The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) Read online

  "Doc, I don't care about the money. Please don't use it to cause more trouble," she begged.

  "Now that we're married your interests are supposed to be my interests. We're not supposed to be at odds. I need to borrow some of your money — or what used to be your money — to make some business investments.

  Then I can start making money in my own name. I'll share that money with you as my new wife as well as with our children in the years to come."

  He had their whole lives arranged.

  "I wish I could have made you sign the power of attorney to begin with. It would have been much simpler. Instead I had to take the first one hundred thousand dollars by stealth. I had to hire the Harry look-alike to appear in the Brunswick bank in person. He risked his neck forging Harry's signature on the wire transfer form."

  She gasped.

  "Remember, you were foolish enough to give Harry permission to use your account. That was your error, my sweet. I merely took advantage of it."

  "Why did you need one hundred thousand dollars so fast?"

  He slipped a photo out of his suit pocket and showed her a picture of a Spanish house made of white stucco with a red-tiled roof and wrought-iron gates. There was an arched entranceway and a shaded alcove leading to the front door. Two palm trees grew in the front yard.

  "That's our new house. They don't come for nothing."

  "Oh." She didn't know what to say.

  "The money was also used to help the Harry look-alike track down that diamond that you're wearing. He took it back from the new owner that the Shipleys sold it to in May. The look-alike also picked up your gold wedding band in a jewelry store. It was the one that I sent the Shipleys' butler to order yesterday."

  "You stole the diamond ring?"

  "The owner wouldn't sell it. It wasn't right that they owned it in the first place. I'm sure the Shipleys would rather have you wear it. I know I certainly would." He gazed down at the scintillating stone with admiration. "I've been to a lot of trouble trying to get hold of it over the years."

  So it was the same diamond that had been the cause of Mrs. Ingersoll's death! It seemed to glint red and now shimmering white again.

  "You see, I used your money wisely. The money I took from your wallet the first night you spent at my apartment I used to buy that gown you wore to the Cloister party. The pink dress looked nice on you. It captured your air of charming innocence."

  He brushed a lock of hair away from her face.

  Bianca remembered not being able to call a cab to go to school because she had found herself suddenly penniless.

  "Doc, how could you be a thief as well as a killer?" She felt like crying. She had never pictured him this way.

  "Bianca, I warn you that even though this is our wedding night I will get angry at you if you do not obey me. You just promised to obey me, remember? It was in your wedding vows. I made sure of it. As I warned you, I'm very old-fashioned."

  Tears streamed down her cheeks. She sniffled and tried to wipe them away.

  "You signed the marriage certificate. Why not the power of attorney? It used to be that all wives handed over all their material possessions to their husbands when they got married. Or haven't you studied your history books?"

  He was getting that dangerous look in his eye, the same one that had frightened her into signing the marriage certificate. He was beginning to make her wonder what he would attempt next.

  "Suit yourself! It's either this paper or that paper that you must sign." He took another from his lawyer and slapped it down in front of her.

  This document looked no more comprehensible than the last. It was also written in Portuguese.

  "It's your committal papers. You'll be admitting that you have no mind left and should spend the rest of your life in a hospital. I've had two Brazilian doctors witness it just in case. You'll also be giving custody of Little Katie to me — until her parents fork over the five million and she has to be returned. We'll have to hire another babysitter to take care of the child. You'll be considered incompetent."

  When Katie became part of the equation, Bianca had no choice. She snatched up the pen and signed with a trembling hand the power of attorney. What was two million dollars to her compared to Little Katie? She handed the document back to Doc, still with tears in her eyes.

  Chapter 12

  Doc handed the power of attorney paper to the lawyer.

  "Now, Bianca, next things next." He eyed her up and down in a way that made her shiver.

  It was pitch black outside the windows of the plane when Doc reached over to shut the shade, blocking out the stars. He ordered the rest of the cabin to be darkened as well.

  Marianna leaned over the seat to take Katie from Bianca. Katie had fallen sound asleep against Bianca's shoulder with her two bear friends, Lou and TR.

