The Melody Lingers On (31 page)

The fact that Christmas trees were lighted with colorful bulbs on the lawns all over Montclair made everything that much worse.

Everyone in the world had someone and he was alone.

Alone, alone, alone . . .

Judy, Judy, Judy . . .

The voices were clamoring in his head.
Kill them, kill them, kill them . . .
The heater in the car had stopped working and it was as cold inside as it was outside.

His fingers were stiff. He remembered how after he had bathed and fed her, Judy would slip her fingers into his and tell him how good he was to her and how much she loved him.

Then a car drove past him and parked behind Eric’s in the driveway. It was the girlfriend. This was his chance. The three of them were inside that house. But suddenly nervous, Ranger could
not force himself to leave the car. He was starting to hear Judy’s voice again.

About half an hour later, Eric and the girlfriend came out again and got into their cars. They’re probably going to a restaurant.

Habit made Ranger follow them.

H
e was almost there. Parker Bennett, his throat agonizingly dry, drove in light traffic to Montclair. He had not been in New Jersey very often, but
the navigation system made it easy. When he turned off the highway into Montclair he became aware of the charm of the Christmas lights on so many of the lawns.

Professional decorators had handled the Christmas decorations both inside and outside of the Greenwich mansion. A string of cars had driven by to see and admire the splendid display. Anne, being
Anne, had always put up a tree in her sitting room and decorated it herself with the lights and ornaments she had taken from her old home after her parents died. She also had a crèche under
the tree. There wasn’t a year she had missed.

Parker was sure she had the same display in her new home.

He reflected on the events of the past two years. The Fund had stopped growing. It had become impossible to keep the auditors at bay. The SEC was closing in. It was time to go. Immediately.

He had always felt secure knowing that at any time he could step into his new life as George Hawkins. On the other hand, he had begun to mistrust Eric. He had been almost certain that Eric was
planning to cheat him. That was why he had switched most of the money into the second account.

He had carefully planned his escape. He had stored the small inflatable dinghy and the outboard motor George Hawkins had bought in the well of his large sailboat in St. John. His exit strategy
was to abandon the sailboat on the open water and take the dinghy to St. Thomas. Over the years he had practiced the best route to take. The planning had paid off.

It was a long trip in choppy seas. Six hours after Parker Bennett abandoned ship off Tortola, George Hawkins steered the dinghy into the dock outside his small villa in St. Thomas.

“You will reach your destination in five hundred feet on the right,” the electronic voice of the navigation system reported.

Unaware that he was being observed not only by Ranger but by a dozen FBI agents, Parker got out of his car, walked up to the front door of the town house, took out his phone, and dialed
Anne’s number.

He had not heard her voice in two years but immediately discerned how different it sounded—low and tired.

“Anne,” he said, “it’s me. I’m at the door. I can’t stay away from you any longer. I’m going to turn myself in but first I need to spend a few hours
with you.”

Anne was gasping. “Oh, Parker, is it really you? Am I dreaming?”

“Anne, let me in.” The connection broke. Less than twenty seconds later Parker heard the sound of the latch being turned, and the door opened. He stepped inside, closed it, put his
arms around Anne, and embraced her tightly.

She was crying. “I knew you’d come back to me. I knew it.”

His arm around her, he walked with her into the living room.

“I almost expected to hear your music box playing. Where is it?” he asked, trying not to sound too eager.

And then he spotted it on the cocktail table, open, the broken figures beside it.

“I dropped it twenty minutes ago,” Anne said, “but it still plays our song. Isn’t that wonderful?” She looked directly at him. “Oh, Parker, you look so
different, but I know you’ve had to hide yourself.”

“Anne, there was a piece of paper here inside the box. Where is it?” Bennett’s voice had lost any hint of tenderness.

“Eric put it in his wallet.”

“Where is he?”

Suddenly frightened and bewildered, Anne Bennett stared at her husband. “Eric went out to dinner.”

“Is he going straight home?”

“No, he said he was going to stop in on me before he goes back to New York. Oh, Parker, he’s so angry at you. You can understand that.”

Parker Bennett nodded. “I can understand that. I want to make peace with Eric as well, if that’s possible. Now, Anne, let’s sit together until he gets here . . .”

“Oh, yes, yes.”

“And let’s play our song.”

