The Dark: A Collection

by Linda Cargill

Published by Cheops Books

Tucson, AZ

Copyright © 2013 by Linda Cargill.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-copying, recording or by any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the Publisher, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Dark 1

The Dark 2

The Dark 1

Chapter 1

Bianca sat on the living-room sofa watching TV. She turned the sound way up. The murderer was sneaking up on his victim who was lying in bed with the window open. The killer was climbing a tree. He inched his way across a branch. He had almost made it to the window.

Tap! Tap! Tap!

She spun around.

A branch from the biggest live oak tree in the front yard hit the window. The gnarled limb blew in the breeze. For a ghostly second the limb resembled a person with long hair because of all that Spanish moss hanging from it.

Bianca switched to a different channel. It was the same old thing: reruns, reruns and more reruns of old murder-mystery and horror movies.

On one channel she was watching The Mummy, on the next Dracula, and then Frankenstein. Her nerves were too on end to be entertained by this sort of thing tonight. She pushed the "off "button on the remote.

She searched through her purse for the paperback novel, The Werewolf Cop, that she'd stuffed into it before rushing out to baby-sit. Her mind wandered off. The novel couldn't keep her attention.

She didn't know what was wrong. She kept on looking nervously toward the window as if the tapping sound might return.

She tossed the book aside and looked down at her math homework with a shudder. She gaped at her English essay on the coffee table. She'd been playing at doing homework all night. She hadn't been able to concentrate.

Bianca stared at the dinner cart that she'd wheeled in from the kitchen. Her half-finished TV dinner, fried chicken and mashed potatoes, was getting cold. The chicken grease had congealed into a wad. The gravy had puddled. The peach cobbler had managed to change color. It didn't look like the sort of thing that someone would want to eat. Even her Coke had fizzed out. She pushed the cart away.

Bianca's attention shifted to the phone. It hadn't rung all evening. She thought of calling everybody she knew to tell them that she was going nuts.

Dong! Dong! Dong!

Bianca dropped the receiver. The big grandfather clock in the living room was starting to chime midnight. She couldn't call anybody this late.

She heard a car and spun around. It wasn't the Shipleys arriving home early. It looked like a police car going past in the dark. The Shipleys had mentioned something about a new police patrol around the neighborhood late in the evening.

Before they'd left for the dinner dance at the Cloister Hotel, Mr. and Mrs. Shipley had tried to explain their new system of locks to Bianca. The locks had been installed during the past week. They hadn't been here when she'd come to baby-sit Little Katie last Friday.

Mr. Shipley had given Bianca the keys and told her to lock up as soon as it got dark. Mrs. Ingersoll, the live-in maid, had been complaining lately. She'd thought that she'd seen someone lurking about the yard during the past few weeks. The Shipleys had a lot of valuable antiques, silver, china, paintings and furs.

Mr. Shipley had told Bianca not to worry. It had probably been Mrs. Ingersoll's imagination. The blackwater swamps on this barrier island off the coast of southeast Georgia generated gases and miasmas. Thick fogs blew in from the sea. The combination was often conducive to people thinking they saw things that weren't there, especially in the dark. Sometimes, of course, all they saw were the weird shapes of the live oak trees, which had an uncanny way of looking human. They were gnarled, twisted, bent over, and had many limbs going in every direction. The Spanish moss that clung to them in gray-green clumps had the texture of an old person's hair.

After all, this was St. Simons Island, a little coastal island, not New York City! Crime was hardly a big thing here.

Bianca had been worrying about the locks ever since. The Shipleys owned an enormous house with lots of doors and windows. She was afraid that she might have forgotten to lock one. She kept on reviewing the list in her mind and ticking them off on her fingers: the front door, the kitchen door, the pantry door, the garage door, the back porch door, the sliding glass doors in the dining room, the French doors into the living room, the windows upstairs. . .

Suddenly Bianca remembered. She hadn't locked the sliding glass door on to the balcony just off Mr. and Mrs. Shipley's upstairs bedroom!

Bianca leaped up. Just as she did, the lights blinked out and she was left in pitch darkness. She stood stock still. She heard floorboards creaking overhead. It sounded like footsteps.

Impossible! The newborn baby, Little Katie, was sleeping in her crib upstairs. Bianca had put Little Katie to bed five hours ago, as soon as Mr. and Mrs. Shipley had left the house for the dinner dance. The baby couldn't walk yet. She couldn't even crawl. When she was awake, she always made burbling noises.

The maid had retired an hour ago, groaning about her aching feet. She had started snoring right away. Besides, Mrs. Ingersoll had short, light steps. These steps had force behind them.

The sound of footsteps got louder until it drowned out the whine of the cicadas from the marshes.

Bianca's knees knocked together as she headed for the stairway in the dark. It was a gray, cloudy night outside. Even the gas street lamps were obscured by the huge live oaks in the front yard.

"Help!" Mrs. Ingersoll suddenly wailed at the top of her lungs. The baby was bawling her eyes out, making the little choking sounds that she always made when she was upset.

"Mrs. Ingersoll, Little Katie, what's wrong?" Bianca tried to make herself heard.

The steps got louder. They were getting closer. Was someone coming out into the upstairs hallway from one of the bedrooms?

"Help me!" Mrs. Ingersoll sounded hysterical. "I don't want to die!"

"Mrs. Ingersoll, are you ill? What's happened?" Bianca shouted up the stairs in the dark.

Little Katie squealed. She made more noise than Bianca had imagined that a baby could make. The newborn must be flailing about wildly in her crib, knocking against the wooden railings.

Was somebody murdering the child? Bianca forced herself to visualize the layout of the inside of the house where she baby-sat on Friday nights. Katie's room was up the stairs to the right, next to the portrait gallery. Mrs. Ingersoll's room was all the way down the hall to the left, the very last door.

Bianca raced upstairs as fast as her legs would carry her. She was trying not to think about the footsteps, though they sounded as if they were almost upon her. She crouched down closer to the floor to protect herself as she crept along the upstairs hallway. Somehow she made it to Katie's room despite the fact that she couldn't see anything.

The baby was still in her crib, though her flailing about with her little fists had knocked down some of the toys on the mobile suspended overhead. Bianca snatched the baby up in her arms. The child's tiny hands slapped at her. She turned and raced back in the other direction, trying to remember where the stairs were so she wouldn't trip and fall in the darkened house.

Mrs. Ingersoll wailed. The child cried. In a panic Bianca wondered if she should go to Mrs. Ingersoll's room and see how the maid was. Some instinct told her she didn't have time. She had to keep her arms around Little Katie. She had to get her out of the house before anything else happened. She had to call the police.

Some intruder continued to roam around the upstairs hallway doing something that he shouldn't. It sounded as if he might be checking out the bedrooms.

At the top of the stairs Bianca ran smack into that very intruder. Arms went out and tried to grab Little Katie. Bianca kicked and fought, not even thinking of her own safety. She wouldn't let Little Katie go, no matter what.

The hands felt big and strong. It was almost impossible to fight back, they were so powerful. She summoned the strength from somewhere deep inside herself, where she had never before realized that it existed.

The creep hissed something in a low voice close to her ear. She could hardly make out his words over the pounding of her own heart, thundering in her ears.

Bianca heard other footsteps rapidly approaching. Mrs. Ingersoll screamed near Bianca's other ear. "Bianca, where are you? Bianca! Bian—"

Mrs. Ingersoll tripped and fell heavily against the wooden banister. A whooshing sound shot through the air. She gasped as if struck. The maid lost her balance in the dark and tumbled down the stairs. Bianca didn't think. She raced down the stairs after her. She tripped and fell over something lying at the bottom. She rolled so that she could shield Katie with her body.

Bianca was living only to make it through that front door. The closer she got, the farther away the door seemed. She kept on running into things that she could barely identify. They were objects from another life: the coffee table with her school books; her dinner tray; the TV set.

She wouldn't have been able to see where she was going except that there was a thin thread of silver light coming from the slit at the bottom of the door. It illuminated the whole door in a pale sort of way.

Bianca reached the front door and threw it wide open as she looked back over her shoulder. A single ray of moonlight shot out from behind the clouds. It streamed through the open door and hit the body at the bottom of the stairs. On her stomach lay Mrs. Ingersoll in her nightgown and big, black slippers. Her crooked nose was sticking out. She was staring straight at Bianca. She wasn't moving. She wasn't breathing. She was dead.

There was a bullet hole in the middle of the maid's back. She was lying in a puddle of blood.

The light illuminated someone else on the stairs. It was the killer. Bianca was looking directly into his face.

"Help!" Bianca screamed as she raced out into the front yard with Little Katie still clutched in her arms. "Help! Help! Murder! Help!"

"Help!" Bianca moaned faintly once again.

Bianca opened her eyes. She was in a darkened room. It was so dark that she couldn't see who these people sitting around her were supposed to be. For a minute she couldn't even remember where she was. She broke out into a cold sweat and trembled.

Was somebody chasing her? Was somebody going to murder her? Should she run? Bianca was gripping her seat, ready to flee.

"Here, have a sip of my Coke!" Rick shoved a super-sized, red-and-white paper cup jangling with ice cubes into her face. When Bianca acted as if she didn't know what to do with it, he raised it to her lips and made her drink.

The cold Coke hit her like a brick. It perked her up. She looked up at the wide silver screen and blinked. A larger than life-size lady was screaming as a man shot her with a gun. She fell to the floor dead.

It was Friday night. But it was two years later, in late May. Bianca was now almost eighteen, about to graduate from St. Simons High School in a few weeks. She wasn't baby-sitting. She was at the Island Theater with Rick Roscoe, her date, and his friends. They were watching a murder thriller, The Black Widow Strikes Again.

Rick had asked her to go to the movies just yesterday in school. She hardly knew him. Certainly she didn't run with his crowd. His invitation had amazed her. Rick was one of the most popular boys in the senior class. She was a loner. She had stuttered her acceptance.

Now here she was. Bianca couldn't help it. It was always like this. She was terrified of the dark.

Her fear gave her cold sweats and panicky feelings. It muddled her thoughts, making it impossible to think straight. It made her feel closed in, as if she'd been forced down into a tiny little black box. The darkness reached out like hands creeping along her neck, making it hard to breathe.

She must have dozed off in her seat in this warm, musty, humid place. The horrible nightmare she'd just had seemed like a memory of what had happened that awful night two years ago, when Mrs. Ingersoll had been murdered. Bianca hadn't been able to remember a thing until now. Her first thought was that she had to hurry up and tell Doc about it. He would be thrilled.

Already the nightmare was beginning to fade. She saw only bits and flashes here and there.

It made her feel excited and terrified at the same time.

Bianca started to scramble out of her seat. Then she sat back down. She had to wait until the movie was over. It wouldn't be polite to desert Rick. After all, he'd paid for her ticket, as well as the refreshments.

Bianca tapped her foot and glanced down at the luminescent dial on her wristwatch. Doc had warned her to expect her memory to return at some point. He'd advised her that she ought to get out and start to see more kids her own age, too — lead a normal life. That might help her to remember.

Still, to have her memory return on the very first night that she'd gone to a movie in two whole years, on her very first real date! That was weird!

Now all the kids in the theater were putting their hands over their mouths. They were screeching as if they loved to be scared to death by the movie.

Suddenly Mrs. Ingersoll's voice ripped across Bianca's mind: "Help! Help!"

Bianca screamed aloud. She didn't know how to handle this — a memory here and there, like some sort of loose cannon rolling across her mind.

"Isn't this fun?" Rick stuck a box of popcorn in Bianca's face as everyone else screamed. The popcorn, gooey with butter, came in a tub so big that Bianca couldn't hold it without spilling it. Her date's face was flushed with enthusiasm, illuminated in the weird, white light coming from the big screen until it looked garish.

"Sure thing!" Bianca managed a sick smile.

Bianca had made a habit of avoiding movie theaters and other dark places over the past two years since the slaying. She didn't know what had gotten into her to act so impulsively. She should have said that she wanted to go to a restaurant, a dance, a bowling alley, or another bright, well-lit place.

She had wanted to impress Rick by going to a movie. She had wanted to convince him that she was like other girls, not some geek. Now look what had happened!

Marianna Haynes was leaning over the seat on the aisle in front of Bianca. She worked at the concessions stand and was bringing popcorn to some kids. She turned in Bianca's direction as she made change and hissed, "Sh-h-h-h-h!" right into Bianca's face.

Marianna was wearing a thin cotton pinstriped uniform, complete with apron and cap. She managed to brush flirtatiously against the arm of the customer who had ordered the popcorn. She glared at Bianca. Even in this dim light Marianna's dark eyes flashed.

Everybody was sitting on the edge of their seats, their mouths wide open. They were pausing, frozen in place, with their hands in their popcorn boxes, silver candy wrappers half open, their lips halfway to their straws. In the movie the killer was confessing his reasons for murdering the lady, bragging how clever he'd been.

Bianca gripped the armrests of her seat. She couldn't stand this talk of murder. If she'd wanted to be brave and go to a movie, she should have made certain that it was a comedy and not a murder thriller! She moaned aloud.

Everybody went, "Sh-h-h-h!" at Bianca — or so it seemed. They stared at her with faces glowing in the weird light from the silver screen.

All those faces. . . They reminded her of that day, two years ago, when the whole St. Simons Island Police Department had been standing there in her hospital room, looking at her just like that.

Chapter 2

Until tonight, May 27 two years ago had been the one night that Bianca could not remember. She recalled coming home late that Friday afternoon when she'd been only sixteen and a sophomore in high school. She'd changed out of her gym clothes to put on jeans and a T-shirt. She was going to be late for her babysitting job at the Shipleys.

Until tonight Bianca hadn't been able to recall walking up to the Shipleys' front door. The next thing she'd remembered, after changing out of her gym clothes in her own bedroom, was sitting in the middle of a hospital bed with bars on the sides that went up and down.

She'd been propped up by pillows, a white sheet pulled up to her waist. Nurses had been rushing in and out to take her temperature and her pulse. She'd been wearing a hospital gown that tied in the back and gapped open the rest of the way.

Where had her gym clothes gone? Her T-shirt? Her jeans?

It had looked like the next morning with light filtering through the window. Her parents and Mr. and Mrs. Shipley had been sitting by her side. The Shipleys had been holding their baby daughter, Little Katie, who'd been noisily sucking on her bottle.

"How are you feeling?" Mrs. Shipley had asked, beaming at Bianca. Her smile had seemed nervous, exaggerated. "That nasty sedative that the doctors gave you last night has finally worn off!"

Bianca had been so dumbfounded that she hadn't been able to speak. Was she dreaming?

Mr. Shipley had rushed up and placed a strawberry soda with whipped cream and a maraschino cherry on the tray beside Bianca's bed.

"Feeling hungry?" he had asked. "If you want a six-course dinner delivered from the Cloister Hotel on a silver platter, it's yours."

"Yes!" Mrs. Shipley had looked serious. "Name anything you want. It's yours." Then she'd broken down crying. She'd hugged Bianca fiercely and kissed her on the forehead. "Nothing's too good for you, honey. Nothing!"

Bianca had stared with an open mouth at everybody.

The florist had raced into Bianca's private room and had thrust into her face the biggest, prettiest bouquet of flowers — mixed carnations, roses, daisies and pussy willow. The card had said: As a reward for saving our daughter's life, we're setting up a trust fund in the name of Bianca Winters, for the amount of one million dollars, to be drawn upon by the time she is eighteen.

Bianca's parents had broken down weeping. They'd hugged the Shipleys. They'd hugged Little Katie. Everyone had hugged everyone else.

Mrs. Winters had protested. "Bianca was only doing what any babysitter would do. You don't have to give her money as a reward!"

Mrs. Shipley had slipped her arm around Bianca's shoulders. "Bianca saved Little Katie's life! If it weren't for your brave daughter, I would have been holding a funeral. My daughter's life is worth any amount of money."

"But — but I didn't do anything for Little Katie! I never made it to your house!" Bianca had burst out. "I was in my house thinking I was going to be late. I must have fallen asleep. Did I fall down the stairs? What am I doing here?" Bianca had looked around.

She hadn't felt any soreness or stiffness in her arms and legs as she sat there in the hospital bed. She would feel something if she'd fallen down the stairs and broken a bone. She'd sprained her ankle once when she'd been in grade school. That had felt mean — real, real mean.

Her mother had sobbed, "Honey, don't you remember anything at all?" She had covered her face with her hands. Her father had looked at Bianca sadly and patted her mother on the back.

Only then had Bianca noticed the entire police department from St. Simons Island standing in the back of the room. They had slowly approached the bed until she had been surrounded.

"Miss Winters," the police chief had addressed her, "you deserve a police medal, maybe a Presidential Medal of Honor for bravery, for what you did last night. You not only saved this little baby's life, you grappled with a bloody murderer and didn't run away. You are the sole surviving witness — besides Little Katie who's much too young to remember anything — to one of the most brutal slayings this island has ever known."

"You've got the wrong person!" Bianca had felt protest surge through her body as she had shrunk back in her bed. "I — I wasn't there. I — I didn't see anything. I'm not brave."

"Shock and denial is a common reaction," Doc had announced in a supremely confident tone from another corner of the hospital room.

"Doc" Ernie McCollough lived in the same subdivision Bianca did, Churchyard Oaks. It was next to the Christ's Church Graveyard, overhung with live oaks dripping with Spanish moss. He lived on the other side of the street, the richer side, beside the Shipleys.

He'd been the senior class valedictorian when he graduated two years early from high school, at sixteen. He had been one of the most brilliant students ever, with perfect SAT scores and a National Merit Finalist ranking. He'd had a complete academic scholarship to attend Northern Florida University in Jacksonville, from which he had graduated in only three years at age nineteen.

Though his father was a history professor and his mother was descended from one of the island's oldest families, though no one in his family had gone into the profession before, Doc had decided to attend medical school. He had been in his third year that day, assigned to her ward at Brunswick Memorial Hospital. He'd taken an interest in Bianca's case from the beginning.

"Your brain denies something too horrible to remember. It's a way of protecting yourself," Doc had explained to Bianca.

He was a short guy, not much taller than Bianca. He looked younger than his age, twenty-two. He had a big presence with those thick, horn-rimmed glasses. His dark brown hair was cut straight around his head as if a bowl had been placed over it.

"We can prove you were there, Miss Winters," the police chief had asserted. "We've got tissue, hair, fingerprint and fiber evidence of you all over the house. We could write the script and say first you did this and then you did that. We can number the locations where you were in the house, from the time you were watching the TV to the time you went up the stairs, grabbed Little Katie from her crib, met the murderer on the stairs, stumbled over Mrs. Ingersoll's body, and ran screaming down the street."

Bianca had gaped at the police in wonderment.

"What we can't write into the script is the identity of the killer. He was clever enough not to leave any hair or fiber evidence. He must have been wearing gloves. There were no fingerprints. We have no way of tracing him unless you can remember him — what he was wearing, what he looked like, his voice. Something!"

"Honey," her mother had gripped Bianca's hand as if her life had depended upon it, and asked again, "can't you remember anything!"

"I tell you it wasn't me. It wasn't!" Bianca hadn't wanted to be a hero.

"It's no use trying to force Bianca." Doc had paced about the room as he lectured them. "She'll remember in her own good time, or she won't remember at all. The sole witness to a murder often takes the identity of the killer to the grave. Or she might remember in fifty years. She may put on a dress someday. Voila! The killer was wearing clothing of the same color. Or she'll be stirring a stew ten years from now. She'll suddenly see the killer's face in the stew. The aroma of the stew will remind her that it's the same thing that she was cooking on the night of the murder. The human brain's a strange thing. We have to respect it and play by its rules. It won't play by ours."

"We'll have to ask the grown-ups then," the police chief had said. "What exactly do any of you remember?"

"Mr. and Mrs. Shipley were driving up the street coming back from a dinner dance at the Cloister Hotel last night. They said they heard somebody screaming, racing down the road toward them," Mrs. Winters had volunteered.

"We almost ran into Bianca," Mr. Shipley had recalled.

"I told my husband to hit the brakes. I had a strange feeling," Mrs. Shipley had added. "When I saw it was Bianca holding my baby, I almost fainted — especially when I saw she had blood on her shoes and jeans."

"We pulled her into the car with us and tried to get her to talk some sense," Mr. Shipley had continued. "All she did was cry for help as if she were on automatic pilot."

"We'd gone to bed hours before," Bianca's father had volunteered. "We heard shouting. We looked out the window, saw the Shipleys' Bentley, and remembered our daughter was babysitting there. We raced outside in our nightclothes."

"Bianca wouldn't let go of Little Katie," Mrs. Shipley had wept. "She had the child clutched to her breast and wouldn't let anybody come near — not even me."

"We could see that Little Katie was OK. Just scared," Mr. Shipley had added. "A squad car pulled up alongside us and asked if anything was wrong."

"The officer peered into the car and observed Bianca's condition. He also noticed all the blood," Bianca's mother added. "Then he asked where Bianca had just come from."

Mrs. Shipley had volunteered, "I told him she'd been babysitting at our house. You police know the story after that, after Bianca's parents leaped inside our car, too. We followed the police. The squad car stopped in front of our house. The lights were out. The front door was wide open."

Mr. Shipley had winced. "They brought the dead maid out on a stretcher. The expression frozen on her face was one of total disbelief." He had shaken his head.

"We want to thank you for escorting us to the hospital when we were in shock," Mrs. Shipley had added. "We might not have made it otherwise."

The police chief had nodded. "The nurses recorded that both Little Katie and Bianca checked in covered with blood. The baby had to be bathed. Bianca had to be washed and sedated. She was hysterical."

"You're imagining this. None of this happened." Bianca had shaken her head. "It's impossible!"

Doc had turned out the lights.

It had been as if someone had stuck a knife into Bianca's breast. A horrible pain had surged through her body, making her tremble. She had broken out into a cold sweat in the hospital bed. Her breath had come in gasps. Her head had swirled around. She had been overcome by white hot panic.

"No!" Bianca had moaned. "Help me! Please help!"

She had tried to climb out of her hospital bed. The Shipleys, her parents and the police chief had been forced to hold her down until she had stopped flailing about.

Doc had turned the lights back on. Bianca had felt better but drained, as if someone had sucked the energy out of her.

"Now will you tell me that last night didn't happen?" Doc had looked at Bianca with a deep wisdom. His pointed stare had transfixed her and made her unable to turn away. "Were you scared of the dark last week?"

"Bianca wasn't scared of the dark even when she was a little girl!" her mother had exclaimed.

The police chief had reminded them,

"Remember, we found the power cut to the house from the outside. Everything must have happened in pitch darkness."

"'Even the murder?" Bianca's mother had groaned, unable to believe what had happened in her peaceful neighborhood.

"Even the murder!" the chief had confirmed.

That had been the beginning of Bianca's long, close friendship with Doc Ernie McCollough. He had started to act as her doctor, whom she liked and trusted more than any of the older doctors at the hospital. The senior doctors had been able to sense the growing confidence Bianca had in the medical student. They had assigned Doc the case on an outpatient basis as soon as Bianca had been released.

Doc had graduated from medical school and become an intern in psychiatry. He had convinced Bianca that she'd been at the Shipleys' house when Mrs. Ingersoll had been shot and tumbled down the stairs. Bianca's fear of the dark hadn't left her. It had been the one wound that had stubbornly refused to heal from that night onward — that and her lost memory.

For the past two years Bianca had been having a terrible time dealing with her new phobia. She had to sleep with the lights on. Bianca was so embarrassed by her fear of the dark that she'd never attended slumber parties since. She had shunned movies, telling the other kids that she liked videos and DVDs (which could be watched with the lights on).

She'd wanted to impress her new date, Rick. She had hoped that her fear of the dark wouldn't matter. Doc had bet her that she could do it if she set her mind to it.

Boy, had Doc been wrong!

The movie on the big, silver screen was getting bloodier. Bianca forced herself to watch it. Rick and the other kids in the theater screamed with delight. The woman that the killer had shot appeared wearing the bloody dress. She sneaked up behind him. She stuck the barrel of the gun into his back.

"But — but — you're dead!" he shrieked. "You can't come back from the grave!"

The lady called the "Black Widow" laughed. "You forgot something important."

The Black Widow pulled out a gold locket in the shape of a heart from inside the bodice of her dress. A bullet had deformed the outside of it but had not pierced it. She grinned as she pushed it up against his nose.

He shook his head and backed up, groaning. "No, no, no!"

"Yes!" The would-be victim proclaimed.

Still holding her pistol in one hand, the Black Widow popped open the locket with the other. Inside were two tiny color portraits, one of her and one of him.

"So this is how much you love me, is it?" A crazy look suffused her face. "Let me show how much I love you!"

"Mercy!" The man fell to his knees.

She fired three times. He collapsed on the ground dead.

Bianca looked down at her lap. All the gunfire, the screaming, the blood. . . It didn't matter if it was only a movie, if the actors drank Cokes together when the camera wasn't on them. She wished the lights would come back on. The darkness was pressing in around her. It made her pull at the neck of her T-shirt and cross and recross her legs. It made her wish that Doc were here. Only he could understand how she felt.

Two of the younger policemen on the force, who had graduated from high school only a year ago, waved at Bianca from across the aisle. They were with their dates, off-duty and out of uniform. She'd gotten to know the local police over the past two years. They had met with her every month or so and asked her if she had remembered anything about the killer. They had also questioned scores of "the usual suspects". Still there had been no arrests, despite the fact that the police detectives and evidence teams had examined the crime scene searching for clues for days after the slaying. The killer was still at large.

She cast the officers a sick smile and waved back.

"Hey, isn't this the best movie ever?" Rick stuck the gooey, butter-covered popcorn into her face again.

"Ye-yeah!"

"Don't you love the way the Black Widow came back from the dead?" he hissed. "It's a scream."

Bianca squeezed her eyelids shut. They popped open. Closing her eyes made the darkness more oppressive.

"Isn't it neat the way she's going berserk after she killed her lover? Hey, she must have wasted ten people already — including three cops!"

Bianca swallowed hard. She couldn't think of anything more cool. It made her want to puke. She didn't know what she would have done for the past two years without the support of the police force.

Rick went back to munching his popcorn so loudly and guzzling his Coke with such gusto that she thought he was drinking and chewing inside her head.

Bianca couldn't help but look around at the other kids. They were staring at the screen with murderous enthusiasm. Their eyes glowed. They hung on every word.

She wanted to scream, "Don't you guys know that this could be real? It isn't a game. People get murdered every day." She had to live under the threat of murder every day herself. The killer knew who she was, even if she could not remember his face.

Bianca's gaze rested on a familiar figure sitting on the other side of the theater near the front. It was "Doc" Ernie McCollough, wearing his trademark horn-rimmed glasses that made him look like a nerd. He was here tonight after all! He was wearing one of his nicest suits, of which he must own a hundred. She could make out his pointed nose.

Bianca waved and tried to attract his attention. Doc wasn't looking her way. He was occupied with some gorgeous nurse from Brunswick Memorial Hospital. The young woman with the long, shapely legs was leaning all over him.

Doc had cautioned Bianca that she couldn't depend upon him all the time. She was almost eighteen, while he was almost twenty-three. Being more independent was part of the healing process. She had to get out with other kids, find a boyfriend, and make friends her own age.

Doc was only her junior medical adviser. More senior psychiatrists were ultimately in charge of her case. He couldn't be her best friend and substitute date as well. She had leaned on him when she'd gotten out of the hospital. He'd been new at this doctor business. He'd let her. They had become fast friends — perhaps a little more. Doc said that wasn't right. It was interfering with her development as well as his own objectivity in studying her case.

Bianca tore her eyes away from Doc and swallowed a sob, though it made her throat burn. She went back to looking at the other kids. The more she stared at them, the more they resembled monsters. Their teeth were turning into white fangs. Their eyes were glowing with a weird, red light. They were paler and leaner. The hands that clutched their popcorn boxes had sprouted long, red claws.

Bianca thought, Anyone could be the murderer. Anyone could have a handgun concealed in his pocket . . . a switchblade in his belt. Anyone could be looking at me right now . . . sneaking up right this minute to stab me in the back. . .

A hand landed on her shoulder. She opened her mouth to scream.

Chapter 3

"Hey, are you all right?" The usher shone his flashlight into her face. He was dressed in a long-sleeved, gray uniform with red stripes down the sides. He wore a matching cap. His big, dark eyes stared into hers.

"Ye-yes." Her voice quavered with emotion.

"Can I get you a Coke on the house?"

"No — no thank you. I'm not thirsty." She wished the usher hadn't surprised her.

The material of Rick's shirt tightened against his big shoulders as he leaned all the way across Bianca's seat. He was almost eyeball to eyeball with the usher.

"So, you're one of the Fellini brothers, huh? I don't think you're in any position to be bothering girls."

The usher pressed his lips together to form a tense, taut line.

Only then did Bianca recognize the usher as Harry Fellini, a wiry guy with big, dark eyes and flyaway black hair that was very fine and straight. He was one of the few kids in her senior class at St. Simons High that she didn't know well. He always kept to himself.

"Sneaking up on Bianca and scaring her to death?" Rick sneered at Harry. "In about another six months you can join your brother in prison."

Harry's dark eyes flashed. He bit his lip. His lower lip trembled as he brushed his flyaway hair out of his eyes and marched up the aisle without a word.

"Harry didn't do anything! That was just his older brother, Mike Fellini, who went to jail," Bianca protested.

She noticed that the two off-duty policemen were following Harry with their eyes.

"One rotten apple in the bunch makes them all rotten." Rick stuffed his mouth with buttered popcorn. "The whole Fellini family belongs in jail."

Why had she gone out with such a bigoted lout even if he did have a lot of friends? She supposed it was because she'd never been asked to go out on a date before. Before that terrifying night she'd been quite shy. Doc had been so eager for her to find someone to have fun with. He had insisted that she was too grim and solitary. She'd wanted to impress him.

She glanced at Doc in desperation. He was still occupied with the sexy nurse from Brunswick Memorial Hospital. He wasn't going to save her from Rick Roscoe. She would have to do it all by herself.

"Ex-excuse me, ah — I need to use the rest room." Bianca started up the aisle. She had to escape this heavy, oppressive darkness. The air seemed so thick. It weighed down on her lungs.

Glowing yellow eyes appeared in every corner of the theater, especially the darkest ones. They were turned toward her. They bored into her back and made icy prickles go up and down her spine.

Bianca forced herself to put one foot in front of the other without giving in to the temptation of looking over her shoulder. Her heart pounded against her chest with such violence that everyone in the theater must be able to hear it.

She remembered what Doc had told her about deep breathing, about focusing her thoughts on some image to keep herself calm. But none of Doc's advice was working.

Bianca started to run. It seemed that the aisle would never end. The little lights near the floor at the end of each row of seats formed a path. She focused on them, forcing all other thoughts out of her mind.

She thought she heard footsteps behind her, coming faster. She couldn't be sure whether they were real or the beating of her own heart. Bianca stumbled and nearly fell to the floor. She clutched on to someone's armrest and toppled into his lap.

A monstrous guy with big feet was sitting there by himself in the back of the theater. He obviously didn't want to be disturbed. He gave her a dirty stare.

"Ex-excuse me!" she stuttered.

"Beat it!" he hissed.

She fled as if she'd seen Frankenstein himself.

The lights surrounding the lobby doors beckoned. If only she could reach them. She was almost there, though she could swear she heard ragged breathing behind her. Was it her own, indrawn gasps or somebody else's? She imagined that she could feel someone breathing down her neck .

Bianca fell with all her weight against the double doors. They swung wide open. Refreshments spilled all over the aisle. Gooey buttered popcorn landed everywhere. Coke puddled on the carpet. Crushed ice shimmered in the half-light of the lobby. A blonde girl with braids impaled Bianca with her stare.

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Bianca groaned.

"This stuff cost me twenty dollars!" the girl hissed. "Watch where you're going. This isn't a jogging track. It's a movie theater."

"I'm so clumsy. I don't know what came over me."

Bianca fumbled with her purse. Doc told her to carry wipes at all times. They were vital if you were attacked by a case of the "cold sweats". She located her purse travel pack and tried to help the girl clean off the big Coke stain in the middle of her T-shirt with a moist towelette.

The girl with the braids frowned. "This T-shirt is designer. I paid fifty dollars for it. The stain won't come out. I'll have to give it to the Goodwill."

