Bill Pronzini - Nightcrawlers

I said slowly, “Kerry suspects, doesn’t she? If not about the rape, that there was something between you and Dancer.”

No response. The air conditioner made another of its stuttering noises.

“Cybil… straight out. Is she Dancer’s child?”

“No!”

“But she could be. The timing’s right.”

“She’s not! Ivan was her father-Ivan!”

Too much protest. She desperately wanted it to be Ivan, but she wasn’t completely sure.

I said, “Dancer believed she was his. That’s what the amazing grace message meant-his sly, sick little joke. And he put it all in that unpublished manuscript, didn’t he? The rape, your pregnancy, his possible fatherhood.”

“In graphic detail. God, he was a son of a bitch.”

Yeah. A son of a bitch, a rapist, another slimy nightcrawler. It made me sorry, very sorry, that I’d saved his ass from the murder charge years ago, that I’d cut him slack and pitied him.

Cybil drew a long breath before she said, “Are you going to tell Kerry?”

“Has she ever asked you directly if she might be Dancer’s daughter, or about your relationship with him?”

“No.”

“Then she doesn’t believe it, doesn’t really want to know. No, I’m not going to tell her. Your secret’s safe with me.”

“… Thankyou.”

“For what? I shouldn’t have come here, I should’ve let it stay buried. In fact, I wasn’t here today. We didn’t have this conversation and we’ll never have another one like it.”

I left her and walked slowly across the landscaped grounds to the parking lot. My car had been sitting in the direct sun; it was like an oven inside. But it could’ve been two hundred degrees in there and it still wouldn’t have been as hot as where Russ Dancer was right then.