He picked up the music box, wound it up, and listened as Anne, in a trembling but sweet voice, sang, “The song is ended but the melody lingers on.”

T
here’s something different about Eric, Lane realized. He seemed to be so utterly engaged with his own thoughts that her attempts at
conversation were futile. It was as though he was not listening to anything she said.

As they waited for the entrée to be served, he gulped rather than sipped his wine and even began drumming his fingers on the table.

For all the world she felt that he was merely going through the motions of dinner and anxious to have it over with. He certainly was not the charming man she had been seeing these last six
weeks. He had lied to his mother when he said the paper taped inside the music box was a serial number. What possible reason could he have had for that?

But more importantly, she was concerned about Anne Bennett. Doesn’t he realize that his mother may be very ill?

“Eric, has your mother ever had any heart trouble?” she asked.

“What? Oh, some. She can get an irregular heartbeat but that hasn’t happened since right after my father disappeared.”

Lane always had her phone in her pocket set on vibrate in case she received a call from home about Katie. She felt it go off now. “Oh, sorry,” she said. She glanced at the phone and
could see the name of the caller. It was Dwight Crowley, her stepfather. Quickly, she disconnected.

“Who was that?” Eric asked.

Lane thought quickly and then with a smile in her voice said, “It was my dear employer, Glady Harper, who thinks nothing of calling me any time between seven
A.M.
and midnight if
there’s something she wants to tell me.”

Eric nodded, not so much as though he understood but as though he was either disinterested or simply not focused.

“Eric, you didn’t even hear me,” Lane said. “I think you’re almost paralyzed with worry, and I think you have every reason to be concerned about your mother. Why
don’t you give her a call?”

A hint of annoyance came over Eric’s face. “Lane, you’re very solicitous about my mother and I appreciate that but she doesn’t look much different today than she did
yesterday and the day before that. But if it will make you happy . . .”

He picked up his cell phone and pressed her number. It rang five times and then the answering machine, with its electronic voice, came on.

“Maybe she went to bed,” he said.

“And maybe she didn’t,” Lane snapped. “Eric, your mother is sick. Let’s go back right now.”

Eric hesitated, stood up, and then said, “Maybe you’re right. You stay here. I can be back in fifteen minutes.”

“I’m coming with you,” Lane said firmly.

Shrugging, Eric threw a one-hundred-dollar bill on the table. “If you insist,” he said as the waiter, entrées in his hand, stared at them.

T
hey went into a restaurant about five minutes away. It was the one they had gone into the first time Ranger had followed them. Ranger parked his
car and once again got a table across the room from them. But then just as their dinner came, Eric threw money on the table and they both rushed out.

Without bothering to pay his bill, acting as if he was going to the bathroom, Ranger followed them, then ducked out the front door of the restaurant behind them.

While Eric and Lane gave their tickets to the valet, Ranger hustled across the street to where he had parked. He followed their cars back to the town house. He figured something had to be wrong
inside because of the way they were rushing.

He watched Eric run out of the car, the girlfriend a step behind him.

He might not have this chance again. All
three
of them. Why not? The voices were screaming at him, “Now! Now! Now!”

Ranger reached into the backseat for the package he would carry as an excuse to ring the doorbell and get into the house.

And then it would be over.

W
hen Anne’s phone rang, Parker Bennett looked at the name of the caller and then let the phone ring until he heard the voice of his son
inquiring anxiously, “Mom, are you okay? Mom, I know you’re there. Pick up the phone.”

When Anne went to take it out of his hand, Parker held it away from her until the connection broke.

“Anne, listen to me,” he said. “Before I turn myself in, I have to make my peace with my son. In his state of mind, if he knew I was here, he might very well call the
FBI.”

“Oh, Parker,” Anne said. “I didn’t think of that. I do need to have you and Eric make peace before I die.”

For the first time Bennett looked closely at his wife and saw how ghostly pale she was and the slight beads of perspiration that had formed on her forehead.

Filled with genuine concern, he asked, “Anne, have you had your heart checked recently? You don’t look as if you feel well.”

Anne shook her head and moved closer to her husband on the sofa. “Oh yes, I do take my heart medicine but some days I’m just not feeling quite right and this is one of
them.”

She looked up at him. “Parker, let me look at you as you are. That must be a wig. Take it off. And please don’t turn yourself in until tomorrow. Give me one last night with
you.”