  "No!" Bianca moaned. "Don't take the child."

  "I'm only going to put her over here in her own little bed." Marianna lifted the child across the aisle and laid her down in a sleeping bag. "You'll be able to see her the whole time."

  Marianna, the Harry look-alike, the minister and the lawyer made themselves scarce. They retired to the back of the plane.

  "Why can't I keep her in my lap?" Tears ran down Bianca's cheeks.

  "Do you plan to have Little Katie sleep with us in our bed once we get to Rio? Until her parents ransom her, it will be as if she's our own little girl, you know — our child."

  Bianca leaped up and tried to fetch Little Katie.

  Doc grabbed her by the hand and pulled her down next to him.

  "Sometimes I think that I should keep her in Rio and not ransom her." Doc undid the buttons on the front of Bianca's dress jacket. "You're more cooperative when the girl's around. Once I give her back to her parents, how do I make you behave? That's the big, unanswered question."

  "No, Doc, you have to give her back to her parents. They'll die without her." She gazed at the little girl, sleeping peacefully with Lou's cinnamon ear in her mouth.

  "What will you do to persuade me?"

  "Anything!"

  "Good girl!"

  Doc spread a blanket over both of them. He lifted up the armrest between their seats as he sidled over to her and pressed her against his chest. He was so close to her that they were touching nose to nose.

  "I won't leave anything undone to bind you to me for ever."

  Doc lusted after money and jewels. Sure. He desired power. Sure. But his favorite thing was to be able to control Bianca's mind and emotions.

  Doc kissed her. He was not like other guys, especially not like Rick Roscoe. He didn't crush her in his arms. He teased her instead. He manipulated her feelings. It was Doc's sorcery and always had been. She was more afraid of that than anything else.

  "Do you want your pill?" he asked in his velvety smooth voice. "It will soothe your nerves." He kissed her cheeks one by one.

  She shook her head.

  "Think of it this way, Bianca." He teasingly kissed her lips. "You owe me something. You've owed me something for a couple of months, ever since you tried to shoot me dead on those stairs in the Shipleys' house — in the dark."

  She whimpered as he stroked her hair, oh so softly. Bianca remembered. Oh, how she remembered!

  He toyed with her locks. He ran his finger down her face and down her neck to her bosom. He removed her jacket. He unzipped her dress underneath the blanket. She sat in her bra with her dress down around her waist.

  "In a very important way you really did kill me that night, Bianca."

  "I didn't want to kill anybody. I didn't!"

  "My sweet little Bianca turned into a murderer," he whispered in her ear as he nuzzled it with his nose.

  "No! No! No!"

  "The female is deadlier than the male. Despite my brains, you overcame me and did me in. You ruined my reputation. I can no longer use that name, Doc Ernie McCollough, in the United States. I'll be able to use it in Rio — and only there. You've put me into permanent exile from my home in Georgia."


  "Please don't say that!" Tears practically blinded her.

  "I saw my parents when I was Dr. Byron Kingsley. I saw my brother and sister. Could I announce myself to them? No way! I was a stranger meeting them at a party. I can never again talk to them as Doc Ernie McCollough. They wouldn't know me if I tried. My face is different."

  Bianca wept.

  "My face. . ." He sighed as he toyed with her breasts. "That's something else I have to live with. Every morning when I look in the mirror I see the face of a stranger. Not my face. Not the one I grew up with. Not the one in my high-school yearbook. It's not the one you carry around in your purse as a remembrance of me, is it?

  He grabbed her handbag, forgotten beside her feet. He took out her wallet and leafed through the plastic windows past the pictures of Harry, Little Katie, the Shipleys and Byron Kingsley.

  Concealed at the very bottom, he came to the picture that he had given her over a year ago, before she had met Harry, the one with his signature on it. She had been his patient. He had been her medical adviser. Bianca had adored him as only a seventeen-year-old could.

