over the barren backyard. In the faraway distance shone the lights of a nearby town. He looked around at the doors for a moment, guessing.
Then he went over to the large door on the left and opened it.

Yes, he’d been right: the master bedroom. A large brass bedframe, its naked springs gleaming in the light from the torch. A bureau, a vanity table with a cracked round mirror on the wall above it, two closet doors. Another painting of Christ, this time on the cross at Calvary, His anguished face raised to Heaven. Dull green-and-yellow striped wallpaper.

So, this is where it happened, he thought. They were asleep in that bed when he crept silently into the room, the huge kitchen knife clutched and raised. The mattresses and pillows were gone, of course: they must have been ruined. He went over to the far side of the room, shining the light along the wall above the ornate brass frame. Several large patches of the striped wallpaper here were considerably lighter than the rest, as if someone had scrubbed them. He nodded to himself. Yes, there would have been blood everywhere.

He went out of the room and across the hall. The little door on his left opened into the tiny, white-tiled bathroom, the cheap, corroded plastic shower curtain black with mildew. The whole room stank of it. He quickly shut that door and turned his attention to the other one.

Yes. Here it was, at last. He pushed the door open and aimed the flashlight into the dark depths of the
room, directly into the eyes of a pretty young woman. He took an involuntary step backward, staring.

A sudden, sharp wind rattled the panes of the window in the upstairs hallway behind him, and the entire house creaked and shuddered. He held his breath, listening. Was that a noise from downstairs? No, just the wind. This old wooden structure groaned under the slightest forces of nature. Shining the light before him, he stepped forward into Victor Dimorta’s bedroom.

The pretty young woman stared invitingly out from the far wall of the little room, and she was flanked by many others. The entire wall had been covered with photographs, some poster-size and some obviously cut from fashion magazines. A few were regular eight-by-ten glossies. Blondes, brunettes, redheads; hundreds of them. Leaning in doorways, running on beaches, holding up wineglasses, displaying beautiful clothes. Not all were professional models: among the others, he saw several photos of the young women from the yearbook. Sharon Williams, Belinda Rosenberg, Cass MacFarland.

And Jill. There were more pictures of her than of the others. On closer inspection, he noticed that not all of them were actually Jill. Several were of another young woman—a professional model, obviously, who bore a remarkable resemblance to his client.

When he stepped forward to study the pictures more closely, he recoiled in distaste. Every single one of the photographs had been marred with a thick red felt-tipped pen. Each girl had a long, bold slash of red across her throat. Bright red Magic Marker drops rained down from some of the wounds.

Oh, Victor, he thought as he stared at the macabre mural. Is this what you dream about?

He tore his gaze from the awful sight and played the light around the rest of the little room. A sagging chest of drawers. A little, boarded-up back window covered with lace curtains on a brass rod. A wooden desk and chair. Another picture of Jesus, this one more benign. He sat gazing lovingly down at a little girl on His lap, a fluffy lamb nestled at His feet. In the far corner beyond the desk was a closet door.

Barney stared at the door, thinking, Is that where he put you, Victor? Is that what he locked you in for three days after dragging your sorry ass back from Vermont? Did you sit there in the pitch dark for three days, making plans?

Another sudden gust rattled the house. He listened again: more creaking. One good storm, and this whole place just might come tumbling down. He stepped forward and opened the closet door.

At first, he thought the closet was empty. The only thing he initially saw in the light was the usual rod,
from which hung two bare wire hangers. The little shelf above the rod was empty.

Then he looked down.

He stared, sinking slowly to his knees in the closet doorway. He leaned forward, playing the light slowly over the contents of the bottom of the closet. There must be a dozen of them, he thought. All different, yet the same. And all sick; so incredibly sick.

Oh, God, he thought. Jill!

That’s when the hand grabbed him from behind. He felt his hair being pulled viciously back, and his head snapped back with it. A dark shape loomed over him, reaching down toward him. He felt the sudden, sharp pain under his chin, felt the warm gush flowing down, and then his hair was released. He pitched forward into the closet, spewing blood as he fell. He rolled over on his back and shone the flashlight up into the face of the man who stood above him. He dropped the flashlight and reached into his coat, fumbling for the gun in his shoulder holster, aware that his throat was full of liquid. He began to choke as he tried to draw a breath, and a boot came out of the darkness to kick his hand away from his coat.

