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

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you why you have very little southern accent. In fact, you almost sound as though you came from this part of the U.S.”

  Taking her eyes off him, Darci turned around in her seat and looked out the window. “Okay, so you don’t want to tell me. Yet. You don’t want to tell me yet. I can wait.” She took a deep breath. “Elocution lessons. Mann’s Developmental College for Young Ladies had elocution lessons. I listened to tapes and imitated them.”

  “How interesting,” Adam said. “Why don’t you tell me all about your school?”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’d rather hear all about what you’re after and why you hired me over all those other young women.”

  Adam let out his breath in a long sigh. “Aren’t the trees beautiful at this time of year?”

  After that there had been no more talk of any importance between them, and when they got to Hartford, Adam had gone into a hairdressing salon and ten minutes later came out and told Darci that they were ready for her. She didn’t ask how he got her into such an exclusive-looking salon without an appointment, but she’d already seen in Camwell that he was able to make people do things.

  So now, hours later, her hair was finished, and she thought it looked good. In fact, one of the other hair-dressers had said to the woman who did Darci’s hair, “I think that’s the best cut you’ve ever given.” “Me too,” the hairdresser had said in wonder as she looked at Darci in the mirror.

  “Do you like it or not?” Darci asked Adam.

  Adam was looking at her as if he’d never seen her before. Her lank, shoulder-length blonde hair had been cut short and layered in such a way that it hugged her face. And it had been dyed a strawberry blonde that perfectly complemented her pale skin. And her eyes were different, too. He couldn’t see any makeup on her face, but her eyes were definitely different.

  “It’s called a pyxie cut, with a y instead of an i; that’s how they spelled it. And my hair’s been downlighted. That means that they darkened parts of it instead of lightening it, which is what they usually do to women’s hair. Are you listening to me?”

  “Every word,” he said, still staring at her.

  “As soon as I got into the chair, I applied my True Persuasion to the beautician—I mean, the hairdresser— and I told her to give me the best cut she had ever given anyone in her whole life.” Darci ran her hand through her hair, and it sprang back into place perfectly. “I think maybe she did. She said that the long part of my hair, the part she cut off, was in poor condition, but that the new growth was thick and healthy. Feel.”

  “No.”

  Darci gave Adam a little smile. “Are you afraid that touching my hair will drive you mad with passion?”

  “Give me a break, will you?” Adam said, frowning; then as she continued to look up at him, he sighed in capitulation. Darci bent forward as Adam put his hand on her head.

  “Nice.”

  “You mean that?”

  Adam smiled. “Yeah, I mean that,” he said as he turned and started walking toward where the car was parked.

  But when he realized that Darci was no longer beside him, he halted and looked back. She was reading a menu posted outside an Italian restaurant.

  Adam didn’t bother pointing out that they could drive back to Camwell and eat there. Nor did he mention that it had been only three hours since they’d eaten breakfast. Besides, the truth was, he was feeling a bit hungry himself.

  Walking back to her, he opened the door to the restaurant and followed her inside. After they’d placed their orders (Darci ordering eggplant Parmigiana, saying that she’d never eaten eggplant before), she told him that she’d been told all the gossip at the hairdresser’s.

  “Everyone in this town and maybe everybody in the state, considers Camwell a scary place. And the Grove is haunted. No one who lives within a hundred miles of that town would stay there overnight. And the waitress in Camwell was telling the truth: Every year for four years now someone has disappeared.”

  Darci was keeping her voice so low that he could hardly hear her. When he asked her why she was speaking so softly, he was told that “big city” people couldn’t be trusted. It took him a moment to digest this statement. In tiny Camwell, a place that people called “evil,” Darci blabbed to everyone about everything. But here in “big city” Hartford, Connecticut, she acted as though everyone in the restaurant were a spy.

  Adam wasn’t going to try to understand her “logic.” Instead, he reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a sheaf of papers. “While you were hexing the hairdresser, I went to the library and made some photocopies of articles about the four women who disappeared.”

  Darci smiled warmly at him. She liked that he said “photocopy” and not “Xerox.” She reached out to take the papers, but Adam drew back. “No, not now,” he whispered. “Our table may be bugged. You never know what these Hartfordites can get up to.”

  “Very funny,” she said, but her eyes glanced sideways for a moment. When she didn’t ask him for any more information about the papers, he put them away.

  Because of Darci’s belief that they shouldn’t discuss anything important in the “big city,” they confined their lunch talk to one of Darci’s favorite topics: food.

  “You’ve been to Italy?” she asked, and when he nodded, she fired off questions at him. How did the food in Italy compare to Italian food in the U.S.? Did he get to know any Italians? How did they differ from Americans? Her questions and his answers kept them busy throughout lunch.

  The only time there was a silence between them was when she asked him why he’d traveled so much in his life. “Didn’t you want to have a home? Kids?” she asked. But as so often happened, Adam stopped talking and looked down at his food in silence.

  She waited, hoping he’d explain something about himself, and twice he did look as though he were about to speak, but then he looked down again and said nothing.

  After several awkward moments, she asked him if he’d ever been to Greece.

  As for Adam, he was coming to the point where he wanted to tell her something about himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He liked the laughter they often exchanged, and he didn’t want to risk changing that.

  When she stopped staring at him and asked about another country, he smiled in relief, then lifted his head and looked at her.

  The clothes, the hair, and whatever she’d done to her eyes had changed her. He couldn’t believe that this pretty young woman was the same person who’d sat on the edge of her chair and swung her legs at their first meeting.

  Later, in the car on the way back to Camwell, Adam couldn’t keep himself from asking, “What did you do to your eyes?”

  “They dyed my eyelashes so they’re sooty black,” she said as she turned and fluttered her lashes at him. “Like them?”

  “They’re artificial looking,” Adam said stiffly. Her manner was playful, but at the same time it was seductive.

  His coolness hurt Darci’s feelings. “Oh?” she said, her lips tight. “And I guess you like natural women: the outdoors type with scrubbed skin, a fishing pole over one shoulder and a shotgun over the other.”

  Adam smiled at the image she conjured. He couldn’t imagine a type of woman he liked less. “That’s exactly my type. How did you guess?”

  “Is that what Renee is like?” Darci shot back.

  At that Adam nearly swerved off the road. “Where the hell did you hear her name?” he said when he got the car under control.

  “Don’t curse. It’s not nice.”

  Adam glanced at her, then back at the road. “Where did you snoop out her name?”

  “You talk in your sleep.”

  “And how would you know that?”

  “You talk in your sleep very loud.”

  For a moment Adam was silent. “What else did I talk about?” he asked softly.

  “Not much,” she said, smiling, obviously enjoying his discomfort. “Just Renee.”

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