Just Take My Heart - Mary Higgins Clark [2]
As she turned off the parkway onto Walnut Street, Natalie realized she was longing for a cup of coffee. She had driven straight through and it was quarter of eight. By this time, on a normal day, she would already have had at least two cups.
Most of the houses on Walnut Street in Closter had been torn down to make way for new luxury homes. It was her joke that now she had seven-foot hedges on either side of her house, giving her complete privacy from either neighbor. Years ago, the Keenes had been on one side and the Foleys on the other. Today, she hardly knew who her neighbors were.
The sense of something hostile hit her as she turned in to her driveway and pushed the clicker to open the garage door. As the door began to rise, she shook her head. Gregg had been right when he said that she became every character she played. Even before the stress of meeting Jess, her nerves had been unraveling, like those of Blanche DuBois.
She drove into the garage, stopped, but for some reason did not immediately push the clicker to close the garage door behind her. Instead, she opened the driver's door of the car, pushed open the kitchen door, and stepped inside.
She felt gloved hands dragging her in, twirling her around, and throwing her down. The crack of her head on the hardwood floor sent waves of pain radiating through her skull, but she could still see that he was wearing a plastic raincoat and plastic over his shoes.
“Please,” she said, “please.” She held up her hands to protect herself from the pistol he was pointing at her chest.
The click as he pushed down the safety catch was his answer to her plea.
Just Take My Heart
2
At ten minutes of eight, punctual as always, Suzie Walsh turned off Route 9W and drove to the home of her longtime employer, Catherine Banks. She had been the seventy-five-year-old widow's housekeeper for thirty years, arriving at eight a.m. and leaving after lunch at one p.m. every weekday.
A passionate theatre buff, Suzie loved the fact that the famous actress Natalie Raines had bought the house next to Mrs. Banks last year. Natalie was Suzie's absolutely favorite actress. Only two weeks ago, she had seen her in the limited run of A Streetcar Named Desire and decided no one could ever have played the fragile heroine Blanche DuBois better, not even Vivien Leigh in the movie. With her delicate features, slender body, and cascade of pale blond hair, she was the living embodiment of Blanche.
So far Suzie had not met face-to-face with Raines. She always hoped that she'd run into her someday in the supermarket, but that hadn't happened yet. Whenever she was coming to work in the morning, or driving home in the afternoon, Suzie always made it her business to drive past Raines's house slowly, even though in the afternoon, it meant driving around the block to get to the highway.
This Monday morning, Suzie almost realized her ambition of seeing Natalie Raines close-up. As she drove past her house, Raines was just stepping out of her car. Suzie sighed. Just that much of a glimpse of her idol was like a bit of magic in her day.
At one o'clock that afternoon, after a cheerful good-bye to Mrs. Banks and armed with a shopping list for the morning, Suzie got into her car and backed out of the driveway. For a moment she hesi?tated. There wasn't a million to one chance that she would see Nata?lie Raines twice in one day, and anyway she was tired. But habit prevailed, and she turned the car left, driving slowly as she passed