Valentine, page 27
She unlocked her cabin door, aware that he was lingering. She got the distinct impression, without turning around, that he was watching her. Oh, dear, she thought fleetingly. I hope he’s not going to be difficult . . .
She opened the door and stepped inside. Turning in the doorway, she saw that Richard was indeed still watching her.
“Well, good night,” she said, and she smiled again.
They regarded each other a moment. Then he grinned.
“Good night,” he said, raising his hand in a little salute. He reached forward with the other, offering her the flashlight.
“You’ll probably need that to get back to your cabin,” Jill said. “I’ll get it from you tomorrow.”
“Okay. ‘Bye.” He turned and started off down the path.
With a little sigh of relief, she shut the door.
He moved away down the snowy path, shining the torch before him. As he moved farther down into the forest, he glanced at his watch again.
Two minutes, he thought. Two minutes to Valentine’s Day.
When he was sure he couldn’t be seen from the cabin, he switched off the flashlight and stepped off the path into the trees.
She slowly removed her coat and dropped it at the foot of the bed. She yawned and stretched, thinking, I haven’t danced that much in years. Tara belongs to that gym around the comer from us, and she’s been after me to go with her. Maybe I should become a member. Especially now, with the baby coming . . .
Nodding to herself, she reached over to turn down the covers on the bed.
He watched the strange man move away down the path, the beam of the flashlight flickering ahead of him. When the man had disappeared among the trees, he stepped forward toward the light of the cabin. He wondered who the man was. . . .
Then he dismissed the thought. God, he told himself, this whole thing is making me paranoid. He’s just some other writer who’s staying here, who walked her to her door, for Heaven’s sake! Stop panicking . . .
He arrived in the pool of light outside the cabin, smiling in anticipation of the surprise and delight he’d see on her face when she opened the door. Grinning, he reached up and knocked.
She froze, the quilted comforter clutched in her hand. Oh, God! her mind cried. How on earth—
Then she realized who was probably knocking on her door. He hadn’t even made it more than a few yards down the path, and he’d decided to give his powers of seduction another try. With a grimace, she moved toward the door.
“Who is it?” she called, trying to sound surprised.
“Jill, open up. It’s me, Nate.”
She stared at the door. “What?”
“It’s Nate, Jill. Remember me? Surprise!”
Then relief surged through her, followed immediately by a wave of purest joy.
“Nate!”
She threw open the door, and there he was. Grinning that lopsided grin, saddlebag over one shoulder, helmet in hand, soaked to the skin.
“Nate!” she cried again.
And he stepped forward into her arms.
He was pressed against the trunk of a large tree, some thirty yards away in the darkness of the forest. He stared in disbelief as the boyfriend, Nate, came out of the trees and into the pool of light outside the cabin.
What the hell? he thought. What the hell is he doing here?
Nate knocked on the door, and after a moment she opened it. Shouting his name, she threw herself into her lover’s arms.
I can’t believe this! he thought. He’s going to spoil everything!
Then, in the very next instant, he had another idea.
No, he thought slowly to himself. Perhaps not. Perhaps he won’t spoil it, after all. . . .
“Oh, Nate! Am I glad to see you!” She continued to embrace him in the doorway, the flecks of snow swirling in on the chill wind from outside. “How did you find me?”
He was laughing as he moved into the room. “Hang on a minute. I’m freezing!”
She let go of him and stepped backward, allowing him to get all the way into the cabin. He slammed the door behind him and shot the bolt. Then he took her in his arms again and kissed her.
When they paused for breath, she stepped back from him and looked up at his face. His hair was wet, hanging down into his eyes. She laughed, partly at the sight of him and partly at the warm, solid reality of him, and went into the bathroom to get a towel. When she came back, he was lowering his dripping saddlebag onto the desk beside the dripping crash helmet. She handed him the towel and he hung it around his neck, grinning.
“Whew!” he breathed. “You sure are one tough lady to find!”
She grinned. “I hope it was worth it. How did you find me, anyway?”
He laughed as he reached up to towel dry his hair. “Mary, of course. Well, Tara started it. She was worried about you—as well she should be. She told me all about the other night, before you took off without telling anyone where you were going. Jill, you should have said something.”
Jill felt the hot blush rise to her cheeks. “I know, darling, but you were so busy with your show, and I thought—”
“Did you think anything was as important to me as you?” he cried.