Bianca searched for her wallet, which was never where she wanted it. She felt herself flushing with embarrassment. She'd gladly pay the fifty dollars for her own clumsiness. But she didn't have the money in her purse. All she had was a twenty and a five. She offered the twenty to the girl.

The girl grabbed it and glowered at Bianca.

Harry appeared from nowhere in his gray-and-red usher's uniform. "They don't send you up the river for spilling a Coke." He shoved the girl with the braids inside the swinging doors of the theater.

Bianca smiled shyly at Harry. This was the second time tonight that he'd come to her rescue.

He met her eyes briefly. He knelt down with a dustpan and broom to clean up the buttered popcorn.

"Over here, Fellini!" The theater manager bellowed. "You're not supposed to flirt with girls. Just patrol the lobby."

The fat manager sat in a folding chair in the front of the lobby. His red-and-white Hawaiian shirt gapped open halfway down his chest. He was chatting with the ticket taker.

Harry stalked off, patrolling the lobby as he'd been ordered to do.

On her way to the ladies' lounge Bianca spotted the brightly lighted section of the lobby around the refreshments stand. The girl in the red-and-white striped cap behind the counter was popping heaping mounds of popcorn, piling them up into what looked like mountains behind the glass front.

The overhead lights were vaguely comforting to Bianca, soothing her nerves. They made her feel a little more relaxed, more like her old self. She could breathe more easily here than in the darkened theater.

Bianca couldn't help but stroll over to the brightly lighted glass counter to examine the different kinds of candy bars and mints illuminated under lights of their own. She studied the silver foil wrappers with blue letters on the peppermint candies, the bright orange wrappers with yellow letters on the peanut butter cups, and the dark brown wrappers with the inner silver foils on the Hershey's chocolate almond bars. There were multi-colored packages of fruity-flavored chewing gum. She hadn't seen a display like this in a long time — two years, in fact.

"What do you want?"

Bianca looked up, startled.

Marianna Haynes stood there in her white apron and red-and-white striped cap. She had her hands on her waist, tapping her foot.

"Just looking."

"Hurry up! We're closing in forty minutes as soon as the last show's over. I want to clear out. I've been standing here for eight hours. My feet hurt." .

Bianca had done it again. She couldn't stop acting so stupid that people despised her. Marianna obviously held her in utter contempt.

"I guess genteel folks like you with big bank accounts don't have to worry about stepping on other people's toes, do you? You don't care if you make me stand here all night!"

Bianca gaped at the girl in confusion. Big bank accounts? Bianca wasn't rich! At least not yet.

"Don't give me that innocent look!" The girl leered at Bianca. "You've got that nice, big, juicy trust fund from the Shipleys. That's plenty rich enough for somebody like me who earns minimum wage and has to work my guts out for it. I've got to sweat at this job forty hours a week, mostly nights. It's pretty hot back here with the oven for the hot dogs, the stove for the coffee, and the popcorn-maker. Pretty Miss Bianca Winters doesn't have to sweat like that, does she?"

St. Simons was a small island just off the Georgia coast. Everybody knew everybody else's business. Bianca couldn't deny that the million dollar trust fund existed, that she was about to come into it any week. She didn't like to be reminded of it. She didn't deserve it.

"I'll — I'll take a pack of the Juicy Fruit gum," she replied apologetically. She got out her wallet.

Marianna glared at her knowingly as if she figured that Bianca wouldn't have anything smaller than a five when the gum cost only twenty-five cents a pack. She forced Bianca to sweat every second as she counted out the change into her palm, dollar by dollar, quarter by quarter.

Bianca hurried across the lobby, trying not to pay attention to that other girl's eyes boring a hole through her back.

She pushed open the door to the ladies' lounge with a loud creak. She hurried through the small sitting area, then opened the second door to the lavatory. For a panicky instant, she was alone in the dark, except for the lights from the street outside filtering through the one open window.

She held her breath as she groped along the wall for the light switch. She breathed a sigh of relief to see the room flooded with the garish yellow light from the single bulb overhead. It was enough to keep the darkness away.

Why didn't the theater manager leave the light on all the time? Bianca reminded herself that everyone would be inside the theater for the big, climactic scene of The Black Widow Strikes Again, which she didn't care to see.

Bianca plopped her purse down on the sink. She reached way down inside and felt around for her pack of Juicy Fruit gum. She fumbled with the wrapper and popped a stick of gum inside her mouth. The burst of flavor gave her a shot of adrenaline. Doc had advised her to carry candy or gum in her purse. He said it was a good source of sudden energy as well as something to calm her nerves.

She turned on the water full force. She made sure it was nice and cool, none of that lukewarm stuff. It was late May. In the late spring in coastal Georgia it was pretty hot and humid with temperatures in the nineties. The water in taps turned tepid. It took for ever to get it cool. Tonight Bianca was willing to wait. Anything so she didn't have to go back into the darkened theater!

Bianca took her time washing her face thoroughly and splashing it with the tap water to rinse it off. Then she turned off the water and dried her face very hard on the brown paper towels. She rubbed her skin raw and red.

The rubbing woke her up, invigorated her. It was something she did when she was feeling low. Doc had suggested it. She supposed ideas like that were why he was so brilliant and why everybody on the island called him just "Doc", though Ernie McCollough was his real name.

She powdered herself with her compact and smeared blusher on to her cheeks. She applied her mascara and eyeshadow. She put on a new coat of cherry lipstick. Bianca felt human again. To make sure of it, she sprayed rose cologne behind her ears and combed her hair vigorously.

She got out two little turquoise earrings that she'd found in the bottom of her purse and fastened them to her earlobes. Doc had given them to her for her last birthday. They made her feel like a new girl.

Doc had promised she'd have all the boys on the island on her doorstep if she got out more and gave herself a chance. She smiled at the memory of his words, knowing that he must have been exaggerating to make her feel more confident. Her hair was plain brown. Her eyes, too. But it was nice the way her eyelashes curled upward. Doc had said so. Then lots of girls must have eyelashes like that and maybe a whole lot nicer — that nurse, for instance.

She felt a sharp pang. She hadn't liked it when Doc had told her that she ought to start dating other guys. She'd protested that she needed only him. He'd insisted that the doctors at Brunswick Memorial Hospital had noticed them together around the island at restaurants and beaches, and had commented unfavorably about it. They'd lectured Doc that if he expected to complete his residency and become a psychiatrist, he had to act more professional and keep more of a distance from his patients. It wasn't supposed to be too ethical to get stuck on them.

Mostly their relationship was rather one-sided. Doc advised. She obeyed. She didn't resent that. Doc was smart, so much smarter than she was. It seemed only natural.

If he wanted her to see other guys, she'd do it. She'd do anything for Doc. She didn't want to ruin his medical career. She wanted him to get a chance to help others the way he had helped her. Still she had to confess that she lived only for those moments that Doc forgot about his professional duties and stole a kiss or two.

Bianca pulled her T-shirt tight against her body. She put her hands on her waist, turning from one side to the other examining her figure in the mirror. Pretty average in every way. Not much in the bust line. Not much in the hips. She could wear boys' pants, she was so straight up and down.

She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. She remembered what it had been like those times when she'd been scared and nervous and had gone to Doc's carrel in the medical school library next to the hospital. She'd gone to find him, as he'd told her to do if she needed help.

Once he'd kissed her right then and there. He'd taken her back into the stacks where it was dark and nobody ever came. He'd kissed her again and again. She'd felt so good after that afternoon that she'd forgotten to be afraid when the lights on the bus had blinked off on the way home.

Bianca could walk back inside that theater and sit down beside Rick. With these turquoise earrings on and that memory of Doc kissing her fresh in her brain, she could do anything. After all, the movie was supposed to end in less than forty minutes. Marianna had said so. Bianca could survive forty more minutes in the dark.

Bianca put her make-up back into her purse. She took her time about it, wasting as much of the remaining forty minutes of the movie as possible. She snapped her handbag shut, thinking about how she could persuade Doc to forget about that nurse with the shapely legs.

Just then the lights went out.

Were the theater staff locking up? Maybe it was much later than Bianca imagined, and the movie was over. After all, Marianna had been desperate to get out of the place. Nobody wanted to work a minute longer than they had to. Perhaps Rick had left without Bianca, thinking that she'd run out of the theater and had gone home by herself. It was her own fault. She'd taken too long about coming back. Probably even Doc was gone.

When the slow, methodical, heavy footsteps started toward her, her stomach sank. This wasn't any casual visitor to the ladies' lounge. This person knew that she was here and knew what he was about.

Suddenly she heard them again — the footsteps on that night two years ago. They echoed through her mind — slow, heavy, and loud. They had sounded like this, right above her head.

Bianca's hands spasmed. She dropped her handbag. Thoughts of the off-duty policemen inside the theater flashed through her head. There was no way she could call them now.

"Clumsy of you, wasn't it?" a falsetto whisper hissed. It didn't sound like anybody's real voice. She couldn't tell whether it was male or female, old or young, someone from Georgia or elsewhere.

The person was so close he was almost touching her. He stooped down and retrieved her purse. He shoved it into her hands.

"I was watching you inside the theater. Your face was like an open book for anybody to read."

She didn't say a word. She was too scared.

"You were so pathetic. So obvious. When you watched that murder on the screen you remembered me, didn't you?

He had come back. This had been her worst nightmare over the past two years, wondering when the murderer of Mrs. Ingersoll would show up, knowing he could do so at any time. Bianca's knees knocked together.

"Maybe you didn't remember much. Just a hint, a clue. The bad thing is that you're starting to remember. One thing will lead to another, won't it, especially since it's almost two years to the day of the killing?"

He was walking around her in a circle, sizing her up as if he could see in the dark and she couldn't. The darkness pressed around her, crushing down on her shoulders until they hurt.

"No — no, I don't remember a thing. Honestly I don't," she pleaded. "I was afraid of the dark back there. That's what you saw."

Pretty soon her legs would collapse. She would fall to the floor. The darkness swirled around her. It was getting hard to breathe.

A cold finger brushed against her neck. She cringed and moved away, trying not to cry out. That hand! There had been hands like that on that night two years ago. . . But no! She didn't want to remember.

A dark laugh escaped the murderer's lips, a laugh so distorted that it didn't sound human.

"I didn't plan to murder Mrs. Ingersoll, you know. She was a big, fat tub of a woman who didn't know how to mind her own business and got in the way. Now you're getting in my way. So guess what could happen to you?"

She groaned.

"I'm up for murder one if anybody catches me. One more victim would hardly make much difference, would it? The jury would find me just as guilty either way."

Dear Lord! How much longer could this go on? If he was going to kill her, why didn't he do so and get it over with? Why this prolonged torture?

Those huge monster hands tightened about her windpipe. They were pressing down until her breath came in short, little gasps.

"You'll do anything to save your life, won't you?" he purred.

She nodded her head vigorously. "Yes!"

"Nobody can catch me as long as you keep your trap shut. Right?"

She nodded.

"You won't rat about me cornering you in the rest room tonight, not even to those policemen in the audience? It'll be between you and me. Deal?"

She moaned.

"Remember, if one little hint gets out to those policemen, I'll know where it had to come from."

She repressed a sob.

"Then I'll have to waste you. Got it?"

She sniffled.

"It won't be pretty. I had to rush when I killed Mrs. Ingersoll. I won't have to rush with you. I can take my time and enjoy every moment of your slow, lingering death."

They suddenly seemed so familiar — the hands, the voice, the darkness, the struggling. She kept on thinking, Deja vu.

The assailant shoved her into one of the bathroom stalls and shut the door behind her. "Now don't you dare leave there, or I'll know."

She didn't dare to make a sound.

She heard the heavy footsteps retreating. He didn't flick on the light. She was left in the pitch blackness.

She cowered in the stall, hardly daring to move. The darkness reached out with little hands and grasped her neck where the killer's fingers had been. She gasped. Her chest was tight. It hurt bad.

She could hardly remember the girl who had stood in front of the bathroom mirror and fancied she might be pretty because Doc had said so. She was a shadow of that confident self. Doc would be ashamed if he could see her cringing.

The bathroom light flicked on. The stall was flooded with a garish, yellow glow. Her heart thundered against her chest with such force that it almost knocked her over.

Was it the murderer coming back to finish her off? Should she have climbed out the window? The footsteps stopped in front of her stall. Hands were grappling with the lock — impatient, angry hands.

The stall door flew open. Light poured in.

Chapter 4

There stood Marianna Haynes. Her frizzy, curly dark brown hair toppled over her shoulders. Marianna put her hand to her waist and tapped her sandaled foot. She tossed her head and smirked as she chewed her bubble gum.

"If it isn't Miss Goody Two Shoes, the heroine of St. Simons Island! My, aren't we brave tonight cowering in the bathroom stall!"

Marianna stepped forward in her white-sandaled heels with her toenails on display, painted fire-engine red. "If only my Ricky could see you, he'd be so proud."

Bianca had no illusions who Marianna meant by "Ricky". Marianna was Rick Roscoe's ex-girlfriend.

Her violet eyes glared at Bianca. Her plucked eyebrows stood up like pointed, black arches.

Her eyelashes were lengthened with mascara until each looked like a long and pointed weapon, maybe poisonous, certainly lethal. She sneered. Her teeth were short and pointy like a cat's.

Was Marianna the killer? Bianca was so rattled she could believe anything. What would Doc want her to do? He'd tell her to brazen it out and keep her cool: That was hard to do as Bianca climbed down from the toilet seat. She'd been perched on top of it so her feet wouldn't show underneath the stall. It wasn't a dignified position to get caught in.

She straightened out her clothes. Then she tried pushing around Marianna to escape.

Marianna caught her by the hand. "Where do you think you're going?"

Bianca felt something cold in the pit of her stomach. What next?

"I've got to have your autograph. After all, it isn't every day I meet somebody so famous in the bathroom. A poor slob like me has to take advantage of every celebrity's appearance."

Bianca was no celeb. She didn't sign autographs. "Look, I've got to get back to the show. Rick will get angry." Her voice was so low that even she could hardly hear it.

Marianna's eyes lighted up like fiery amethysts. "Sure, Ricky will understand why I've got to get your autograph! He used to date me, you know, back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the earth and you weren't so famous."

Marianna looked like an Amazon with huge, powerful shoulders. She threw Bianca up against the wall.

"Give me your autograph. I won't budge without one."

"I — I don't have any paper!" Bianca pleaded. At least Doc wasn't here to see her grovel.

"We'll use the toilet paper." Marianna reached into an empty stall and yanked a big handful off the roll. "After all, that's where I met the big heroine of my life. That's how I'll always remember you, cringing on top of the toilet seat with your legs up. You were shaking like a cat cornered by a mutt!"

Marianna threw her head back and screeched. She held her belly, rocking back and forth with laughter. Then she lunged forward and thrust the toilet paper at Bianca.

"Sign!"

Marianna was leaning so close to Bianca that the paper was in her face. Marianna breathed down her neck, her breath hot on Bianca's skin. It couldn't get any hotter if Marianna had turned into a fire-breathing dragon.

"I — I don't have anything to sign with." Bianca wriggled her way around Marianna's huge frame.

Bianca thought, If I can only get out the door! She remembered that feeling of desperation from two years ago. Her body shook.

"We can't let a little thing like that stop you, can we?" Marianna gushed in her deep, Georgia accent.

Marianna rummaged through her denim handbag. She reached into the various pockets, retrieved a tube of lipstick, and waved it in Bianca's face.

"This is the Honey Cinnamon and Spice flavor I wore when Ricky kissed me the last time. It tastes so good he couldn't get enough." Marianna tried to smear it on Bianca's lips.

Bianca jerked away.

"It's only fitting I give this lipstick to Ricky's new girlfriend, who won him fair and square, on account of the fact that she's so rich and famous. I warn you, though, sometimes my lips are bruised for days afterwards.''

"I — I don't want to wear your lipstick." Bianca forced herself around Marianna.

Marianna's female football player frame towered over thin, petite Bianca. Marianna blocked her way to the door. Her big chest heaved up and down with mirth, making her breasts shake.

Marianna grabbed Bianca's hand. She forced the lipstick tube into it by prying Bianca's fingers out of fist formation one by one. Then she pressed Bianca's fingers around it.

"I want a nice autograph I can show to my grandchildren and claim I knew the famous Miss Bianca Winters." Marianna eyed her wickedly.

Bianca tried to write her name on the wad of toilet paper. She kept on ripping the thin, flimsy stuff.

"I — I can't do it."

Marianna threw the toilet paper into the trash can.

"Write your autograph real big so everybody can see it!" Marianna pointed to the glass mirror on the wall behind the sinks. "All I have to do is pull Ricky in here. He'll be real impressed with his brave, new girlfriend." Marianna's voice dripped with sarcasm. "He'll want all his buddies to see it."

Bianca could imagine the kids in the school laughing at her. Doc would shake his head. "You mean after all the time we've spent together, Bianca, you couldn't think of a more clever way to defend yourself."

Bianca dashed for the door.

Marianna tackled her. She pried Bianca's hand away from the door handle and hurled Bianca against the mirror. Bianca's shoulder hit the glass. It cracked.

Marianna's violet eyes were blazing. "You aren't leaving this ladies' lounge until you write I AM A BIG COWARD and sign it BIANCA WINTERS in red lipstick. Because that's what you are — a total coward."

Marianna did a demonstration. She wrote the letters as big as she could on the mirror. There could be no mistaking what she wanted.

Tears of panic and terror, humiliation and shame, rolled down Bianca's cheeks. She turned to the mirror and did what Marianna demanded.

Bianca thought, Is she going to spring on me and shoot me when I'm done? Is this just my final humiliation, my epitaph? Is she the killer who's been waiting around for two years to waste me?

Marianna grabbed a stick of bubble gum from her purse. She leaned against the wall, chuckling to herself at the entertainment that Bianca was providing.

"You know Ricky doesn't love you, don't you? He's still gonna come to me when he gets horny. He's horny as a devil. He doesn't like his girlfriends skinny and wimpy like you. Doesn't like them so mealy-mouthed and weepy."

Bianca had only gone out on a first date with Rick because Doc had told her to. What Rick really thought was the farthest thing from Bianca's mind as she scribbled I AM A COWARD with the lipstick tube.

"You're a rich girl, Bianca. The Shipleys are going to give you that big, fat trust fund. Ricky likes a woman with lots of cold cash. Looks like you and I are going to share Ricky."

Marianna stuffed more bubble gum into her mouth. She leaned into Bianca's face and blew a bubble until it popped on Bianca's nose. "You hand over the money. I'll dish out the sex."

Marianna stomped her foot and laughed so loudly that Bianca felt her eardrums would burst. Bianca tore off toward the door. She didn't look back as she raced across the empty lobby. She flung open the doors to the theater and plunged headfirst into the darkness. In a panic she forgot where Rick was sitting.

"Oh, ex-excuse me!" She bumped into everybody.

"Hey, girl, you blind or something? Watch where you're going!" kids hissed at her.

She spilled somebody's Coke.

"Oh, I'm sorry!"

"Clumsy bitch!"

She knocked into somebody's elbow. She spilled his popcorn.

"I didn't mean it!"

She sat down on the wrong guy's lap.

"Get off my boyfriend!" A girl gave Bianca a shove on the behind.

Bianca blundered around in a nightmare, looking for a blond shock of hair. She spotted a guy with his elbow sticking way out into the aisle, draped over what used to be her seat. He was dropping popcorn all over the floor while he stuffed it into his mouth.

Bianca tapped Rick on the shoulder. She stooped down low and hissed into his ear. "You have to take me home." She was aware of the two off-duty policemen sitting not far away. But she didn't dare to say anything to them.

"Are you crazy?" Rick gawked at Bianca. "I've got to see how many more people this maniac lady can kill in the rest of the movie. She's going ape. Ten bodies in the last five minutes!"

His eyes shone with glee as if he couldn't get enough of this murder and mayhem.

Bianca had never dreamed that Rick would turn her down flat. After all, wasn't he supposed to be her date?

Bianca couldn't just stand here in the aisle and clasp and unclasp her hands. The Black Widow, who had killed her lover eons ago, was shooting more people. It looked like a massacre. It turned her stomach.

"Hey, sit down, girl! You're in my way!" Kids started to complain about Bianca.

On this humid night Bianca could smell the damp, moldy odor of the old building that hadn't been cleaned lately. That combined with the stink of old beer. Somebody must have sneaked it in. It added to the smell of spilled Coke several days old, along with the scent of stale popcorn, and the stench of hundreds of kids sweating into their shirts with all the suspense. Bianca's head spun around.

She fought back the urge to rush out of the building. Doc had told her to avoid what he called "panicked flight". It would undo all the good she had done herself by finding a date and coming here in the first place.

"Listen, Rick," Bianca held on to her last shred of reason, "I'm sorry. I — I can't stay here one more minute."

All the kids in the theater turned around in their seats and hissed "Sh-h-h-h!" at Bianca. Their eyes glowed red. They didn't look like people any more. They had hideously distorted faces and bloodthirsty expressions like a bunch of murderers.

She darted her gaze over to where Doc was still sitting with the gorgeous nurse with sexy legs. He'd always told Bianca to come to him to talk things over when she grew desperate. But she didn't know if she could make it all the way over to his seat in the dark.

She thought, They're all after me.

Bianca was transported back to two years ago, almost to the night. The killer was after her. She could hear his footsteps. She could feel his hands around her neck.

Someone screamed at the top of their lungs. Bianca didn't realize it had been her until she turned and raced up the aisle. All the red, scintillating eyes gaped at her. She had to reach that shimmering light coming from under the door. She had to get out of this darkness, as she had escaped from the Shipleys' house two years ago, through a door that had lighted up with a silver glow.

Bianca burst through the swinging doors and straight into a pair of arms. Whoever it was clapped his hand over her mouth. He dragged her away from the double, swinging doors into a sequestered alcove in the back of the theater. Not many people went there, especially late at night when the movie theater was about to close.

Suddenly this wasn't the Island Theater any more. Bianca was struggling again with the assailant of her nightmares, the murderer from two years ago. Mrs. Ingersoll once again screamed and took her last plunge down the stairs. Bianca held Little Katie tightly in her arms. The shadowy figure once more tried to take the child from her, probably to throw her down the stairs after Mrs. Ingersoll.

"No!" Bianca groaned aloud. "I won't let you take Little Katie. Not for anything in the world!"

Bianca kicked her assailant with such force that she made him let go. She wriggled out of his grasp and fled across the lobby that led out of the building. In her mind's eye she saw the Shipleys' front door, illuminated by the strange, pale, silvery glow from the marsh miasma. She had to reach that door before the killer did. Light meant life. Darkness meant death.

Bianca's assailant caught her by the ankle. She tripped and fell. She tried to dig her nails into the cheap, red-and-black movie theater carpet that had hardly any thickness or texture. Dirt was caked an inch thick. Gum wrappers, candy wrappers and old boxes of M&Ms littered the floor. He kept on pulling her back toward him. She didn't see anybody she could appeal to. Most of the movie theater employees had gone home. The light at the refreshments stand was out. The CLOSED sign was up.

The guy was dropping her on to a leather, cushioned couch in the darkened alcove. He was trying to climb on top of her and pin her down. If it were just her life at stake, she would give up and let him finish her off. That would be the easy way to make this nightmare end.

Bianca was again back in the Shipleys' house. She had to think of Little Katie. Little Katie didn't know how to walk yet. She hadn't spoken her first word. If the baby died, she would never know that she'd been alive. Katie was Bianca's responsibility. Mr. and Mrs. Shipley had entrusted the little girl's life to her. Bianca couldn't let Katie die, not if it took every bit of strength left in her body — not if it took her own life.

Bianca bit her assailant's hand. She heard him cry out. She made a run for it toward the exit. She thought only of the elusive door with the silvery glow that had begun to look like heaven.

The thug dragged her back to the couch and pinned her down again, crushing her with his whole weight. She flailed back and forth, trying to knock him off her. Her own strength was running out.

"Spare Little Katie! Kill me! But let her go!" Bianca pleaded.

Somebody shook her by the shoulders and called her name. "Bianca!" It didn't sound like the killer.

She did a double take. Suddenly it wasn't May 27, the day of the murder. It was now, almost exactly two years later.

Chestnut-brown eyes stared down into hers. His dark hair was mussed up and hanging around his ears. A big scratch marred his cheek. His usher's cap was gone. His uniform with the stripe up the sides was torn. His white shirt had lost a few of its buttons. It hung loose around his waist. It was Harry Fellini!

Chapter 5

"Hey, Bianca, get a life!" Harry frowned. "Who do you think I am — some sleaze from a back alley jumping you? You're at the Island Theater."

Bianca's mind had snapped. She'd seen the Black Widow going berserk on the screen. The audience had turned into a bunch of vicious beasts. She had run for her life, slammed into poor Harry Fellini, and mistaken him for the killer of her nightmares.

"Sorry I was a little rough. Didn't want to let you run out of the theater like that." He explained. "You were far gone."

"I did this to you?" She touched his torn, white shirt.

"It wasn't an encounter with a baboon from the zoo!" Harry brushed himself off.

Bianca's trembling hands fumbled with the buttons on his shirt. But she was too clumsy, getting them buttoned askew. His cap lay on the floor on top of a pile of dirty popcorn. She snatched it up and handed it to Harry, hanging her head.

"I'll — I'll pay for the damage. It won't happen again. Oh, I shouldn't have come here tonight! It's been one, big, long disaster."

"If you can't go to a movie without acting like that, you're in bad shape. Come and sit down."

Harry drew her into a room behind the refreshments stand, away from prying eyes. It didn't look like anything special, just an employees' lounge. There was a small refrigerator in the corner, an old, beat-up, used model that had seen better days. An urn of hot water for tea and a coffee-maker, along with a basket of sugar packets, tea bags and a carton of half-used cream, sat on a table.

He showed her to a sofa shoved back up against the wall. The stuffing was coming out of holes everywhere. It was comfortable enough, though, especially after what she'd been through.

He poured black coffee into two Styrofoam cups and stirred sugar and cream into both with a stick. He plopped down next to her and handed her a steaming cup.

"Don't worry. The boss's upstairs, smooching it up with the ticket taker 'cause he knows it's closing time. Got a regular bachelor pad up there — a bar, stereo system, bed and everything. Keeps that bar well stocked. Won't be bothering us anytime soon."

Harry glanced at his wristwatch, a cheap model with a fake leather band. It was midnight.

What could Harry possibly have to say? Bianca felt humiliated enough. She'd made such a spectacle of herself that she had better stay at home on Saturday nights. She wouldn't be able to face anybody in school on Monday. They would point. "There's that dumb Bianca Winters. She's so frightened of the dark that she's lost her mind. Doesn't even remember where she is."

Then there was that warning from the killer to wonder about. Had her brain invented him because the lights had gone out in the bathroom? She'd have to talk to Doc. He would know how to interpret it.

Bianca couldn't meet Harry's eyes. "I — I don't know what came over me back there."

Bianca wanted to call a taxi to get home. She could bury her head under her pillow and never have to look anyone in the eye. Maybe she should drop out of school. She didn't have to graduate in June with her classmates. She could go to night school — where nobody knew her — to earn her diploma.

"Hey, don't keep apologizing! Don't you have any pride left?"

Doc never talked to Bianca like that! He would pat her hand, insist that she would do better the next time, after they'd discussed matters. He would assure her that she was acting normally for someone who had been through such a horrible trauma.

"Drink that coffee. Believe me, kid, you need it. It hits the spot on a night like this."

Bianca took a big sip of coffee and burned her mouth. The coffee jolted her as he had promised.

"You've got to take down that sign that says: Hit me, I'm an asshole!" Harry advised. "You could say I'm an expert. I wore a sign like that three years ago right after Mike got thrown into the slammer for holding up a bank. Couldn't look anybody in the eye. Went around staring at the floor."

He took a sip of the coffee, then stared her straight in the eye.

"Kids knew how to push my buttons. They teased the hell out of me, saying that I would go up the river like Mike, or claiming that Mike was the Boston Strangler in disguise. I stayed after school and met the guys who badmouthed me out in the woods behind the football field. I punched them out to prove I was better than Mike."

"What happened?"

He shrugged. "Sometimes I won. Sometimes I lost. The teasing never stopped. Every few days it was another guy or one of the same guys as before. I was everybody's football. They kicked me around until my leather was worn off. They had lots of fun. I was miserable, just letting my guts hang out for everybody to see."

It touched Bianca that he was telling her private stuff that must hurt to remember. He'd seemed such a loner at school. She'd assumed that Harry hadn't had any feelings since he'd always worn one of those frozen mugs and had looked like a tough guy.

She had imagined that her own private hell was the worst — being the sole surviving witness to a murder that she couldn't remember, having a killer hanging out there waiting to waste her as soon as she remembered the slightest thing. But she couldn't imagine living with the shame of having a brother or a sister who had gone to jail and wasn't sorry about it.

Everyone on St. Simons Island had heard about Harry's brother, Mike Fellini. He had gone from petty theft and purse-snatching when he'd been in high school to armed robbery as soon as he'd dropped out.

Three years ago Mike had been holed up in an old, abandoned shack on the far side of the beach next to the swamp. No respectable employer on the island would hire Mike to change a tire for fear that he would run away with it. He'd been spotted at night in various places where no one had good reason to go — such as the swamps and the lagoons. Some had gossiped that he'd spent his time hunting for buried treasure left there by the Spanish several hundred years ago.

For three years now he'd been serving a sentence for armed robbery in the Georgia state penitentiary.

Bianca had never had a brother or a sister. But if her mother or father had suddenly taken to the streets to carry on a life of crime, she would never be able to hold her head up. It would be a badge of shame.

Someday the murderer of Mrs. Ingersoll might be caught and Bianca would be safe. But there was no chance of living down the horror of having a family member turn to crime. That person would always be your mother, father, brother or sister as long as you lived. On an island where everybody knew everybody else, that was like living in perpetual hell. The real hell couldn't be any worse.

"You don't have such a chip on your shoulder any more," Bianca remarked. "When I see you at school, you look as if you don't care. Mike doesn't seem to bother you."

Harry looked straight into Bianca's eyes. "I pulled myself together and toughened up. It hasn't changed Mike. It's just made Mike a helluva lot easier to put up with."

Bianca bit her lip. "I don't think I could do that."

"Why not?"

"I'm not that brave."

"Somebody like you who—"

She clapped her hand over his mouth.

"It makes me feel guilty when people call me a heroine. I — I don't deserve it."

"If you're not a heroine, nobody is!" he exclaimed. "Risk your life for a baby? Man, most people would have run out the door and saved their own necks when they heard a killer in the house."

She shook her head no. "I'm stupid, and I'm a coward." If only Harry could see what was written all over the mirror in the ladies' lounge!

Harry put his hand under her chin and made her look at him. "Hey! Don't put yourself down. The reason the other kids tease you is that they're afraid of you."

"I — I don't understand. . ."

"They'd be scared shitless if they were faced with a killer. They wouldn't have survived.

They know it. They're envious of you and don't want to admit it. It's like you have some sort of awesome, supernatural power." Harry was gazing at her with naked admiration.

Bianca blushed and looked shyly down at her lap. No one had ever seen her behave so badly, then praised her like this.

"Thanks!" Bianca murmured, managing a wan smile. "You don't know what I'm like."

"You're not a convict like my brother!"

"I'm just as bad in a different way. I mean, I haven't done anything illegal that the police would arrest me for, but. . ."

"What have you done wrong?" he scoffed.

Bianca had never talked like this to anyone, not even Doc. She was thinking about confessing stuff to Harry that she'd never told another soul.

"You can't call somebody brave who sleeps with the lights on," she began. "I don't mean just night lights either. I mean overhead ones. Do you know any other kid like that who's almost eighteen?"

"Three years ago when Mike was out on bail awaiting trial, I used to leave the phone off the hook all the time. I was afraid that Mike might call. You might say that's my phobia — Mike."

Bianca felt encouraged enough to smile.

"Go ahead!" Harry urged her. "Confess more of your deep, dark secrets. You haven't shocked me yet."

He beamed at her with such a bright smile that it made her heart pound. She'd never felt like this before. She didn't know what to call it. His hand was warm as it closed around her smaller one. A reassuring feeling flowed into her. He gave her courage. No matter what she said, Harry didn't make fun of her.

