Spellbinder (29 page)

“I’d run,” she said suddenly.

His mouth twisted into a slow, smug smile. “You’re afraid of me, then.”

But his eyes had sharpened. Momentarily, the rhythm of his erotic caress was suspended. Her answer had surprised him, taken him off balance.

She looked down at the knife, then up again into his eyes. “As long as you have that knife, I’m afraid of you.” She paused, then decided to say, “Is that what you want to hear?”

He looked at the knife, holding it up before his eyes, pantomiming a pretense that he was seeing it for the first time. Then, looking at her, he said, “What if I gave it to you? Do you think it would change anything?” He spoke softly, speculatively.

“Yes,” she answered. “Yes, I think it would. I think it would change everything.”

His left hand had resumed its slow, obscene stroking. Very seriously and deliberately, as if he were rendering a decision on some matter of great importance, he slowly shook his head. “No,” he said softly, “it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t change a thing. I could give you this knife—” Tentatively, he extended it toward her with his right hand while he pointed to a nearby wooden chair with his left hand. “And then I could pick up that chair. And I guarantee you that I’d be the winner.” He let a beat pass, staring at her intently. Behind his eyes, something shifted—something primitive, and predatory. Something more profound than sex, and infinitely more dangerous. Then, once more, he held out the knife. “You want to try it?”

“No,” she answered. “No, I don’t.” Then without forethought, she added: “And you want to know why?”

For a long, silent moment he continued to stare at her while the atavistic light still guttered behind his dull, dead eyes. He didn’t want to answer the question—didn’t want to be jolted out of the mood he’d created for himself. But, still, he wanted to know the answer. So, finally, he said, “Why?”

“Because I don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “I don’t want you to hurt me. But I don’t want to hurt you, either.”

As if to fling the sense of her answer away from him, he sharply gestured. “That’s bullshit. That’s fucking bullshit. You’d hurt me, if you could. You’d fucking
kill
me, if you could.”

“No,” she answered. “No, I wouldn’t. I don’t want to hurt you.” She let a long, decisive beat pass. Then, holding his eye steadily with hers, she spoke in a slow, measured voice. Saying quietly: “You’re my half brother. Don’t you see that?”

Suddenly—wildly—he laughed. “That’s clever. That’s really clever.”

She didn’t respond.

“You think you’ll protect yourself, by saying that.”

In reply, she slowly, silently shook her head.

“Half brother,” he spat out. “Shit. I’m just—just what happened when Austin Holloway decided to have a little fun for himself. I grew up in a smelly little house with leaks in the roof and rats in the walls. And you—” Savagely, he slashed the space between them with the knife. “I’ve seen where you grew up. So don’t talk to me about being your brother. You hear?” He broke off. Then, shrilly: “
You hear?
”

She’d scored on him—deflected his obscene intentions, at least for the moment. Words—her chosen weapon—were working.

But she’d also roused his rage, another danger.

“You said your mother—” She hesitated. “You said she’s in an asylum. You said that my father keeps her there, just like he kept her all her life. Well, my mother—” Once more, she hesitated. It was an obscenity, to use her mother’s affliction to save herself from harm.

But she must do it—must try.

“My mother,” she said, “is an alcoholic. She’s a hopeless alcoholic. So they’re both victims, you see—both your mother and my mother, too.”

“You’re lying. I’ve seen her on TV.”

“She doesn’t get a bottle Saturday night,” she muttered. “She doesn’t get one until Sunday, after she finishes doing The Hour. It’s been like that for—for almost as long as I can remember.” As she said it, she was compelled to drop her eyes before the sudden intensity of his gaze.

Suddenly he stooped over her, furious. Hissing: “You’re a liar. You’re a fucking liar.”

She’d scored again—struck through his defenses again.

“No, I’m not lying.” Her voice, she knew, was calm. Convincing.

With the knife held loosely at his side, forgotten, he still bent over her, searching her face with a taut, terrible intensity. Then, slowly, his mouth twisted. This time, his smile was real. Grotesque, but real.

“Your mother’s a drunk,” he said softly. “And my mother’s crazy. What’d they say about something like that? What is it? Poetic justice? Is that what they call it?”

Hesitantly, she nodded. “Yes. Th-that’s what they call it. Poetic justice.”

