Forever: A Novel of Good and Evil Love and Hope Read online

  “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