She tried to think of her deepest, darkest secrets to test Harry. "I tell kids I need lots of sleep. That's why I don't ever go to slumber parties. Really it's that—"

"You can't sleep with the lights out, right?"

"You're not shocked?"

"Keep trying to shock me. You're doing a terrible job."

"This is my first movie in years because—"

"You're scared of the dark. You don't have to bother to tell me that was why you excused yourself to go to the rest room. There are lights out here in the lobby. It's pitch black inside the theater without any windows."

She'd never met anyone who understood her feelings so well. "How — how did you know?" she stuttered.

He shrugged. "Guess you could say I felt the same way about my brother. Sort of like your fear of the dark. I was always trying to escape him — at first. Started coming up with false last names when I went places where they didn't know me. If I saw Mike walk past when he was awaiting trial, I'd go hide in the bathroom. Once I hid in an umbrella closet. Made an absolute fool of myself when the dentist's nurse decided to leave in a hurry. I fell right on top of her when she opened the door. Damn near frightened the poor woman to death. Thought I was a dead body. Might as well have been in those days."

Bianca's mouth dropped a foot. It sounded like something stupid she would do herself. She challenged herself to think hard. She was going to come up with the worst things about herself that she could imagine, things that she could hardly admit to herself, let alone to someone else.

"I'm afraid of the night sky. At sunset I close the shutters and stuff bath towels under my door so I can't see that thin, black line of darkness from out in the hallway. All I see is the electric light on my ceiling instead."

This was clearly the sort of stuff you never told anybody else, not even your diary. Would he say she was nuts?

"Look, kid," he squeezed her hand, "you're a survivor. You're real tough, tougher than you think — just like me."

She blinked back tears. "You really think so?" She didn't seem to be able to shock him no matter what she told him.

"I know so!"

This was different from talking to Doc about her problems. Doc was an adult that she was going to for advice, that she was trying to please. Doc never had problems. He had everything figured out. He never had to confide in her. Harry was more her equal, someone she could share her feelings with, painful as they were. She'd never realized until now how desperate she'd been for a friend.

He leaned close. Their noses touched. He brushed her lips with his own gently. Then he did it again and again.

A tremor went through her body. This time it wasn't fear. She couldn't believe that anybody could like her enough to kiss her — if they knew her darkest secrets. She wanted to thank Harry in her own, special way. She leaned forward and kissed him back. With Doc, she had always waited for him to make the first move for fear of displeasing him.

Harry toyed with her hair, brushing back the strands that had fallen into her face. He rubbed noses. He acted as if he was attracted to her as she was to him, as if he needed her as she needed him. No one else made her feel half so good — not even Doc.

He aimed for her lips and awkwardly hit her nose. She didn't mind. She stopped blushing and held up her lips for him to kiss. He kissed her tentatively, then again as if he couldn't get enough. He pulled her against his chest. He kissed her as if he never wanted to let go.

She felt shy at first. She'd never kissed a guy except Doc. That had been different. Even at intimate moments Doc would instruct her. His touch had felt clinical and detached. It was the doctor and the teacher in him, that and the fact that he was older and more experienced.

Harry, on the other hand, liked whatever she did naturally. She got up her courage and slipped her arms around his back. It felt good to draw him down to her and kiss him back slowly at first, then with increasing fervor.

Soon she didn't know where her lips ended and Harry's began. She was pressed so close against him that she didn't know if it was his heart pounding against her chest or her own. She thought, I never knew it could be like this — not to be all alone and scared.

As she kissed him she whispered all the things she had started to remember about that night two years ago. She confessed everything from the time that Mrs. Ingersoll thought she heard someone prowling around out in the bushes to the time that she, Bianca, had run screaming murder down the street. He kept on whispering as he kissed her that she was a true heroine. She shouldn't doubt herself.

"All right you geek, what's the big idea!" A voice growled.

Bianca gasped. She hastily straightened out her T-shirt and brushed off her jeans. She reached up under the back of her T-shirt to pull down her bra.

Rick stood in the doorway, his chest heaving up and down. His fair complexion flushed bright red. His blue eyes blazed. His legs were slightly apart, his knees flexed and ready to spring to the attack. Rick fingered something as if he couldn't wait to use it. It looked sharp and glinted silver in the dim light of the lounge.

A knife!

Chapter 6

Bianca had assumed that the movie had finished long ago and that Rick Roscoe had gone home. She could tell by the sounds from the lobby that the movie was letting out now. Kids were streaming out the front door, laughing and shouting.

Marianna followed Rick into the room. She leaned against the wall. To judge by her malicious look, she had everything to do with Rick knowing where to find Bianca. Bianca would bet her life on it!

"When a girl goes to the movies with me, I expect her to leave with me!" Rick thundered.

Bianca had never imagined that he would act like this. All during the movie he had pretty much ignored her. Why should he suddenly show an interest now?

Harry leaped up from the sofa and stepped in front of Bianca. "Leave Bianca alone. If you're going to pick on anybody, pick on me."

"Do you go around picking up other guy's dates? Is that how you get your kicks? You're going end up in jail like your brother real soon."

"You don't give a shit about Bianca. I care about her."

Bianca stood behind Harry. It was nice to hear Harry say that.

"You're wasting your time with a girl like that. Too rich and stuck up. You can't trust her. That's why I came to you as soon as I saw what was going on," Marianna broke in. "It was all too obvious that Bianca and Harry were having a fit of smoochies in the back lounge."

Marianna's CLOSED sign had been up. Bianca had had no idea that the other girl had been spying on her.

Rick lunged at Harry with his knife. Harry stepped out of the way just in time, pulling Bianca with him.

Rick taunted him. "Are you afraid to fight, Fellini? Are you going to hide behind Bianca?"

"There seems to be no limit to your stupidity, Roscoe. I just prefer to keep my head."

Harry exchanged looks with Bianca. Some secret, silent communication passed between them. This was what Harry meant by refusing to let the kids get his goat. She was amazed. She could never act like that. She wouldn't have the nerve.

"You're just a coward!" Rick spat.

Harry stood stock still.

"You're afraid to fight me. You know you're going to lose."

Harry bit his lip. He didn't move.

"Maybe you're brain dead." Rick laughed cruelly. "Did Mike throw you against the wall one too many times when you were little?"

Harry clenched his fists. Still he didn't move one inch toward Rick.

"Maybe he needs a real woman to give him hair on his chest instead of that little ninny cringing against the wall." Marianna threw her hips back and forth as she crossed the room to Harry's side. "Bianca's made him as chicken as she is." She gave Harry a taunting kiss on the cheek, then cackled with glee.

Harry stepped away from Marianna. He didn't give in to the temptation to say something back.

"Wait until I tell the theater manager about you." Marianna's poisonous, violet eyes glowed with venom. "You know he doesn't allow employees to mess around on the job. He'll fire you on the spot, Fellini."

Bianca's spine tingled. She sensed a presence in the doorway and turned. There were the thick bifocals that made him look smarter than anybody else. He was wearing a collared white dress shirt, starched at that. She'd forgotten that Doc could afford to wear dress shirts whenever he wanted. The McColloughs had money like the Shipleys. Besides, Doc was a rather formal kind of guy.

"Doc!" Bianca raced over to him.

Doc caught her by the shoulders and drew her aside. "You seemed a little bit overwrought in the movie theater tonight." He frowned, looking concerned. "Overwrought" was Doc's kind of term. He used big, fifty-cent words like that.

"I'm OK now, I guess." She looked shyly down at the carpet and then back up into his eyes. She wanted to tell him about her memory of that night two years ago and how it was returning. This clearly wasn't the time or the place.

"Do you want to tell me all about it?" It was more of a statement than a question, taking for granted her compliance. "I'll give you a lift home. We can talk in the car. Susan won't mind." Doc didn't bother to glance at his date.

The nurse with the shapely legs emerged from the lobby. She was wearing a sundress with stockings. She leaned against the door frame and gave Doc a faint smile, slipping her stockinged foot out of her heel and rubbing it up and down her calf. Any woman Doc went out with must be used to this kind of thing. After all, doctors were on duty all the time. Doc took his cases very seriously.

"I — I can't go now." Bianca excused herself.

Bianca looked at Harry. She couldn't desert him in a pinch, not after he'd been so nice. If she left, that would only make Rick angrier. He would punch Harry out since he couldn't get his hands on Doc.

"You have a new commitment in the romance department?" Doc looked Harry up and down as if he were examining him clinically under a microscope.

Bianca flushed to the roots of her brown hair. She wanted Doc to be the first to know. It wasn't anything like what she felt for him. Nothing else could ever be. Maybe now Doc would be proud of her. He'd told her that she had to go out and find herself a boyfriend. She'd been successful.

"Are you sure about this boy?" Doc sounded doubtful.

Bianca hung on Doc's every look and word as she nodded.

Doc frowned. "Maybe I advised you to go out on your own too soon. It's my fault, not yours, of course. I misjudged how far along you were in your recovery. Going out with one of the Fellini boys. . . Frankly, I don't think it shows good judgment."

Bianca tottered on her feet. She didn't know how she was going to live with that condemnation. She never felt good unless Doc approved of her choices. It had been that way for two years.

"You'd better come with me." Doc took Bianca's arm and started to guide her out of the room. "The police can deal with these low-life scum. I just summoned them on my cell phone."

Bianca had never resisted Doc before. She stopped and gaped at him with a silent plea.

"Bianca, what's wrong?" Doc caressed her cheek. "You don't look well, my dear. You're so pale and—"

"I'm — I'm sorry you don't approve of Harry. But — but he was so nice to me. You told me I should find friends. He's had problems like me. I think you'd like him if — if you'd give him a chance."

It was hard to express herself in Doc's presence. He was so intimidating. She never, but NEVER, dared to argue with him.

"Bianca." Doc shook his head. "You don't have the presence of mind to make such important decisions all by yourself. You're in a nervous state, too easily deceived by cons like the Fellini brothers. You've got to trust me. Harry's not right for you. He's not right at all." Doc patted her on the shoulder.

Harry had gotten in trouble because of her. Bianca would never forgive herself if she deserted him now.

"I'm — I'm sorry." She looked down at the floor. She couldn't meet Doc's eyes. "I have to stay a little while longer. Please!"

Harry grabbed her. "Who are you, anyway? Leave Bianca alone. She's been picked on enough tonight."

Harry and Doc glared at each other, each taking the other's measure.

"I'll have you know that I'm an intern at the Brunswick Memorial Hospital and Bianca's official outpatient medical adviser." Doc impaled Harry with his frosty stare.

"Yeah, well we're doing fine, thank you. We don't need you sticking your nose in our business. Shove off!" Harry stood up to Doc.

Bianca's mouth fell open. No one ever told Doc to shove off! She wanted to drop through the floor.

"Bianca, are you coming?" Doc turned his steely gaze on her. "I can't stand here all night." He got out his gold pocket watch and glanced at it. He was always so busy.

Bianca couldn't meet his eyes.

"Very well, Bianca. This is more serious than I thought. I'll have to call your other doctors. I'll be in touch as soon as we arrive at a diagnosis. In the meantime, you can deal with the police by yourself. It won't be very pleasant, I promise you. But if you insist!"

Doc started to walk off with that firm, rapid step, but then he stopped in his tracks. He turned. He spoke in a different tone, his words going through her like a knife. "I wouldn't have thought that you'd forget so easily, Bianca, that I want the best for you."

Bianca burst into tears. She tried to rush after Doc. Harry grabbed her around the waist. For a while she tried to fight him off. Then he let her cry on his shoulder while he stroked her hair.

Doc was angry. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach. She could sense it in the way her hands shook. How was she going to live with herself?

Rick lunged at Harry with his knife while he was still comforting Bianca. Bianca fell back with a scream. Harry kicked the blade out of Rick's hands.

Marianna cheered Rick on. "Slug the bastard!" Marianna called. "Show him what for!" She was turning red in the face as she shouted. She would do anything to get back at Bianca.

Rick didn't take time to look for his knife. He knocked Harry to the ground and leaped on top of him. He started punching Harry around the face.

Harry pushed Rick off. Rick scrambled to his feet as Harry gave him another shove. Rick went hurtling back against the wall with a crash. The impact knocked some pictures down and shattered their glass.

Marianna let out a bloodcurdling shriek. She went racing out of the room. She was soon back with the manager in tow, bellowing, "Break it up!" He was a big, burly man with a beer belly sticking out of a Hawaiian shirt, wiping the ticket taker's lipstick off his face. He tucked his shirt in around his waist. He reeked of cheap perfume as he inserted himself between the two boys, forcing them to fall back.

"Harry attacked Rick. I saw it with my own eyes," Marianna insisted.

"She's lying!" Bianca burst out as she ran to Harry.

"No, she's not," Rick panted, standing shoulder to shoulder beside Marianna. Both eyed Bianca maliciously. "He's a vicious beast!" Rick stared at Harry.

"All right, Fellini, you're fired!" the manager barked, still wiping his face with his handkerchief. "I had second thoughts about hiring the brother of a convict. Bad blood runs in families. I'll mail you your wages. I want the uniform back, though. No stealing things to get even. Is that clear?"

Bianca gaped at Harry, wondering what he would do.

Harry bit down on his lip. Then he hurled his usher's cap at the manager, making the fatso catch it.

"After all the goings-on I saw in your theater, I was going to quit after tonight anyway," Harry stated flatly.

"That smart-ass, tongue is going to get you nothing but trouble, Fellini." The manager scowled at Harry. "It'll earn you jail time just like your brother, Mike. I was about to call the police. Here they come anyway." He glanced over his shoulder. "I don't know what goings-on you're talking about. But I bet you're involved in them."

Harry looked as if he wanted to say something back, but he kept his mouth firmly shut.

They were soon surrounded by policemen in uniform. The manager did all the talking, feeding them Marianna's version of the story. Marianna and Rick kept on vigorously nodding.

"Do you have anything to say for yourself, Fellini?" the police chief asked Harry.

Bianca could feel what it must be like to be him, to always be the chief suspect because he was related to Mike. She bit her lip.

"I didn't do a thing, officer. Honest I didn't. Roscoe attacked me first. I was trying to defend Bianca."

"Miss Winters," the police chief addressed her, "I'm surprised to find you here tonight, in such company. Your doctor called us on his cell phone before he left the theater. He said he offered you a ride home. You refused to leave with him. Do you think that was wise?"

Bianca looked down at her feet, then up at the police chief. He was the one who had been in her hospital room two years ago, praising her to the skies.

"I — I just met Harry tonight. He helped me out. I'm sticking here to tell him thank you."

"If I were you, I wouldn't stick around too much longer." The chief scowled at Rick and Harry. "I don't know who's telling the truth and who's lying. So I'll issue a warning to you both. If we get any more complaints about you down at the station, you'll both be arrested. Am I making myself clear?"

Both boys nodded.

"It's bad enough that your brother just escaped from the state penitentiary this afternoon." The chief addressed his remarks to Harry who went white and seemed to be struck dumb. It was his worst nightmare. The chief went on, "He'll probably head right to St. Simons Island to cause more trouble — for the first time in three years. We haven't released the news to the press yet, but I've doubled our patrol around the island. We don't want two Fellinis on our hands!"

The police chief took a few more notes and then motioned to his fellow officers to leave.

The manager screwed up his face at Harry. "Maybe the police don't know who to arrest. But I do. If I find any of my property missing, Fellini, I'm going to prosecute. Clear out and clear out fast!" He stalked out of the room without a backward look, anxious to get back to his ticket taker.

"You poor thing!" Marianna rushed over to Rick, who was sitting on the sofa holding his jaw in his hand, rubbing it.

Marianna took some Kleenex out of her purse. She sat down on Rick's lap, making sure she was nice and comfortable, and started dabbing at his face. He'd hit his cheek against the wall when Harry had thrown him off. The bruises were bleeding.

"That louse!" Rick muttered about Harry.

Marianna seemed to love it. She purred and encouraged Ricky to complain. She dabbed his cheeks and wiped his brow, patting his head and smoothing down his messed-up, sweaty blond hair. She grabbed her comb from her purse and tried to tidy his hair, combing the curls into place. Marianna cast knowing looks at Bianca as if to say, "Didn't I warn you that Ricky was mine?"

"Let's clear out of this insane asylum." Harry rushed Bianca out of the employees' lounge. "I won't be a minute. If anybody gives you trouble, let out a yell loud enough to wake the dead." He stationed her beside the men's room.

She stood there while he went in to change his clothes. She'd never known anybody to change so fast. Before she had a chance to wonder what would happen next, now that she was standing in a deserted lobby with the lights dimmed, Harry was back. He dumped the usher's outfit in front of the ticket taker's booth, gave it a kick, and took her hand. He led her out into the Village, the main shopping area of St. Simons Island. They headed for a parking lot near the pier.

The sultry air sat on their shoulders and weighed them down as they hurried along the sidewalk. The leaves of the low-hanging live oak branches brushed past their cheeks. The twigs and leaves caught in Bianca's hair. Twice she had to stop to disentangle them.

He helped her into the passenger side of his old, beat-up, antique 1965 Rambler Ambassador with its dented front fender and fins. She'd never seen a car like it before and wondered how it ran after all these years. The bright aquamarine color was bizarre, unlike anything in a new-model car. The paint was peeling. The stuffing was coming out of the seats. It was too old to have seat belts. She was studying the forty-year-old chrome fittings on the radio and the front dashboard controls when he slammed the driver's side door shut.

"Can't be too picky about what you drive when you can't hold down a job." Harry gunned the motor as he struggled with the key in the ignition.

He grimaced in pain, an expression he'd been careful to conceal in the movie theater when everybody had been watching. She took his hand and squeezed it. She could imagine how bad he felt with Mike on the lam again.

A police car with flashing lights drove up beside them. "Do you want a police escort back to your house, Miss Winters?" the policeman asked. "Your doctor called us again and asked us to find you. Your parents have been wondering why you weren't home yet."

"You tell her doctor Bianca doesn't need an escort. She's with me." Harry thumbed his chest.

"No — no, thank you, officer! You don't have to go to all that trouble." Bianca managed a smile. "We're on our way home now."

"It's no trouble when it's for a heroine like you, Miss Winters. You know, my daughter in the sixth grade wrote an essay about you. You're the most inspiring person in her life."

Bianca blushed. "Really, you don't have to go out of your way."

"All right, but it's late. Hurry on home." The policeman started to roll up his window. "I don't want your doctor to have to call us again. My, he must be dedicated to be worried about you at this hour! But then, I imagine lots of people would be willing to go out of their way for you."

Harry backed out on to the darkened street as the police car drove off. "Mom and I are used to this. Mom had a good job working as a secretary at the high school. They fired her as soon as the news got out about Mike's bank robbery. Couldn't have a secretary who had a son in jail in a respectable place like a school. Mom lost her state retirement pension. Tough after twenty years on the job and only ten more to go until she cashed in."

"How have you managed to pay the bills?" Bianca was aghast. She'd heard about Harry's family having a hard time. She had no idea that his financial problems were this bad.

He shrugged as he started down Old Church Road toward the Churchyard Oaks Subdivision, where Bianca lived next to Christ's Church. He didn't have to ask where to go. Everybody on the island knew where everybody else lived.

She heard an engine starting up behind them. Bianca didn't see anybody. It must just be the police car heading home for the night.

"St. Simons Island is too small to have an employment agency, so my mom signed up with one of those temporary agencies in Brunswick. That's why she isn't home most days until late. She has to drive a long way to work. They assign her jobs all over the place, from St. Simons to Jekyll to Brunswick, sometimes as far down the highway as Jacksonville, Florida."

Harry turned and looked over his shoulder into the darkness, as if he heard something, too.

"What job is she working at now?" Bianca asked. The warm night air blew in the windows, which were rolled all the way down. The car didn't have any air-conditioning.

"Last I heard Mom was manning the cash register at a paint store in Brunswick."

"What do you mean the last you heard!"

"She keeps on getting fired. Word gets around that she's Mike's mother. The store owners don't feel safe with her on the premises. Afraid Mike will pop up. Think he'll escape like he finally did this afternoon. Sometimes Mom changes jobs a couple times a week. Each time the job gets farther away — where they haven't heard about Mike yet."

"That's not fair!"

"Truth is, the agency's thinking of dropping her. Too much bad publicity."

"What will your mother do?"

"Promised her I'd support her. I'm not doing a very good job of it. I can't tell her I got fired. She'll have a fit. I'll have to find another job real quick."

Bianca had imagined she had it bad. At least she had a roof over her head. Her parents were employed. No one had fired them.

Bianca had an idea. "I'm almost eighteen. My birthday's right after graduation. I'm coming into some money in a few weeks."

Up until now she'd never liked to think about that money, let alone talk about it. It had always made her feel so mixed up, depressed and guilty, as if she were stealing the Shipleys' money under the false pretenses of being a hero. Sharing it with somebody who really needed it made her feel so much better.

"I could loan some money to you and your mom. There's supposed to be a money market cash fund that I can draw upon right away for emergency expenses. I certainly don't need it all and—"

Harry screeched to a stop along the side of the road. She put her hands out only just in time to keep herself from being thrown against the dash.

"Folks can badmouth me all they want. There's no way anybody will ever say that Harry Fellini took money from you!"

"You could pay it back when you wanted to and—

He grasped her shoulders. "Can't you see what people are going to say about you and me? They'll gossip that I stole you from Rick so I could take your money. They'll claim that I was the killer. They'll say that I counted on the Shipleys giving you loads of money because they're so rich. That's why I killed the Shipleys' maid and let you and Little Katie escape."

"No!"

"Remember what I said about how people will eat you alive if you let them? We can't give them ammunition by doing something so stupid as having you give me money. Remember, people think a Fellini would do anything."

She nodded. "You've been so nice to me. Nobody's ever been so nice to me since. . ."

He gave her a kiss in the middle of the forehead. "You're so sweet!" His voice was a little hoarse.

Shyly, she gave him a little kiss back. It felt so good the way they were sharing their innermost fears and feelings. Her arms went around his waist. She wanted him to make her feel better now that Doc had made her so sad. The more Harry kissed her as they fell to the seat together, the better she felt. One thing led to another until Harry finally came up for air.

"It's getting really late. Time we got you home."

It was hard to understand her sudden attraction to Harry. She'd never felt anything for any guy except Doc. It was as violent as it was unexpected.

Before starting up the car again, Harry looked back down the road the way they'd come. This time he paused much longer before continuing on.

"Ah ... do you see something?" Bianca asked.

"No, it was probably just a night owl I heard."

Night owls did not drive cars, though. Bianca still thought she could hear sounds from another car.

They were getting to the really deserted part of Old Church Road. It was so dark that Harry's high beams weren't cutting far into the murk. The road was becoming much narrower. Live oaks with gnarled, twisted, overhanging branches, which in places formed a tunnel over the road, crowded in upon them. Harry had to slow way down. He obviously couldn't see a thing.

The darkness was starting to weigh upon Bianca's mind. Night mists floated through the window and touched her with wet, cold, icy prickles, though the air was still hot.

"Harry. . ." She wet her lips. "Could we . . . could we turn on the lights inside the car?"

She couldn't help herself. The darkness was becoming so oppressive that she was pulling at the top of her T-shirt. The darkness touched her with fingers around her neck.

Harry flicked the lights on without making any teasing comments about her phobia. She could trust him the way she could trust nobody else. He wasn't complaining, though lights inside the car at night made it harder for him to see.

The lights weren't doing the trick. Bianca still felt uneasy. She supposed it was the fact that her memory was starting to come back. The encounter with the killer in the ladies' rest room had spooked her completely. She felt as if someone was going to reach inside the car and grab her by the neck.

She remembered the last words of the killer as he had left her sitting on top of the toilet seat. "Now don't you dare leave there, or I'll know."

Bianca had left the rest room all right. She'd even left the building. She turned and looked behind her into the darkness. She could swear she heard a car following them, though she couldn't see any headlights. She wondered if Harry had heard that sound, too. She wondered if that was why he'd been turning around in his seat and peering over his shoulder every other minute.

Could the killer be coming after her, right now when she was most vulnerable — in the dark?

Chapter 7

Droplets clouded up the windshield. Harry turned the wipers on. One got stuck. He leaned out the window and gave it a whack.

Bianca couldn't see out the back window very well, couldn't tell for sure who was following them. The Rambler was making all sorts of clinks and clacks, whirrs and buzzes under the hood. Did she hear another set of car tires? Was it her imagination, the night mist, or what?

Br-r-r-r-ring!

Bianca jumped six inches. The sound was coming from her purse. She fished out her cell phone.

"Hello?" she answered in a tremulous voice.

"Bianca? Thank God! I was getting worried. Your parents said you weren't home yet."

"Doc!"

Normally she'd be overjoyed. He was always like the breath of sanity in an insane world. Tonight he'd been angry at her. She wondered if he still was.

Harry mouthed the words. "Who's that?"

She covered the receiver with her hand. "Remember the guy you met at the movie theater? The one with the fancy suit jacket, the white shirt and pocket watch?"

"Are you still out with that Fellini boy?" There was a tone of disapproval in Doc's voice. Usually Doc sounded objective and neutral about everything.

"He's driving me home right this minute." Bianca swallowed hard.

"Good!" Doc said impatiently as if he were looking down at his gold pocket watch. "How much farther do you have to go?"

Bianca whispered to Harry. "How much longer until you get me home? The turn-off to my house is up ahead."

Harry grabbed the phone from her and shouted, "What business is it of yours when I get Bianca home?"

Doc replied so loudly that Bianca could hear him, though she wasn't holding the phone. "I'm deeply concerned about Bianca's welfare, which seems to be more than I can say for you. You're keeping her out late after she's experienced severe trauma at the theater. I've talked with her senior doctors at the hospital, gotten them all out of bed. They want to see her first thing in the morning. They're as concerned as I am."

"Why are you fancy doctors filling Bianca's head with crap? You make her think she can't pee without your permission," Harry snapped.

"What do you know about it, Fellini?" Doc remarked coldly. "You and your brother weren't brought up by a mother who cares about you the way Bianca's parents care about her. Your mother let you both run wild. You were allowed to commit murder, mayhem and—"

"So I'm a bad influence, huh?" Harry drove with one hand on the wheel.

"The worst possible influence!"

"Suppose we let Bianca decide that for herself!" Harry fumed.

"In her condition she is not fit to decide much of anything, and—"

"Look, I don't know who hired you to butt into Bianca's business. She's got me to look after her now. You're fired! Get it, buddy? Fired! You're the bad influence — not me. In fact, you sound like poison."

"Oh no, Harry, no!" Bianca reached for the phone. She couldn't let him talk like that to Doc.

Harry pressed the end button and tossed the cell phone at Bianca.

"But — but that was Doc!" she protested. "Doc Ernie McCollough. He's so educated. His father's a history professor. His mother's an Aubrey, one of those blue bloods whose family goes back generations. They live across the street from us, next to the Shipleys."

"I don't care if he's rich. I don't like him putting you down." He chucked her chin.

"I don't know what I would have done without Doc for the past two years. At first I was in complete denial about the murder. He helped me live with my memory loss. I consult him all the time, and—"

"You don't need a crutch like Doc. He seems more like a pain in the ass." Harry said with a wave of dismissal.

"But—"

"You're strong, not some ten-pound weakling." He pulled her against him until her head was resting against his shoulder. He rubbed the top of her head with his cheek.

Bianca felt an invigorating sense of power flowing from his hand and cheek into her. She'd never imagined that she could survive for the rest of her life without Doc's help since she'd been psychologically crippled by the horrific experience. At least Doc had always said she'd been crippled. Harry gave her a new self-image. For a magical moment, with Harry's arms around her, she imagined that anything was possible.

Her eyes started to close. She might have drifted off for a second. The next thing she knew Harry had stopped the car. She felt for him, and he was gone. Now very much awake, she peered into the darkness behind her. There stood Harry, next to the bumper, staring down the road the way they'd come. He seemed alert, listening for the smallest sounds.

Finally he climbed back into the car.

"Harry, is somebody following us?" she asked straight out.

He started the car up. "Those owls must be going crazy tonight making that racket. A few alligators are swimming around in the swamp near the edge of the road. This time of year they sleep during the day and come out at night."

Bianca felt uneasy. She wondered if Harry was trying to conceal something from her.

Br-r-r-r-ring!

"Don't answer!" Harry warned. "It's that Doc pest again. I can smell him the way I can smell a skunk."

She didn't want to displease Harry. But the shrill ringing sound was getting to her. She fiddled nervously with Doc's turquoise earrings.

"Maybe it's my parents. I'm out late, you know." Bianca couldn't keep herself from answering. "Hello?"

"Ditch Fellini as quickly as possible," Doc hissed very low. "I've just heard the most dreadful news."

The blood drained from Bianca's face. "What — what do you mean?"

Harry was slowing down, pulling up along one side of the road. He scooted across the seat and put his ear up close to the phone. Her heart was thudding against his chest. Harry's heart was thudding against hers. They were in this thing together.

"It's Mike. The news is worse this time — much worse," Doc informed her.

Bianca could feel Harry's muscles tensing. Her hand found his and squeezed it. This was too much all in one day — losing his job at the Island Theater, then having his brother break out. Now — what?

"What — what is it?" she croaked.

"Mike escaped from the state penitentiary this afternoon."

"We heard about that from the police chief at the theater."

"Yes, well now he's broken into the Shipleys' house. Your parents called me over. I'm with them now in your living room. The Shipleys are here along with the police chief and the rest of the police department."

Bianca could make out her parents' voices in the background. Worse, Bianca's hair stood up on end hearing Mrs. Shipley's sobs. It reminded her of that time two years ago. It was part of the memory that had come back to her this evening.

It was very odd that Mrs. Shipley should be weeping over a lost crystal vase or a silver candlestick that was insured twice over. She was such a rich woman that she could buy another.

"You're — you're not telling me everything, are you?" Bianca guessed.

"I didn't want to have to tell you all the details over the phone — and in the presence of certain people," Doc said with emphasis.

Harry grabbed the phone. "You'd love nothing better than to scare the wits out of Bianca. You don't care who's listening. You'd like the National Enquirer to be on the other end of the line. Maybe CNN so they could put it on as breaking news. Shooting your mouth off makes you feel important."

"Jump out of the car and run, Bianca! I could get in my car and meet you out on the road. Harry Fellini's not safe company," Doc shouted.

"But — but you said it was Mike. Harry hasn't done anything. Harry hasn't broken into any houses." Bianca took the phone back.

"All right, Bianca. Have it your own way." Doc sounded displeased. "I wanted to be with you when you found out what really happened tonight. There might be certain . . . serious complications. I might have to administer certain . . . ah . . . first-aid treatments."

Harry snatched the phone. "You should see Bianca's face. Even in the dark she looks like a ghost. What are you trying to do — kill her off on the spot?"

Doc explained. "Mike didn't take the TV sets or the stereo system. If that had been all he'd done, the police wouldn't have dropped every other petty robbery or larceny on their dockets tonight. The Shipleys wouldn't have canceled their big trip."

Bianca's heart came to a dead stop as she took the phone with her trembling hands. "You — you said that the Shipleys were at my parents' house. Where — where is Little Katie?"

"Where indeed? It looks as if Mike's kidnapped her. He's left a ransom note for one million dollars."

"Oh my God, no!" Bianca dropped the phone and burst into tears. Not Little Katie all over again! She couldn't stand it.

Harry forgot his own pain about his brother to take Bianca into his arms and comfort her. He stroked her hair and whispered soothing words. He rocked her back and forth.

"I didn't want to have to tell you about it this way." Doc's voice was clearly audible from the phone lying on the floor. He had one of the loudest voices that Bianca knew. "Now you'll have to get back here quickly. I need to give you one of your sedative pills."

Harry picked up the phone. "I figured you for a selfish, heartless bastard who likes to hear yourself talk. I didn't figure you for an absolute sadist. You like to make Bianca suffer? Go to hell!"

Harry hurled the cell phone out the window. He kissed Bianca's head as he cradled her in his arms until she couldn't cry any more.

"Remember what I said? Don't let them get to you! Don't give in like this, no matter what."

"Why do they always pick on Little Katie?"

"Because she's a rich little girl, I guess, the richest on the island. But you're the one who's suffering the most, getting so strung out about her. Be kind to yourself. Tell yourself you can tough it out. I know you can. I'll help you."

"I saw your face when Doc said it was Mike. You looked crushed. How will your family ever live this one down?"