“Well, I—I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. . . .”
He laughed. “Ill say! But, given your circumstances, that’s understandable.”
She stepped forward to embrace him again. “Oh, Nate, it was awful! But you’re here now, and we’re away from there, away from him.” She buried her face in his chest.
He reached up to stroke her hair. “Yes, Jill, I’m here now, and everything’s going to be okay.” Then he reached up gently to pull her away from him. “But first, I have a surprise for you.”
She smiled and took the wet towel from him. “A surprise? It’s enough that you’re here!”
He turned and leaned down, opening the saddlebag. “I know, but I came all the way out here, so . . .” He took something out of the saddlebag and put it down on the desk, but she couldn’t see what it was because his body was blocking it. Then he reached down into the saddlebag again.
At that moment, the clock above the desk began to chime for midnight.
They both looked up at the clock.
Then she heard it. Coming from the desk behind him.
Sarah Vaughan.
“My Funny Valentine.”
“What?” she began. “Nate, what on earth—”
Then Nate whirled around to face her, extending his hands. She looked down. He was holding out a bright pink candy box.
Jill looked up into her lover’s eyes. He was no longer smiling.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” he said.
13
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14
Valentine’s Day
David MacFarland stood behind the tree thirty yards from the cabin, staring at the door and the pool of light that flooded down on it. They were in there, Jillian Talbot and her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend.
He’d dismissed him as unlikely, as he’d dismissed his friend Doug Baron, the photographer. He’d even followed them around Spring Street that day, finding nothing suspicious about them.
The boyfriend. He’d been with her for months, nearly a year . . .
Then, he thought of his own sister, Cass. She’d had a boyfriend, too, in the weeks just before . . . a man named Neil something . . .
Neil Avnet.
He’d never been able to trace Sharon Williams after she’d disappeared, but the other one, Belinda, on the ski slope. . . yes, there’d been a strange man there, too. He was quoted in the newspaper reports. Leonard something. Something Italian. Morelli . . . Vanelli . . . Vaneti.
Leonard Vaneti. Len, for short.
Oh, my God! he thought.
Len Vaneti.
Neil Avnet.
Valentine!
Then he was lurching forward, out from behind the tree, and crashing through the dense forest ahead of him, stumbling blindly in the direction of the light, of the cabin, the name screaming in his mind, over and over and over.
Nate Levin!
“What?” she said again, stupid, numb, her mind suddenly off, unable to function. “What—”
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” he said again.
Instinctively, she stepped backward, away from him, away from the music and the heart-shaped candy box. “Nate!”
Then, in a long, awful moment, a slow smile came to his face. It was not a smile she’d ever seen, not in all the months they’d been together. It wasn’t Nate’s smile, it was nobody she knew. It was nothing human.
“I’m not Nate,” he said, his dead voice belying the horrible smile. “There is no Nate. Nate Levin is an anagram, you stupid, evil bitch. My name is Victor Dimorta.” Slowly, he raised the box again and held it out in front of her. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
The shock coursed through her. She stared, fascinated, as the song continued and her death stepped smiling forward holding out a box of candy and she couldn’t think couldn’t breathe couldn’t move couldn’t move simply . . . could . . . not . . . move. . . .
Crash!
Something big and powerful smashed into the other side of the door inches behind him, as if someone had thrown himself against it. He gasped and whirled around toward the noise, and in that instant the spell was broken and the survival voice deep inside her came rushing up into her brain.
Move.
She reached up with her arms and pushed with all her might, with a strength born of shock and pure adrenaline, sending him crashing forward into the door. He lost his balance and fell to his knees, the candy box flying from his outflung hands.
Weapon.
The gun was in her purse, her purse, her purse, where the hell was her purse?
On the table in the corner. She would have to get past him to get to it. She was already stepping forward in the direction of her purse when his hand clamped viciously down on her wrist.
And he was on his feet in front of her. He brought up his other hand in a fist, rearing back to strike.
Disable.
She yanked her wrist from his grasp and stepped backward. She kicked her right leg out behind her, straightening her knee as the instructor had taught her. Then she brought it forward with all her strength. Her boot made solid contact, directly between his legs.
His face contorted in a dreadful grimace of pain, and he fell heavily backward onto—
Her purse. So much for the gun.
Move.
