“Then tell me this,” she said, her heart beating so fast she was almost breathless.
“Anything,” he said.
“Did you ever sleep with her?” she asked.
He looked straight at her, but then he bowed his head, and he didn’t say anything for almost a minute. She knew then. His silence was enough of an answer for her, but then he said the words out loud:
“Yes,” he said. “I did.”
Kate stood very still. She gazed at those eyes she had fallen in love with, that smile she had memorized, the arms that had held her. He wasConor, he was the same man. But just then she felt so numb inside, she might as well be standing beside a stranger.
“It was before,” he said. “Before you and I were really together.”
She nodded.
“Say something, Kate. Please.”
“Reallytogether?” she asked, hearing him qualify it. “Like when we were only a little bit?”
“No, Kate. It’s not like that.”
Kate waited for him to continue and tell her what itwaslike, but he was silent. She had thought about staying on the island until the backup police and Coast Guard arrived, but now she turned away and climbed into her plane.
She went through the motions as she did her preflight check and started the engine. She told herself she couldn’t afford to be numb; she needed all her senses to fly. On the other hand, numbness was probably safer than the alternative—giving in to a broken heart. Without looking back at Conor, Kate taxied down the grass strip and took off into the wind.
It wasn’t until she did a wide, banking turn that she looked down at the island, at Conor. He was standing right where she had left him, at the edge of the runway, looking up at her plane as it flew away.
14
Girl #3
Mid-May; two months earlier
It was as if he magically knew when she was getting ready to drift into another realm, into death, that he came to the boat to rescue her. He told her he had learned his lesson, by what had happened to the girls before her. He would never let her die on the boat. He told her the woman had gotten very angry with him. She had taught the girl everything she knew, it had taken a lot of effort and training at the Finishing School, and the girl was valuable to them.
So he would unlatch the companionway door, enter the cabin, kneel by the mattress, speak to her in a low, soothing voice. He would remove the restraints and gently wash her places where the metal cuffs had chafed her skin. He always brought fresh water and an antiseptic that stung. He would fill the cup and tip it against her lips. He would bring a dark-green thermos and feed her consommé with a silver spoon, and she would sip hungrily, as if she were a wounded bird being fed with a dropper.
The woman had trained her, but she hadn’t said anything about handcuffs or being fed with a dropper. She had left those parts out. The training had only been about parties and gowns and makeup andconversation and promises of trips to the island and to Europe and sailing on yachts and how the men loved it when you acted shy.
Sometimes this man spoke to her in French, using a phrase here and there. He told her that he would take her to France—to Alsace or the Loire Valley—places where the story began, where châteaus—real castles—were located. She had studied French in school—she had read novels in French such asL’Étrangerby Albert Camus andBonjour Tristesseby Françoise Sagan; poems by François Villon and Arthur Rimbaud. His accent was terrible, and she had to pretend to take him seriously.
Then, when she was strong enough, he would blindfold her again. He would tape her mouth shut. He would lead her into the fresh air, across the dock’s rough boards, across the grass, and up the hill. They would enter the house. She had never seen the house from the outside, but she sensed it was grand. When they reached her bedroom, and he untied the blindfold and ripped the tape off her mouth, she could see, feel, and smell all the beautiful things.
He reminded her the walls were made of stone and the locked door lined with lead, and that even if she screamed, no one would hear her.
Although there was no real light in the boat, here in the mansion, in her special bedroom, there was plenty. A chandelier with crystal prisms sent rainbows dancing all around the room. Gilded lamps stood on ornate white tables on either side of the big bed. The walnut headboard was carved with flowers and angels, antiqued with gold. The mattress was thick and so comfortable, covered with crisp white sheets and a featherlight white down comforter.
The floors were polished wood, covered with plush blue-and-white Aubusson rugs that he told her were very old. He had bought them at auction, just for her. Or for the girl before her, she was never really sure. There was a marble fireplace with brass andirons shaped like monsters, and when the fire was lit, their eyes glowed orange and flames shot from their mouths. Above the mantel hung a black-and-white photo—a still from the film they always watched. They read the books, too, andsometimes the imagery seemed so different, it was hard to believe it was the same story.
She felt nervous, waiting for the party to begin.
One wall had bookshelves from the floor to ceiling, and they were filled with hundreds of books. Novels, volumes of poetry, atlases, books about history, nature, dreams, psychology, travel, and more. She read all the time, sometimes a book every day. Mostly, the books were about them—about him. Well, not him by name—but his inspiration for all of this, for the gifts he gave her.
He gave her a diamond ring, to wear on her left hand. It was too big, so they made it fit by wrapping a piece of adhesive tape around the band. The stone was enormous, shaped like a pear. But she wondered if he had once given the ring to a girl who was bigger than she was, who the ring would fit better. Had that been the girl who had died on the boat? The girl who had scratched marks into the glass of the porthole?
Her reading pleased him. In the days before the party, he would visit her in the evening. He brought her dinner, served on a tray with gold-rimmed porcelain plates and sterling silver forks embossed with a coat of arms—he never gave her knives. If dinner was meat, he would cut it up for her himself. Then he would sit in the silk-covered armchair by the fire and watch her eat. After dinner, they had tea from a blue-and-white teapot, and he asked her to tell him about what she had been reading.
Especially what he called the legacy books: the various editions of “La Belle et la Bête.” He loved when she read in French; he kept interrupting her to make sure she knew that he was her special one, that other men might attend the party, but she had to know that she was his. Of course he didn’t know that all the men wanted that, and the woman had trained her to make them believe that each was the most important.