"I — I don't know, to tell you the truth." He hugged her fiercely. "But I know you'll help me, just as I'll help you. Together we'll make it somehow."

Only the thought that Harry needed her as much as she needed him kept Bianca from going totally to pieces. She needed to be needed. It was the only thing that kept her sane. The raw desperation she felt in his hug made her wipe her eyes.

"I'll get you home." Harry flicked on the car radio. "We're almost to your house. All we have to do is take the next left."

The local announcer broke in:

St. Simons Island reels with shock late tonight with the kidnapping of the Shipley heiress, two-year-old Little Katie. A neighbor from across the street in the Churchyard Oaks Subdivision immediately called the police and reported seeing the notorious Mike Fellini drive up in a blue van. She watched in horror as he shinnied up a tall live oak tree in the front yard right outside Little Katie's bedroom window. The window was wide open. It was a hot night. With her parents still downstairs on the telephone (the neighbor tried to call them to warn them, but she couldn't get through), Katie was taken from her crib by the nineteen-year-old who has a crime record miles long, stretching back to when he was ten. The neighbor observed that Fellini had tied a gag around Little Katie's mouth. He climbed back down the tree with the child in his arms. The neighbor would have run outside screaming, but she could see a glint of metal in Fellini's hand and feared that he was armed with a knife.

The parents didn't find out what had happened to their only child until the same neighbor ran screeching across the street as soon as Fellini had left. She woke up all the neighbors in the Churchyard Oaks Subdivision, the scene two years ago of the brutal unsolved slaying that still has our tight-knit community up in arms. The Shipleys raced upstairs to find their child missing and a ransom note for one million dollars pinned to her mattress.

The police are asking anyone who has information leading to the arrest of Mike Fellini to call them. As everyone knows, he's a brute of a guy, nearly seven feet tall and built like a football player with big, broad shoulders and a big chest. He weighs over two hundred pounds. He has dark brown hair and brown eyes and is believed to be armed with a knife, and very dangerous. Approach him only with extreme caution. He is desperate and capable of anything. He's already kidnapped a little girl. He's willing to attack you next.

The Shipleys are offering a one million dollar reward to anyone who can bring their daughter back alive.

Harry flicked off the radio. He drove on without saying a word. In the darkness of the front seat he looked heartbroken. All the life had been sucked out of him.

He had been trying so hard for so long, but one person could only take so much. If no one wanted to hire the brother of a bank-robber, surely no one would want to hire the brother of a kidnapper. Mike had sunk as low as he could possibly go, and had taken his family with him.

Harry was staring straight ahead, clutching the steering wheel so hard that Bianca could hear his knuckles crack. He didn't trust himself to speak, or he might break down. She could feel what he was feeling. It made her body tremble and her own fingers ache.

Every so often Harry would sniff and rub his eyes. Then he bit his lip. Harry was trying hard to be brave! He thought that if he acted sad, he would make Bianca even sadder. Every so often he would dart little glances in her direction, then look back at the road.

Against his will, a moan escaped his lips. "They'd" gotten to Harry Fellini no matter how brave he tried to be. He stopped the car and collapsed against the steering wheel. His whole body shook with sobs.

Bianca took him into her arms. "It's all right!" She hugged him. She felt a little bit stronger. It had been the same way she'd felt two years ago when she'd had Little Katie in her arms and she'd been fleeing from the murderer.

"It's strange," Harry groaned hoarsely. "I know we never talked to each other before tonight. But I think I'm in love with you, Bianca."

She answered with a kiss.

He put his finger under her chin. "This whole thing proves my point. You're one brave girl."

"We keep each other brave."

He was about to kiss her. Suddenly a big black car rammed into their back bumper. The impact knocked them both hard against the dashboard.

Harry spun around. He slammed his foot down on the gas pedal. The Rambler took off with a lurch.

Bianca barely had time to clutch on to the seat to keep herself from being knocked about. "What's — what's happening?"

Gone was the hurt look. Harry was biting down on his lip in concentration as he tried to make the old Rambler speed up.

She glanced over her shoulder. The other car was following them all too closely. She remembered thinking that she'd heard a car behind them a long way back.

"Harry, I've got to tell you something." She was overwhelmed by a panicky feeling as he passed the turn off to her house on the left in his attempt to escape. "Maybe you'd better let me out. That car is after me, not you." There were certain things that she hadn't gotten around to telling Harry during their true confessions.

"What on earth are you talking about?" He kept his eyes fixed on the road.

"The killer cornered me in the ladies' lounge at the theater and turned the lights out. He threatened to kill me if I told anybody. He thinks I'm starting to remember that night two years ago. It's true. I am." She swallowed hard. "He says it would be easy to kill me now that he's already killed Mrs. Ingersoll."

Harry gaped at her in shock. "I knew that Marianna was after you, teasing and harassing. I saw her walking through the lobby, going into the ladies' room. That's what I meant when I told the theater manager that his joint wasn't safe to work in any more. I had no idea that there might be somebody else. I didn't see anybody. They might have climbed through the ladies' room window from the outside. But—"

"You don't have to get involved. It's between the killer and me," she confessed. "He's probably been watching me for the past two years, just waiting. And yes, it could be Marianna."

"You and I are a team now. There's no way I'm not involved." He gave her a reassuring pat on the thigh.

The road was so narrow that they were having a hard time staying on it. Harry was driving straight down the middle. Overhanging branches of the live oak trees were brushing against the roof. Spanish moss covered the windshield and blocked their view without warning. The ends of the longest branches scraped against the sides of the car, like long arms with claws reaching out for them.

Branches draped with green leaves and gray-green, prickly Spanish moss, laden with nasty, crawling bugs, thrust themselves in the windows. Bianca had to duck. Harry hunkered down against the steering wheel. Bugs landed in her hair and crawled down her neck. Prickly stuff scratched her face.

The other vehicle kept on playing bumper cars and trying to push them off the road.

"They put in a V-8 engine when they built this baby. They don't make cars like that any more. Hold on to your seat. I'm going to rip!"

Harry floored it. Branches were hitting them hard. It was as if they were under attack, and bombs were falling from the skies. A branch whacked the windshield. It shattered. Harry barely kept his wheels on the road. He turned into curves at the last minute.

Lining both sides of Old Church Road were black swamps. The green muck growing on top appeared in their headlights, only to disappear right away. The swamps were filled with insects that could eat you alive and cottonmouth snakes that swam silently through the dark water until they bit you. In unpredictable places, there was quicksand. It was impossible to see where you might land if you veered off the road in the dark.

The dark . . . yes, the dark. . . It was swirling around, reaching out its arms to wrap around her and suffocate her to death. The night air was blowing through the windows, smacking Bianca's face. The night mists were closing in, forming an impenetrable, gray-black fog.

Harry's high beams were hardly illuminating the road several yards in front of him. He was heading into the blackness and the void. His high beams lighted up a sign: Danger! Dead end. Road ends 500 feet ahead.

Harry lurched sharply to the left. His car left the road. It hit a wrought iron fence and rolled over on its side.

Everything was still . . . dead still.

Chapter 8

"C'mon, we've got to get out of here!" Harry was barely able to force his driver's side door open and yank her out.

They were standing in the cemetery at Christ's Church. They wouldn't have been able to recognize it in the dense fog, except that it was the only church on the island, the only cemetery. They couldn't be any place else.

Little breaks appeared in the mists that had rolled in from the sea. Bianca caught glimpses of the white, wooden frame structure of Christ's Church. She made out part of the roof. She could see the pointed steeple with the cross on top rising above all. At other times she could see only the cross, looking disembodied, as if it were floating in a sea of fog, isolated like a wreck on some lonely, forgotten shore.

Fog floated by in thick clumps and patches. Breaks in the fog revealed a tombstone here and there in wavering shafts of moonlight. The tombstone disappeared. Bianca noticed a stone lady, covered with lichen. Moss grew out of her nose and around her eyes. Now the lady seemed to be on top of her century-old mausoleum. Now she floated on her back suspended in mid-air.

A stone hand with long, tapering fingers floated about in the graveyard. Bianca swallowed hard and reminded herself that the hand was attached to some crypt.

She caught glimpses of the inscription on a tombstone. The word DEATH written large loomed before her eyes. It made her step back, as if the tombstone were speaking to her and DEATH was a warning.

The fog not only distorted the shapes of things, it obscured distances. Everything seemed strangely jumbled together. She couldn't tell if the gray stone cross was in front of the moss-covered lady or if the tombstone with the word DEATH was in front of that. Everything appeared only feet away instead of yards. The crosses, tombs and the dead were pressing in upon her.

Something seemed to be reaching out of the fog, grabbing for Bianca. It was only the branch of one of those live oak trees with the long, twisted, gnarled, crooked arms brushing against her leg.

The fog was alive, pregnant with awful possibilities. It was breathing, waiting out there to devour her if she ventured into it.

She shook herself. Everything was eerie and out of joint tonight. Nothing was quite right — not since her memory had started to come back. Her memory seemed like a bad omen.

"C'mon!" Harry was tugging at Bianca's hand. "Let's run. We can make it. Your house is the next subdivision behind the fence at the back of the churchyard."

That was like saying her house was on the far side of hell. All they had to do was take a journey through it to reach safety. She couldn't go any farther. Her feet were frozen in place.

"N-no! I — I can't!" Bianca put her hand to her throat.

"Look!" Harry reasoned with her. "Somebody's after us. We've got to get moving. You're a brave girl. You can lick this fear of the dark.

I've seen you do it back in the car when I was about ready to give up myself."

Harry was like nobody else. She could do things for him that she couldn't do for anybody else.

"All right. But don't let go of my hand."

She took a big breath and plunged after him into the graveyard. She'd go with Harry anywhere, even if he told her they were walking into the real hell itself.

The ground was soft and squishy. It wanted to go back to being a swamp. She pictured herself sinking down into the ooze, into the dark chambers and graves beneath the ground, some of which were so old they didn't have markers any more.

They hadn't gone far when they heard footsteps. At first the footsteps were only wet, slapping sounds. Then they got louder.

Harry catapulted her forward.

"Hurry!" he hissed.

Bianca heard a toddler wailing. The wail became very clear. Then it sounded muffled, as if someone were clapping his hand over the child's mouth.

To Bianca it wasn't just any baby's wail. It was Little Katie!

Bianca let out a sob. Harry clapped his hand over her mouth and backed up against a gravestone.

"You've got to keep your chin up," he whispered. "You won't help Katie if you start bawling."

She nodded. Instead she would pray.

He let her mouth go, took her hand, and kept on tugging her along behind him. Ivy and myrtle vines reached out from everywhere, clutching at their ankles and curling around their shoes. They stumbled along trying to pick up their feet and not fall flat on their faces. Long tendrils of Spanish moss fell down from the trees around their necks like nooses. They struggled through the interconnecting maze of live oak roots growing together in huge clumps bulging above the ground. They ran smack into tombstones. Their feet kept sinking down into the muck on tops of graves.

A voice came out of the fog. "If you know what's good for you, stop! If you don't, I'm going to do something you won't like to this little girl."

Bianca froze.

"Don't listen to the creep!" Harry hissed, urging her on. "He doesn't mean what he says. Katie's his meal ticket."

"How can you be so sure?"

"It's Mike," he gulped.

Even now she could feel Harry's wrenching pain. She didn't want to have to say it, but she had to. "You heard what they said on the radio. He's armed and dangerous. He could do anything at any time."

Harry yanked Bianca forward, nearly pulling her arm out of its socket. Bianca couldn't explain to him how she felt about Little Katie. Katie had been the only reason she'd survived that attack two years ago. Without Katie she wouldn't be alive.

"Stop if you know what's good for you!"

Suddenly a giant, dark form leaped out of the fog, his knife blade pointed at them. Katie was squirming in one arm while he held the knife in the other hand.

"Up against that tree!" Mike snarled.

Bianca and Harry backed up against a live oak tree.

"How far do you think you're going to get with the island swarming with detectives?" Harry tried to reason with his brother. "They've put out a call for your arrest over the radio."

"I'll deal with you later, brother. It's this little missy I've got dealings with now." Mike, carrying the squirming child, approached Bianca.

"Don't hurt Katie! She hasn't done anything!" Bianca sobbed.

"If you don't want me to hurt her, you're not acting smart," Mike said. "I was at the Island Theater tonight. I saw you talking to those policemen. How do I know you weren't telling them you ran into me in the back of the theater?"

The back of the theater? She strained her brain to remember him. She'd run into a bunch of people tonight. Their faces were all a blur. But she certainly hadn't been talking to the police about Mike Fellini!

"I was in the very last seat all by myself. I was the big guy with the shoulders." Mike proclaimed. "You stared right into my face. You can't tell me you didn't."

Now she remembered! Why, she'd fallen into his lap! He'd frowned at her and told her to beat it with a snarl like the Frankenstein monster.

"You weren't at the theater," Harry objected. "I'm an usher — or at least I was. I didn't see you."

"I slipped in after the show started, brother. Don't think I paid a red cent. Guys like me can't afford such luxuries as ticket stubs. Let's just say I disarmed one of the fire exits near the big screen. Your girlfriend managed to find me anyway. She looked scared to death, like she was running right to the coppers to snitch on me."

Bianca hadn't the faintest idea who she'd run into!

"Why would you come to the show right after you escaped from prison?" Harry asked. "I've never seen you there before. I've worked there almost every night for four years."

"Now that I'm out of the slammer, you don't think I know which shops to rob without some help, do you, brother? I've sort of been out of circulation for the past three years. Two of my old informants sent me a red hot tip in prison. I was supposed to show up at the theater this evening if I wanted to make a buck. That's sort of why I picked today to break out."

"But I wasn't scared because I recognized you, Mike," Bianca tried to explain. "I — I was just scared of the dark. I was trying to bolt from the theater as fast as I could."

"Yeah, sure! I wasn't born yesterday!" Mike lunged at her with the knife, threatening to stick it in her ribs as Harry moved in front of her. "I know when somebody doesn't like my mug. You were scared as a rabbit. I bet you called those coppers. They showed up real quick."

It was impossible to make Mike believe what had really happened tonight. He probably didn't even know Doc.

Bianca took a different tack. "What does Little Katie have to do with it, no matter what happened at the theater?" Bianca longed to take the child into her arms and comfort her.

Little Katie's gag was down around her neck.

The toddler recognized Bianca and was making little noises, holding out her arms to her babysitter.

"I kidnapped Katie to make a fast buck after I knocked over the liquor store that my informants suggested. I don't have any better way to do it, do I? Especially not with people like you snitching to the police every time they see my face. Even those red hot tips from my informants only bring me enough money to eat on. I want to escape this racket for good — live on easy street for the rest of my life like the rest of you."

"Look, I'll do anything you want. Just let Katie go!" Bianca pleaded.

Harry lunged at his brother. He surprised Mike, who lost his balance and toppled backward on to the ground, dropping the knife. Harry leaped on top of Mike and started rolling from side to side, trying to keep his brother from reaching the weapon.

"Bianca, grab the knife! Run! Quick!" Harry shouted.

Bianca had eyes for only one thing. When Mike had fallen backward, he'd also lost his grip on Little Katie. The child had rolled on to the ground and was now toddling about, tripping over the gravestones while bawling at the top of her lungs.

Bianca snatched the little girl up in her arms. It felt so good to hold her after she'd feared that the toddler was dead.

"Don't worry, I'll take you home, honey," Bianca promised.

She saw something silver on the ground and picked it up. It was the knife. She looked toward Harry. He was barely holding his own against his brother. She owed something to Harry, She couldn't just leave him here with Mike.

"Run, Bianca! Run while you have a chance! You owe it to the baby."

"Will you be all right?" she called, reluctant to leave Harry in such a fix.

"You can bet on it."

Bianca stuffed the knife into her pocket. She turned and fled into the murky mists. She was headed in the direction of the back of the cemetery and home. Normally she wouldn't be able to function alone in such a place in the darkness. For Little Katie she could do anything.

Katie was fussing. Bianca searched through her handbag to see if she could find anything to quiet her. Her hand closed around a six-inch stuffed black bear called TR. He must have been there since last Friday night when she had baby-sat for Little Katie. He was one of the girl's favorite toys.

She pulled the bear out and stuffed him into Little Katie's hands. The child took him eagerly. She immediately began sucking on the bear's ear. He was as good as a bottle to the toddler. That way Katie kept herself occupied while Bianca tried to make her way through the morass of tombstones and underbrush.

Most of the graves dated back centuries. Tombstones had fallen over and were lying flat on the ground, crumbled into bits. Others had partially collapsed and stood as sharp, jagged ruins to snag the clothes of the unwary. Still others lay flat on the ground, half sunken into the earth. Their surfaces were slick with the night mists. Bianca slipped and nearly fell when she skidded over them.

The child was lying in her arms, calmly sucking on her toy. The two-year-old trusted Bianca to get her safely back to her crib. Bianca couldn't give up for Little Katie's sake. She couldn't give up though she wandered until daybreak, not even if the darkness made her lose her mind with fear.

A white mist hung around the back fence of the cemetery. Her subdivision was on the other side. She had only to crawl over the fence then she'd be in somebody's backyard. Once she found one backyard, she could find others. The Shipleys had the biggest backyard, the one closest to the cemetery. Their house was probably located just on the other side of that fence.

Bianca stumbled and fell. She rolled over a bulging live oak tree root and nearly tumbled into a gaping black hole in the ground.

What on earth could that be? It was far too deep to be a hole dug by a squirrel or a dog. It was too geometric to be a hole left by the roots of a tree that had been pulled up from the ground after falling over during a violent thunderstorm or hurricane.

She drew back from the edge. This had to be a hole dug for a grave for an upcoming funeral. She'd almost fallen headfirst into it. She could have broken her neck and gotten killed.

Bianca peered down into it as mists floated over the top, sometimes revealing its blackness, sometimes concealing it. There was a quality to its blackness that was darker than anything she'd seen — darker than midnight, darker than a room with no light, darker than fear itself.

Cold beads of sweat formed on Bianca's forehead. She shook. She couldn't make her arms and legs obey her. She couldn't run away. She couldn't move.

"Help me!" Bianca pleaded. "Somebody help me!" Tears rolled down her cheeks. "If only I could see! If only there was a light somewhere!"

Maybe Doc was right. Maybe her case was getting more serious.

Katie started to fuss. The toddler sensed that something was wrong.

Bianca heard footsteps approaching.

"Harry?" She asked hopefully, spinning around.

A big, lumbering form lunged at her out of the darkness. "Where in the hell did you go, bitch? Trying to give me a run for my money, huh?"

She screamed and tried to escape, but he leaped on her first. She couldn't get away.

"What — what have you done to Harry?" Bianca gasped.

"Let's just say that he won't bother us any more tonight." Mike pinned Bianca down on all fours.

Little Katie rolled out of Bianca's arms. The child sat there, fussing a little but mostly sucking on her bear.

"I took what I needed out of his wallet. He owes it to me. After all, he's got a job and gets paid. I don't." Mike flashed some cash as he sat on top of her and stuffed it back into his pocket again.

"But — but you didn't hurt him, did you?" Bianca pleaded. "You know, he doesn't have a job any more. He got fired tonight. The manager told him to turn in his uniform."

"I didn't hurt Harry as much as I'm going to hurt you and that bratty baby if you keep on yapping about him!" Mike growled. "You've already caused me enough trouble snitching to the police so they're hot on my trail." He reached into her pocket and felt for the knife until he found it.

"No — no! I — I didn't tell them a thing about you. Honest." Mike had been the farthest thing from her mind hours earlier. "They'd already heard that you'd escaped from the state penitentiary."

"Yeah, but they didn't know where I'd gone after that."'

"The police chief said he thought you'd come back to St. Simons Island."

"The island's a big place — miles long. You narrowed it down too much." He smiled at her with a twisted sort of smile as he brushed the back of his hand against her cheek. "But maybe you can make up for it. You can put out for me the way you put out for my kid brother. Start acting nice instead of telling the cops wild stories about me in the movie theater."

He started to slobber all over her. He yanked at her T-shirt and tugged at her jeans, trying to work the button loose.

"Good thing my contacts could tell me where you were headed. I knew right where to come to find you after I took the little girl."

"No!" She struggled. Now he was tugging at her underpants. Nobody had treated her like this before. She couldn't allow it, certainly not in front of Little Katie. She screeched at the top of her lungs and madly pummeled Mike as hard as she could.

Mike fell back, groaning. She'd kicked him in a sore spot.

"You bitch! Can't you stop caterwauling?" He clutched himself. "Maybe I ought to make sure of that." Mike threatened her with his knife. "Maybe I ought to cut out your tongue."

She shrank away even as she straightened her pants and buttoned her jeans.

A demonic smile spread over his face. "Better yet, I'll cut out the baby's tongue. That'll shut the brat up for good. And it'll put the fear of God into you."

Mike reached for Little Katie, who was innocently sucking on TR Bear.

Bianca let out a blood-curdling cry and lunged at Mike.

Mike stopped cold. He never touched Little Katie. His hand spasmed. The knife fell to the ground. He looked up and stared at seemingly nothing. His eyes got bigger and bigger.

"I — I hear footsteps. Is this some kind of trap?" Mike's eyes got wild. He looked at Bianca accusingly as if she had betrayed him. "Jesus! You must have called the cops again."

He didn't wait for an answer. Mike darted away from her and Katie into the fog and shadows.

Bianca picked up Katie and stepped forward into the mists. She kept on creeping about from tombstone to tombstone. Katie contentedly sucked on TR Bear. The toddler seemed unconcerned with what was going on as long as she had Bianca to hold her and her favorite stuffed bear to occupy her.

Someone lurched out of the mists. Bianca gasped.

"It's me!" Harry announced.

She breathed more easily. In this fog she couldn't see two feet ahead of herself. Everyone looked like a ghostly wraith until they were nose-to-nose.

She touched the bruises on his face. He had marks everywhere. He even had a black eye.

Harry hugged her. "I've been so worried. I heard you screaming. Then I heard Mike running away. I've been looking for you ever since. Can't see my own hand in front of my face in this fog."

She took some Kleenex out of her jeans pocket and wiped the dirt off his cheek. Then she kissed him on the lips.

He kissed her back. "What did you do to Mike? How did you get rid of him?"

"He heard footsteps and got scared. He thought it was a trap."

"Look, this isn't the place for a big long conversation. We'd better scram, too," Harry remarked.

She soon discovered that Harry couldn't walk as fast as she could. He was limping badly. His left ankle was sprained from his fight with Mike. That probably accounted for his not finding her more quickly despite the yelling and shouting and the fact that Christ's Church Cemetery was only a few acres in size.

"Here, let me help you!" She tried to get him to lean against her shoulder.

"I'm OK!" he protested indignantly. He grimaced in pain as he tried to put some weight on his ankle.

"I thought we agreed to help each other," she reminded him.

He smiled. "You caught me there. See what I told you about how you're smarter and braver than you think?"

He consented to let her help him but only when they got to the tougher spots, tripping over graves, live oak roots, bushes and things like that.

"Look!" he admitted after a while. "I'm holding you back. Why don't you go on ahead of me? Your home's just over that fence up ahead."

"Harry!"

"I'll never be able to climb it in this condition. I'll either have to find a break in the fence or wait until you get home and send help. If nothing else, the graveyard attendant who comes on duty at dawn will call my mom for me."

Just the thought of leaving him alone in this place in the dark was enough to send chills through her body.

"We've got to stay together, no matter what!"

Harry bit his lip. "I didn't want to have to tell you this. Maybe I have to. You've got to hurry, and faster than I can go."

"But Mike's gone!"

"Yeah, Mike may be gone for now. The others aren't."

"The others?"

"Yeah, the ones who have been following us all night — ever since we left the theater. Remember the black car?"

Chapter 9

"Rick Roscoe and Marianna are here. They followed us. I practically ran right into them when I was trying to find you. I don't think they saw me in all the thick fog. I ducked behind a gravestone."

She remembered Mike saying something about his "contacts at the theater". Marianna and Rick seemed slimy enough. Had they tipped Mike off about what store to knock over once he escaped from jail? They would be mean enough to follow Bianca and Harry here and call Mike to let him know where they were.

"We've got to hurry," Harry urged.

Bianca slipped her arm around Harry and tried to pull him along while she carried Katie in the other arm. She supported the child on her hip. She had no choice except to push forward. Two people were now depending upon her. She couldn't let either one down.

Someone landed on top of Bianca and knocked her to the ground. Whoever it was must have leaped down from a live oak tree. She screamed. Katie started bawling.

Harry cursed as Rick and two slimy-looking guys he'd brought along landed on top of him.

Bianca struggled but couldn't get to her feet. Marianna was holding her fast. It was all that Bianca could do to hold on to Katie with both arms.

"We're going to have a chicken roast." Rick glared at Harry. "Maybe it took us awhile to find you in all this damn fog. But better late than never."

"Let Bianca and Katie go!" Harry demanded.

"No girl messes around with other guys when she's dating Rick. Isn't that right, Ricky?" Marianna purred.

Bianca got up her courage. "We've only been out once, Rick. We hardly know each other. What do you care what I do?"

Marianna hissed. "Ricky needs money real bad. He doesn't earn much more money at his job than I do. You're his meal ticket. You're not good for much else, you know. You're too scared of your own shadow."

Bianca wished that the Shipleys had never given her the trust fund. It caused more trouble than it was worth.

"I deserve a rich girlfriend," Rick crowed. "I'm not going to have that squirt over there interfering!" Rick strutted up to Harry, and punched him in the nose while the two toughs held him fast.

"You'd do anything for cold cash, Roscoe, wouldn't you?" Harry spat. "Even murder!"

"Look who's talking!" Rick tweaked Harry's nose as Harry tried to break loose from Rick's friends. "You and Mike must be in cahoots. You murdered the maid and let Bianca and the baby go. You figured the Shipleys would give her money. Your brother went for the kid when he broke out of jail."

"Sounds like a confession to me, Roscoe," Harry snapped. "You and your friends were over at the Shipleys two years ago looking for something to steal. Bianca and Mrs. Ingersoll got in the way. Now you're leaning on Bianca 'cause she's almost eighteen and ready to come into all that cold cash."

The guys held him while Rick socked Harry again.

"No!" Bianca shrieked. She couldn't get away. Marianna wouldn't let her.

"It's time for our chicken roast," Rick announced.

The toughs stripped Harry's shirt off. They rubbed him down with oil and grease. Then they dumped chicken feathers from their pockets all over him.

"Stop it, Rick!" Bianca screamed.

"That's all up to you." Rick lighted a cigarette. He held it until the hot, orange ashes appeared. He held it over Harry's chest. "Will you forget about Harry and share that dough with me?"

"Rick, you're not going to do it, are you?" Bianca was horrified.

"Don't let him bully you, Bianca!" Harry called. "Don't agree to anything he says no matter what!"

Rick ground the cigarette into the middle of Harry's chest to put it out. Harry winced.

Rick lighted another cigarette. "I've got plenty more where this cigarette comes from." He glared at Bianca. There was a maliciousness in his eyes that she'd never suspected when he'd picked her up for their date.

"Marianna says you were tattletaling to Harry about creeps stalking around in the dark two years ago near the Shipleys' house. Well, I don't want you telling the police that you remember anything about me! Is that clear?" Rick stared Bianca down.

Bianca eyed Marianna. She could picture the girl putting up her CLOSED sign at the concessions counter just so she could listen to everything that she and Harry said in the employees' lounge.

Rick snuffed out another cigarette against Harry's chest. Harry grimaced. He didn't cry out, though his chest was getting scarred with red marks.

"I don't understand anything that anybody's talking about," Bianca cried. "But I'll promise anything you want. Just stop this craziness!"

"That's not very convincing, Ricky," Marianna sighed. "Bianca needs a lesson that she'll never forget."

Marianna started tugging Bianca toward the freshly dug grave that she'd stumbled upon before. Bianca hadn't realized that they were still so close to it. Marianna shoved her closer to the edge.

"Bianca's scared of the dark, isn't she?" Marianna teased. "This ought to teach her!"

"No!" Bianca clutched Little Katie. Dark hands reached out of the grave to drag her down. Her head spun around.

"Let her go, you bitch!" Harry gave a sudden lurch and broke free of the two toughs who were holding him.

Rick lunged at Harry and socked him. Harry hit him back. The two toughs joined in the fray.

Marianna took advantage of the moment while Bianca was distracted by the fist fight. She slapped Bianca across the face, forcing her backward toward the yawning black pit.

"Look who's chicken now!" Marianna cried. "Maybe you'll learn not to tell any more stories about my Ricky."

Bianca couldn't put up her own hands to defend herself, or she'd have to drop Little Katie. She dared not shield herself with the child's body. Just as she was on the brink of the pit, a vivid memory flashed through her head:

The killer was near the stairs instead of an open grave. I was holding Little Katie, trying to defend myself. His hands were strong like Marianna's. . . His hands felt like Marianna's. . . The killer's eyes looked like hers. It was pitch black in the house that night. I saw them glowing. . .

"C'mon, let's move it!" Marianna hissed. "The grave is waiting."

Just before I ran down the stairs and tripped over Mrs. Ingersoll's body, I heard the killer's voice. The hiss was low, though I can't remember what he said. It sounded like Marianna's hiss. . .

Bianca screamed and screamed and screamed.

Marianna's hand fell away from Bianca's cheek. She lost her footing. It was she — not Bianca — who fell into the grave with a bloodcurdling screech.

"What happened?" Rick raced over to the grave. He gaped down into the black pit, unable to believe his eyes. Marianna's body was lying motionless.

"What have you done!" Rick turned on Bianca.

"Marianna just . . . fell." Bianca clutched the child to her.

Rick gaped at Bianca tongue-tied. He couldn't believe what had happened to his ex-girlfriend, his partner in their plan to extort all the money they could out of Bianca.

Rick and the toughs jumped down into the grave to drag Marianna out. Bianca, holding Little Katie, ran into Harry's arms. She was helping him take off the chicken feathers and put his shirt back on when Rick and the toughs surfaced with Marianna.

They laid Marianna flat down on the ground. She still wasn't moving. Her leg was resting at an odd angle. There was a red bump on her head.

"Marianna!" Rick shook her by the shoulders. "Jesus! Talk to me!" He slapped her on the cheek.

Bianca took one of the chicken feathers that they'd stuck on Harry. She approached Marianna's silent form that Rick was shaking so hard. She stooped down and put the feather under Marianna's nose. It was hard to tell for sure. It didn't look as if the feather was moving much.

"Marianna's dead!" Rick hollered. "You murdered her!" Rick looked at Bianca in amazement. He couldn't believe that Bianca, the coward who was scared of the dark, had it in her to kill someone.

"She kept on slapping me in the face, backing me up toward the grave. Then she lost her balance and fell. It was an accident," Bianca insisted.

"Jesus! We've got to get her to a doctor." Rick picked up Marianna. The bully looked helpless. His eyes were big and round with fear. His face was pale in the moonlight. He looked as if he might cry.

"My house!" Bianca tried to pull herself together. "It's right beyond the fence. Doc said my parents and the Shipleys are there. There are sure to be police, lots of them. They can take Marianna to the hospital."

It was hard for Bianca to feel anything for Marianna after what she'd almost done. She'd almost killed her and Little Katie. It could have been them lying in the black ditch.

"This way!" Harry pointed in the direction of the back fence to the cemetery. He could hardly walk. Bianca had to support him against her shoulder.

"Now wait a minute!" Rick looked anxiously from Harry to Bianca and back again. "This isn't a trap, is it? You're not going to pin what happened to Marianna on me. You're just as guilty as I am!"

"I don't think the police are going to see it that way," Harry scoffed. "You'll have to take your chances, I guess, Roscoe."

"Nobody's going to believe a lowlife like you!" Rick pointed at Harry.

Bianca guessed that was true, sadly enough. Especially after what his brother had done, everyone would think Harry was guilty. She could picture them bursting into her parents' living room with conflicting stories. Rick might be a creep, but no one would know it, even if he'd been secretly aiding Mike. Harry would be the one to go to jail.

They found a break in the fence through which Rick could carry Marianna and Bianca could drag Harry. All the way back to her parents' house, Rick sniped at Harry. Rick never stopped telling him in excruciating detail what he was going to do to him if he ratted on him and his buddies.