She was running, running away from him, across the room and into the bolted back door.
Unbolt the door.
And she was reaching and she was yanking and she was pushing and then the door was open and she was falling out of the doorway into the snow, facedown in the snow and she was groping with her hands and she was on her knees and she was up, up and running, running, running through the blackness, through the dense forest behind the cabin where there was no path no light no anything only darkness and more darkness and the pounding of heavy feet behind her and run rum run oh, God, run!
When David MacFarland came to, he was lying in deep snow in a pool of light outside the door of a cabin. Blood, apparently from his nose, was already frozen to his cheek and neck. His ungloved hands were numb, and there was a tearing pain in his chest and his arms. He heard faint music, big band music, coming from somewhere far away.
It took him a moment to remember. Then it came rushing back to him: he had thrown himself against the door. He’d smashed into it with such force that he’d been temporarily knocked out.
In the next instant, the rest came back.
Valentine!
And he was on his feet, ignoring the pain and the blood and the numbness, pounding his fists against the door. Then he stopped, listening.
There was other music, coming from inside. A woman’s voice, softly singing “My Funny Valentine.” Otherwise, nothing. Not even breathing. Nothing.
Without really thinking, acting on instinct, he ran around the side of the cabin toward the back, stopping at the wooden window just long enough to ascertain that it was locked. He raced to the rear side and saw the open door and the footprints leading away from the cabin, into the trees. A brief glance through the open back door told him that the cabin was empty.
Pulling the Beretta from his coat pocket, he plunged into the black forest.
She was running aimlessly now, through the endless trunks of trees, caught up in her panic. Her body had become a machine, a fulcrum of perpetual motion bom of her instinct to survive. Keep moving, the voice inside her repeated. Just keep moving.
So she kept moving through the forest, raising her hands to ward off the dark shapes that constantly loomed up in front of her. Falling in the snow and rising, always rising and moving on. She was aware of the sounds behind her, the crunching and the crashing and the panting. She knew he was mere yards, perhaps feet, behind her, and that he was gaining on her. Rim, the voice inside her said. Run.
There was nobody in front of him: he was certain of it. David stopped to catch his breath. He would catch up with them, though; he had no doubt of that. It was the one purpose he now had on this earth.
He would find Valentine, and he would kill him.
He had made the silent promise over her coffin. Cass—dear Cass, who had remained beside him when everyone else was gone. Their parents had thrown him out when he was eighteen, when he had told them that he was gay. His high-school friends had shunned him, even the rest of the football team. He had been their first-string quarterback for two years, leading the school to an unprecedented number of victories. But that didn’t matter to them: he was a homo, a queer, a faggot, and that was that. Only Cass had been loyal, had continued to love him.
And now he would avenge her.
He turned around in the snowy forest, moving off in the direction of the faint noises he could hear through the trees. Victor Dimorta was somewhere over there, and he must get to him. If he managed to save Jillian Talbot, too, that was good, but it was a secondary consideration. He knew only that he was going to kill.
Even as he ran through the dark woods, he smiled at the satisfaction his lover would have gotten from knowing the part he had inadvertently played. Richard Farnum, a name as familiar as his own, had been the name he’d used to get into this place. Now Richard Farnum—Rick—was gone.
As he ran, he remembered that final telephone call from Cass. She’d just received flowers, after the three valentine cards, and she’d finally figured it out. Victor Dimorta, she’d said: that’s who’s doing this. Then she’d told him about the prank that she and her friends had played. He’d offered to go there, to drive to her cabin in New Jersey to be with her, to protect her. Don’t worry, she’d replied. I have a gun, and I know how to use it, and Neil Avnet, my new boyfriend, will be here in a few minutes. The date: February fourteenth.
Valentine’s Day.
In the weeks after her death, he’d found out about Sharon Williams and Belinda Rosenberg. He’d left Rick in his mother’s capable hands and traveled to Hartley College, where he’d demanded and been given the official records of the incident in the dorm room leading to Victor Dimorta’s expulsion. Then he’d gone to Mill City, Pennsylvania, and learned the rest. The following days had been a blur of feverish activity: the call to Sharon’s mother in California and the process of finding Belinda’s family at their new address in Buffalo. Mrs. Williams told him about her daughter’s disappearance in the middle of February, two years before. The middle of February, he’d thought. February fourteenth.
