not strange in the way he expected a man to be strange after fighting
off an intruder in his house if that was actually what had happened–but
just . . . well, just strange. Odd. The things Marty was saying were
slightly weird, “My Emily, Charlotte, mine, just as cute as in your
picture, mine, we’ll be together, it’s my destiny.”
His tone of voice was also unusual, too shaky and urgent if the ordeal
was over, which the departure of the police surely indicated, but also
too forced. Dramatic. Overly dramatic. He wasn’t speaking
spontaneously but seemed to be playing a stage role, struggling to
remember the right thing to say.
Everyone said creative people were strange, especially writers, and when
Vic first met Martin Stillwater, he expected the novelist to be
eccentric. But Marty had disappointed in that regard, he had been the
most normal, levelheaded neighbor anyone could hope to have.
Until now.
Getting to his feet, holding on to his daughters, Marty said, “We’ve got
to go.” He turned toward the front door.
Vic said, “Wait a second, Marty, buddy, you can’t just blow out of here
like that, with us so damned curious and all.”
Marty had let go of Charlotte only long enough to open the door.
He grabbed her hand again as the wind whistled into the foyer and
rattled the framed embroidery of bluebirds and spring flowers that hung
on the wall.
When the writer stepped outside without responding to Vic in any way,
Vic glanced at Kathy and saw her expression had changed.
Tears still glistened on her cheeks, but her eyes were dry, and she
looked puzzled.
So it isn’t just me, he thought.
He went outside and saw that the writer was already off the stoop,
heading down the walk in the wind-tossed rain, holding the girls’ hands.
The air was chilly. Frogs were singing, but their songs were unnatural,
cold and tinny, like the grinding-racheting of stripped gears in frozen
machinery. The sound of them made Vic want to go back inside, sit in
front of the fire, and drink a lot of hot coffee with brandy in it.
“Damn it, Marty, wait a minute!”
The writer turned, looked back, with the girls cuddling close to his
sides.
Vic said, “We’re your friends, we want to help. Whatever’s wrong, we
want to help.”
“Nothing you can do, Victor’ “Victor? Man, you know I hate
“Victor,”
nobody calls me that, not even my dear old gray-haired mother if she
knows what’s good for her.”
“Sorry . . . Vic. I’m just . . . I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
With the girls in tow, he started down the walkway again.
A car was parked directly at the end of the walk. A new Buick.
It looked bejeweled in the rain. Engine running. Lights on. Nobody
inside.
Dashing off the stoop into the storm, which was no longer the cloudburst
it had been but still drenching, Vic caught up with them.
“This your car?”
“Yeah,” Marty said.
“Since when?”
“Bought it today.”
“Where’s Paige?”
“We’re going to meet her.” Marty’s face was as white as the skull
hidden beneath it. He was trembling visibly, and his eyes looked
strange in the glow of the street lamp. “Listen, Vic, the kids are
going to be soaked to the skin.”
“I’m the one getting soaked,” Vic said. “They’ve got raincoats.
Paige isn’t over at the house?”
“She left already.” Marty glanced worriedly at his house across the
street, where lights still glowed at both the first- and second-floor
windows. “We’re going to meet her.”
“You remember what you told me–”
“Vic, please”
“I almost forgot myself, what you told me, and then you were on your way
down the walk and I remembered.”
“We’ve got to go, Vic.
“You told me not to give the kids to anyone if Paige wasn’t with them.
Not anyone. You remember what you said?”
Marty carried two large suitcases downstairs, into the kitchen.
The Beretta 9mm Parabellum was stuffed under the waistband of his
chinos. It pressed uncomfortably against his belly. He wore a
reindeer-pattern wool sweater, which concealed the gun. His red
and-black ski jacket was unzipped, so he could reach the pistol easily,