Rick whispered in Bianca's ear about how she had better watch out. If Bianca said anything against him, Rick was going to inform the authorities that he'd seen Bianca fighting with Marianna. He was going to let them know that Bianca had pushed her opponent to her death. He was also going to tell them lots of other things, such as how Bianca and Harry were a crime team. Marianna had heard them smooching it up in the theater, planning their next move. He was sure the theater manager would back him up.

Bianca tried not to listen to Rick for fear it would make her even sicker. She kept putting one foot in front of the other, though the darkness was closing in on all sides.

Bianca's house was lighted up like a Christmas tree. There wasn't one window through which she didn't see people moving about. Police cars out front were parked the whole length of the block, though it wasn't quite morning. She saw the Shipleys' silver-gray Bentley parked out front in her driveway behind her parents' station wagon. There was an ambulance with its lights flashing and two fire trucks. A news truck with live-cam reporting was pulled up across the street. Anything to do with the Shipleys was big news. They were the richest family on the island.

"Remember what I told you, Fellini!" Rick growled as they were about to reach the yard.

"Let's go around the back," Bianca said when she saw that the front door was guarded by two policemen.

Harry clutched Bianca around the waist and gave Rick a dirty scowl. The last thing Harry said to her was, "Chin up!"

There was mass pandemonium as soon as Bianca struggled up the basement stairs and through the living-room doorway clutching a sleepy Katie, who refused to let go of her toy bear. Behind her limped Harry. Behind him stumbled Rick carrying the still form of Marianna with a bump on her head, her leg hanging at a strange angle. The two toughs that Rick had paid off to beat up Harry had mysteriously disappeared.

Cameras flashed in Bianca's bleary, bloodshot eyes and made her wince. Her mother shrieked. Her father shouted. Mrs. Shipley came charging for Bianca with open arms, crying, "Katie! Katie darling! Your Bianca's an angel. She's found you again!" Mr. Shipley was pushing through the crowd, proclaiming to Bianca that they were so profoundly grateful.

The medics went to work on Marianna on the sofa. They were trying to give her CPR and mouth-to-mouth.

Reporters were thrusting mikes into Bianca's face. Police were trying to elbow the reporters aside to ask her questions. The noise was so great that no one could hear her. She mumbled to the reporters her wooden, made-up explanation for what had happened tonight.

Bianca was trying to tell anyone who would listen that she, Harry, Rick and Marianna had been to the movies together. They'd heard about the kidnapping and had gone to look for Katie. She told them that Marianna had fallen into an open grave in the cemetery. They hadn't been able to see where they were going. She was inventing the tale as she was going along. She hoped it made sense.

Doc burst into the living room with policemen following him. He pointed at Harry, then at Rick. "They're the same ones who were causing trouble at the movie theater tonight. They're part of Mike Fellini's gang. Mike was trying to kidnap Little Katie. Harry and the others were trying to do away with Bianca because she's starting to remember the past. I wouldn't be surprised if Harry is the murderer of Mrs. Ingersoll."

"You don't have any proof of that!" Harry shouted, making himself heard over the crowd.

"That one there is the worst of the lot. He's the brother of Mike Fellini. He was trying to lure Bianca into a trap," Doc persisted.

"Liar!"

"Ernie McCollough doesn't make unfounded accusations of such a grave nature. I have all the evidence I require. Bianca told me everything I needed to hear tonight," Doc announced.

Bianca stood there with her mouth open looking at Doc with big, questioning eyes as the policemen handcuffed Harry and dragged him away.

Rick shouted, "No!" as they handcuffed him. The police led him to the waiting squad car with the flashing lights — behind the medics who carried Marianna on a stretcher with a sheet pulled up to her chin.

"You've always trusted me to do the best thing for you, Bianca, haven't you?" Doc gazed into her eyes.

"Yes!" Bianca nodded. "I've always trusted you to do the best thing, Doc. But—"

He raised his finger to her lips and smiled. "No buts."

Chapter 10

Bianca found herself a patient at Brunswick Memorial Hospital for the first time since the slaying two years ago. The Shipleys insisted that she have the best room, the one reserved for VIPs and dignitaries.

She had her own real bed, not one of those hospital beds with cage-like bars that went up and down. She had a sitting room for visitors and a VCR. Her bathroom had a real tub, not a stripped-down shower with a thin, white curtain like the other rooms.

Doctors were in and out, as were the policemen. Doc had told the police that Bianca's memory had started to come back. They repeatedly asked her if she'd remembered anything more about the killer.

Reporters were banned from her room, though she could see them gathered in a group down on the street beneath her window. They waved up at her and called her by name. There was even a live TV cam.

What was she doing here? She shouldn't be locked up because she'd been seen with Harry Fellini or because her memory had started to come back. It wasn't her fault if she'd blundered into the cemetery at midnight, and Marianna had fallen into a hole.

"You're safer here," the police chief assured her. "Now that you've started to remember that night two years ago, the killer will be gunning for you."

"Am I supposed to stay here until I remember everything?" Bianca asked.

"The longer the better. We can't provide such good security for you once you leave the hospital," the police chief explained.

When Bianca glanced out the window, she noticed that besides the reporters there were police at every corner. They were also at the entrance to the hospital, which was two floors beneath her room. The next time the nurse brought her a meal tray, Bianca saw that there was also a policeman standing outside her door!

Doc took a leave of absence from his internship so he could be with Bianca night and day. He devoted all his time to her, as if she were his only patient. He sat in her room while she was supposed to be sleeping. He read the newspapers when he thought she wasn't looking. She caught glimpses of headlines like:

ISLAND WAITS WITH BATED BREATH:

BIANCA WINTERS BEGINS TO

REMEMBER BLOODY MURDER!

WHO DID IT? ONLY AMNESIA VICTIM KNOWS FOR SURE!

WHODUNIT ON ST. SIMONS ISLAND AWAITS CONCLUSION

There were other articles. Bianca would often glance at those out of the corner of her eye when Doc was turning the pages. They speculated about Harry, Rick and Marianna.

Marianna was in a coma on life support in the same hospital. She'd suffered a massive concussion, but by some miracle she was still alive.

The evidence against Mike Fellini for the kidnapping of Little Katie made it an open and shut case. A warrant had been put out for his arrest. He'd been apprehended the very next day hiding out in the swamps, where he'd holed up after fleeing the cemetery. He was back in jail.

The evidence against Harry and Rick, however, was more "iffy". Rick's lawyer insisted that there was no evidence against him except hearsay. He had no criminal record. The court-appointed attorney who was handling Harry's case pointed out that Bianca had not complained about Harry's treatment that night in the cemetery. So both boys had been released while the police collected more evidence against them.

The district attorney was another person who came in and out of Bianca's hospital room at regular intervals, hoping that she would remember something about the killer. Any detail would be appreciated, even the color of his shoes. The DA wanted to bring charges against Harry and Rick — and Marianna if she recovered — and couldn't without Bianca's evidence. Was one of these suspects the killer or not?

When Doc had pointed the culprits out to the police, he'd been premature out of a desire to protect her, he said. He'd assumed that Bianca would have remembered everything by now. He assured her there was no hurry. You couldn't rush the mysteries of the human mind, he emphasized.

Bianca repeated the same tale to one policeman after another, the story that she'd told Harry in the employees' lounge. She related how two years ago she'd been sitting in the living room with the mists drifting in the window, how she'd heard footsteps upstairs and gone up to investigate. She described in detail how she'd heard Mrs. Ingersoll scream. She'd snatched Katie up and encountered the killer at the top of the stairs. She tried to remember the details of their battle, which were fuzzy. She recalled fleeing downstairs, racing out the door screaming.

They brought in a police artist to sketch the killer. Bianca couldn't recall the killer's face. She remembered the eyes staring back at her from the stairway. She couldn't associate a color with them, let alone a sex. The killer whispered to her in memory, but she couldn't recall the tone of voice. Was it the same voice as in the movie theater bathroom? She could never forget the strong hands, the crushing force. She'd imagined the killer as Marianna. Now Bianca couldn't be sure of anything.

"It sounds as if you remember every detail about that night except for the killer's appearance and the sound of the killer's voice," the police chief concluded. "Very odd."

"Usually when witnesses remember as much as you have, they remember everything," the DA agreed. He voiced his suspicions. "It's as if Bianca's protecting someone, as if she doesn't want to admit his identity, not even to herself."

"Miss Winters, we know that you were out with Harry Fellini that night you started to remember. I saw you with him in the theater lobby," the chief warned her.

She nodded.

"If he's the one you're protecting, it won't do you any good to keep on hiding the truth."

She opened her mouth to protest.

"I hope you're not protecting that Roscoe boy either! He claims that you went to the movie with him to begin with," the chief added.

She shook her head.

"Don't get discouraged." Doc patted Bianca's cheek. "You're doing much better now that we've weaned you away from Harry Fellini's bad influence. You'll remember everything. I know you will."

The police had released Harry and Rick to the custody of their parents, awaiting trial. No one would allow either into Bianca's hospital room. She'd been told by one sympathetic, romantic-minded nurse that Harry had been in the waiting room two or three times a day. He'd been turned away. His flowers had been returned.

The treatment that Harry was receiving broke Bianca's heart. Her parents, the Shipleys and Doc were adamant. Harry was a terrible influence, if not the murderer. The nurse was reprimanded for informing Bianca about Harry.

Bianca questioned Doc. "Can't the doctors give me something to hurry this remembering process?"

"You could have gone your whole life and not remembered a thing. Maybe you needed to hold a particular magazine in your hands that you were holding the night of the murder. Your chance of holding that old issue would grow slimmer with each year."

"What made me remember something that night at the theater?"

Doc shrugged. "Maybe you've avoided the dark too carefully for the past two years. When you went to the movie, it reminded you of the last time you were plunged into darkness and couldn't get away — on the night of the murder."

"Oh!"

"The unconscious mind doesn't operate by principles of reason." Doc sat on the side of her hospital bed. "Of course, you don't want to hear what I really think."

"I always want to know what you think, Doc." She leaned closer.

"The reason you started to remember at the theater was because the killer was there with you. You saw him and subliminally remembered him. Subliminally means below the level of consciousness. Since then, that memory's been working its way back into consciousness."

"Harry is innocent!"

Doc patted her hand. "He's good at this game of subterfuge and deceit. Harry and Mike play it all the time. Mike taught him. Harry's led a life of crime since he was born."

"You didn't see how Harry went out of his way to help and protect me. People don't give him a chance. They're just prejudiced against him — even the police."

Doc gazed at her sadly. "You're in denial. Maybe that denial itself is what's blocking your memory."

He consulted with her more senior doctors, who praised Doc's insights into her condition. It was brilliant that he could deduce Bianca's real meaning when she told him she "really liked" Harry. He could tell by her tone of voice that she was in a state of false dependence and trust. Translation — she'd been hoodwinked and seduced.

Doc put his hand on her forehead. "You do trust me to know what's best for you, don't you?" He looked directly into her eyes.

She nodded. She wanted to persuade him to think about Harry the way she did. But when he looked into her eyes like that, she couldn't hold her own for long. She supposed that was natural, since she was no match for Doc.

"I think a nice, long hospital stay and plenty of bed rest ought to calm you down and make you more rational," Doc explained. "For my part, I promise to pay more attention to you rather than less. I made a horrible mistake telling you that you ought to be on your own. We might be premature by a couple of years, to judge by the state of your nerves."

She would have been overjoyed to have more attention from Doc a few days ago, before she'd met Harry. Now everything had changed. She was confused about her own feelings. "But—"

He put his finger under her chin and made her look at him. He was smiling.

"You know, Bianca, no matter what those other doctors say, you always were my favorite patient."

He leaned over and kissed her on the lips.

Her lips melted into his as they always had. Worries about Harry seemed far away as she kissed Doc back.

When Doc's kisses ended with a pinch on the cheek, Bianca did not know what to think. Kissing him didn't feel the same as kissing Harry. She imagined Harry's face if he could see her together with Doc.

She smiled at Doc and waved as he left her room to consult with a team of psychiatric experts that the Shipleys had hired, though her heart pained her the whole while.

The Shipleys kept Bianca sane during her confinement in the hospital. They could afford to visit her more often than her own parents, who had to work. The Shipleys lived on their vast global investments. In fact, they were planning to take a big trip soon to check on them.

Little Katie was lucky, Bianca decided. She was young enough that she couldn't remember anything. Even after she grew up, she'd probably never remember being almost murdered, or kidnapped. The child would play, sitting in the middle of Katie's lap in the hospital bed. She toddled around the hospital room as if nothing were going on. She made Bianca feel better, which of course was why the Shipleys brought her. She made Bianca feel as if she'd gone through this hell for some purpose.

That meant much more to Bianca than the money that the Shipleys kept on giving her. Not only did Bianca have the original trust fund set up two years ago, but they had also given her the second million dollars advertised on the radio as a reward for rescuing Little Katie from Mike Fellini. The Shipleys had made Bianca Little Katie's godmother, and they said that they were going to change their will and make Bianca Katie's official legal guardian as well in case anything happened to them. The will would take effect as soon as Bianca turned eighteen, right about the time that she was supposed to graduate from high school.

"That's such a big responsibility!" Bianca was awed.

"Nothing you can't handle," Mr. Shipley assured her. "You've proved yourself time and time again."

"It might be too much for Bianca." Doc voiced his concern. "After all, she'll be only eighteen — not twenty-one."

"We checked with our lawyer." Mrs. Shipley tried to assuage his doubts. "He said Bianca could legally become Katie's guardian at eighteen. In fact, in Georgia there isn't any minimum age. It's up to the judgement of Katie's parents. If anybody contests the will, it's up to the judge. But I don't think anybody will."

"I gave them my honest, personal opinion, though." The lawyer voiced his own doubts from where he happened to be sitting on the opposite side of the room. "With all due respect to Miss Winters, for she is a very courageous young lady, we don't know what really attracts this killer. It might be Bianca herself. It seems to me that nothing bad appears to happen to Little Katie unless her babysitter is around. Is it wise to make Bianca her guardian?"

"And we told you that was nonsense!" Mrs. Shipley snapped. "Bad things would happen in any case. Katie's an heiress, after all. Bianca has risked her own life twice now to save her. That's the kind of dedication that money can't buy."

Doc wasn't happy with Little Katie always toddling around Bianca's hospital room. He insisted that Bianca needed more rest. Once Doc picked the toddler up off the bed and put her in the living-room area of the suite.

Katie started bawling.

Mrs. Shipley exclaimed in mock horror, "You're a good girl. You never cry when nice people pick you up. Doc is just saying that you should give Bianca a rest."

Katie, though only two, was stubborn on this point. Whenever Doc picked her up, she started bawling.

Katie might give Bianca hope. But she still wished that this nightmare was long past.

When Bianca went back to school some days later, it seemed that all of St. Simons Island had mobilized itself to protect her.

Doc, her parents and the Shipleys took turns chauffeuring her to the school in the morning and picking her up in the afternoon. They insisted on marching her up to the door and meeting her in the afternoon in the front office. In short, they were trying to make it impossible for the killer to get to her while Bianca was "remembering".

Police had regularly stood in front of the school directing traffic. Now they never left. During classes they patrolled the sidewalks as well as the parking lot. A policeman guarded each entrance and exit to the building. There were police stationed in the main office to eyeball everyone who started down the hallway or tried to leave in a hurry.

The school announced a new policy over the loudspeaker system the first morning Bianca returned to classes. Each person who wanted to enter or leave the building, even parents picking up their children, had to first report to the office to get an official school pass signed by both the building secretary and the police officer on duty.

"Do you want a policeman to escort you to classes?" Mrs. Shipley asked. "We could arrange for that."

"It won't be necessary. The school looks like an armed fortress already," Bianca protested. "I'll be safe."

No one could protect her from having to see Rick Roscoe, though. She heard kids whispering about her in corners, speculating what would happen next. They talked about Marianna's medical progress in hushed tones.

The biggest torture was to see Harry. Harry and Bianca could look at each other from across the hallway. But her parents, the Shipleys and Doc had issued strict orders to the school and to the teachers that the two of them weren't allowed to "fraternize". The DA didn't have enough information to prosecute Harry — yet. Many on the island figured that he would soon. The principal had called Harry into the office and warned him that if he were seen "pestering" Bianca, he'd be expelled, less than two weeks before graduation.

Harry went around the school with a stiff upper lip. He acted as if he didn't care that his brother, Mike Fellini, was written about every day in the newspapers and talked about on the radio.

Mike was now on trial. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he'd stubbornly refused to plead guilty. The eyewitness from across the street had given her account. The handwriting expert had testified that the ransom note was in Mike's hand. The jury wouldn't have to deliberate for even one hour.

Harry acted as if he were indifferent to the efforts of every newspaper reporter to compare him to his brother and hint that they were a team — his brother the kidnapper and Harry the killer.

Bianca knew that Harry couldn't be the killer after the long night that they'd spent together. She cringed every time some kid called out, "Hey, Fellini, want to show me your hideout?" or "Where did you stash that gun that killed the maid?" or "What store are you going to knock over next?" or "Who's going to be your next victim?" or "How much of the take does Mike share with his kid brother?"

Harry's brave example still inspired her. Bianca was ready to go crazy with the stress of having a murderer who'd threatened her still lurking about the island. She feared she'd go nuts with the suspense of memories buried in the murky depths of her unconscious. She felt absolutely miserable with the tension of not being able to talk to Harry and share her problems with him. Then she imagined what Harry and Mrs. Fellini must be going through. She saw how well they were acting. She told herself that she could put up with whatever she had to. In fact, it was her duty.

When nobody was looking, Harry and Bianca exchanged glances. He smiled at her, tentatively at first, unsure about whether she'd turned against him. When she smiled back, he looked so relieved that he beamed at her.

Bianca had missed many days of school while she'd been in the hospital. There were lots of exams and papers to make up. No one was sure whether she would graduate with her class. Her parents had given her permission to stay after school so long as either they, the Shipleys or Doc picked her up and she didn't have to walk home. Also, the police department had to be notified ahead of time to have officers on duty until everyone had cleared out and gone home.

Bianca's English teacher wanted her to stay after school to catch up on an essay. The teacher told her to write about some significant event in her life, almost blushing while she gave the assignment. Everyone on the whole island knew what had happened in Bianca's life. She was to spend forty-five minutes on the essay, then leave the paper face-down on the teacher's desk. She was to note the time she had finished at the top.

"Sorry I can't stay here at my desk while you finish, Bianca," Mrs. Topley apologized in her deep, Georgia accent. "I must pick up my little girl at day care. Do you think you'll be all right? I mean, the police are still out in front of the school, but you can't be too careful these days."

"Of course!" Bianca reassured the nervous teacher. "Doc's supposed to pick me up in forty-five minutes. I couldn't be in safer hands. Hey, if he notices anything funny, he'll raise a ruckus. He'll have the police, fire department and ambulance here in the classroom in one minute."

"Doc's a gem, isn't he?" Mrs. Topley slipped her purse strap over her shoulder. "When I had him in senior English eight years ago, he was the most reliable student in the class. I could always count on him to manage things when I had to leave the room for a few minutes. Everything was in tip-top shape when I returned."

The lights went out.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Mrs. Topley blushed, turning the lights back on. "I must have left my brain in deep freeze today."

Bianca felt uneasy when Mrs. Topley closed the door to the basement classroom behind her. She was hardly able to concentrate on writing. She kept on hearing sounds that she'd never noticed before. She looked up, panicked. The fish tank in the front of the room was bubbling. A fly was buzzing too close to her ear. The floor creaked, as old buildings do when their foundations are settling.

She was almost finished with whatever she was writing. She didn't remember what it was about. It was pure gibberish.

Then the lights went out again. This time they didn't come back on either.

She told herself to keep calm. It was probably a power outage, though there hadn't been any thunderstorms today, despite the oppressive, humid atmosphere. Maybe some car had run into a pole. When she heard footsteps slowly approaching her from the back of the room, however, she knew she was in big trouble.

Mrs. Topley didn't walk like that. In fact, nobody she had met walked like that — except one person. Now she remembered for the first time that the nameless, faceless killer walked like that, the one she'd encountered once before on the stairs at the Shipleys' house. Those footsteps echoed through her mind, evoking vivid memories of that night two years ago.

If only she could remember that face!

"I'm not very pleased with you, Bianca!" the voice behind her hissed.

It was that low, whispery hiss that she'd heard in the ladies' rest room in the movie theater! It made shivers go up and down Bianca's spine.

"What — what have I done wrong now?"

How had this goon gotten in here? The police were outside. Doc was probably pulled up to the curb in his car waiting for her, watching everybody enter and leave the school. The building secretary, Mrs. Higgins, had been instructed not to let anyone enter or leave without showing identification. You couldn't get into the school without passing by the building secretary's desk. Mrs. Higgins had eagle eyes, and there was always a police officer with her.

At this time of day all the other entrances and exits were locked since the recent kidnapping of Little Katie Shipley. Policemen were guarding them as well.

If the killer was one of the students, such as Rick Roscoe, how did they dare to attempt this? The district attorney was ready to pounce as soon as he had a scrap of additional evidence against him!

"Isn't it obvious what you've done, Bianca?" The voice whispered. "I don't like reading those descriptions in the paper that you gave to the police. I don't want to hear about dark eyes, big hands and loud footsteps."

She hadn't had any choice. They had bombarded her with questions. Doc had persisted until he'd wrung every last little memory out of her.

Bianca had to come up with some explanation, any explanation, to get out of this fix. "I — I didn't really mean what I said. It sounded good, and I had to say something."

"Now, Bianca, you can lie better than that!"

The soft, silky purr hissed next to her ear. "Those descriptions are too close to the truth, and you know it."

Part of her was glad to know that. At least she hadn't been hallucinating. Her memories were genuine. The more genuine they were, the more dangerous it was for her, though.

"I don't like reading about the night of the murder — what happened first and what happened second. Soon you'll remember everything. Then it will be curtains for you."

She swallowed hard.

"I've got to teach you a lesson, Bianca."

It sounded as if he were putting on gloves. She could feel his finger tracing its way down her neck. She shuddered. The hands of darkness were reaching out for her.

Something flashed in front of her face. It looked just like a gun.

Bianca's nerves snapped. She stumbled around, banging against desks and chairs until she was out of the room and racing down the hallway.

She screamed as she nearly ran right into Rick Roscoe. Where had he come from? Had he been the creep in the room? Rick whispered something she couldn't quite hear. Then he went to his locker and seemed to be getting books out. He glowered at her in warning.

Bianca darted into the first room she came to. The lights were out. She didn't know where the switch was located. The floor sounded as if it were wooden and no longer tile. She banged into something big and leathery at about waist level and climbed over it.

Suddenly she realized she was in the gym. That was the "horse" that they used to vault, run and jump over. She was banging into equipment scattered about in the gymnasium.

She ran up against something long and narrow, and jumped up on to it. It was hard to hold on to. She didn't know how she was supposed to walk on this. She crawled, realizing at the last minute that she was on the balance beam. Every minute she was conscious of someone following her. She could hear heavy breathing. It sounded as if someone were breathing down her neck he was so close.

Her hands were so sweaty she could hardly hold on to the wooden beam. She didn't dare fall. She would be a goner. The guy grasped on to her ankle and pulled her backward. She leaped off the beam. She fell clumsily to the floor and scrambled to her feet.

Bianca ran into something so big she couldn't get around it. She had to climb up on to it instead. She was scrambling across it as it sagged down in the middle and swayed from side to side. The trampoline! The guy leaped down on top of her. The impact made them bounce up and down together as he got his big hands encased in gloves around her neck.

"You'll learn, Bianca!" the guy hissed.

The darkness itself had reached out to strangle her. She screamed.

Somehow Bianca managed to get away from the freak. She ran smack into a wall. There was a door. She turned the knob. She emerged into another room, a big, cavernous one. Her footsteps echoed against concrete. It was so dark that she didn't know where she was until she plunged headlong into the deep end of the high school pool.

She was thrashing about in her clothes, her heavy tennis shoes dragging her down. Arms closed around her waist. They were sinking down to the bottom of the pool together. She kept breaking loose and surfacing, only to be yanked down again.

Bianca didn't have any strength left. The creep was dragging her out of the pool. They were on the deck.

"Bianca!" He hugged her to him.

Harry!

"What on earth happened? I heard you screaming. I was at my locker. I came as soon as I could."

The lights came on. There stood Doc and the police along with the district attorney. A reporter stood behind them flashing pictures.

"I came to pick Bianca up. I was walking down the hall toward her classroom. I heard screaming and summoned the police in from the parking lot at once," Doc explained. "Fellini's been chasing her around the school trying to murder her because she's remembering too much."

Bianca protested. "Harry rescued me from the pool. The killer was chasing me around the school trying to strangle me."

"Sorry, Miss Winters," an officer spoke up. She recognized him as the policeman who had been stationed in the front office that morning. "We've found other incriminating evidence. We'd just gotten the call from the chief to arrest Harry Fellini right before Dr. McCollough summoned us."

"What other evidence?" Harry sounded bold and brash, even defiant.

"We obtained a warrant to search your house today while you were at school. We found some mighty suspicious evidence right under your bed."

"That's impossible! It must have been planted!" Harry proclaimed.

"The police told me that they found a map there," Doc added.

"So what?"

Bianca swallowed hard. She feared what was coming next.

"It was a map of the Shipleys' house, with details of how to get to their bedroom. Mrs. Shipley's jewelry box or her furs were your target two years ago when you shot Mrs. Ingersoll and pushed her down the stairs." Doc pronounced doom on Harry. "Wound around the map was a lock of Mrs. Ingersoll's hair."

Chapter 11

"I'm going to set Harry Fellini's bail at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars," announced Judge Hopkins.

Mrs. Fellini, wearing an old housedress with a raincoat thrown over it, shrank down in her seat at the defendant's table. Harry and his mother were broke. Mrs. Fellini had no way to pay one red cent. She huddled next to the court-appointed attorney for indigents and dabbed her eyes with a Kleenex, sniffling and blowing her nose.

The court-appointed attorney, a young man in his twenties, was playing Solitaire. He'd given up on the case. Now that DNA analysis of Mrs. Ingersoll's hair had confirmed that it belonged to the dead lady, he'd decided that the evidence against his client was overwhelming. He glanced up at the judge and Harry, then looked back down at his cards.

The black-robed judge with a balding head and wrinkled-up face scolded Harry. "You were lucky to be able to go home when they dragged you before me for playing cemetery pranks. Now you've been stupid enough to assault Miss Bianca Winters — not to mention leaving incriminating evidence under your bed. I'm going to put you in jail while you're awaiting trial. Since you're eighteen, it won't be the detention home for juveniles. Do you have anything to say?"

Judge Hopkins glowered at Harry. He resembled one of those ugly gargoyles that stared down from Neo-Gothic buildings. Looking at his face was a punishment in itself.

"Judge Hopkins, I didn't murder Mrs. Ingersoll. I didn't assault Bianca. I wouldn't do that for the world. I — I love her!"

Harry turned around and gazed toward where Bianca herself was sitting in the first row of seats.

Mrs. Fellini suppressed a sob. The defense attorney didn't look up. He coughed and continued playing cards.

Bianca blushed hotly. She kept staring at Harry until her eyes burned, silently cheering him on. Even in a tough situation like this, he was providing a perfect example of how she ought to behave.

"If you love the young lady, Mr. Fellini, you sure have a strange way of showing it!" The judge looked down his long nose. "In my day if a young man admired a young lady, he'd give her flowers, ask her out to dinner, and carry her books home from school. He wouldn't try to drown her in the high school pool!"

"I was only trying to save her! I heard her screaming and thought somebody was trying to murder her."

"Strange way of trying to save her!" the judge barked.

The district attorney stood up at the table for the prosecution. He was an impressive figure, dressed in a three-piece suit despite the hot Georgia weather.

"Your honor, the prosecution would like to object. I've already laid out copious evidence against the defendant. I've established nefarious links between the defendant and his notorious brother, Mike Fellini. They form a crime team. I'm charging Mike with kidnapping, and Harry with the murder of Mrs. Ingersoll and the attempted murder of Bianca."

Again Mrs. Fellini let out a sob.

Bianca wasn't sure what "nefarious" and "notorious" meant. But she was willing to swear that Harry wasn't either. Mrs. Shipley, sitting next to her, patted her on the arm to give her courage. Little Katie saw her "Anca" was troubled and gave her a hug.

"I certainly agree," the judge remarked to the district attorney, "it would be a sad day if this bench started listening to criminals. You can sit in jail, young man. Maybe that'll make you come to your senses. It might be too late. The district attorney, distinguished gentleman that he is —" The district attorney inclined his head in a little bow and smiled. "The district attorney," continued the judge, "is in the process of collecting evidence against you. He's already got enough to convict you of killing Mrs. Ingersoll, in my opinion. A conviction there could land you in jail for a long time, son, maybe for ever."

"But—" Harry never gave up.

The judge struck the bench with his gavel. "Arraignment over. Put him in jail!"

Applause came from the back of the courtroom. In the last row Rick was cheering and snickering. No doubt he thought he could escape blame for whatever he might have done if Harry were carted off to jail. So far the district attorney had been able to connect him with nothing except the cemetery pranks.

The district attorney leaped up. He started chatting with the judge about a dinner party at the Cloister Hotel that they were both attending with their wives.

Bianca rose. Mrs. Shipley, holding Katie in her arms, stood beside her. "Judge, I want to pay the bail," declared Bianca. She didn't know how she had the courage. But when Harry was involved, the courage just came.

Harry gaped at Bianca in disbelief as the jailers were about to nab him. He turned around and hid his face, hunching his shoulders. He was trying to conceal his tears.

Mrs. Fellini jumped up from the defendant's table and raced back to the first row of seats. She hugged Bianca, kissing her on each cheek.

The defense attorney dropped his cards. His mouth fell open as he gaped at Bianca.

"Order in the court!" The judge pounded his gavel on the bench.

"The money's part of my trust fund. I didn't care about it until I knew it could do good for somebody else. Mrs. Shipley's signed special papers to let me use it before I turn eighteen."

Mrs. Shipley's Atlanta attorney, a slick-looking fellow wearing a toupee, rushed up to the bench and dumped a whole briefcase of signed papers in front of the judge. Not even the district attorney could object to how legal everything was.

"Well, young man," the judge quipped sarcastically, "maybe you do have some hidden talents with the ladies we haven't appreciated. No wonder you and your brother make such a dangerous team. You've got the millionaires on your side!"

"Judge —" Harry wiped his eyes with his fists — "I don't know if I can accept Bianca's money. I—"

"Feeling guilty, eh?" The judge eyed Harry. "Didn't know the Fellinis had a conscience."

"Harry!" Bianca stomped her foot in frustration. "This means so much to me!"

Their eyes locked. She tried to make him understand that the money was as much for her as for him. She didn't know if she could stand the guilt of having him in jail because he'd come to her rescue. A certain, quiet understanding passed between them.

Harry turned toward the judge. "I accept the money, if it makes Bianca feel better."

"Very well!" the judge remarked. "As much as I don't like it, you're free to go on bail, son, only because you have no previous criminal record. I warn you not to skip out on bail, though. That is a serious offense, especially when the crime's murder."

Rick cupped his hands to his mouth and made loud catcalls. The officers, who were stationed about the courtroom, escorted him out. He made lewd remarks and dirty hand signs the whole way.

Doc, who had until now been sitting beside the district attorney, stood up. "Think of your own safety. Think of Little Katie's safety, if you don't want to think of your own. You're letting the killer loose to prey on you. Don't you want to reconsider?"

This was the first major decision she'd come to in the past two years without his help. She'd gone to Mrs. Shipley because she'd known that Doc would object. They had planned the move with the help of Mrs. Shipley's big-city attorneys. Mrs. Shipley had deferred to Bianca's feelings in the matter because she was so grateful to her.

Doc's eyes bored into Bianca's. She turned away and hung her head. When the judge asked for the check, her hand shook as she wrote it. She couldn't approach the bench. Mrs. Shipley's attorney had to convey it to the judge.

Harry's mother, with her arms around her son, stumbled up to Bianca. Harry struggled for something to say, so overcome with emotion that he looked as if he were ready to burst. He kept on shuffling his feet, biting his lip, and stuffing his hands deep into his pockets. Bianca stepped forward and took Harry's hands. Harry kissed her.

"None of that in my court!" The judge pounded his gavel.

Bianca squeezed Harry's hand. Harry gave her a parting look and left the courtroom with his mother.