Valentine’s Day.
Belinda’s mother told him about the skiing accident the previous year, and the day on which it had occurred.
Valentine’s Day.
According to the Hartley College file, there had been a fourth girl involved in the incident. The college registrar proudly informed him that this girl, Jillian Talbot, was now a noted mystery writer living in New York City. He’d thought, briefly, about calling her and warning her, when his new idea had been bom.
Jillian Talbot was his key, he realized, his only possible access to Valentine. Cass and Belinda were dead, and Sharon Williams was probably dead, too. Jillian Talbot was the only one of the four who was still alive. But now, he knew, it was her turn. She was to meet the same fate as Cass and the other women.
Valentine’s Day.
So, four weeks ago, he’d gone to Greenwich Village. To wait. To wait for Victor Dimorta to arrive. He’d followed the woman, and he’d bugged her apartment. He hadn’t made his presence known to her, fearing that Victor Dimorta would get wind of it and vanish without revealing himself. He’d watched her in her home, suffering through the evil jokes: the cards and the flowers. He’d followed her to the police and the private detective, and still he had forced himself to remain silent. He felt, sometimes, that he could do anything, whatever it would take, to avenge his sister.
He tightened his grip on the Beretta. He could hear his quarry now, somewhere among the trees directly ahead of him. Taking a deep breath, he began to run again.
There were trees in front of her, and more trees, and more. And suddenly none. She stumbled out of the forest onto the road. The driveway, her panicked mind informed her. You’re on the main road leading to the colony.
But which way?
She stopped for one precious moment, listening. Yes, the faint music was coming from her left. The main house. Go there, the survival voice ordered. Get to them. Get close enough, then scream. Scream your head off. They won’t hear you from here, not with the music. Go now!
She turned in the direction of the party and began to run.
She didn’t get three steps. In one sudden, chilling instant, her hair was grabbed from behind and she was being whirled around. Nate—Victor Dimorta—loomed up in front of her, a horrible grin, a rictus of death and destruction plastered to his suddenly ugly face. He drew back his fist and smashed it into her jaw.
She heard a crack and saw white light, and she was falling, falling backward into the snow, and floating out to some unknown destination. Then the darkness enveloped her, and she knew no more.
She opened the door and stepped inside. Turning in the doorway, she saw that Richard was indeed still watching her.
“Well, good night,” she said, and she smiled again.
They regarded each other a moment. Then he grinned.
“Good night,” he said, raising his hand in a little salute. He reached forward with the other, offering her the flashlight.
“You’ll probably need that to get back to your cabin,” Jill said. “I’ll get it from you tomorrow.”
“Okay. ‘Bye.” He turned and started off down the path.
With a little sigh of relief, she shut the door.
He moved away down the snowy path, shining the torch before him. As he moved farther down into the forest, he glanced at his watch again.
Two minutes, he thought. Two minutes to Valentine’s Day.
When he was sure he couldn’t be seen from the cabin, he switched off the flashlight and stepped off the path into the trees.
She slowly removed her coat and dropped it at the foot of the bed. She yawned and stretched, thinking, I haven’t danced that much in years. Tara belongs to that gym around the comer from us, and she’s been after me to go with her. Maybe I should become a member. Especially now, with the baby coming . . .
Nodding to herself, she reached over to turn down the covers on the bed.
He watched the strange man move away down the path, the beam of the flashlight flickering ahead of him. When the man had disappeared among the trees, he stepped forward toward the light of the cabin. He wondered who the man was. . . .
Then he dismissed the thought. God, he told himself, this whole thing is making me paranoid. He’s just some other writer who’s staying here, who walked her to her door, for Heaven’s sake! Stop panicking . . .
He arrived in the pool of light outside the cabin, smiling in anticipation of the surprise and delight he’d see on her face when she opened the door. Grinning, he reached up and knocked.
She froze, the quilted comforter clutched in her hand. Oh, God! her mind cried. How on earth—
Then she realized who was probably knocking on her door. He hadn’t even made it more than a few yards down the path, and he’d decided to give his powers of seduction another try. With a grimace, she moved toward the door.
“Who is it?” she called, trying to sound surprised.
“Jill, open up. It’s me, Nate.”
She stared at the door. “What?”
“It’s Nate, Jill. Remember me? Surprise!”
