The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) (28 page)

Bianca rolled over,
expecting to find Ronnie next to her. He was gone. She couldn't
hear any sounds from the bathroom. She got up. She wrapped her robe
about herself and went searching for him. He wasn't in the dining
room. He wasn't in the kitchen. She was beginning to grow alarmed
when she saw a row of suitcases lined up in the foyer right next to
the front door.

In her bare feet
Bianca padded over to the door and peered out. There was Ronnie
loading suitcases into the back of a limousine. A uniformed driver
was helping him. He and the driver were talking. The driver's back
was turned toward her, though there seemed to be something vaguely
familiar about his stance. She couldn't place it, just as she
hadn't been able to place a lot of things lately.

Ronnie came back
through the front door. He saw Bianca standing there.

"Yes, yes, it's
time for your pill, isn't it?" He went for the supply in the
small bag in his suitcase. He handed her one. "Take it. Get
dressed. It'll do you good once we start on our trip. Today's the
day we fly to London."

He kissed her on her
cheek and smiled. Ronnie didn't usually smile very often. Nor did
he usually seem to be in such a good mood.

He hurried her off to
her room. "You see the clothes I have laid out? Put them on. We
don't want to lollygag."

They were brand new,
conservative but expensive-looking. There was a short-sleeved, ivory
dress with a back zipper. Skinny-heel leather pumps went with it.
There was an ivory jacket of the exact same shade and even a new
string of pearls with matching earrings.

She recalled the
jeweler from yesterday. This must have been what Ronnie had bought.
It was rather extravagant. If Ronnie thought it was what was needed
to go to London, so be it. The Shipleys wouldn't mind. They never
begrudged her anything.

She didn't feel
good about today somehow. Maybe it was just her peculiar nightmare.
Bianca couldn't be sure. Her hand was shaking when she went to take
the pill. She dropped it down the sink. She reached for it, but it
slipped down the drain.

Bianca glanced over
her shoulder. She hoped that Ronnie had not been watching. He would
think her impossibly clumsy and stupid.

Oh well! She would
have to pretend that she had taken her pill. Bianca didn't want to
risk angering Ronnie by asking him for another.

Big mistake! At least
that was what Bianca decided as soon as she had washed her face,
gotten dressed and served the breakfast from the fast-food takeout
bags on the dining-room table. Her hands shook. For sure she felt
more nervous without the sedative.

Fortunately Ronnie
was distracted by his constant cellphone calls. He didn't have time
to notice her hands, even if she spilled the coffee and cream and
dropped a donut or two. He didn't object when she got powdered
sugar on his suit pants.

Finally it was time
to leave. Ronnie ushered Bianca, carrying Katie over her shoulder,
into the back seat of the limousine. He got in the opposite side and
barked to the driver, "To the airport!" At once he got out his
cellphone to make another call.

The driver glanced at
Ronnie. Bianca's hair stood up on end. Her brain wasn't foggy
this morning. She would recognize that face anywhere. Why, wasn't
that Rick Roscoe, though he was wearing a chauffeur's uniform?

She hadn't been in
such close proximity to him since that day when he'd hidden in the
window well at school. He'd warned her that she'd better kidnap
Little Katie for him, or there would be trouble. Was this the trouble
that Rick had threatened? Bianca didn't think that she was
hallucinating when he grinned at her as if he really enjoyed the
horrified look on her face.

Rick Roscoe turned
back around in his seat. Was it her imagination that he was eyeing
her in the rear-view mirror?

Ronnie continued to
talk on his cellphone. He was so preoccupied this morning that he
might not notice what was going on. Besides, she wondered if Ronnie
knew about Rick Roscoe. Ronnie had not been here this spring when
Rick and Marianna had gotten into so much trouble with the local
police. Over in London the story wouldn't have been covered by the
newspapers!

What was Rick doing
driving a limousine to the airport? Was this a new job? Or had he
knocked the real driver over the head and thrown him into some back
alley so that he could be here? Had Rick been snooping on Little
Katie's medical condition? Had he found out from some source —
perhaps a servant of the Shipleys — that they were going to London?
Was this Rick's way of interfering with Bianca's plans?

