“Play it ten times,” he used to beg when she stopped. “One for each piggy toe.” His mother had loved him so much! Then she changed. He could still hear her voice. “What are these magazines doing in your room? Why did you take those pumps from my closet? After all we’ve done for you! You’re such a disappointment to us.”

When he reappeared two years ago, Charley ordered him to place ads in the personal columns. So many ads. Charley dictated what he had to say in the special one.

Now seven girls were buried on the property, each with a dancing slipper on the right foot, her shoe or sneaker or boot on the left… He’d begged Charley to let him stop for a while. He didn’t want to do it anymore. He’d told Charley that the ground was still frozen-he couldn’t bury them, and it was dangerous to keep their bodies in the freezer… But Charley shouted, “I want these last two to be found. I want them found just the way I let Nan be found.”

Charley had chosen these last two the same way he had chosen the others after Nan. They were named Erin Kelley and Darcy Scott. They had each answered two different personal ads he’d placed. More important, they had each answered his special ad.

In all the replies he’d received, it was their letters and pictures that had jumped out at Charley. The letters were amusing, the cadence of the language attractive, almost like hearing Nan ’s voice, that self-deprecating wit, that dry, intelligent humor. And there were the pictures. Both were inviting in different ways…

Erin Kelley had sent a snapshot of herself perched on the corner of a desk. She’d been leaning forward a bit as though speaking, her eyes shining, her long, slim body poised as though she were waiting to be asked to dance. Darcy Scott’s picture showed her standing by a cushioned window seat, her hand on the drapery. She was half-turned toward the camera. Clearly, she’d been surprised when her picture was taken. There were swatches of material over her arm, an absorbed, but amused, expression on her face. She had high cheekbones, a slender frame, and long legs accentuated by narrow ankles, her slim feet encased in Gucci loafers.