Then relief surged through her, followed immediately by a wave of purest joy.
“Nate!”
She threw open the door, and there he was. Grinning that lopsided grin, saddlebag over one shoulder, helmet in hand, soaked to the skin.
“Nate!” she cried again.
And he stepped forward into her arms.
He was pressed against the trunk of a large tree, some thirty yards away in the darkness of the forest. He stared in disbelief as the boyfriend, Nate, came out of the trees and into the pool of light outside the cabin.
What the hell? he thought. What the hell is he doing here?
Nate knocked on the door, and after a moment she opened it. Shouting his name, she threw herself into her lover’s arms.
I can’t believe this! he thought. He’s going to spoil everything!
Then, in the very next instant, he had another idea.
No, he thought slowly to himself. Perhaps not. Perhaps he won’t spoil it, after all. . . .
“Oh, Nate! Am I glad to see you!” She continued to embrace him in the doorway, the flecks of snow swirling in on the chill wind from outside. “How did you find me?”
He was laughing as he moved into the room. “Hang on a minute. I’m freezing!”
She let go of him and stepped backward, allowing him to get all the way into the cabin. He slammed the door behind him and shot the bolt. Then he took her in his arms again and kissed her.
When they paused for breath, she stepped back from him and looked up at his face. His hair was wet, hanging down into his eyes. She laughed, partly at the sight of him and partly at the warm, solid reality of him, and went into the bathroom to get a towel. When she came back, he was lowering his dripping saddlebag onto the desk beside the dripping crash helmet. She handed him the towel and he hung it around his neck, grinning.
“Whew!” he breathed. “You sure are one tough lady to find!”
She grinned. “I hope it was worth it. How did you find me, anyway?”
He laughed as he reached up to towel dry his hair. “Mary, of course. Well, Tara started it. She was worried about you—as well she should be. She told me all about the other night, before you took off without telling anyone where you were going. Jill, you should have said something.”
Jill felt the hot blush rise to her cheeks. “I know, darling, but you were so busy with your show, and I thought—”
“Did you think anything was as important to me as you?” he cried.
“Well, I—I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly. . . .”
He laughed. “Ill say! But, given your circumstances, that’s understandable.”
She stepped forward to embrace him again. “Oh, Nate, it was awful! But you’re here now, and we’re away from there, away from him.” She buried her face in his chest.
He reached up to stroke her hair. “Yes, Jill, I’m here now, and everything’s going to be okay.” Then he reached up gently to pull her away from him. “But first, I have a surprise for you.”
She smiled and took the wet towel from him. “A surprise? It’s enough that you’re here!”
He turned and leaned down, opening the saddlebag. “I know, but I came all the way out here, so . . .” He took something out of the saddlebag and put it down on the desk, but she couldn’t see what it was because his body was blocking it. Then he reached down into the saddlebag again.
At that moment, the clock above the desk began to chime for midnight.
They both looked up at the clock.
Then she heard it. Coming from the desk behind him.
Sarah Vaughan.
“My Funny Valentine.”
“What?” she began. “Nate, what on earth—”
Then Nate whirled around to face her, extending his hands. She looked down. He was holding out a bright pink candy box.
Jill looked up into her lover’s eyes. He was no longer smiling.
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” he said.
13
SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14
Valentine’s Day
David MacFarland stood behind the tree thirty yards from the cabin, staring at the door and the pool of light that flooded down on it. They were in there, Jillian Talbot and her boyfriend.
Her boyfriend.
He’d dismissed him as unlikely, as he’d dismissed his friend Doug Baron, the photographer. He’d even followed them around Spring Street that day, finding nothing suspicious about them.
The boyfriend. He’d been with her for months, nearly a year . . .
Then, he thought of his own sister, Cass. She’d had a boyfriend, too, in the weeks just before . . . a man named Neil something . . .
Neil Avnet.
He’d never been able to trace Sharon Williams after she’d disappeared, but the other one, Belinda, on the ski slope. . . yes, there’d been a strange man there, too. He was quoted in the newspaper reports. Leonard something. Something Italian. Morelli . . . Vanelli . . . Vaneti.
Leonard Vaneti. Len, for short.
Oh, my God! he thought.
Len Vaneti.
Neil Avnet.
Valentine!
