The Silent Widow

‘What did you do to Anne?’

Rodriguez seemed surprised that this was what Nikki wanted to ask.

‘To Anne? Nothing that she didn’t want me to do,’ he replied, smiling smugly. ‘My wife likes to be dominated, you see, Dr Roberts. I’m surprised you haven’t figured that out by now. But then again, you never really knew Anne. Not like I do.’

‘I knew she was afraid of you,’ said Nikki. ‘I knew she ran because she couldn’t stand one more day in the cage of a life you’d condemned her to.’

His smile died on his lips.

‘You know it amuses me to listen to you try to defend her. Even now, after she brought you here to die.’

‘Because you forced her to. The same way you forced her to watch what you did to Willie Baden. You terrorized her. You beat her!’ Nikki insisted.

Luis shook his head. ‘No, Dr Roberts. You still don’t get it, do you? She does these things because she loves me. In the end, whatever she feels for you, Anne will do anything to please me, and to protect me. Because, despite your best efforts to destroy us, her heart is still mine.’

‘That’s not true,’ said Nikki. But she could hear her own conviction wavering. Anne had brought her here, after all, led her into Rodriguez’s trap. And who knew what role she’d really played in Baden’s killing?

‘I should have stepped in a long time ago,’ Luis went on, his gun still pointed firmly at Nikki’s head. ‘The irony is that I was going to get rid of you before you even met my wife. As soon as I discovered that that buffoon Berkeley had been reckless enough to put himself in therapy. Of all the moronic things to do.’

‘You mean Carter?’ Nikki’s eyes widened. ‘What does Carter Berkeley have to do with any of this?’

Luis’s smile broadened. ‘You really don’t know, do you?’

‘No,’ Nikki said truthfully. ‘I don’t.’

‘All right, Dr Roberts. In that case, I’m going to tell you a little story. Just for fun. And you see if you can fit some of the pieces together. Once upon a time, there was a man. Not a young man, but a man in his prime.’

His voice was deep and mellifluous, like an actor’s, and there was a hypnotic quality about the way he spoke that compelled one to listen. Nikki could quite see how a younger, more vulnerable Anne could have fallen under his spell.

‘Try and picture this man in a forest, a few miles outside Mexico City. A beautiful, secluded spot. It’s a hot, dark night. The moon is full. He’s waiting for a girl. A special girl. A girl whose soft, young body he’s been pleasuring himself with for months now, but not like this. Not like tonight. Tonight will be different. Even more special.’

Nikki felt a cold, prickling sensation creep over her. She shivered. Rodriguez was becoming excited, telling the story. Carter Berkeley’s words came rushing back to her, from their last session together, when Carter had slipped almost into a trance. ‘I see a clearing in the trees. It’s nighttime. It’s dark but there’s moonlight. It’s hot.’

‘He sees her coming,’ Rodriguez went on. ‘She’s stumbling through the fields, taking glances at the little map he’s made for her. Her reddish blond hair, newly washed, swings from side to side as she walks. She’s tall, very tall, and her long, slim legs picking their way over fallen branches and rocks remind him of a young deer. Perfection. She’s so beautiful it’s almost painful to watch her. So young. So innocent! Are you with me, Dr Roberts?’

Nikki nodded, appalled but mesmerized. The pieces were starting to fall into place. Some of them, anyway.

‘Charlotte Clancy. You’re talking about Charlotte Clancy, aren’t you?’

‘Very good,’ Rodriguez grinned. ‘More than anything, it was her innocence that had drawn the man in. It was intoxicating, something he wanted because he had never had it. He’d been young once himself, of course, a long time before. But he’d never been truly innocent. Not like Charlotte. The two of them came from different worlds, different planets. Their stars had never been intended to collide. But collided they had, and here he was, watching her, drinking in the wonder of her as she rushed to meet him.’

‘What happened then?’ Nikki asked, as if this were a therapy session and she was drawing her client out. Which, in a way, she was.

‘Well then, the man got silently out of his car and tiptoed the few hundred feet to the clearing, so he would be there to greet her when she arrived,’ said Rodriguez, playing along. ‘He felt aroused. Excited. He’d been hesitant before but not now. He wanted this. He called out through the darkness:

‘“Cara!”

‘“I’m here! I’m here my love,” she called back.’

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nbsp; He mimicked Charlotte Clancy’s voice in a squeaky falsetto that made Nikki’s stomach churn.

‘Then she stepped into the clearing and stood shyly in front of him, maybe ten feet away. She tried to come closer but he held up a hand to stop her. Told her he wanted to remember her there, just as she was. Can you picture her?’

‘I can,’ said Nikki, repulsed. ‘She was eighteen years old. A child. What did you do to her, Luis?’

He made another little ingratiating bow and chuckled. ‘Right again, Dr Roberts. So the young lady is Charlotte and the man is me. You’re almost there. I was married at the time, to my second wife – this is a few years before Anne – and I’d had a fabulous summer fling with Charlotte. But then, very unfortunately, she decided to overstep the boundaries. And she really left me with no choice but to finish things.