Bianca watched
anxiously to make sure that Rick Roscoe was driving toward the
Jacksonville International Airport in Florida, the closest major
airport to St. Simons Island. When he got across the bridge
connecting St. Simons Island to the mainland and out on to I-95, he
turned north instead of south. That was a sure sign that something
was very wrong.

Ronnie was talking a
mile a minute on his cellphone and leafing through a copy of a
foreign newspaper at the same time, written in a language that Bianca
could not read.

"Ronnie!" She
grabbed his shoulder and shook him.

Ronnie continued
talking in a language that sounded like the Portuguese that he had
been speaking at the Cloister party. He leaned toward Bianca.

"What do you want?"

"It's the driver.
Don't you see? It's Rick Roscoe."

"You know him?"

"He's one of the
kids who tried to do me in this past May. He was arrested and is out
on probation. He—"

"How nice that he's
now found a job! That'll keep him out of trouble." Ronnie
returned to his cellphone conversation.

She tugged at
Ronnie's suit coat. She pointed out the window. "Rick's headed
north along the highway, not south. Jacksonville's to the south,
isn't it?"

In a big hurry Ronnie
hissed, "There's been a change of plans. We're flying out of a
different airport, not Jacksonville. It has to do with maximum
security and protection for Little Katie."

He returned to his
conversation in Portuguese. She repeatedly tugged on his coat sleeve.

"Ronnie, you didn't
tell me. I—"

"I hardly thought
you'd notice," Ronnie hissed at Bianca. "That's why I didn't
mention it. You do seem to be jumpy this morning, my dear."

He looked her up and
down. "The pill hasn't had its usual effect. I should have
increased the dose before we began your travels. Traveling can have a
nasty effect on people. That was stupid of me not to anticipate it. I
guess I was too caught up in Little Katie's unusual skin problem."

Ronnie returned to
his cellphone.

She kept her eyes
fixed on Rick Roscoe as Katie sat on her lap and played with her
favorite bears. The child didn't seem to be as fussy this morning.

Bianca wanted to see
if Rick would try anything else funny. She wasn't certain that he
was on the level, that he hadn't gotten this job by stealth for his
own sneaky purposes.

Bianca watched the
mileage signs to Savannah carefully as they shot past on the
interstate. Savannah, Georgia, was getting closer. There was an
airport in Savannah. That must be where they were headed.

She couldn't help
but notice, though, that Rick rarely took his eyes off her. He
glanced at the side-view mirror. He glanced at the odometer and the
car controls. He concentrated on the traffic when he passed another
car. His gaze always returned to her image in the rear-view mirror.

"Ronnie!" Bianca
whispered into Byron Kingsley's ear. "I — I think the driver is
staring at me every chance he gets."

Ronnie looked annoyed
as he interrupted his call. "You're imagining things, Bianca. Why
would he stare at you? When we get to London, I'll give you
stronger pills."

"I — I think he
might be trying to kidnap Little Katie. He threatened to—"

"Nonsense! How
could he accomplish something like that with me in the car?" Ronnie
waved away her objections. "I've got a cellphone. I could call
the police. Now try not to interrupt me until I finish this call.
It's important."

True, Bianca did have
Ronnie to protect her. The other times when Rick Roscoe had
threatened Bianca and the child, Ronnie had not been around. She
moved closer to Ronnie and never took her eyes off the child, who
continued to play as if the rash didn't bother her.

Bianca didn't leave
Little Katie in the car when they stopped for gas. She asked Ronnie
to wait outside the door while she went to the ladies' restroom so
Rick couldn't sneak up on her. Ronnie humored her, though he
continued to talk nonstop on his cellphone.

As soon as they got
back on to the highway, Bianca noticed Rick Roscoe staring into the
rear-view mirror with unusual intensity. He wasn't looking directly
at her. His eyes were focused on something behind them. Whatever it
was, it caused Rick to forget about Bianca and Little Katie.

Nothing could seem to
make Ronnie stop talking on the phone a mile a minute. He did not
notice a thing as Bianca turned around and peered over her shoulder.