Then he was lurching forward, out from behind the tree, and crashing through the dense forest ahead of him, stumbling blindly in the direction of the light, of the cabin, the name screaming in his mind, over and over and over.
Nate Levin!
“What?” she said again, stupid, numb, her mind suddenly off, unable to function. “What—”
“Happy Valentine’s Day!” he said again.
Instinctively, she stepped backward, away from him, away from the music and the heart-shaped candy box. “Nate!”
Then, in a long, awful moment, a slow smile came to his face. It was not a smile she’d ever seen, not in all the months they’d been together. It wasn’t Nate’s smile, it was nobody she knew. It was nothing human.
“I’m not Nate,” he said, his dead voice belying the horrible smile. “There is no Nate. Nate Levin is an anagram, you stupid, evil bitch. My name is Victor Dimorta.” Slowly, he raised the box again and held it out in front of her. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
The shock coursed through her. She stared, fascinated, as the song continued and her death stepped smiling forward holding out a box of candy and she couldn’t think couldn’t breathe couldn’t move couldn’t move simply . . . could . . . not . . . move. . . .
Crash!
Something big and powerful smashed into the other side of the door inches behind him, as if someone had thrown himself against it. He gasped and whirled around toward the noise, and in that instant the spell was broken and the survival voice deep inside her came rushing up into her brain.
Move.
She reached up with her arms and pushed with all her might, with a strength born of shock and pure adrenaline, sending him crashing forward into the door. He lost his balance and fell to his knees, the candy box flying from his outflung hands.
Weapon.
The gun was in her purse, her purse, her purse, where the hell was her purse?
On the table in the corner. She would have to get past him to get to it. She was already stepping forward in the direction of her purse when his hand clamped viciously down on her wrist.
And he was on his feet in front of her. He brought up his other hand in a fist, rearing back to strike.
Disable.
She yanked her wrist from his grasp and stepped backward. She kicked her right leg out behind her, straightening her knee as the instructor had taught her. Then she brought it forward with all her strength. Her boot made solid contact, directly between his legs.
His face contorted in a dreadful grimace of pain, and he fell heavily backward onto—
Her purse. So much for the gun.
Move.
She was running, running away from him, across the room and into the bolted back door.
Unbolt the door.
And she was reaching and she was yanking and she was pushing and then the door was open and she was falling out of the doorway into the snow, facedown in the snow and she was groping with her hands and she was on her knees and she was up, up and running, running, running through the blackness, through the dense forest behind the cabin where there was no path no light no anything only darkness and more darkness and the pounding of heavy feet behind her and run rum run oh, God, run!
When David MacFarland came to, he was lying in deep snow in a pool of light outside the door of a cabin. Blood, apparently from his nose, was already frozen to his cheek and neck. His ungloved hands were numb, and there was a tearing pain in his chest and his arms. He heard faint music, big band music, coming from somewhere far away.
It took him a moment to remember. Then it came rushing back to him: he had thrown himself against the door. He’d smashed into it with such force that he’d been temporarily knocked out.
In the next instant, the rest came back.
Valentine!
And he was on his feet, ignoring the pain and the blood and the numbness, pounding his fists against the door. Then he stopped, listening.
There was other music, coming from inside. A woman’s voice, softly singing “My Funny Valentine.” Otherwise, nothing. Not even breathing. Nothing.
Without really thinking, acting on instinct, he ran around the side of the cabin toward the back, stopping at the wooden window just long enough to ascertain that it was locked. He raced to the rear side and saw the open door and the footprints leading away from the cabin, into the trees. A brief glance through the open back door told him that the cabin was empty.
Pulling the Beretta from his coat pocket, he plunged into the black forest.
She was running aimlessly now, through the endless trunks of trees, caught up in her panic. Her body had become a machine, a fulcrum of perpetual motion bom of her instinct to survive. Keep moving, the voice inside her repeated. Just keep moving.
So she kept moving through the forest, raising her hands to ward off the dark shapes that constantly loomed up in front of her. Falling in the snow and rising, always rising and moving on. She was aware of the sounds behind her, the crunching and the crashing and the panting. She knew he was mere yards, perhaps feet, behind her, and that he was gaining on her. Rim, the voice inside her said. Run.
There was nobody in front of him: he was certain of it. David stopped to catch his breath. He would catch up with them, though; he had no doubt of that. It was the one purpose he now had on this earth.