  "That face is gone for ever, Bianca." He held it up to his new face. "You'll never see that old face as long as you live." He held it to her nose. "You killed it."

  She shook her head violently.

  Wild images from the past flashed through her brain. She remembered Doc in the medical library a year ago with his arms around her. He parted her lips with his tongue and taught her body new sensations. She remembered those nights in the motels. She recalled him in the hospital only two months ago, kissing her lips and urging her to get well. Now his voice was telling her that she had destroyed him.

  "I believe you, Bianca. Harry put you under his evil influence. You didn't mean to."

  "I didn't! I didn't!"

  She remembered Doc on the Shipleys' stairway. He was grappling with Harry tied up in ropes. She threw open the front door. The moonlight illuminated the scene. Her hand was clutching the pistol that Doc had given her. Doc was trying to persuade her to shoot Harry. The gun discharged without any conscious will of her own. Her shot hit Doc's foot. He tumbled to what she thought was his death.

  She pleaded. "I would rather die than shoot you, Doc."

  He unhooked her bra.

  "You would never have done that to me by yourself. Just as you wouldn't have deprived me of my brilliant career without that Harry scum. I believe that was your own phrase, my dear — my brilliant career."

  She recalled attending a lecture a year ago. Doc was the guest speaker. She was so proud of him then that her heart had swelled. She'd told everyone seated around her that he was her best friend. She'd blushed, knowing that he was something much more than that.

  She saw herself riding around the island in Doc's car a year ago. He took her everywhere. They were inseparable. He dropped her off at school. He picked her up. They sat together at the doctor's office where he took her to get treatment for her fear of the dark.

  A ghastly image thrust itself upon her consciousness. Bianca stood there at Doc's funeral dressed in black, with black veils, weeping. She watched while they lowered Doc's coffin into the ground and started to cover the urn of ashes over with dirt. She stood there long after everyone else was gone — until it was dark.

  "Don't you think you owe me a little, Bianca? If I can't win the Nobel prize for medicine, if I can't publish books under my own name, if I can't earn millions of dollars from seeing rich patients, what can you do for me?"

  Doc's fingers moved from her breasts down past her belly button.

  "What can you do for me before the darkness closes in around me and you for good, and we're really both dead?" he asked in his soft, purring tone. "Open your eyes, Bianca. The darkness presses in close like the velvet liner of a coffin."

  It was black all around. There was not a single light anywhere. She could not see her hand before her face. All she could feel was his breath on her neck and the pressure of his fingers working their art on her.

  The darkness was too much for her. It made her head whirl around. It made it hard for her to breathe. It was pressing down on her like the lid of a coffin.

  "Oh, Doc!" She threw her arms around his neck. "Help me! Forgive me. I didn't mean to do it."

  "I'll help you. You'll help me. That's why we belong together for ever as man and wife."

  "I love you. I've always loved you." She raised her lips to his. "Never anyone else."

  He tugged one of her turquoise earrings. "I love you, my sweet. I'll love you until we die — and long after that."

  He molded her body to his as he kissed her, her lover come back from the grave. They came together at last. Only then did she see the light like fire sparking at the end of a long, dark tunnel. She grasped it, reaching for it with both hands.

  Blackness closed in around her on every side as she grew groggy. Her eyes did not want to stay open. She snuggled against his chest with her arms around his waist.

  Doc kept on whispering to her, caressing her ear with his breath. He told her about her future life as his wife in Rio. She would be a lady with lots of servants and fancy clothes. He would shower her with gifts. He would pay back the money he had borrowed ten times over. They would have children. Bianca could have her own little daughter. She wouldn't miss Little Katie.

  "All you have to do is promise to be mine alone."

  Doc's voice ceased. She tried to hold on to him. It did no good. He did not seem to be there. She could feel herself falling. She couldn't catch on to anything as she fell faster. Soon she could see that she was plummeting through the sky toward the sea, just as in her dream the night before she had left St. Simons Island.

  Bianca hit the water and woke up.