“Or maybe it isn’t poetic justice. Maybe there’s another name for it. Maybe you’re just agreeing with me, because of this—” He raised the knife again, holding it toward her, as if to tantalize her with its beauty and power, just beyond her reach.

Trying to hold her gaze steady with his, she didn’t answer. She saw his eyes fall to the knife, which he now raised before him until its point came in line between his eyes and hers. Slowly, lovingly, he rotated the blade as it reflected the pale glow of the lamplight across his face. It was a light show—a diabolical light show.

“When I was in prison,” he said, “I used to lie in bed and think about knives. I used to think about how important they are.” His voice was soft and dreamy. His eyes were pensive, fixed on the knife point. “Do you know how important they are?”

“N—” Her throat closed. “No, I don’t. I mean, I—I’ve never had—” She realized that she was helplessly shaking her head. What did he want her to say? How should she say it? Subserviently? Was that what he wanted from her: subservience? A show of palpable terror?

“If you have a knife,” he said, “and the other person doesn’t, then you’re the master. Whatever you order, the other person’s got to do it. And I used to lie in bed, and think about that. I used to think about how a knife is better than a gun. You pull the trigger, and that’s it, with a gun. But with a knife, you’ve got a special edge. With a knife, you can make someone your slave. But, of course, you have to be delicate. You have to use imagination. You have to understand a knife. And you have to make the other person understand. That’s probably the most important part, you see.” As he said it, his dreamy gaze left the knife, and wandered to her.

“Do you understand?” he asked.

“I—” Helplessly, she shook her head. “I’m not sure. I—” She was aware that she was still futilely shaking her head.

“Stand up,” he said softly. “Stand up, and I’ll give you a lesson. I’ll make you understand.”

With her eyes fixed on the blade, she drew her feet beneath her, braced her hands against the arms of the chair, levered herself slowly, heavily to her feet. Would her legs support her? Did he realize that, suddenly, her knees were shaking—that she was hollow at the core, trembling with terror?

“Now—” He lowered the knife until its point was inches from her torso. “Now, first, unfasten your shirt. But do it one button at a time. And when you do it, I don’t want you to look down. I want you to look at the knife. Right at the knife.”

With numb fingers, she found the top button. The knife followed the task, its sparkling point attentive to her hands. The first button came free. The second button was between her breasts. As if to guide her, the knife moved delicately lower. With the second button unfastened, she heard him softly sigh.

“Two more,” he said, lowering the knife to the third button. “Just two more.”

Suddenly her eyes filled with tears. She blinked, raised her hand to wipe at her eyes.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

Beneath the point of her chin, she felt pressure, then pain. It was the knife, forcing her head up.

“The lesson is just beginning, Denise. Just beginning. You don’t want to stop now, do you?”

She couldn’t speak, couldn’t move her head without risking more pain. Was she cut? Did she feel a trickle of warm blood running down her throat?

“Now—” As he spoke, she felt the pressure lessen. “Now, the last two buttons, please.”

The knife was in front of her now, offering a sadistic reprieve from the pain. Fiercely she used both hands to clear her eyes of tears, then tore defiantly at the remaining buttons, freeing them.

“Ah—” It was another soft, crooning exhalation. “Ah. Yes—” Deftly, one side at a time, the knife flicked her shirt open. Approvingly, he nodded down at her breasts. “Yes. Very nice, Denise.” He nodded again. Repeating: “Very nice.”

Involuntarily, she stepped back from his obscene stare. Instantly, the knife came up before here eyes. “No, no,” he whispered, as if he were chiding a misbehaving child. “No, no, you can’t do that. Don’t you see, every time you do something your master doesn’t like, you feel the knife? I thought you understood that, Denise.”

“No.” She realized that her voice was dangerously loud, incoherently protesting. She was vehemently shaking her head. Sudden anger rose in her throat, bitter as bile. “
No.
”

“Yes,” he crooned, moving closer. “Oh, yes.” She saw his manic face move close behind the knife. Then she saw the knife slowly lower between them, disappearing as his eyes held hers.

“Stand still, Denise,” he whispered. “Stand very still. Do just as I tell you. Because that’s the game, you see. The better you behave—the better you obey—the less I have to hurt you. Do you understand?”