A bunch of vehicles
were all headed north. There were trucks, cars, vans, RVs and
trailers hauling boats. The road was crowded. Rick was focusing on
something in particular. Bianca didn't think it could be the tall
southern pines lining either side of the road, or the clouds.

Rick speeded up. He
passed the car in front of him. He passed the car in front of that.
He wove in and out of traffic in a crazy fashion.

Behind them a big,
black car sped up and wove crazily in and out of traffic also. The
faster Rick drove, the faster that black car drove.

When the black car
got closer, she could see that the window glass was darkened. Even
the front windshield appeared tinted. It was impossible to tell who
occupied the driver's seat. Was the person male or female, old or
young, someone she knew, perhaps a total stranger?

Rick swerved to the
right. In a few seconds he crossed three solid lanes of traffic and
disappeared down the exit ramp. He was doing eighty-five in a zone
where most drivers were doing fifty-five. The big black car did not
make it off the highway in time. No doubt this was what Rick had
intended. He had been trying to lose it.

Incredibly, Ronnie
did not glance up from his newspaper and his telephone conversation
that went on past the crack of doom.

"Ronnie —" she
pulled at his suit jacket — "we're on a different road now."

"Sh-h-h-h-h! This
is very important."

Bianca was not
familiar with the geography in this area. She couldn't tell if Rick
was still going in the same direction, the opposite direction, or
another direction all together. The other car chasing him could have
been a fake, or a "plant". Rick could have arranged for somebody
like Marianna to be driving the car to give him an excuse to head to
the place where he intended to hold them up and kidnap Katie.

It reinforced
Bianca's doubts when Rick resumed his habit of eyeballing her in
the rear-view mirror. They were going more slowly, too, proceeding up
what looked like a crowded, suburban street full of shopping malls,
fast-food restaurants, hotels, banks, convenience stores, gas
stations and grocery markets. He was crawling when he stopped at a
red light. Rick turned around. Leaning on the front seat with his
uniformed elbow, he gave Bianca a naked stare.

In desperation Bianca
glanced toward Ronnie. Amazingly he was still on the phone. He acted
as if he had no idea where they were. Had Rick drugged him or put him
under some kind of spell? Bianca was beginning to wonder who was in
charge.

"Ronnie. . ."

Ronnie waved her off
and kept on talking.

Rick smiled at her.

The light changed.
They started back up. Rapidly matters became even more suspicious.

Though the traffic
was more heavy on this major suburban street than it had been on the
highway, Rick floored it. He passed cars, even cars stopped in
traffic jams at lights. When he couldn't get around them, he turned
into shopping centers and wove his way through traffic to get back to
the road. He defied the painted yellow-and-white markers on the
pavement that directed traffic to proceed one way only. Cars honked
at him. He kept on going.

At last Rick turned
down a dirt road. It was shady, with trees lining both sides of the
street. The trees leaned into each other, forming an umbrella over
the roof of the car. The car bumped along. Little Katie began to wail
for the first time that day.

"Ronnie, Rick
turned down a dirt road. We're not headed toward Savannah. Just
look outside!"

"Later, Bianca,
later! Whatever you think you see, we'll deal with it once we board
the plane." He waved her away as if he were telling her it was all
in her mind.

Bianca didn't know
how to make him believe what was happening. She was positive now that
Rick Roscoe must be kidnapping them and taking them to a secure, pre
planned location in the woods. Should she try to open the door and
make a run for it? Rick was going about twenty miles an hour because
the road was so bumpy. Sometimes he slowed down to ten.

Bianca's free hand
crept along the car seat toward the door handle. She inched her way
toward the door. She positioned herself to bolt the next time that
Rick slowed down, which should be any second. The road was so narrow
that tree branches smacked against the roof. They were engulfed in a
cloud of dust. She wouldn't be surprised if he was forced to stop.

It was her obligation
to Little Katie to make sure that she did not get kidnapped. Mr. and
Mrs. Shipley had entrusted the child's welfare to her. If Bianca
had to trek across miles of open country with a child in her arms, if
she had to bunk down under the trees, if she had to hitchhike a ride
back to St. Simons Island, so be it!