Bianca and Mrs. Shipley got no farther than their lawyer's car before Doc caught up with them. She looked down at her feet. She could tell as soon as Doc started to speak that this was going to be bad. She'd never seen Doc in a temper. He didn't shout. Instead, there was an icy tone to his voice.

"This is a bad sign, Bianca, when you start conspiring with the killer to torture and punish yourself." He regarded her through his thick, horn-rimmed glasses. "You are suffering from survivor's guilt. Mrs. Ingersoll died. You didn't. I'll have to mention this to your other doctors."

This bad feeling between Doc and Harry made tears start up in Bianca's eyes. Why couldn't she convince Doc of Harry's innocence? But then, everyone was suspicious about the Fellini brothers, and Doc was protective of her. Maybe he was jealous of her feelings for Harry. At one time this would have given her a thrill. Now it made her confused.

Bianca reached for Doc's hand with her own cold, clammy one. He did something he'd never done before. He shook off her grasp and stalked off without a backward glance. She collapsed in tears. Mrs. Shipley had to catch her.

When Bianca called later, Doc's parents said he couldn't come to the phone. She phoned the house again and again. He never called her back.

Bianca sat prostrate on her sofa in the living room. She couldn't stop crying about Doc. She had a wastebasket filled up with Kleenex.

A druggist's assistant arrived on her doorstep. Doc and her other physicians had prescribed stronger pills to soothe her nerves. Attached to the prescription was a note from Doc. She recognized his handwriting. It curtly told her how many pills to take. There was no personal message.

Bianca took one of the pills to make Doc happy, as if he could see her doing it. She put the rest into her medicine cabinet. The pill made her conk out on the sofa. She could barely stumble to the phone when her chief psychiatrist called later to say he was as concerned as Doc. Bianca couldn't give up on Harry no matter what. Her gut instinct was that he was telling the truth despite the evidence. She sniffled when she remembered the letter he'd written her before the bail hearing, telling her goodbye. He'd thought he was going to jail:

Dearest Bianca,

Chin up! Maybe it's for the best that we won't be able to see each other. I'm poor as a church mouse. I wouldn't have much to offer a nice girl like you. You deserve much better than a charity case for a boyfriend.

I don't have a job. It's better that I go to jail. That way I won't be a burden on Mom. I'll be one less person she has to feed and clothe. She's been fired from the temporary agency. The landlord's leaning on us about the rent.

Mom will have to live out of the old Rambler next, the one that was almost totaled at the cemetery — there's no way we can have it repaired. She'll be lucky to get it to run. Maybe she can park it near the pier. No one will care.

Lately we've been eating out of the church soup kitchen. We have to if we don't want to start robbing folks the way Mike would do. The next step for Mom is welfare and food stamps. Not much better than jail, huh?

Find yourself another guy who's not a jailbird. But stay away from Doc! You don't need somebody to run your life. You can do a better job than anyone else. You've got good instincts. Trust them!

I don't want to sound down. I'm innocent, and I'll never forget it. There's got to be a way to escape this. Never say die!

Love,

Harry

The bail money that she'd provided was only a temporary fix. The district attorney would put him on trial. Juries convicted people of murder on flimsy, circumstantial evidence, such as the map found in his bedroom or the lock of hair, both of which could have been planted. The feeling on the island was so much against Harry and his family that any jury would convict him of anything. The judge would order them to do it!

Bianca held the key to everything, if only she could visualize the killer's face. She was the only one who'd seen the criminal that night. It had been dark, but there had been that shaft of moonlight coming through the door. It had illuminated Mrs. Ingersoll's dead body and the killer on the stairs.

When Bianca was taking her hot shower that night, washing her hair, she flicked on the radio. The local announcer broke in with a news flash. She paused with the shampoo bottle in her hand.

Marianna Haynes, the girl who's been in a coma since she fell into an open grave in Christ's Church Cemetery, is still in critical condition. However a source at Brunswick Memorial Hospital has told us that she has started to talk. Much of what she says doesn't make literal sense, but apparently she's begun to mumble something about plans for a murder. She keeps on murmuring Bianca Winters' name.

The police have been sent to the hospital. Yet they still haven't been able to question Marianna, as she hasn't woken up. Legal authorities say that whatever she seems to confess to in her present state of mind cannot be used against her in a court of law. No one can tell for sure if she's fantasizing or telling the truth — it adds an intriguing twist to the unsolved murder mystery.

Marianna had seemed to hate Bianca with a fanatical intensity. It made sense that she was the killer. But how could she have escaped from her hospital bed to chase Bianca around the school? How could she have pursued her on a balance beam or jumped on a trampoline? She couldn't walk!

Maybe Marianna had been in league with someone like Rick. Perhaps she was mumbling about her old boyfriend's plans. Whatever happened, Bianca needed to remember all that had occurred on that night more than ever. Time was running out.

When she laid down to sleep that night, she tossed, turned and thrashed about. She dreamed about the Shipleys' house on that evening two years ago. She relived the whole experience the way she'd remembered it time and time again since that Friday night at the theater.

This time she remembered a new detail. When she was struggling with the killer in the upstairs hallway, she stepped on something small but very hard. It was something that the killer had dropped. He was trying hard to push her away from it. As soon as she recalled stepping on it, she woke up.

Bianca sat up in bed. What could the killer have dropped? Why hadn't she remembered it until now? It must have been important, or the murderer wouldn't have been trying to kick it away from her. She tried hard to remember exactly how the object had felt under the soft sole of her tennis shoe. The clearness of the memory was fast slipping away like a night mist.

She glanced at the clock radio. It was three am. The day was May 27, exactly two years from the date of the killing. The Shipleys were away and they'd given her the key to look after their house. They'd taken Little Katie with them on their big trip to check on their investments.

Bianca reached inside the top drawer of her night stand and retrieved the Shipleys' house key. She had to go back and see the house at night — it might help her to remember what had fallen on the floor that the killer had been trying to conceal. Hurriedly she threw on her clothes. She put on Doc's turquoise earrings for good luck. She picked up the phone.

She'd heard that Harry and his mother were staying in the parking lot at the pier. There was an ice cream store on the corner that was open twenty-four hours, Island Ice Cream Delights. The owners lived in a little apartment above the shop. She dialed the number.

"Hello?" Mr. Pigsley, the proprietor, answered.

Mr. Pigsley was a pleasant man, nice, round and pink-cheeked. He had a long, pointed, red nose and was always smiling. He'd gone to all the grade schools doing demonstrations about how to make ice cream and giving out free samples. Bianca hoped that he was in a good mood tonight, despite the hour.

"Please let me talk to Harry. He's outside in the parking lot with his mother. Wake him up if you have to. This is important."

"Is this Bianca?" Mr. Pigsley asked in surprise. "You know you're not supposed to talk to that Fellini boy! He does nothing except cause trouble."

"Mr. Pigsley, please!"

She had a lot to do to convince the old man to cooperate. Finally he went grumbling out to the parking lot to look for an old Rambler.

"Bianca, what is it?" Harry asked a few moments later, over the protests of Mr. Pigsley. Harry didn't sound sleepy, as if he'd expected her to call. Their minds were in sync. She had noticed that before.

"Meet me in the graveyard behind the Shipleys' house right away."

"The graveyard?"

"I'll explain when you get there."

"OK." He knew enough not to question her.

"Bring your toolbox if you have one."

"Anything else?"

"Hurry! We don't have time to lose."

She heard a click. Then there was a strange sound on the phone as she hung up. She didn't have time to worry about it. It was probably her imagination anyway.

Bianca nerved herself to open the front door to her own house. A solid wall of darkness confronted her. Somehow she had to make her way through the night to reach her goal. The thought that Harry would be there waiting for her in the graveyard gave her courage. He'd told her that she could do anything. She was beginning to believe it.

Bianca was in the graveyard in five minutes. With a flashlight she climbed through a break in the cemetery fence, the break they'd discovered in the rear of the Shipleys' backyard.

There wasn't as much mist or fog tonight. Still, it was so dark out that it preyed on Bianca's imagination as she stood there under a live oak tree with twisted, gnarled branches. Each branch was draped with prickly, gray-green Spanish moss. She couldn't blot out of her mind those ghostly shapes and forms that had loomed up at her out of the darkness the last time — the crosses, church steeples and mausoleums with stone ladies covered with green moss.

Bianca hoped Harry wouldn't keep her waiting long. He didn't. He came hurrying along with a toolbox.

"Borrowed ten dollars from Mr. Pigsley to call a cab." Harry was all out of breath from running through the cemetery. "Told him I'd pay it back with interest. Couldn't bring the old clunker. Would never make it in time, though Mom said she was willing to sit outside in the dark on the road waiting for me all night if necessary. She'd do anything for you after what you did for us."

Bianca kissed him on the lips.

"What did you remember?" he pressed, anxious.

She didn't have to ask how Harry knew that she'd remembered something important. The two of them seemed to be able to sense what the other was thinking.

"We've got to go through the back door of the Shipleys' house," she explained. "I don't want anybody to see us. That's why I asked you to meet me in the cemetery instead of at the front door. I'll tell you what's going on as soon as we get inside."

The key let them in through the back door and didn't trigger the burglar alarm. They climbed the stairs in the dark, holding hands, and turned on the hallway light when they got to the second level. She explained how she'd remembered something that the killer had dropped.

"It was very hard, so hard that it wouldn't break or smash when I was stepping on it with my full weight," Bianca explained.

"The killer could have dropped anything. But if he was fighting so hard to protect it, it must be important." Harry was on the same wavelength.

"What could be so hard and so valuable except jewelry?" Bianca told Harry what was in her mind as she led him to the Shipleys' bedroom. Their room was the one closest to where she had encountered the killer in the upstairs hallway.

"Mrs. Shipley's jewelry box, of course! "Harry exclaimed when he saw it sitting there on her large vanity table. "That's why you asked me to bring the tools? It's locked up."

"We've got to break into the jewelry box. If I hold the jewels in my hands, I might remember something more. The Shipleys won't mind. I'll tell them everything when they get back."

Harry agreed. The Shipleys would never suspect her of any wrongdoing — not the girl who had saved Little Katie twice!

Harry banged on the lock to the jewelry box with his hammer. When that didn't do the trick, he tried a hacksaw. He sawed away at the metal lock on the ornate jewelry chest that was so large and heavy it wouldn't be easy to pick up or carry. The lock soon fell off. Bianca opened the box. Her hands lighted on jewelry, and lots of it. She brought it out and looked at it. She handed some to Harry.

Most of this jewelry was heavy and made of solid gold. There were necklaces, pendants with rubies, earrings and brooches. The diamonds were especially big. That was probably what had landed under her tennis shoe. She dropped a diamond ring to the floor and stepped on it to make sure.

"A king's ransom!" Harry gasped. "The killer must have heard about these jewels stashed here. Maybe he saw Mrs. Shipley wearing them in public. That must have been his motive for breaking into the house."

Just as Bianca pressed her foot down on the diamond ring, the face of the killer came to mind as clearly as if he were standing in front of her.

"Harry!" She put her hand to her throat. "I — I just remembered him."

"The killer?"

She nodded. "But — but this person can't be the killer."

She suddenly remembered those words that the killer had spoken to her that night two years ago. He'd hissed, Don't you dare scream. I won't have my reputation ruined.

"I told you it would happen. I was right." A familiar voice from behind startled Bianca.

She and Harry dropped the jewels.

"I told you that someday you'd come across something that would make you remember the night of the killing." The killer advanced on them. "Everything would become clear. Well, all you had to do was to step on the same jewel that you'd almost tripped over in the hallway that night exactly two years ago."

"Doc, I — I don't understand!" Bianca stared down the barrel of a gun.

Chapter 12

As he held the gun on them, Doc explained himself, "I was as quiet as possible cutting the power to the house from outside and sneaking through the sliding glass door into the Shipleys' bedroom two years ago. Cutting the power was a precaution so that I wouldn't be seen from across the street. I thought no one was home when I stole the jewels out of Mrs. Shipley's jewelry chest. It had no lock then. I was creeping out into the hallway to case out the other bedrooms, when that busybody maid screamed. You appeared with the baby. You ran into me and knocked that diamond ring out of my hand."

Doc stared at the diamond ring beside Bianca's foot.

"I pushed the maid away. She was losing her balance and was about to fall downstairs. I lost my cool. The gun fired. In a panic I thought about snatching the baby and taking her with me to make my getaway. But you defended her like a hellion."

He again looked at Bianca.

"I thought I heard a car coming out front, so I didn't follow you. I quickly stashed the jewels in the jewelry box. I had to escape from the bedroom balcony before the police got there. You were screaming, waking up the whole neighborhood. I thought up some excuse about hearing a commotion and coming next door to investigate in case the police saw me. I promised myself I'd return for the jewels later. Now that you've remembered everything, I can't wait any longer."

"I told you he was a crook!" Harry exclaimed. "I can smell a skunk a mile away."

"Doc, why would you break into a house looking for jewels? You've got plenty of money and — and you're a respected doctor. You've got a brilliant career ahead of you as a psychiatrist and—"

"I've only got one million to my own name from my grandparents. Mrs. Shipley's jewels are priceless."

Tears streamed down Bianca's face for Doc himself. Her heart felt for him as it would for Little Katie. He was somebody that she would have died to save. She had trusted him as she trusted no one else.

"These aren't just any jewels, sweetheart!" A rapt look appeared on Doc's face. "These are jewels that belong to one of the richest women in America. You can't buy them in a store."

Bianca couldn't believe her ears. The jewels flashed and scintillated in the light coming from the hallway. Bianca gazed into Doc's eyes. "Doc, please tell me this is all a joke. Tell me that none of this is really happening, that you're still my best friend. Please!"

"Can't you see that he would have thrown you down the stairs after Mrs. Ingersoll except that you escaped him?" Harry exclaimed.

"You would have killed me, Doc?" Bianca croaked. "In this very house?"

"Those are his words, not mine!" Doc glared at Harry.

"You weren't really concerned about my medical condition, then?"

"I spent the whole night cramming in the medical school library, reading up on psychiatry. I found out that when you woke up you might not remember anything, and you might develop a phobia about the dark."

"Would you have killed me as soon as I remembered something, any time during these past two years?" She'd always thought of Doc as someone who would save her life, not take it.

"I was prepared to convince you it wasn't me if you'd started to remember something. Besides, the more I played your medical adviser, the more likely you'd be to censor any such memories yourself. You thought too much of me, to be quite frank."

"Why did you start . . . well . . . trying to make me your girlfriend?" She blushed and glanced at Harry. It was hard to carry on such a discussion around him.

Harry glowered at Doc.

Doc made a wild, theatrical gesture. "Think of it as double insurance. You'd never suspect somebody who was both your medical adviser and your lover!"

"What a creep!" Harry exclaimed.

"The Shipleys were about to leave for a big trip to take care of their investments. I felt sure you weren't going to remember anything before then. I was getting ready to make the big break and rob the house when nobody was at home. Then I planned a one-way ticket to Rio. In short, I was preparing to clear out and cash in."

"Why did you tell me I ought to meet other guys? Why did you start dating that nurse from the hospital?"

"Remember, the senior doctors at the hospital thought it wasn't professional for me to be so close to you. I didn't want anybody to get suspicious or pry into my business while I was planning my final moves prior to leaving the country for good."

"So that's why you got furious when I started to date Harry, even though you told me to?" Bianca felt a glimmer of understanding.

"I'd miscalculated. I didn't think you'd follow my advice. You seemed such a shy, withdrawn little thing. I was surprised you had the nerve to go out with Rick Roscoe, let alone one of the Fellini brothers."

"McCollough knew I spelled trouble big time," Harry boasted.

"When I observed what a violent attraction you and Harry seemed to have for each other, I decided that Harry was bad for you — or rather bad for my plans." Doc glared at Harry as if he despised him.

"You bet I am!" Harry proclaimed. "I'm the one thing you didn't calculate on."

"Not only had you started to remember something at the movie theater (I kept a close watch on you from my seat), Harry was starting to draw you away from my influence. I had to stop him before it ended in disaster."

"Were you the one in the rest room, threatening me?" Bianca felt those cold fingers on her neck.

"Who else, Bianca dear, would know how to play on your fear of the dark?" He ran his fingers up and down her neck to demonstrate.

"But I didn't see you in the lobby!" Harry objected.

"Your brother disarmed one of the fire exits near the screen. I took advantage of it as soon as I saw Bianca run out of the theater. I stood outside the ladies' bathroom window, where I figured she'd end up. I watched Bianca at the sink. When she started to wash her face, I knew she wouldn't be able to hear me. I crept quietly past her and hid myself on the other side of the door in the ladies' lounge. When she got ready to leave, I turned out the lights."

Big tears coursed down her cheeks. "But — but you were so kind to me! You helped me overcome my fear of the dark."

"That's what I wanted you to think."

Harry nodded. "After Marianna was nearly killed in the cemetery, you sent Bianca back to the hospital. She was showing signs of recovery, too."

"She was remembering that night two years ago!" Doc hissed. "That's why I told her senior doctors how grave I thought her condition was. I advised them she was having a relapse."

"I bet you tried to make advances to her in the hospital, didn't you, you shameless bastard!" Harry scoffed. "That's why you wouldn't let me in to see her."

Doc said. "I wanted to wipe your memory out of her mind."

"Even getting me arrested didn't do that!" Harry boasted. "She was there rooting for me the whole way."

Doc scowled at Harry.

"I felt so guilty and confused," Bianca explained. "I thought you still liked me, Doc, even though I was starting to like Harry, well ... in a different way."

"If I couldn't have your absolute devotion, I was willing to take advantage of your guilt trips," Doc explained. "Anything that kept you subservient to me until it was time to skip town."

"It was you that day in the high school, too, wasn't it?" Harry asked.

"I got past the building secretary and the policeman in the office, upstanding citizen that I am. All I had to do was turn out the lights in the basement classroom to give Bianca another warning. I showed her my silencer, but not because I was going to shoot her. I wanted to scare her into silence in case she should remember any little detail about the killer that the police might recognize as me. Then I chased her to the gym."

"How did you know we'd be here tonight?" Harry pressed.

Bianca remembered the funny noise on the phone when she had called Harry at the pier.

"You bugged my phone. Didn't you, Doc?" she asked, incredulous.

"I had to keep track of everything you did," Doc admitted. "I had no idea what you were going to remember when. It was the worst possible thing for you to recall the jewels, especially the one you tripped over in the hallway. When I found out you had a new hunch about what had happened that night, I finalized my plans and got over here quick. I couldn't risk your remembering me when I wasn't there, especially since this evening was exactly two years to the night. That alone could trigger your memory."

"What are you going to do with us?" Bianca pleaded.

"You, my dear, are coming with me tonight after I complete the robbery." Doc pinched Bianca's cheek. "I wouldn't dream of leaving you behind. Not now. Not after I've seen how useful you can be to me in my future life."

"What are you going to do with Bianca?" Harry butted in.

"We'll be driving to Mexico, crossing the border in a spot where inspections aren't what they should be. Then we're going to rent a houseboat and sail down the coast to Rio where we can live like kings."

"But — but — my parents! The Shipleys! Little Katie!"

"We'll leave them a note saying we've eloped. How romantic! By the time they suspect foul play — if they ever do! — we'll legally be husband and wife."

"Husband and wife!" Harry burst out, as if he hadn't expected that answer.

"A man of my position in Rio will need a nice, submissive wife."

"What about Harry?" Bianca pressed.

"He'll never talk again."

"Rat!" Harry spat.

"If the law won't put you in jail and Bianca's going to spring you on bail every time you get in trouble because I plant evidence on you, I'll shoot you with the silencer that killed Mrs. Ingersoll."

Bianca gasped.

"I can't help it if a lock of Mrs. Ingersoll's hair got wound around my fingers when I was struggling with her. I didn't discover it until I left the house. It was a good thing I saved it, though. I found a use for it. You'll die, Fellini, the murderer of Mrs. Ingersoll. Who else besides her assassin would have a lock of her hair underneath his bed?"

Harry lunged at Doc to knock the pistol out of his hand. Doc stepped out of the way and hit Harry over the head. Harry slumped to the floor unconscious.

"Harry!" Bianca tried to run to him.

Doc shoved her aside. He tied Harry's ankles together with rope that he was carrying in his pocket. He tied his hands behind his back. Doc handed Bianca the pistol.

"Shoot Harry!" Doc stared straight into her eyes.

"Doc! Please!" She shook her head and backed away.

"You'll do anything I say. I've trained you well over the past two years. You hardly have any mind left of your own. You'll make an obedient wife. Everyone will envy me."

She couldn't believe that this was the old Doc. Surely it was an evil twin who looked and sounded like him.

"We're going to arrange everything so it looks like Harry was the killer and the thief, gunned down by the other thieves who were trying to rob the house."

It was too horrible to be true. Doc had mercilessly taken advantage of her.

Harry groaned and rolled over. He was coming to.

"Hurry!" Doc snarled. "You don't want Harry to see you kill him, do you?"

"But — but why do you want me to kill him?" She begged.

"So we've both committed one murder. A nice marriage pact, isn't it? That way you'll be less likely to want to rat on me. I'll keep your dirty secret. You'll keep mine."

She'd never disobeyed Doc before. But she couldn't shoot Harry. She hung her head. Her hand spasmed. She dropped the gun as Harry's eyes blinked open.

"You clumsy cow!" Doc yelled at Bianca.

Doc forced the gun back into her hands and made her hold it. He slipped his hands over hers. He aimed the gun straight at Harry's heart.

Harry gaped at Bianca in horror.

"Shoot him, Bianca!" Doc hissed into her ear. He pressed his fingers down on hers and tried to force her to pull the trigger.

"No!" Tears streamed down her face.

Harry couldn't roll fast enough or far enough to evade Doc's deadly accurate aim. As he rolled, Doc kept on moving his hand. Bianca's hand had to follow his. Doc kept on squeezing down more and more on her trigger finger.

"You must obey me, Bianca! You must obey me!" Doc shouted as if that were more important than anything.

Bianca couldn't let Doc make her murder Harry. She loved Harry. Harry loved her. She was standing next to a floor lamp illuminating the hallway. The cord was close to her leg. Bianca reached her foot behind the cord. She gave the cord a sharp pull and yanked the plug out of the wall.

The lamp toppled backward. The bulb shattered. The hallway plunged into darkness at the second when Doc made her finger push down on the trigger and shoot.

The shot went wild. A whooshing sound hit the railing on the stairs as Harry rolled out of the way.

"What did you do that for, Bianca?" Doc raged. "You're afraid of the dark. Remember?"

Harry called. "You're not really afraid of the dark. He made you that way to keep you quiet. Remember, the dark is your friend. It gives you the advantage."

Doc fumbled for the light switches. "Bianca, the darkness has black fingers. They're creeping up your neck to strangle you. Turn on the light, or you won't be able to breathe." He confronted her with the images from her own nightmares that she'd confided to him as her medical adviser.

Just as she had pulled herself together with a superhuman effort two years ago to save Little Katie, she pulled herself together to save Harry. She tried not to think of the darkness. She tried not to listen to Doc's taunting words. Instead she visualized the inside of the house. She knew it better than Doc. She had baby-sat here every week for years.

Bianca felt along the walls to reach the Shipleys' bedroom. She found the main fuse box for the house inside their closet and turned off the juice. Now there was no way that Doc could turn the lights on.

Doc was still in hot pursuit. "Bianca, I'll punish you for this disobedience. I'll be forced to lock you in a dark room once we reach Rio."

With trembling hands Bianca took the phone off the hook in the Shipleys' bedroom. If she left the phone off the hook for more than thirty seconds, it would trigger an alarm at the police department. The police would be here soon.

All she had to do now was find the front door as she had two years ago. Then all she had to do after that was run outside screaming. She was feeling along the top of the banister leading to the stairs. A shadow loomed in front of her. It was Doc! He was blocking her way.

Harry, still tied hand and foot, rolled into Doc from the other direction. He tripped Doc. Bianca raced down the stairs.

"You won't get away from me!" Doc shouted. "It's no use. You have to depend on me."

Bianca flung open the front door. It had grown very foggy. Suddenly a shaft of silver moonlight broke through the clouds, illuminating the stairway. There stood Doc holding Harry by his collar. Another handgun was pointed at Harry's head.

"Come back here right now, Bianca, or I'll have to shoot!"

Bianca felt Doc's first gun still in her hand. She had forgotten about it until now.

"Shoot, Harry, Bianca. Go ahead and shoot him!"

She slowly raised her gun hand. It trembled. She could hardly hold on to the pistol.

"Shoot!"

The gun went off. The shot went wild and hit Doc in the foot. With a look of astonishment, he dropped his second gun. He reached down to retrieve it. Then he lost his balance. He fell down the stairs with a shrieking cry, landing at the bottom. He lay very still. His eyes gaped straight up at the ceiling. They looked frozen with surprise the way Mrs. Ingersoll's eyes had two years ago.

Doc was dead. Bianca knew it before she raced back to cradle his head against her breast as she wept and wept.

Doc had found his tomb. He had condemned himself to what he'd tried to condemn her to — perpetual darkness.

Chapter 13

Bianca put on her best dress. She looked into the mirror to apply her lipstick and powder her nose. She seemed like a whole new girl, no longer the old Bianca Winters.

Honk! Honk!

Bianca leaned out her bedroom window and yelled, "I'm coming!"

She grabbed her purse, skipped down the steps, and dashed down the front walkway to the black limousine in front of her house. She hurried around to the passenger's side, waving at a passing police car as her heels clip-clopped along the pavement.

The police car was not on patrol. There was no longer any need for that. He was going home for the evening after one of the first normal days of work on the island in two years.

The uniformed limousine driver was holding the door open for her. Bianca kissed him "thank you" on the cheek and popped inside.

"Where to?" He smiled and revved up the engine.

She shrugged. "The movies, of course. Where else?"

Bianca snuggled back into her seat for a nice, long drive. It was easy to get used to this life — having your own limousine and driver at your beck and call to take you wherever you wanted to go.

They hadn't gotten to the first traffic light before the limousine driver slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her against him. She took off his cap and tossed it into the back seat. She cozied up against his shoulder.

"I ought to thank the Shipleys," Bianca remarked. "They've done so much for me already. But my own limousine driver. Wow!"

"I just got off duty, and you know it!" He kissed her head. "If you think I'm going to the movies in this get-up, you're nuts! I'll change in the back seat before we go inside."

"I want everybody to see you like that, especially that nasty theater manager in the Hawaiian shirt. I can't believe that he fired you because you punched Rick back. The manager will eat his heart out now."

Harry smiled. "The manager's called me five times in the last couple of weeks asking me if I'll come back to work as an usher."

"I hope you've told him no way!"

"I certainly did! I don't have to put up with his foul mouth any more. The Shipleys are a dream to work for. They pay better. They give me more time off to enjoy, let's say . . . the finer things in life." He hugged her.

She ran her hands up and down the front of his suit, playing with his brass buttons. "I want Mr. Pigsley to see you in uniform. He and Mrs. Pigsley go to the movies every Saturday night. Maybe they'll give you a certificate to get free ice cream."

"Mom and I don't need free ice cream!" Harry held his chin up. "We don't have to take charity. I've shaken that bad rap. I'm working full-time for the Shipleys and I've got my high school diploma. Mom's been hired back at the school. They've given her a raise and her old pension back, too."

"And you don't have to worry about Mike getting into trouble any more."

Harry looked more serious. "Boy, do I owe you one there!"

"It was the Shipleys, not me. They used their influence with the judge to keep Mike in a local prison. Maybe you and your mom can visit him on weekends."

"Thanks to you!" Harry whistled. "I can't believe the Shipleys helped us after Mike kidnapped Little Katie. I guess they're so grateful they'd do about anything you asked. Can't say I blame them."

He gave Bianca a kiss while they were stopped at a light.

"I wish that they'd put that Rick Roscoe where he belongs, though, instead of giving him probation because it was a first offense!" Harry continued. "Now they know that he and Marianna were my brother's contacts at the Island Theater, that they were on the take telling him which stores to knock over for a share in the profits, Rick ought to go to jail. The police uncovered all those stolen goods at his house."

Bianca shook her head. "Rick's been shaken up enough by what happened that he won't come near me. He knows what'll happen if he does."

"Marianna, too?"

"She's lucky to be alive! I think she'll act like a whole new girl. No more blabbing in her sleep about wanting to murder me, or anybody else."

"Yeah, I'm glad that was just wishful thinking," Harry agreed.

"Besides," Bianca added, "Marianna's got Rick back. I've got my own guy. You're a bigger reason to be jealous of me now, but I don't think Marianna will see it that way."

Bianca gave Harry a big hug.

"You're real special!" Harry could hardly keep his hands off her. "I can't believe that creep Doc had you thinking you were chicken all those years. You're the bravest, nicest, most generous girl I know."

It was almost dusk. Bianca caught sight of a fallen magnolia blossom on the sidewalk. "Please stop!" she said in a small voice, choked with emotion.

She got out of the car and picked the flower up. It was white and fragrant with a heady, musky odor. She climbed back into the car.

"Let's stop by the cemetery first." She reached up and touched the turquoise earrings still dangling from her ears, the ones that she wore for good luck.

"You don't want to miss the movie, do you?" Harry asked. He knew better than to press Bianca on this sensitive point. He understood what she was thinking without asking — as usual.

They parked the car and got out. A police officer, who was directing traffic at a funeral that was starting to break up, stopped to salute Bianca. She was the heroine of the St. Simons Island police force now more than ever. Everyone was grateful to her for helping to catch the mysterious killer of Mrs. Ingersoll.

Harry saluted back. Bianca didn't notice. She was preoccupied. She knew her way to the freshly dug grave lying under a live oak tree near the front of the cemetery. She had attended Doc's funeral when his urn of ashes had been laid to rest. Since then she had started coming here all the time, putting flowers on his grave and leaving little tokens of her own.

She knelt down beside the grave and placed the magnolia blossom next to the withered ones that she had left there before. The fragrant white petals picked up the dying light of day and shimmered in the growing darkness.

Doc had been her worst enemy. Bianca didn't like to remember him that way. She tried to recall him as a friend who'd made terrible mistakes and had paid for them big time. Nor would she let him lie alone in the dark, though Harry said he deserved it, though other people on the island were saying he deserved it after his shocking part in Mrs. Ingersoll's murder was revealed.

Bianca told herself she would always remember Doc as the man he could have been if his brilliant mind hadn't been corrupted by his lust for money — and maybe even more by a lust to control the minds of other people. He could have been a famous doctor. He could have helped people. His life had been a tragic waste. He had tried to cheat other people, yes. He had killed one. Doc had cheated himself most of all.

Bianca didn't shiver at the darkness as she reached up to adjust her turquoise earrings one last time. Harry gave her his hand and helped her up, then led her back to the car in the gathering gloom. He opened the door to the passenger's side and went around to the driver's side to get in. They hugged each other as they took off toward the movie theater.

Harry flicked the car light on as darkness deepened. The live oak trees formed a tunnel over the road.

"You don't have to do that." Bianca flicked the light off and put her arm round his shoulders.

With Harry next to her, she would never have to ask herself that awful question again. "Are you scared of the dark?" Now the dark was her friend as she kissed him back.

The Dark 2

Chapter 1

"Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday, dear Katie, happy birthday to you!"

Everyone started to clap as Bianca held Little Katie around the waist and hugged her. The blond-haired, cherry-cheeked little girl leaned over the cake and blew out the pink birthday candles. She was two years and two months old today. They were getting around to having the birthday they should have celebrated two months earlier.

Bianca helped serve the cake to the hungry little kids gathered aboard the Shipleys' yacht in St. Simons Island Harbor on this late afternoon of July 1st. She glanced out the window and smiled at the policemen. She made sure that they got cake, too. She also sent a piece of cake out to the man that the Shipleys had hired to be Little Katie's temporary bodyguard, Tom Jones — until Harry graduated from his police and surveillance training course in Brunswick, Georgia.

Br-r-r-r-ring! Br-r-r-r-ring!

"Bianca, it's for you." Mrs. Shipley, Katie's mother, handed her favorite babysitter and Little Katie's godmother the telephone.

Bianca had hardly been able to hear the ringing over the voices of the excited little children squealing, jumping up and down, and getting icing all over their faces.

"Hello?"

"Hi, hon! Miss you already."

