“Clive, Willa, Byon and you. Mrs. Aiken and Puck are already here.”
Nadine was looking at her in disbelief. “And this is for...for...?”
“A reunion,” Sara said. “But also to talk about what happened that night when the people disappeared.”
“For your little books?” Nadine’s lip curled.
Sara stood up. “I think this was a mistake. I’ll talk to the others. Perhaps you’d like to leave. I can arrange—”
“No!” Nadine said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. It’s just that it wasn’t a mystery.”
“Then what was it?”
“It was the end of...” She pulled a dress from the suitcase. “The end of something wonderful, and as we knew we must, we separated. We went our own ways. It’s just that Diana didn’t tell us where she was going.”
“Wasn’t she engaged to Nicky? And there was another engagement, wasn’t there?”
Nadine shrugged. “Broken engagements are something that happen.” She glanced at the bed and her mind filled with memory.
It was in this bed that Willa was screaming and threatening to kill herself.
Nadine looked back at Sara. “Isn’t a broken engagement something called a ‘plot device’? My guess is that a year later Willa married. She probably has three children by now.”
“I don’t know what’s happened in her life,” Sara said. “But she’ll be here soon and we’ll ask her.”
“Yes, let’s do.”
Sara was trying to dampen her dislike of the woman, but it wasn’t easy. Maybe she should go in a different direction. “All of you seemed to be good friends. Parting must have hurt.”
“It did. Those were the best years of my life.” Nadine sat down, a blouse on her lap. “This house was so shabby then. My father worried that the roof would cave in on us. But we didn’t mind. Thanks to Willa, we had wonderful food. Byon entertained us endlessly and Nicky charmed us.” She closed her eyes for a moment.
One of Byon’s little “entertainments” was mocking them all. He portrayed Nicky as a useless fob; Willa was begging for anyone to love her; Clive was an inferno of hatred; Nadine was a low-class slut with money. Byon was madly talented, but too often he was despicably cruel.
“What about Diana?”
Nadine opened her eyes and smiled. “She was the sensible one. We were all dreamers. If we had food and drink, we were happy. Diana kept the roof patched. Before she came, we just put down buckets to catch the rainwater. I used to wash my hair in it.”
She could hear Diana shouting at them for their laziness and self-centeredness.
“What about Clive?”
With a groan, Nadine got up and put the blouse in the wardrobe. “Clive wasn’t really one of us. He wanted to be, but...”
“But what?”
“All Clive thought about was money. I wonder what he does now?”
“He’s a banker.”
“Of course he is. Locked away from clients, I hope. He could never get along with anyone.”
Clive rarely spoke to them—which was worse than Diana’s shouting and Bertram’s cursing. Clive just sneered at them in contempt.
“Did you say Puck is here?”
“Yes.”
“That poor thing. Her mother was a beast to her. We tried to protect her, b