She couldn’t answer. Suddenly the trembling returned. She felt her knees shaking. The room was tilting away from her, sliding off into darkness. In her ears, a distant roar was beginning, like faraway surf. At the edge of the darkness, tiny lights were dancing.

“I—I’ve got to sit down.”

“No, no—” Once more, the knife point pricked beneath her chin, them moved toward her throat, under her jaw. “No, Denise, don’t faint. Because, if you faint, you could really hurt yourself when you fall. You see?”

To stop the room from spinning, she closed her eyes, surrendering to a sudden void of blackness, and to the strange, eerie roaring. Was this how it felt to die? Was this how it began?

He was whispering something. She could feel his breath on her face. And now, a miracle, the pain was gone. Her master had granted another reprieve from the knife.

“… over here, now,” he was saying. “Come over here.” As he spoke, she felt him moving away. She opened her eyes, blinked against the tears. He was moving toward the chair, and gesturing for her to follow. He sat in the chair, his legs wide apart. “You sit here,” he said, gesturing to the floor at his feet. “You sit between my legs, here, facing me. And we’ll play another game, Denise.” As he spoke, he suddenly drove the knife into the table beside the chair. The blow was so violent that the table top split.

“I
T’S UP THERE—” HE
pointed. “It’s just beyond the next curve. You’d better slow down.”

Calloway, the third man from Los Angeles, took his foot from the accelerator as he eased the car smoothly into the curve. He was a good, steady driver. Snatches of conversation during the past hours had suggested that Calloway was Holloway’s driver
cum
bodyguard. And a chance remark from Granbeck had revealed that, years ago, Calloway had been in prison. Not once, but twice.

“Right there. See those three mailboxes, set back from the road? That’s the turnoff.”

Nodding, Calloway braked, swung the big car deftly into the narrow access road. Perhaps Calloway had been a wheelman: the one who waited in the high-powered car outside the bank, engine purring.

“You’ll see a big redwood stump on the right side of the road,” he said. “My driveway is just on the other side of the stump, about three hundred feet farther up the road. So, when you see the stump, you’d better switch off the lights.”

“And let it idle,” Mitchell said quietly. “Take it slow and easy.”

“Slow and easy. Right.” Obediently, Calloway slowed the car. Obviously, Calloway took his orders from Mitchell. Just as obviously, from now on, Mitchell would be in charge. Flournoy, the strategist, had tacitly turned over field command to the big man with the dark, inscrutable eyes. The warrior’s time had come! Seated in the front seat beside Calloway, Peter was aware of a visceral tightness, a dryness of the throat, a quickening of the heartbeat. What would they find, around the next curve? For the past several miles, driving in silence through the night, he’d fallen into a curious apathy—almost a surrender of the will. Whatever would happen had probably already happened—or hadn’t happened.

Yet, for the first hour, driving across the Golden Gate Bridge and through southern Marin County with these four strangers, his hopes and his fears had swung wildly from a kind of tremulous optimism to a dark, brooding pessimism. At first he’d been sure that nothing could happen to her. Violence was something that happened to strangers—something to read about over morning coffee.

Then he’d lapsed into a terrified certainty that, yes, the worst could happen—and had happened. Meaning that, yes, she could have died. “The worst” was a cop-out phrase, a glib, bland euphemism for disaster.

But, just as certainly, she could be alive, safe in the cabin where they’d spent so many wonderful days—and nights. She could merely have lost her purse, or had it stolen. Nothing more.

Up ahead, the headlights shown on the giant redwood stump, a relic of some long-forgotten, nineteenth century logging operation. A click, and the lights died. Had Calloway done it soon enough? Had the lights been visible from the cabin, warning Carson? He didn’t know, couldn’t decide. Because, once more, that curious indifference had overtaken him—that strange, frightening apathy.

With the headlights off, the familiar roadside landmarks emerged from the darkness: an ancient, split-rail fence, covered with moss and overgrown with wild grapevines. Now he saw a pile of boulders, crusted with moss and lichen.

They were drawing even with the stump—creeping past it. Exposed.

Through the trees, in the direction of his cabin, he saw a soft glow of golden light—lamplight, shining through the cabin’s front windows.