"Harry!" she exclaimed. "You haven't been gone one day. It seems like a hundred years."

Harry's duty called. He was going to school so that he could get a better job and help support his mother. It was good news that Mrs. Fellini had her old job back at the high school. It was good news that she had regained her old pension and benefits. Still the Fellinis needed every penny. There were people who pointed at Mrs. Fellini and said, "You're Mike Fellini's mother, aren't you? You raise convicts!"

Bianca winced at the thought. Harry and his mother would have to suffer because of Mike and his past convictions. They included kidnapping Little Katie back in May and trying to hold her for ransom.

Bianca couldn't wait until Harry had finished his training so that he could be Little Katie's bodyguard. The Shipleys were paying for his education. They had promised to hire him. Harry was learning all sorts of martial arts and defensive techniques. Some of his training was the same that the CIA and FBI officers went through.

"I've got a surprise for you." Harry announced. "In addition to learning to be a chauffeur and a bodyguard, I'm learning to fly a plane."

"What?"

"The Shipleys think it would be a good idea."

She shook her head in amazement. The Shipleys were certainly being thorough. That made total sense. Little Katie might only be two years old, but already there had been an attempt on her life. Already the little heiress to the Shipleys' vast international business holdings had been kidnapped.

"I'll be home this weekend." Harry promised.

Bianca made kissing sounds into the phone. She held the phone up. Little Katie babbled to Harry.

"See you, hon." Harry sounded like he was about ready to hang up.

"Harry. . ." Bianca stopped him.

She bit her lip. Bianca had had an uneasy sense since Harry had left here early this morning. It must be her nerves. She hadn't been without him one single day since Doc's death and funeral. She had leaned on Harry. She had counted on being able to tell him her fears. He had made her feel better and think that she could do anything, could survive anything.

"Something wrong?" Harry sounded concerned.

Bianca felt guilty. She shouldn't spoil his day. After all, everything had gone perfectly, perhaps too perfectly, with the party.

"No, ah. . ."

"I'll come right back if there is. I'm not going to let anything happen to you, Bianca, not while I have a breath left in my body. That's a promise!"

Bianca couldn't spoil Harry's education plans because of a case of the jitters. After all, she was a big girl now, eighteen. She could deal with it.

"I miss you, that's all, Harry."

"Say, just wait until you see how Harry is going to kiss you the next time I see you. Your lips will be so sore you won't be able to eat."

Bianca laughed and said her final good-byes. Then she hung up.

The party was breaking up. Little Katie had opened her gifts. The toddlers were getting wild. Naps were needed. Parents were carting their children back to their cars on shore in the parking lot in the Village, the main shopping district on St. Simons Island off the southeast coast of Georgia.

Soon it was dinner time. Bianca fed Katie her supper while the Shipleys went ashore for a late-night party. Katie and Bianca waved goodbye to Mommy and Daddy.

Oddly enough, the Shipleys were going to the house of the McColloughs, the oldest family on the island. The McColloughs were Doc's parents. Their oldest son's criminal behavior and death in May on the staircase at the Shipleys' house had not been enough to sever close relations with their even wealthier next-door neighbors.

It didn't matter that Doc had put on a big show for the past two years, interning at the hospital and acting as Bianca's medical advisor while he had been a killer. It didn't matter that he had murdered the Shipleys' maid, Mrs. Ingersoll, two years earlier, after making an attempt to steal jewels from the Shipleys' house while Bianca had been babysitting Little Katie. It didn't matter that he'd cornered Bianca in the Shipleys' house two months ago, had almost murdered Harry, and had fallen down the stairs and broken his own neck. The McColloughs were not going to allow Doc to spoil their social life.

The McColloughs always attended the Shipleys' parties and vice versa. They never talked about Doc. The McColloughs had denied Doc, "Doc" Ernie McCollough, a place in their new, marble family mausoleum. His ashes had been interred in the paupers' section of the cemetery at Christ's Church. The McColloughs had plenty of money — and plenty of other children besides Doc.

Bianca and Little Katie were not going back to the Shipleys' house tonight. After all, it was Little Katie's birthday. Spending the night on the yacht was supposed to be a special treat. For company they had only the bodyguard, Tom Jones. He remained outside on the deck after the police left.

Bianca put Katie to bed, read her a story, and took a shower. After all, the Shipleys frequently didn't come home until dawn. She and Katie would be on the yacht until then.

Bianca took off the turquoise earrings that Doc had given her for her seventeenth birthday, more than a year ago. She put on her nightgown and climbed into bed.

She was a millionairess now that she had passed her eighteenth birthday and had come into her two-million-dollar trust fund. The Shipleys had created it for her when she had saved Little Katie's life two times — first from Doc two years ago, and then from Mike Fellini in May. Yet the money didn't drive away the shadows from her past. She was afraid to go to sleep. She was afraid to turn out the lights.

Something was tapping on her porthole. Could it be a prowler? She told herself to stop imagining things. After all, that was the bodyguard's job. He had been trained to stay up all night long to look and listen. He knew how to use a gun.

Her heart beat faster until she saw the rain drops. She relaxed and slumped back against her pillow. She let her eyes close — that was, until she started to dream about Doc. Her eyes popped open. She was trembling, clutching her pillow.

Doc had been the most brilliant person that she had known — smarter than her high school teachers. He had won awards while in high school, including the Westinghouse Science Talent Search. He had been the President of the Future Doctors of America. He had graduated two years early at sixteen. He had graduated early from college summa cum laude and had attended medical school. Going on twenty-four, he had been an intern with a promising future.

Bianca squeezed her eyelids shut. Doc had dropped his own handgun after she had shot him by mistake. She had been trying to save Harry's life — not kill Doc. She saw Ernie McCollough reaching for his gun and losing his balance. She relived him tumbling down those stairs in the moonlight as she had every night since his death. She remembered herself running over to him lying there in the foyer, his neck at an odd angle. She had clutched him to her and wept.

Bianca had left Harry tied at the top of the stairs and had fled out on to the street screaming for help. Help had been too late. Doc had been pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. She had attended his funeral. It had felt to her as if she had killed him. It still felt like that, though it was two months later.

Doc Ernie McCollough had been everything to Bianca. He had been her medical adviser. He had been her best friend. He had even — in the days before she had met Harry — been her lover. They had been together always. Even though she now knew it had all been a fraud and a fake, her heart could not help grieving for the dead young man who had once lived across the street from her.

"I've got to be brave for Little Katie's sake. She's got nobody besides me to depend upon," Bianca whispered aloud in the darkness.

The darkness had been her enemy ever since the night of the murder of Mrs. Ingersoll two years ago, when Bianca had been babysitting the newborn Little Katie Shipley. The maid had taken her own tumble down the stairs, shot in the back by a gun with a silencer wielded by Doc. When Bianca's mind had repressed it all because it had been so horrible, forgetting everything until only two months ago, she'd become fearful of the dark. The murder had taken place in the dark. Bianca had grappled with the killer in the dark. She had escaped from the house in the dark, clutching Little Katie to her breast.

The darkness of the night pressed in around Bianca and made her shiver. She smiled only a little when she remembered how Harry had told her to keep her chin up.

She rolled over on her pillow and dozed off again. This time she went to sleep.

A noise on the yacht awakened Bianca some indeterminate amount of time later. She sat straight up in bed. She listened with her ears perked up. It was still dark. The alarm clock said 3 a.m. Her room adjoined Katie's. Had she heard someone opening the little girl's door?

Mr. and Mrs. Shipley were supposed to stop by in the morning to pick Katie up and take her back to their house. That would be about three hours from now. No one else was authorized to be on the yacht except the armed guard. He was to stay on deck at all times. He wasn't to venture into the family quarters unless Bianca summoned him.

Bianca hurried over to Katie's room and snatched the child up in her arms, The child awakened and moaned. Bianca said, "Sh-h-h!"as she sat there on the bed with the little girl, trying to quiet her own fears.

Had she imagined the door opening? She thought she heard breathing and realized that someone was there in the darkness of Katie's bedroom with them. Perhaps she had beaten him to the child's bed. Perhaps he had intended to snatch the little girl and make off with her.

Bianca couldn't stay here. She carried Katie toward the door, wondering if she dared to cry out for the bodyguard or whether she should keep her mouth shut. As she moved, she could hear someone's footsteps following her.

Bianca disappeared into the Shipleys' bedroom next-door on the yacht. She shut the door and locked it. Still she heard the breathing. Evidently the intruder had slipped in behind her.

She hurried out of the Shipleys' bedroom into the next guest bedroom. The creep seemed to have followed her inside this room as well!

Bianca opened the door to the deck and raced out into the night. She passed what looked like the slumped body of the guard. Tom Jones was lying on the deck. His wide-open eyes were staring up at the night sky. He wasn't moving. He wasn't breathing. He looked dead.

Bianca fled down the gangplank. Thank God it was still in place! At least she didn't have to leap overboard and swim with the child in her arms. She was at the harbor village. She looked towards Mr. Pigsley's shop, Island Ice Cream Delights, hoping against all hope that she would see the old man up and about at this early hour.

The shop was closed up tight. There was not a light on anywhere, not even upstairs where the Pigsleys lived. They must be asleep.

The assailant chased Bianca down the street. She hid from him behind every building that she could find. He always seemed to surprise her. He leaped out from behind every bush and tree. His shadow loomed up out of nowhere.

Bianca kept going across a wide, grassy expanse. Live oak trees grew so close together that they blocked out the moonlight. There was only one tall, stone building that rose in the darkness up ahead. The creep was right behind her. She flung open the door and dashed inside.

She raced up the spiral staircase. Bianca realized too late that she must be heading up into the island's only lighthouse. Footsteps pursued her. She continued all the way to the top.

She finally reached the beacon room. She opened a trapdoor in the ceiling and clambered up on to the roof, hoping that this freak would never think of looking there. She stood outside in the damp night air in her nightgown, clutching the child, waiting for morning.

Everything was silent — dead silent — except for the hooting of an owl. She didn't know if the killer was watching her from a window or whether he had gone back down to the ground and was eyeing her from there. Every time an owl hooted or a cricket chirped, she jumped.

As she stood there one hundred feet off the ground, she clutched the weathervane. She tried not to look down as her head whirled around. Her legs threatened to collapse underneath her. She couldn't go anywhere from here. She didn't risk going down until morning.

With her one free hand she clung to the weathervane as if to life itself. If she let go, she was a goner. Little Katie would be, too. So Bianca continued to hold on grimly — to life and to sanity — as the night pressed in on all sides.

Chapter 2

Dawn finally came. A streak of fear shot through Bianca as she clutched the weathervane. She could see the ground. It wasn't swimming in milky darkness any longer. It was at least one hundred feet below, if not more. One false move — over the edge she would go!

"Hey, Bianca, is this some new stunt?" Down below stood a young man with a flushed, florid complexion, curly blond hair and blue eyes. He was snickering up at her. The neck of his shirt gapped open to reveal more curly, blond hair.

Bianca shuddered and crept back against the weathervane. Rick Roscoe and his girlfriend, Marianna, had threatened her and Katie in the cemetery two months ago. They had tried to intimidate her and make her go out with Rick.

They had wanted to pilfer her money when she came into her trust fund. Rick had been arrested and put on probation.

Had Rick been the goon on the yacht last night? Had he chased her up the stairs of the lighthouse? Did he intend to mock her now?

"Hi, Bianca, my heroine. You look like the girl who saved Little Katie last spring. So brave it's sickening!"

A girl with dark, curly hair down over her shoulders leered at Bianca with her fiery, amethyst eyes. Her plucked eyebrows resembled black arches. Her eyelashes had been lengthened with mascara until each lash looked like a long and pointed weapon, or perhaps the legs of a black widow spider. Marianna Haynes was every bit as poisonous!

Marianna's breasts were well defined by her form-fitting top. Her slacks were bursting at the seams, revealing a derriere as big as a full moon. Marianna's arm was looped around Rick's waist.

Bianca's stomach felt like a tight little ball. Marianna had almost pushed her into an empty grave in May. Marianna had tripped and fallen into the grave herself. She had spent days in the hospital.

"Some people are so rich that they don't have to go to work. They spend all morning up on the roof working on their tan instead," Marianna taunted Bianca.

Marianna had to toil away at the Island Theater as the concessions girl. Her boss had hired her back after the incident in May. She'd been lucky that she hadn't ended up in the slammer. Marianna and Rick had been feeding information to Harry's jailbird brother, Mike, about which shops to knock over in return for a share of the proceeds.

Had Rick and Marianna thrown their probations to the winds and sneaked on to the Shipleys' yacht? Had they knocked off the bodyguard to chase her up the lighthouse tower for kicks?

Maybe her old high-school classmates had satisfied their sadistic desires to make Bianca suffer because a trick of fate had caused her to have more money than they did. Surely they hadn't been trying to kidnap Little Katie last night. No little girl could be that unfortunate.

"Help me!" Bianca called down to Rick and Marianna. After all, she did not see anybody else. Nobody else was up and about yet.

"You've got two million smackeroos in the bank. Nobody with that much money needs any help at all," Marianna declared.

"If you don't want to help me, help Katie. The baby doesn't deserve to suffer."

Marianna called up, "You wait there, Bianca. Marianna's coming for you."

Marianna headed up the spiral staircase. She poked her head up through the trapdoor in the ceiling of the beacon room. She waved and laughed at Bianca and Katie, making faces.

It reminded Bianca of the time, only two months past, that Marianna had cornered her in the movie theater bathroom. Marianna made her write in lipstick I AM A COWARD on the mirror because Bianca was afraid of the dark. Marianna didn't intend to help. It made her feel better to torment Bianca.

Little Katie bawled. Bianca didn't have a bottle or any of her toys. She hugged the toddler against her chest. That was all that she could do.

A truck from the correctional facility on the edge of town pulled up along the lawn in front of the lighthouse. The city park was the place for the prisoners to take their morning exercise before it became crowded with shoppers. The convicts filed out of the van one by one.

Bianca caught sight of Mike Fellini in a prison uniform. He cast her a dirty look and made a lewd hand gesture.

She had run into Mike in the cemetery in May on the same night that she'd encountered Rick and Marianna. Harry's older brother had kidnapped Little Katie in hopes of extracting one million dollars from the Shipleys. Bianca had tricked Mike into thinking that she had called the police and they were about ready to spring at him out of the shadows. He had fled, leaving Bianca with Katie. Mike had been recaptured and returned to jail.

Had Mike Fellini escaped from his cell last night and come after her? Had he returned to the prison after getting his kicks? He had sworn revenge.

Prisoners were working on the lawn. They picked up trash and stuffed it into sacks attached to their backs. Mike didn't take his eyes off Bianca and Katie, not for one second.

The correctional officer noticed the direction in which Mike was staring. He recognized Bianca in her nightgown. St. Simons Island was a small place. Most people knew everybody else. Besides, Bianca's picture had been in the paper lately.

The correctional officer raced in her direction. He pounded on the door at the base of the lighthouse. There was nobody to let him in. Someone, probably Marianna, had locked the door. Of course Marianna and Rick were nowhere to be seen now.

With frightened eyes, the officer got on his cellphone and called 911. He glanced up at Bianca, afraid that she might fall before he could summon help.

The walkway along the harbor's waterfront was getting busier. An occasional passerby on his way to work would gawk up at Bianca and Katie.

"Is she a jumper?" One girl looked terrified.

An ambulance with its flashing lights pulled up before the police or fire department arrived. Three ambulance workers leaped out. One looked like a doctor, carrying a black bag, like all the other doctors that Bianca had met over the past two years at Brunswick Memorial Hospital. She'd been going there for outpatient treatment for her phobia.

Two medics held a net, the kind that firefighters used. "Jump!" they urged Bianca.

Bianca's legs were frozen in place. She didn't know if she could let go of the weathervane even if she wanted to. Her hand had been clutching the metal rod all night.

The doctor approached her. Dressed all in white, he looked rather slim and wiry. Nor did he look very old. His thick, curly blond hair fell into his eyes, which seemed to be blue. His shoulders were big and muscular. He tried to talk her down in a soothing, calm tone.

"They tell me your name is Bianca Winters. You're a brave girl. Come forward and jump. All you have to do is tell yourself that you can."

As soon as the doctor opened his mouth, she could tell he wasn't from around here. He spoke in a British accent. He didn't sound the least bit put off by the girl on the roof.

His voice inspired confidence. She went forward step by step. Still she stopped short of the edge. With Katie in her arms, Bianca couldn't jump.

A fire truck showed up with flashing lights. Firemen carrying nets and ladders leaped off the truck. The doctor waved them away. He was clearly in charge here.

"Wait there until I come up," the young doctor urged.

He broke down the old wooden door to the lighthouse with the aid of a sledgehammer that he retrieved from the ambulance. He raced up the stairs. He crawled out on to the roof of the lighthouse.

"Now, Bianca, get down on your hands and knees. Crawl towards me." He held out his hand for her to grasp.

She crawled forward a little and then stopped.

He kept coaxing her on in his deep, comforting voice that made him sound as if he were in control of the situation and would not let anything go wrong.

"Look into my eyes. Don't look down. It's just a little farther."

Their fingers touched. She let him take her free hand and hold it. A spark leaped between them as Bianca gazed into his eyes for a minute, feeling his strength that he was imparting to her.

She remembered how far down to the ground it was. She felt her head go around, imagining that she was falling. The stranger put his arm around her and pulled Bianca and Little Katie toward him.

The young Englishman carried her and Katie down the spiral stairs. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held on as tightly as she could. They emerged in time to see a police van pull up alongside a car of newspaper reporters flashing cameras in everyone's faces.

In their party clothes Mr. and Mrs. Shipley raced out of the police van. They embraced Bianca and their daughter.

"Thank God you're all right! The bodyguard is dead — shot through the heart with a silenced gun," Mrs. Shipley sobbed.

The pavement came up to meet Bianca's face. Darkness was all.

About an hour later, as Bianca lay in the hospital, a head of dark, flyaway hair burst through the door. Harry had driven back from Brunswick as soon as he had heard on the radio. Anything that concerned the Shipleys was big news on St. Simons Island.

He hugged and kissed her. "Are you all right, Bianca? What happened?"

She assured him that it was just a precaution that she was in the hospital.

Harry wouldn't go home to his mother. He slept in the lobby until Bianca was released the next afternoon. He drove her back to the new home that her family had bought since she had come into her trust fund on her eighteenth birthday in May.

Her parents had retired from their former jobs and started a travel agency, which had been their dream for years. They now got to take those trips that they'd always wanted to. Her parents had visited their daughter in the hospital earlier that morning. A note on the table said they would be back for dinner.

"We'll make dinner," Harry assured Bianca. "You can't let that killer slow you down or spoil your style."

Bianca didn't want Harry to see how shaky she was. When she pulled up the step-stool and couldn't climb to the third step to reach the spaghetti sauce in the back of the cabinet, he caught on fast.

"You're tough, kid. You can make it. Now walk up those steps again," Harry ordered her.

"Oh, Harry!" Bianca collapsed into his arms. "You weren't cornered up on that roof all night long with the killer lurking somewhere below. You didn't have Little Katie with you."

He carried Bianca into her bedroom. "You're a strong girl, Bianca. You're my inspiration during all that police and surveillance training. You've survived again and again. You'll survive this time, too."

Harry made her feel better about herself, though he was so busy. First he had taken that crash course in Atlanta right after his graduation. Now there was the advanced course in Brunswick.

They took a shower together, rubbed noses, and made out. She wrapped a towel around herself and went to fetch new clothes. When she came out of the bathroom, her telephone was ringing off the hook. It was her banker from downtown Brunswick asking if she had authorized the large wire transfer from her account.

She didn't have time for banking right now. She couldn't recall the details. There were all sorts of bills to pay.

"I'm sure I did," she answered impatiently.

Why did her banker have to interrupt her at a time like this? She'd only taken on a personal banker since she'd come into her trust fund. Before that even her parents hadn't had one.

"I make it a practice to call my clients when there are transactions over a certain amount. I wanted to make sure. That's all."

She said goodbye. She couldn't be bothered to think about money. After all, she was still in her towel. Harry had his arms around her waist. He was kissing her neck.

Harry left right after dinner. She turned on her computer to start her homework. She was taking summer school. She had to graduate from high school after the rest of her class. The kidnapping in May and Doc's death had put her behind in her studies. She had agreed to earn her high-school diploma by the end of July.

The flashing mailbox symbol lighted up on her computer screen. She clicked it and brought up her new mail. Her banker had sent her a copy of her latest statement for her interest checking, money market and brokerage accounts.

One hundred thousand dollars had been wired out of her account today!

Her bills were big, but they weren't that big. She hadn't remembered authorizing a wire for that much money. She picked up the phone and called her banker. She asked for the time of the transaction. She wanted to know the name on the wire transfer form.

"That's why I called you earlier," the banker replied. "The wire transfer request date was last Friday about eight o'clock in the morning, as soon as the bank opened. The signature on the form was Mr. Harry Fellini. It takes a couple of days for a wire to go through, you know."

"Harry!"

"The young man does have your permission to withdraw money from all your accounts. I have a signed paper here that says so. You don't limit the amount he can take either."

"That's right."

"Do you want me to put a limit on Mr. Fellini's future withdrawals and wires?"

"Ah . . . no. . ." Bianca hung up.

True, she had given Harry a debit card and an ATM card for her checking account. She had given him permission to withdraw whatever money he needed from her stock funds and money market accounts for books and other necessities to supplement what the Shipleys had given him. Bianca had wanted to help him and his mother.

Harry had told her he would carry the debit card and ATM cards around to make her happy, but that he would never take money from her no matter how rich she was. Up to now he had withdrawn not a penny. Why all of a sudden had he taken one hundred thousand dollars? He hadn't even mentioned it to her!

She picked up the phone and dialed Harry's house. Mrs. Fellini answered and said he'd started back to Brunswick. Bianca leaped into her car and went after him, hoping to get an explanation.

It was getting dark out as Bianca drove through the Village right by the waterfront. She caught sight of Harry all right. He was sitting at a table in the corner of the cafe, talking to another girl. The girl was dark-haired and pretty. Her bosom was brushing against his arm as she leaned in his direction and whispered into his ear. He laughed at her remark. The girl looked like Marianna Haynes!

Bianca stopped at the red light and didn't move when the light turned green. Other cars started to honk. One came up right beside her. The driver rolled his window down.

"Get moving! Your car's in the middle of the intersection!"

Bianca pulled over along the side of the road. She had believed Harry when he told her that he'd gone off to Brunswick to get a bodyguard's training as well as a pilot's license. Now she wondered what he was doing in his dorm room. Was he seeing Marianna? Did they live together during the week? Harry had promised to come home on weekends. That gave him plenty of time for "extracurricular activities".

Harry would never do anything like that to her, would he? He said he'd never even liked Marianna. She wasn't his type. Why was Bianca watching as Marianna fawned all over him?

Marianna had a way with guys. If she broke up with Rick Roscoe, she could seduce any guy she wanted if she put her mind to it. She was spiteful. She'd do anything to make Bianca feel miserable.

Bianca turned her car around. She headed back home. She felt crushed — not that the money meant that much to her. It meant the world to everybody else — even Harry, who wanted to use it to impress another girl.

The oppressive humidity of the summer night weighed down on her lungs. It made it hard to breathe. She heard sounds in the darkness. She could pick out the whine of the cicadas. An owl hooted. A dog barked. She was alone on this side street with no one else around.

Someone was following her car. When she speeded up, he speeded up. When she turned, he turned. When she stopped, he stopped. She floored the gas pedal. He chased her down a winding, narrow road with overhanging live oak trees lining it. Branches swiped the sides of the car. One slammed against the windshield and almost broke it.

She reached the end of the road. A yellow sign with the words dead end appeared in her headlights. Bianca veered into the parking lot. The other car followed her.

Bianca leaped out and began running. Why was she running into stone pillar after pillar, some bigger than others, sticking up out of the ground? Was this the graveyard? Somehow the monuments and markers were way too far apart for that. Some of them loomed in the shadows twenty-five feet high. None in the graveyard were half so tall.

Bianca remembered Fort Frederica. She hadn't visited this place since grade school when her whole class had come here on a bus. It was a national monument to commemorate how the English soldiers had beaten back the Spanish threat from Florida — not very far to the south — hundreds of years ago. The stone markers rose up like white wraiths under the silvery moon, dotting the nightscape.

A dark form cornered her in a thicket of live oak trees. She stumbled over the intertwined roots. She fell flat on her face. At the last moment she got her arms and legs around the trunk. Bianca started to climb the tree.

The freak grabbed her ankle. He was dragging her down, pulling her along the ground through puddles of standing water. Mosquitoes were eating her alive. Swamp miasma hung all around.

He got his hands around her neck and started to push his fingers into her windpipe. He strangled off her scream. All she could do now was whimper.

In a whispery, low voice he hissed, "I wanted that little girl. You stood in my way the other night. That makes me very angry."

Bianca groaned.

"Now you won't shut up!" he hissed more loudly. "That makes me furious."

He tied a gag around her mouth and kept on pulling her along the ground. He roped her to a live oak tree that hung over a black swamp with gnarled tree roots sticking up out of it. The roots were in the shapes of tortured, twisted forms that looked human.

What was he going to do? Drown her?

He went back to his car to fetch something. It smelled like raw steak meat, fresh from the butcher's shop. He tied it to her ankle and let her foot hang into the water.

"Now you'll understand how you made me suffer when you deprived me of my ransom for Little Katie. You shouldn't have done that."

The freak raced off through the high grass. She could hear his footsteps for a long way. His car door slammed shut. His engine started. He drove away. She was alone in the darkness.

Soon she saw what he had obviously intended. Two garish yellow eyes above the surface of the water swam toward Bianca in the dark. The moon was bright. The sky was cloudless. It was an alligator! The alligator began to eat the steak and gnaw on her tennis shoe.

Bianca worked the gag down over her mouth. Her assailant had not had enough time to tie it right.

She screamed.

Chapter 3

The hungry alligator had almost bitten through her shoe. She didn't know how to fend him off. She was too paralyzed with fear.

Footsteps raced toward her. It was the same English doctor who'd saved her from the lighthouse the other day.

"What on earth?" he exclaimed, shining a flashlight on her.

He threw rocks at the alligator and chased the creature away. Then he untied her and carried her back across the Fort Frederica National Monument grounds to the adjacent apartment complex.

"You're lucky I like to sleep with my windows open. I'm used to the humidity from all my foreign travels. Everybody else has air-conditioning going. I heard you scream."

He put her to bed in his apartment and watched over her as she slept. He talked to her in the morning, giving her lots of advice about coping with her ordeal, and took her home.

"Will you be all right if I leave you here alone?" he asked. "Nobody else seems to be here."

"I can manage. I'm used to it," Bianca assured him. She remembered what Harry had told her about being strong.

"Sometimes patients who experience trauma suffer flashbacks. It's good to have somebody around in case you need them. You've been through a lot during the past couple of days."

Her eyes met his blue ones as she climbed out of the car. It seemed like deja vu, another time, another place. Those eyes held her transfixed. She had forgotten where she was when he took her house keys from her and opened the front door. He scribbled his name, address and phone number on a piece of paper.

He took down her phone number. "I'll call this afternoon to see if you're all right."

She nodded. "I'm sorry to be so much trouble."

"That's what doctors are for. That's what I'm doing here in Georgia. Brunswick Memorial is one of the finest hospitals in the States for psychiatry, my specialty. Your hospital draws interns from all over the world."

"What's your name?" It was funny. He reminded her of someone that she had known very well.

"Dr. Byron Kingsley. My friends call me Ronnie."

She stood there staring long after his car had left. Shaking off her abstraction about the newcomer, she went inside her house. She opened an old photo album from a year ago and leafed back through the pictures. She put her finger on the ones of her and Doc. Ernie McCollough was the last doctor who had shown an interest in her case. Would Byron Kingsley be the next?

Finally she glanced at her watch. Bianca was late for summer classes. She had to get over to the high school in a big hurry. In fact, she should have asked this Dr. Byron Kingsley, Ronnie, to drive her there.

Distractedly she flicked on the radio while she stepped into the shower and changed her clothes. The announcer came on:

This just in. Mike Fellini, notorious felon, convicted kidnapper and hardened thief, has just escaped. He was being transported from the city park at the harbor where he was helping the other prisoners clean up the lawn. On the way back to the prison he overcame the van driver. Now he is free to prey on the public. Lock your doors. Don't pick up hitchhikers. He is believed to be armed and dangerous. He is liable to do anything to resist recapture. And—

Great! Bianca thought as she flicked off the radio. That's all I need.

She ran out of the house only to remember that her car wasn't parked in her driveway. She'd left it at Fort Frederica National Monument last night. Bianca raced back inside to call a tow truck.

In the meantime she'd just have to walk to school. She'd checked her wallet. Oddly enough, she seemed to be out of cash, though she had been to the ATM machine the other day. Cabs wouldn't take checks or credit cards.

Where had the money gone? She didn't have time to think about it.

Nothing was that far from anything else on St. Simons Island. Still she had to walk a mile in the hot, sticky weather that was coastal Georgia in the summertime. The live oaks that lined the street provided deep shade. She stuck as close to them as she could. Spanish moss draped from the branches brushed against her head. The dry, scratchy stuff that was full of bugs rubbed the back of her neck, reminding her of human fingernails.

She stopped and turned around in a hurry. Was someone following her? She stood there listening, her heart beating a mile a minute.

Marianna Haynes drove up beside her and slowed way down in her broken-down jalopy. Bianca turned away. She recalled the scene she had observed yesterday evening in the cafe. It made her blood boil to think of it.

"You haven't got any wheels. Poor little rich girl!" Marianna taunted. Then she sped up, leaving Bianca in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

Bianca heard the sound of leaves crunching behind her. A few twigs snapped. Worse, the crunching sound was accompanied by the scraping of something against the pavement.

What could that be? With a sudden stab of fear, she knew it must be footsteps.

She told herself to keep moving and stay calm. This was a public sidewalk. Other people could and did use it, even if it was late morning on a blustery hot Georgia summer day.

The footsteps were getting louder. It sounded as if someone were about ready to run right into her. Was it because she was focusing on the sound? Was it because of the racket her heart was making? Bianca sucked in her breath to get up her courage. She turned around and peered over her shoulder. She couldn't see anyone.

If the footsteps were that loud, somebody would have to be visible. Had somebody ducked behind one of the many trees, some with hollowed-out chambers big enough for a person to hide himself and nobody be the wiser? Or was Bianca imagining it all?

Bianca speeded up. She stopped. The footsteps stopped. She resumed walking. They resumed walking. Now she knew that she wasn't imagining things. Someone must definitely be following her.

Bianca ducked into the Christ's Church Graveyard. The gravestones and mausoleums were big and moss-covered. She hid behind the first mausoleum that she could find, a memorial to a man and his wife that rose at least eight feet into the air and was topped by a big cross. Soon she saw a shadow pass in front of the same crypt. She couldn't tell who it was.

Suddenly footsteps pressing down the grass sounded near. The stalker had obviously bounded around behind the mausoleum to search for her. Without glancing over her shoulder, she bolted. She threw herself down on the ground behind some live oaks in a patch of high grass.

Mosquitoes hovered overhead, big, fat ones that looked like vampires with long stingers. They kept on biting her. She didn't dare slap at them. She heard footsteps move all around her, as if someone knew she was nearby but didn't know exactly where.

Right in front of her rose the biggest and oldest mausoleum on the island. If only she could reach it maybe she could find someplace to hide until the creep went away. Bianca didn't hear anything for a long while. She dared to stand up as quietly as possible. No one lunged at her. She moved forward slowly, step by slow step. Finally she pressed herself up against the big mausoleum door.

To her surprise, the door opened. She stepped inside. No one would think to look for her here behind the wrought iron, swinging gate — rusty at that — of an old tomb. She could wait here until the assailant got tired of looking for her and went away.

Someone grabbed her from behind. She tried to scream. His hand was over her mouth. He dragged her away from the wrought iron door to the back of the mausoleum. She saw shelves lining the walls from floor to ceiling, each with an old mahogany casket resting on it.

He slammed her up against the cold stone wall, cold even in this heat. The wall felt damp with slime and mold. Spiders skittered around her. Cobwebs hung overhead, draping themselves from one side of the tomb to the other. They touched her cheek. They felt wet and sticky.