Then everything slowly faded and he was falling down, down, down through space and he thought, Oh, Jill . . . Verna . . . Jane . . .

The music was playing again, and the three women were dancing around the dark cafeteria. She was sitting at the round table by the windows, looking out at the snowy landscape, unable to turn her head and look back into the room. It was as though she knew what was about to happen to them.

Then the shadow fell upon the room, and the women behind her began to scream. She clutched her belly with both hands, silently shouting. Oh, my baby! My baby . . .!

She was sitting up in the large four-poster bed. Gradually, as reality crept into her fevered consciousness, she realized where she was. She was in Cabin 12 at Gwen and Mike’s writing colony in Peconic, Long Island. She was many miles from her apartment in Greenwich Village. Nobody knew she was here.

Valentine didn’t know she was here.

She stood up and went into the little bathroom. The freezing water from the tap in the sink flowed into her mouth, soothing her parched throat. She patted a little water on her face to cool off, switched off the bathroom light, and got back in the warm bed, thinking over and over to herself:

Valentine doesn’t know where I am.

In moments, she was fast asleep. She slept on through that night, untroubled by any more dreams.

When he was finished in the back garden, Victor took the shovel into the kitchen and replaced it in the
utility closet. Then he went upstairs to clean up the blood.

There were three dusty, moldy towels hanging on the rack in the bathroom. He put them in the sink and ran some cold, rusty water over them. Then he proceeded into his bedroom. He smiled as he worked, thinking, He never knew I was there. He didn’t see me once all day; on the plane, at the car rental agency, outside the prison, on the road here, in the steakhouse. He had no idea I sat in the movie theater five rows behind him, munching popcorn, watching all those teenagers being hacked to death by the escaped mental patient. And he didn’t see my car on the lower road, in the valley, as he waited in his car before coming in here.

He glanced over at his bedroom wall, thinking, he saw my pictures. He looked in the closet. He invaded my privacy. He came in here uninvited! He had to go, just like the doctor. . . .

As he went back down to the first floor, he began to whistle. He checked around the place to make sure everything was once again neat and tidy, the way he liked it. Noticing a small stain on the dining room table, he used his sleeve to remove it. Then he let himself out the back way, carefully replacing the padlock on the kitchen door. He slipped around the house and away down the windblown street to the detective’s car. He took the keys he’d found in the
pants pocket and drove the car to the mall, parking it in the enormous lot. It would be days, maybe weeks, before anyone noticed it. Then, using shortcuts he remembered from childhood, he walked quickly back to his own rental car at the edge of Mill City.

Now, he thought. Back to New York. Back to Jillian Talbot. Four days. Four days till Valentine’s Day . . .

As he drove away into the shadows of the night, he began to sing.

“Hello?”

“Tara, it’s Jill.”

“Hi there!”

“Hi there, yourself. I wasn’t expecting you to be home. I was going to leave a message on your machine. Why aren’t you taping?”

“I’ve got a few days off. My character has gone to Lourdes.”

“
Lourdes!
Oh yeah, the unmentionable disease.”

“Right. How are you, Jill?”

“Oh, fine. It’s very peaceful here—where I am. How was your date Tuesday?”

“Don’t ask. Doug called and canceled. Work, or so he said.”

“‘Or so he said’?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, Jill. I get the feeling he’s not really interested in me. Or afraid of me, or something. And something else: have you noticed the way
he’s always staring at
you?
Maybe you’re the one he wants.”

“Oh, Tara, don’t be silly. You said yourself that I look kind of like his dead wife. If he’s afraid of anyone, it’s me.”

“Hmmm. Well, let’s see if he calls me again. What’s up?”

“I want you to do me a favor. I want you to keep an eye on Nate for me, make sure he’s all right. He’s getting ready for next week, and when he gets working like that, he sometimes forgets to eat and sleep, little things like that.”

“Sure, Jill. I was going to call him, anyway. Maybe I’ll take him out to lunch today.”

“That would be great. I—I’ve got to tell you, I’ve made a decision. I’m going to marry him.”

“Oh, Jill, that’s terrific! And baby makes three, right?”

“How—how did you know?”

“Please, Jill! Mary and I both figured it out
ages
ago. At least, we suspected it. That’s wonderful!”

“Yes, I’m beginning to think it is. Now, remember: if you take him to lunch, not a word about any of this. I want to tell him myself.”

“You got it. Men are always the last to know, aren’t they?”