  Chapter 13

  Bianca was slumped in her seat when she opened her eyes. Doc had been sleeping against her shoulder. He had woken her by sitting up and switching on the overhead light. Someone was leaning over their seat whispering to him.

  It was the Harry look-alike. "The pilot seems to be off course somehow." His eyes looked bleary. His clothes seemed wrinkled and crumpled, as if he had just woken up himself.

  Doc buttoned his white shirt and threw his blanket as well as his pillow on top of Bianca. He stood up as he tucked in his shirt tail and adjusted his necktie.

  "We should be over the southern Atlantic by now, heading south along the coast of South America. We should be landing in Rio shortly."

  Bianca buttoned her dress jacket as she wondered what was happening.

  Doc and the Harry look-alike leaned across some vacant first-class seats and peered out the window into the darkness.

  "We're headed back toward the Georgia coast, where we took off yesterday evening," the look-alike said in a voice that didn't sound like Harry's. "You can tell by the lights down there."

  There was silence for a long moment. Bianca could hear her wristwatch ticking. Sensing trouble, she leaped up. Little Katie was stirring in her own sleeping bag, clutching her bears. She snatched the child into her arms.

  Doc burst out in curses. "I don't understand it. I gave explicit directions. I even have Rick Roscoe stationed up there with Manuel."

  Doc switched on some more lights and pounded on the cockpit door. "What's going on in there? Where are we?"

  No response.

  Doc pounded more loudly. "Are you both asleep at the controls? Manuel, Roscoe, what airport are we approaching? I demand an answer."

  Doc tried to force the cockpit door. "What the hell is going on?" Doc thundered, finding it locked. "Who is in charge here, anyway?"

  "We should be landing in Jacksonville, Florida, in about half an hour." A voice came over the public-address system. It didn't sound like Manuel, the Brazilian pilot. "We've started our descent."

  That voice sounded familiar. Bianca knew that pilot for sure!

  "Harry!" she called.

  "How the hell did you get up there, Fellini!" Doc kicked the door.

  "I surprised Manu
el at the controls yesterday afternoon and tied him up before you arrived at Smith's Airfield. He'd been having one too many drinks," Harry boasted. "I jumped Roscoe as soon as he entered the cockpit. I tied him up before he got to make a peep."

  "How did you get out of jail? I called the police the day before we left to tell them that you'd escaped and were harassing Bianca on the phone. They put you back behind bars to stay."

  "The police wouldn't believe that you were a threat. After all, you were a respected intern. I argued that so was Doc. They said it couldn't happen twice. So I made another jailbreak and followed you here. I was betting that you would fly to someplace other than London. I was right. Manuel confessed that you were headed for Rio. So all the Shipleys' money spent training me in police and surveillance work is paying off big time, including the pilot instruction."

  "How did you get to Smith's Airfield, Fellini? You couldn't have discovered the location ahead of time. I didn't tell Manuel where to land his plane until we'd left my apartment."

  "I was driving the black car that was giving you a hard time on the interstate. I wanted to give Roscoe a big scare. Maybe that was taking a risk. I couldn't resist. I got ahead of you after I guessed where the airstrip was. I had a map of all the airstrips in the region. Smith's Airfield seemed the only likely candidate."

  "Give me Roscoe."

  "Roscoe's sitting here with a gag over his mouth, his wrists and ankles bound. He's looking at me stupidly, waiting to be arrested as soon as we land — like the rest of you would-be kidnappers."

  Bianca wondered if Rick Roscoe had suspected who had been driving the black car. Was that why he had woven in and out of traffic in the suburban shopping mall area when the black car wasn't visible? Harry had spooked him. Harry had made him think he was there when he had been way ahead of them.

  "Give me Manuel."

  "Yesterday I loosened his gag so that he could talk to you. I held a gun to his head."

  The rest of the crew had caught on to what was happening. Marianna raced up to the first-class section without her high-heel shoes. She was buttoning her uniform as she stood there gaping at the closed and bolted cockpit door.