He would find Valentine, and he would kill him.
He had made the silent promise over her coffin. Cass—dear Cass, who had remained beside him when everyone else was gone. Their parents had thrown him out when he was eighteen, when he had told them that he was gay. His high-school friends had shunned him, even the rest of the football team. He had been their first-string quarterback for two years, leading the school to an unprecedented number of victories. But that didn’t matter to them: he was a homo, a queer, a faggot, and that was that. Only Cass had been loyal, had continued to love him.
And now he would avenge her.
He turned around in the snowy forest, moving off in the direction of the faint noises he could hear through the trees. Victor Dimorta was somewhere over there, and he must get to him. If he managed to save Jillian Talbot, too, that was good, but it was a secondary consideration. He knew only that he was going to kill.
Even as he ran through the dark woods, he smiled at the satisfaction his lover would have gotten from knowing the part he had inadvertently played. Richard Farnum, a name as familiar as his own, had been the name he’d used to get into this place. Now Richard Farnum—Rick—was gone.
As he ran, he remembered that final telephone call from Cass. She’d just received flowers, after the three valentine cards, and she’d finally figured it out. Victor Dimorta, she’d said: that’s who’s doing this. Then she’d told him about the prank that she and her friends had played. He’d offered to go there, to drive to her cabin in New Jersey to be with her, to protect her. Don’t worry, she’d replied. I have a gun, and I know how to use it, and Neil Avnet, my new boyfriend, will be here in a few minutes. The date: February fourteenth.
Valentine’s Day.
In the weeks after her death, he’d found out about Sharon Williams and Belinda Rosenberg. He’d left Rick in his mother’s capable hands and traveled to Hartley College, where he’d demanded and been given the official records of the incident in the dorm room leading to Victor Dimorta’s expulsion. Then he’d gone to Mill City, Pennsylvania, and learned the rest. The following days had been a blur of feverish activity: the call to Sharon’s mother in California and the process of finding Belinda’s family at their new address in Buffalo. Mrs. Williams told him about her daughter’s disappearance in the middle of February, two years before. The middle of February, he’d thought. February fourteenth.
Valentine’s Day.
Belinda’s mother told him about the skiing accident the previous year, and the day on which it had occurred.
Valentine’s Day.
According to the Hartley College file, there had been a fourth girl involved in the incident. The college registrar proudly informed him that this girl, Jillian Talbot, was now a noted mystery writer living in New York City. He’d thought, briefly, about calling her and warning her, when his new idea had been bom.
Jillian Talbot was his key, he realized, his only possible access to Valentine. Cass and Belinda were dead, and Sharon Williams was probably dead, too. Jillian Talbot was the only one of the four who was still alive. But now, he knew, it was her turn. She was to meet the same fate as Cass and the other women.
Valentine’s Day.
So, four weeks ago, he’d gone to Greenwich Village. To wait. To wait for Victor Dimorta to arrive. He’d followed the woman, and he’d bugged her apartment. He hadn’t made his presence known to her, fearing that Victor Dimorta would get wind of it and vanish without revealing himself. He’d watched her in her home, suffering through the evil jokes: the cards and the flowers. He’d followed her to the police and the private detective, and still he had forced himself to remain silent. He felt, sometimes, that he could do anything, whatever it would take, to avenge his sister.
He tightened his grip on the Beretta. He could hear his quarry now, somewhere among the trees directly ahead of him. Taking a deep breath, he began to run again.
There were trees in front of her, and more trees, and more. And suddenly none. She stumbled out of the forest onto the road. The driveway, her panicked mind informed her. You’re on the main road leading to the colony.
But which way?
She stopped for one precious moment, listening. Yes, the faint music was coming from her left. The main house. Go there, the survival voice ordered. Get to them. Get close enough, then scream. Scream your head off. They won’t hear you from here, not with the music. Go now!
She turned in the direction of the party and began to run.
She didn’t get three steps. In one sudden, chilling instant, her hair was grabbed from behind and she was being whirled around. Nate—Victor Dimorta—loomed up in front of her, a horrible grin, a rictus of death and destruction plastered to his suddenly ugly face. He drew back his fist and smashed it into her jaw.
She heard a crack and saw white light, and she was falling, falling backward into the snow, and floating out to some unknown destination. Then the darkness enveloped her, and she knew no more.