"I warned you what was going to happen to you the next time I saw you." It was Mike Fellini's gruff voice.

She could barely make out his shadowy outline in the dim light of the mausoleum. His voice she would remember anywhere.

Had he been the one to abandon her in the swamp last night for the alligator? Had he been the one who had chased her and Little Katie up into the lighthouse tower, even though at that point he had still supposedly been in prison? Had he been able to come and go at will from his cell until he'd gotten so tired of it that he had escaped permanently?

"I —I had to protect Little Katie. I —I couldn't let you kidnap her and hold her for ransom."

She remembered all too well the incidents of the spring. If she hadn't let Mike think the cops were concealed behind a tree in the fog, he would have taken the little girl. Who knew if Little Katie would be alive now?

"I — I also had to protect Harry."

She gulped, recalling how Mike had been beating Harry silly that night in May. That night she and Harry had been so close, far from the way it was since Marianna had intervened.

"It's payback time!"

Mike's giant form loomed over her. The nineteen-year-old was nearly seven feet tall and weighed over two hundred pounds. He was built like a football player with big, broad shoulders and a titan's chest.

"You can remember my kid brother while you're kissing this world goodbye."

Holding Bianca firmly in place with one hand, he reached up on a shelf with the other. He knocked over a casket. It popped open. A skeleton with empty eye sockets and white hair still attached to it fell out.

It looked like a woman's skeleton, dressed in tattered, torn silks from early in the past century. Her leather shoes toppled to the floor, breaking off the brittle foot bones and taking them to the ground. Bianca didn't have a chance to scream before Mike lifted her up and hurled her into the casket. He slammed the lid down on top of her. She felt him lifting the casket back up on to the shelf. She heard footsteps leaving. The rusty gate swung behind him. Mike was gone.

A dim light shone through a crack in the casket. She could hear birds from the outside. She could still breathe.

Bianca had to get out of here. She tried to push the casket lid up the rest of the way. It was stuck. It wouldn't budge more than an inch or two.

What was she to do? Die here lying in a mausoleum in an old, musty, moldy casket? Bianca felt for her cellphone in her pocket. Thank God it was still there! Would it work inside the mausoleum?

She thought of calling Harry. When she punched in his number, it rang and rang. His message machine wasn't working.

Should she call 911? They would probably think it was a crank phone call if she claimed to be stranded inside a casket in a mausoleum. It sounded like a horror movie.

Bianca remembered the slip of paper in her wallet. She reached into her jeans pocket. It was still there, the one that the new doctor, Byron Kingsley, or Ronnie as he had asked her to call him, had given to her only this morning when he had taken her home.

There was barely enough light to read the number and dial it on the cellphone. She punched the numbers in and held her breath while the phone rang.

"Hello? Dr. Byron Kingsley here," came the prompt answer in that crisp British accent.

"Thank God I reached you!" She burst into tears.

"What's wrong, Bianca?" He recognized her voice. "Try to keep calm and tell me what's happened now."

"I'm — I'm trapped inside a casket."

"Have you been drinking? Are you on medication? Remember those flashbacks I warned you about. You could be hallucinating," he cautioned her.

"I wish I were hallucinating," Bianca sobbed. "Mike Fellini escaped from prison. He's the brother of Harry Fellini, the guy I was going out with. Mike hates me because I didn't let him kidnap Little Katie. Instead he got captured and returned to prison. He swore revenge on me. So when he broke out of jail, Mike followed me on my way to summer school and chased me through the cemetery. When I tried hiding in the big mausoleum, he slapped me inside a casket. The casket's barely cracked open so I can breathe."

"I'll be there in an instant. Stay on the phone. Don't hang up. I don't want to risk losing contact with you for one second."

At least Ronnie believed her! Bianca guessed that after he had found her lying tied to an oak tree beside a swamp with a steak tied to her foot and an alligator chomping her tennis shoe, he would believe anything.

Every second seemed like an eternity as she waited in the casket for Ronnie to find her. He kept on talking to her every few minutes. She could hear him getting into his car and slamming the door. She could hear the sounds of traffic. While she waited, Bianca felt connected to the real world.

"I've just arrived here at the cemetery. It says Christ's Church."

"That's the one!"

"I'm coming after you," Ronnie promised.

"It's the big mausoleum. It's taller than all the others. Older, too. It's a real dingy gray. It's right in the middle of the cemetery beside a big live oak tree with lots of Spanish moss." Bianca tried to remember all the details.

Finally she could hear footsteps in the grass outside the mausoleum. Her heart started pounding faster.

"I'm in here!" she called out as loudly as she could.

The rusty door swung open. Ronnie broke open the casket and snatched her up into his arms. She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him to her as if she never intended to let go.

"Now try to stay calm. You're safe and sound. You'll be all right," Ronnie assured Bianca as he stroked her back and smoothed down her mussed-up hair.

He carried her out of the mausoleum to his car parked along the side of the street. She clutched him around his neck and buried her face in his chest. Bianca couldn't stop sobbing from fright as Ronnie put her down next to him in the front seat. Her arms closed around his waist as he got on his cellphone and called 911.

"Dr. Byron Kingsley here. I'm at the Christ's Church Cemetery." He spoke with the sound of command as he stroked her head. "Get me the police."

He waited a second before he was connected.

"I have Bianca Winters in my car. There's been attempted foul play. Yes, officer, Mike Fellini clapped her into a casket in the old McCollough mausoleum. That's right, the oldest one in the cemetery. That's where I found her — inside a casket with just enough space to breathe. She called me on her cellphone and asked me to come and get her."

The McCollough mausoleum? That had to be Doc's family from a long time ago! She'd been inside the casket of one of his female ancestors. The new McCollough mausoleum, the one from which Doc had been exiled, was on the other side of the cemetery. She'd seen it when she'd gone to Doc's funeral to watch him being buried in a pauper's grave.

"How did you know it was the old McCollough mausoleum?" She dried her tears as they waited together for the police to arrive.

"It said so right on the front, in faded letters," he replied matter-of-factly.

She flushed as she continued to dab her eyes. How stupid of her! She had not been paying attention.

"Wipe all thoughts of what has happened from your mind. Think of nothing except relaxing. Visualize yourself relaxing each part of your body one at a time. First let your right arm go limp, then your left. Think that it feels heavy. Let your right leg go limp, then your left. Relax your neck. Think that you can't hold it upright any more. Try to slump against the seat and feel tired as if you could go to sleep."

"But — but I can't go to sleep now! I — I could have died!"

He took her chin between his fingers and stared deep into her eyes, giving her a strange feeling that she could not quite put her finger on.

"Many people go through near-death experiences and survive to tell about them — many more than you can possibly imagine. You can't dwell on the past. You have to go forward."

She nodded obediently and stopped sniffling. She sat there silently while the police swarmed around their car. Ronnie got out to help them.

At the last minute he leaned in the window.

"Wait here with the doors locked. Don't go anywhere or talk to anyone until I get back."

Ronnie led the police back into the cemetery to the exact spot where he had found her. Bianca waited there with the air-conditioning running. When he still did not return after awhile, she leaped out and looked around. She paced back and forth in front of the car, not liking to be left alone. Despite the fact that Ronnie had told her not to, she even started into the cemetery to look for him.

She spotted his blond head rising above a bush. She heard voices as Ronnie approached talking to the policemen. They were taking notes based on what he was telling them. He saw her at once and frowned, motioning for her to climb back into the car.

"As long as Miss Winters feels well enough, we could ask her some questions," the policeman suggested.

Ronnie said nothing, though he crossed his brows at Bianca. It seemed that he had wanted to spare her this ordeal. He stood quietly beside her while the policeman asked question after question. Finally Ronnie gave the officer his card and drove Bianca home. He accompanied her inside the house.

There was a note from her parents on the kitchen table. They were going to be away for a week on business for their travel agency.

"This is no place to leave you for the next few days," Ronnie told her. "You're coming home with me to my apartment. I don't have any roommates. I've got plenty of space."

"But-"

He started to lead her toward his car.

"I need to pack." She tried to stall and think. He was rushing her so fast!

"Remember what I warned you about post-traumatic stress syndrome. Somebody who has your past — I took the liberty of looking up your medical records at the hospital — and who was just stranded on the roof of the lighthouse and almost killed by an assailant three times in one week shouldn't be left alone."

Bianca guessed she had to agree. Besides, as she looked into his eyes, he smiled at her. He quelled all her doubts about going to a stranger's apartment.

He stood by while she put a few items into a suitcase and wrote a note in case her parents should return earlier than planned.

As soon as she'd unpacked, Ronnie told her that they would practice some relaxation techniques in the living room. That sounded like a good idea. He told her to lie down and make herself comfortable on the sofa. He helped her put her feet up on a pillow. He propped her head up on another pillow.

"Comfortable?" He asked.

She nodded.

He repeated his mantra about relaxing one leg and one arm at a time. Something about his presence was making her heart beat faster and faster rather than relaxing her. He leaned closer while he was talking to her. Her heart pounded against her chest.

Ronnie stopped talking and kissed her lips. The touch of his lips stunned Bianca. Again she felt deja vu. She felt transported back to several months ago, even a year or more. She had placed all her trust in "Doc" Ernie McCollough in those days. In fact, she had adored him before she'd found out what he had been up to. Still she could summon up the feeling, despite all that had happened.

Strange, she was beginning to feel that way again with this new young man from England!

Ronnie moved from her lips to her chin and down her neck, tracing a path with his lips. He kept on repeating as he did so, "Relax at my touch," in a tone of voice that was hypnotic. He pulled up her T-shirt and kissed her breasts. He traced a path down to her belly button, unzipping her jeans. She felt herself yielding to him completely. For a moment she experienced a quaver of a doubt, until she remembered seeing Harry with Marianna at the cafe. Then she had no more doubts.

"Good, now you're relaxed." Ronnie got up to make tea, almost as if this were part of every doctor's routine for making a patient relax.

Her body was still throbbing to his touch.

He had her stay in his apartment even after he left for the hospital. He told her to make a late dinner. When he got back, he ate and went to bed early. She could hardly sleep, tossing, turning and thinking about how strange the bed was and how dark it was in her separate bedroom. The bed somehow seemed too high off the ground. With the door shut, she could hardly breathe. She kept on thinking about the casket.

Bianca crept over to Ronnie's bedroom in the middle of the night. She remembered this was how she used to behave with Doc. They would stay late at the medical library. He would say it was too late to go back home. They'd check into a motel. At first he would study. They would go to sleep in separate beds. She'd ask to come into his bed at some time during the night because the darkness would be getting to her. He'd let her.

"Please!" she urged Ronnie when she saw his eyes open. "I need some company. You see, I'm still scared of the dark. I thought I was licking it this spring. During the past few days, ever since the lighthouse, I feel much worse."

He pulled back the covers for her.

Near morning she got up to go to the bathroom. She came back to bed. A ray of light illuminated Ronnie's body in a certain pose that sent shock waves through her. It reminded her exactly of the way Doc used to sleep. When Ronnie turned and she could see his face, she felt reassured again that he wasn't a ghost. She could snuggle up against Ronnie and go back to sleep.

Chapter 4

When Bianca woke up later in the morning, Ronnie was at his desk, studying patients' records in preparation for going on duty at the hospital. She made scrambled eggs and bacon. While the bacon was sizzling and she was turning it over, she remembered Harry. The memory stung more than the bacon spitting at her and burning her arm.

Harry. . . This was the first time that she'd been unfaithful to him since they'd met that May night at the movie theater. She couldn't blame herself entirely, though. Harry had been two-timing her with Marianna. She and Harry had to talk. She longed for the intimacy of their conversations, where they bared their souls to each other and discussed matters as equals.

She served Ronnie breakfast at his desk. He was on the phone talking to the hospital as he ate. While she was eating her own breakfast alone in the kitchen, she got out her cellphone. She punched in Harry's dorm phone number. His answering machine came on.

"Hello, Harry, I've got to talk to you. This is Bianca." Bianca started to leave a message. She glanced back over her shoulder. She was afraid that Ronnie would hear.

"Harry's not here right now. He's in class." A female voice with a nasal snort interrupted Bianca's recording. She spoke in a southern accent. "Could I take a message?"

Bianca pressed the end button. She threw the phone down and stared at it before she burst into tears. That had been Marianna. There could be no doubt about it.

"Harry Fellini is part of your problem." Ronnie slipped his arm around her shoulders. "You should have better taste. He's after your money."

She groaned. "That must be why he took one hundred thousand out of my account without saying anything."

"Call your banker right now. Instruct him that Harry Fellini can't withdraw any more."

"But — but I told his mother that if they needed anything. . ."

"The Shipleys have been generous enough with that Fellini crime family. I took the liberty of reading back issues of the newspaper in the hospital library to acquaint myself with the situation. You don't have to give the Fellinis another cent — believe me!"

Ronnie found the banker's number in her address book. He handed her the phone. She stuttered and acted awkward. As it turned out, the banker thoroughly agreed with Ronnie. Harry wasn't to be trusted.

So it went for the rest of the week. Her parents were away. Bianca lived in Ronnie's apartment when she wasn't in summer school or at the Shipleys. She did the cooking and housekeeping. Ronnie rarely took her out. He said that he was too tired after his rounds at the hospital. He preferred to stay home and teach her to relax.

Bianca's fears didn't seem to be abating since Mike Fellini had locked her inside a coffin. The felon was still at large, which accounted for some of her jitters. Ronnie had to start dropping her off at school and picking her up. He took turns along with the Shipleys, despite the fact that her car had been towed back to her house from Fort Frederica. Bianca was afraid to walk or drive alone near the cemetery. The trees there made it dark on a bright, sunny day. Besides most summer days in Georgia were overcast. The sky was white and washed out, if not downright cloudy.

In summer school her English class was supposed to put on a play. Since the incident at the lighthouse, Bianca couldn't climb the narrow stairs up to the stage without clutching the railing. The stage had never seemed too high before. Now it did.

The upper floor at the library? Forget it! She couldn't ascend the narrow, spiral staircase to save her life, not without getting down on her hands and knees and crawling. If she needed a book, a librarian had to fetch it. Either that or Bianca did her research online.

Ronnie often met her at the library. He made a point of watching her climb up and down the spiral staircase, encouraging her as she did so. Her legs were so wobbly she felt like a cripple.

On Friday her English teacher assigned Bianca a paper that was due Monday. She had to do research about Edgar Allan Poe in the library and stay after school real late. Even the librarian had left. The librarian had instructed her to close up after she was finished. Everybody trusted Bianca. Bianca Winters was the heroine of St. Simons Island. Only lately she hadn't felt much like a heroine.

As she read, the hairs on the top of Bianca's head stood up on end. Somebody was watching her. During the last few months she'd learned to trust her instincts. She leaped up from the table where she had been taking notes and hid behind a row of encyclopedias on the lower floor.

The lights blinked out. Only a pale glow filtered in through the windows. It was cloudy and dark, right before a summer thunderstorm. She waited until she saw a darting shadow behind the next stack. She made a dash for it to the elevator, illuminated by a red emergency light. She raced inside. The doors closed behind her.

"I'm not happy with you, Bianca. Not only do you prevent me from taking Little Katie and ending this all real fast, but now the police are snooping on the street outside my hideout. Police make me nervous, Bianca. I don't like to see them drive past in a squad car."

"Mike?" she asked. "Is that you?" He was talking in a bare whisper so as to disguise his voice.

"Do you think I'd be stupid enough to tell you who I am? You'll find out soon enough. Then I pity you, Bianca. Do you hear me? I pity you."

She could feel his hot breath on her neck. He toyed with her, making his fingers skitter up and down her throat. His fingers closed around her windpipe and pressed down.

The elevator must be broken. It went up and down from floor to floor without stopping. She didn't know if it was because of the thunderstorm or because the stalker had control of it. Finally the doors opened. She screamed and darted out. At the end of the darkened hallway, Bianca ran smack into a head of dark, flyaway hair.

"I'm home for the weekend!" Harry hugged her. "I rushed back from Brunswick and almost got a speeding ticket. Your parents told me you were here researching a paper."

Bianca gasped. For a minute she wondered whether it had been Harry in the elevator shaft. There was nobody else around. He didn't usually sneak up on her like this.

She remembered the girl who had answered the phone when she had called Harry's dorm room — Marianna Haynes. Bianca could hear her sugary sweet, southern accent. She could imagine Marianna holding Harry's hand and squeezing it in the cafe. The $100,000 withdrawal from her bank account flashed through her mind.

Bianca smacked Harry across the face.

He gaped at her and blinked. "What did I do wrong, hon?"

"Don't play innocent. I thought we were supposed to share everything, tell each other everything." She glowered at Harry.

He looked at her blankly. "That's exactly what I do every day."

"How can you stand there and tell me that after everything I've seen?"

"Hon, I was back here on Monday. I don't remember your saying any of this then. What's come up? Why didn't you call me if something's wrong?"

"Why didn't I call you?" Was Harry mocking her? Without another word, Bianca stomped out of the building.

Harry grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around to face him. "Bianca, you're not acting like yourself."

"Ronnie says I shouldn't believe you, that you've been after my money all along, and—"

"Who's this Ronnie dude?"

"Dr. Byron Kingsley is the hospital intern who carried me down from the lighthouse on Monday. He's a doctor specializing in psychiatry from England."

She didn't mention how he'd saved her from the casket and the alligator. Now she felt she was on shaky ground. She'd been living with Ronnie for the whole week in his apartment. Harry knew nothing about it.

Harry first paled, then turned red in the face. "I'm gonna go find this creep and have it out with him."

"I saw you with Marianna Haynes at Charley's Cafe in the Village. I heard Marianna answer your dorm phone. There's no way to pretend you didn't withdraw one hundred thousand dollars from my bank account without even asking me. Not that I begrudge you the money. But I'm not gonna have you spend it on other girls behind my back."

Harry's jaw dropped. He looked so shocked that he wobbled on his feet and caught on to a nearby trash bin to steady himself.

"Now wait a minute. . . After the way we feel about each other, how could you believe any of this crap. . ."

"Simple. I saw it with my own eyes."

"I wasn't out with Marianna Haynes. There haven't been any girls in my dorm room. I've never taken any money from you in my life."

He fumbled with his wallet to get out his checkbook. He waved the check register in her face, pointing to the bank balance.

"There ain't no hundred thousand grand here, hon. You're dreaming," Harry insisted. "I'll take a lie detector test if you don't believe me."

She burst into tears and ran for her car. "Leave me alone!"

She'd seen a flash of the old Harry in his eyes. He looked earnest enough. Then how could she deny her own eyes and ears? The whole world had gone crazy.

Bianca leaped into her car. She locked the doors and flooded the motor. Harry pounded on the window glass and tried to make himself heard over the roar of the engine.

She was off in a cloud of exhaust. Bianca was too upset to know where she was driving. She retraced the same path aimlessly around the Village in the "downtown" part of St. Simons Island near the harbor. She heard Ronnie talking in her head. He repeated again that she had to learn to "get hold of herself". Then she remembered that she had planned to go home after the library to pick up some dresses of hers to take over to Ronnie's apartment. Ronnie had told her that they were going to be attending a big party.

"There's a party at the Cloister Hotel on Friday night for the hospital interns. We're supposed to bring dates. It would do you some good to get out. But you don't have anything to wear. For a rich girl you seem to be rather indifferent to your clothing."

Bianca parked in her driveway and went up to her bedroom. She listened to the messages on the answering machine. Her mother had called to say:

Your dad and I decided to go on an Alaska Cruise followed by a Cruise Tour to celebrate our twenty-fifth anniversary The Maitlands suggested it. They had fun on their cruise a month ago. We just barely got tickets. Somebody else cancelled at the last minute. We'll be gone a few weeks. It should be good for the travel agency to get firsthand cruise experience. We'll send plenty of postcards and gifts. Bon voyage!

Bianca started to pack her suitcase. The Maitlands were new customers of her parents since they had become "rich". So many people depended on Bianca, including her parents' travel agency and all their new clients. She couldn't afford to let them down. She had to be careful to "get a hold on herself".

The floorboards creaked behind her. Bianca heard footsteps. She looked up. There stood Marianna in a tight-fitting halter top. Her leather pants hugged every curve of her hips and thighs.

"Hi! Thought we'd talk since we now share so much in common."

Bianca gasped. "What — what do you mean?" Her hand spasmed. She dropped her cocktail dress on to the floor.

How had Marianna gotten in here? Bianca must have been so distracted with worry driving here that she had forgotten to lock the downstairs door.

Marianna spread photos of herself and Harry all over Bianca's bed. Some showed them at the beach together. Some showed them in his dorm room at the campus. Bianca could even see the room number on the door. Others had been taken in a bubble bath, presumably with nothing on underneath. Marianna's dark hair was floating all around them. She had her arms around Harry from behind. Her chin was resting on his shoulder.

Bianca picked up one photo. With a trembling hand she held it up to her face. It was unmistakably Harry Fellini. She couldn't deny it. He had the same fine, straight, flyaway black hair and big, dark eyes. He looked wiry and slim. His shoulder muscles looked the same.

"Rick Roscoe and I broke up." Marianna leaned close to Bianca. "I wanted a richer boyfriend. Harry is much richer since he got that hundred thousand dollars from you."

How would Marianna have known about the one hundred thousand dollars unless Harry had told her? It hadn't been announced in the newspaper!

Marianna cackled. She held her leather-clad belly with the belly button exposed. She flung herself down on to Bianca's bed and rocked back and forth with mirth.

"Don't you get the idea? Guys like you all right. They like your money." Marianna leaned on one elbow. "But you can't compete with me in the sex department."

Bianca groped blindly inside her dresser drawer for her own photos of Harry. She had not yet had time to put them into an album. As she held them next to Marianna's snapshots, she tried to blink back tears.

She grabbed a picture of Harry at high-school graduation with his arms around her waist. He was dressed in a black robe. She wasn't, which was why she was attending summer school. She put it next to the one of Harry and Marianna in the bubble bath.

Bianca thought, Harry, you were the only one I trusted! Big tears coursed down her cheeks.

Marianna breathed down Bianca's neck.

"You're always whimpering and crying. People think you're the heroine of St. Simons Island. They don't know you like I do."

Marianna reached for the lights. She turned them off. "I bet you're still scared of the dark."

It was totally dark outside now. It was totally dark in her bedroom. The darkness seemed to press in on Bianca. It whispered in her ears, "Coward! Coward! Coward!"

Bianca freaked. She ran in panicked flight, trying to escape from the room. Marianna had carefully inserted herself between Bianca and the door to the upstairs hallway. Bianca slammed into her. She couldn't get around Marianna's body.

"Please let me out!" Bianca sobbed.

"You deserve it, girl. You've got to pay me back for tripping me in that cemetery in May and making me fall into that open grave. You almost killed me."

Bianca tried the other door through the bathroom. This time Marianna jumped out from behind the shower curtain and shouted, "Boo!" almost scaring Bianca to death.

"Harry and I play this game of Peek-a-boo all the time. We think of you while we do it. We laugh. You're such a little ninny."

Bianca ran out on to the balcony attached to her second floor bedroom. Marianna cornered her. She pushed Bianca back up against the railing.

Bianca peered over her shoulder. It seemed a long way down to the stream below flowing through the woods. Rocks glowed in the moonlight. Bianca thought she saw yellow alligator eyes.

Her head whirled around. Bianca clutched the railing. She could barely keep her balance. Suddenly she was back on the roof of the lighthouse clinging to Little Katie, screaming for her life.

Marianna hissed into Bianca's ear. "Life's not worth much when you're scared of your own shadow, is it?"

Marianna was pressing all her weight against Bianca. She could barely hold on. The ground appeared closer and closer. Bianca seemed to be falling down to meet it.

Chapter 5

Honk! Honk! Honk!

Bianca shook herself. She didn't know how long she'd been here like this. She was still on her balcony slumped against the railing — not in the stream below. She must have imagined falling. Marianna was no longer anywhere around.

Honk! Honk! Honk!

She looked toward her driveway and stood up. It was too dark to make out anything except the outlines of a car.

She put her hand to her head and thought, Oh yes! It must be Ronnie. He'll probably stop for me on his way home from the hospital.

Bianca raced back inside her bedroom. She grabbed her suitcase and hurriedly ran a comb through her mussed-up hair. She charged downstairs, nervously flicking on the lights as she went. By the time she reached the front door, her house was lighted up like a Christmas tree. She leaped into the front seat of the car.

"I'm sorry, Ronnie. I — I got held up. I—"

Automatic door locks clicked. The car started down the road. Rick Roscoe brushed his knotted mass of curly blond hair out of his eyes and stared at her.

"Rick, what — what are you doing here? There must be some mistake. Marianna's not here any more if you're looking for her. I—"

"Don't talk to me about that bitch, Marianna. We're history. You and me, gal," he reached over and patted her on the leg, "now that's another story."

Bianca gaped at him in fright.

He slid his arm around her waist and forced her against him.

"Act more friendly, girl. Don't be such a snob. You were once as poor as a church mouse like me. We got along a lot better back then. Don't you remember our first date at the movies?"

Their first date back in May had been their last. It had turned into a disaster as Rick and Marianna had pursued her and Harry home from the Island Theater. The goons had chased them through Christ's Church Cemetery. Marianna had fallen into an open grave. They had straggled back to Bianca's house in time for Rick to get arrested and carted off to the police station as Marianna had been taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Rick pulled over along the side of the road. He forced his lips down on top of hers, crushing her body against his. Bianca could hardly breathe as she pummeled him with her fists. Rick fell on top of her and knocked her down on to the front seat.

"You're going to be my gal now, you and all your millions, whether you like it or not."

The darkness swirled around her. Bianca tried to get hold of herself and not panic as Ronnie had told her to. She grabbed the car keys and jabbed them into Rick's arm.

He sprang back, crying out in pain. He got out a gun and held it to her head as they progressed down the street to the Shipleys' house. They stopped on the other side of the road.

"Now get out, go in there, and ask for Little Katie. She's gonna be my meal ticket all right. You might be worth two million, but she's worth much, much more."

"What — what are you talking about?"

"Tell them you want to take the little girl to a movie. Out to eat with your friends. Anything! You're Miss Perfect as far as they're concerned. You can do no wrong."

"You mean you want to kidnap Katie? And you want me to do it for you?"

"You're finally catching on."

"I'd rather die."

"Yeah, well try looking down the barrel of a gun and tell me that." He cocked his pistol. "Get out of the car. Take it slow and easy. Ask for Katie at the front door. Don't go inside. If you give me the slip, I'll be waiting for you when you come out."

Bianca climbed out of the car, hoping she might be able to get away somehow. She paced slowly up to the front door, glancing back over her shoulder.

The front door burst open. There stood Dr. Rankin, the Shipleys' family physician. Beside him stood Dr. Byron Kingsley. They were saying goodbye to Mr. and Mrs. Shipley. Mrs. Shipley was holding Little Katie in her arms.

Bianca rushed up to the little girl and hugged her. "Is anything wrong?"

"Katie's developed some sort of mysterious rash," Mrs. Shipley tried to explain. "Dr. Rankin was making a house call."

"Let's say bye-bye to Dr. Rankin." Mr. Shipley raised Little Katie's hand and had her wave at the doctor as he hurried to his car parked along the side of the street.

Bianca looked up and down the street in fright, searching for Rick Roscoe. He had pulled down the street a little so as not to be so obvious from the front door. She could not see his face clearly in the dark. But she could imagine that he was still staring at her. She could picture the glint of the silver pistol. She swallowed hard.

Ronnie raised his hand and waved at Dr. Rankin himself. He waved and waved, long after the doctor, with a beep of his horn, had disappeared down the street.

Byron Kingsley escorted Mrs. Shipley and Bianca back into the living room, followed by Mr. Shipley. Bianca kept on thinking about what Rick had threatened. If she went inside the house, he would be waiting for her later.

Ronnie said, "I was looking for you, Bianca. I happened to come by when Dr. Rankin arrived to examine Little Katie."

"It's a good thing Dr. Kingsley was here." Mrs. Shipley remarked. "He's very good at explaining to us what's going on."

To Bianca's horror, she could see that Little Katie's arm was covered with a mean red rash. There was even a blister or two.

"Dr. Rankin has taken a skin sample, and he's doing some tests," Ronnie told Bianca.

"I hope it's not serious!" Bianca took out Little Katie's favorite toys. She started to play with TR and Lou, the bears, as she sat on the floor next to the toddler. Katie crawled over to her and played along.

"It's not skin cancer, if that's what you mean." Mr. Shipley said. "The doctor thinks it might be a severe allergic reaction of some kind."

"To some kind of poisonous plant or something." Mrs. Shipley shook her head.

Poison! That word stuck in Bianca's mind. "How did Little Katie come in contact with poison?"

"It's not that kind of poison. It could be as simple as some sort of plant growing in the backyard," Ronnie explained.

"What's disturbing is that Dr. Rankin can't identify it," Mrs. Shipley confided to Bianca. "And he's an expert."

They discussed Katie's condition for some minutes more. Then Ronnie promised that he would drive Bianca back in the morning to visit Katie. They had to go now. They had to get to the party at the Cloister Hotel. They were already late.

"I do hope you remembered to bring that dress." Ronnie hurried Bianca out the front door. "They won't allow jeans at the Cloister, you know. It's a very formal place."

Bianca suddenly remembered her suitcase. She had left it in Rick Roscoe's car. She didn't know how to explain that to Ronnie. So she kept her mouth shut.

She looked around for Rick. Bianca didn't see him anywhere. He had not carried out his threat to get back at her when she came out of the Shipleys' house. That was not like Rick. He usually carried out his threats to the letter.

"Well, do you have a dress?" Ronnie pressed her.

"I — I got held up. I — I forgot." Bianca made her excuses awkwardly.

Ronnie looked troubled. "Lately you disturb me with how easily you seem to forget things. It shows mental confusion. But here —" Ronnie opened the door of his car — "I've got a dress for you. I figured that you might not remember."

Ronnie handed her a party dress in exactly her size. He even had a matching pair of high heels.

"You can change in the back seat."

She marveled at how Ronnie knew her size exactly. After all, they hadn't known each other that long. Then maybe he'd glanced at her clothes' labels. Her clothes were hanging all over his closet back at his apartment.

They drove in silence over the short bridge that connected St. Simons Island to Sea Island, the location of the Cloister Hotel. The place was illuminated by lights, showing off a drive lined with palms, a manicured green lawn and formal garden beds featuring azaleas, rhododendrons and bulbs. A fountain plashed into a pool nearby. The drive led up to the white-washed stucco main building with a red-tiled roof.

Just before they reached the front door of the Cloister, Ronnie stopped the car. "Here, you don't have it just right. You're very careless about the little details of your appearance, my dear."

He unbuttoned her dress all the way down the front. Then he buttoned it back up again slowly, lingering over the buttons right next to her nipples. Her breasts brushed against his fingers.

She wriggled and fidgeted as the night air, redolent with the scent of magnolias, drifted in the window. There were couples in formal clothes getting out of their cars. She didn't know why Ronnie had to humiliate her like this and make her blush to the roots of her hair.

"You have to sit still," he admonished Bianca.

Her cheeks burned and tingled with embarrassment. "Hurry, Ronnie, everybody is looking!"

"Nonsense! You're imagining that everybody is looking. You have to get over that, you know, being so self-conscious. The truth is that most people are so concerned with themselves that they hardly notice what's going on around them. Then I forget, you're only eighteen."

Finally he finished buttoning her dress the correct way. "Right now we have other doctors to meet." Ronnie glanced at her in disapproval. "Let's put on a smile."

He drove up to the front of the hotel. Uniformed doormen opened both the door on the driver's side and the passenger side. A doorman held open the main lobby door for Bianca. Ronnie followed right behind her.

Bianca hesitated at the edge of the ballroom. It was dark. The only illumination came from overhead chandeliers and the crystal on the banquet tables that caught the light and glistened. There seemed to be enough silver, crystal and china to make up a king's banquet.

"Come on, Bianca," Ronnie whispered into her ear. "Remember what I told you about mastering your fears? You've got to challenge yourself. If you're still afraid of the dark, the only place to be is in the dark."

He caught hold of her elbow and propelled her forward into the crowd of interns from the hospital. They were mingling with resident doctors and their wives and girlfriends. Everyone was dressed to the hilt. Bianca could not help but notice that Ronnie had shed his raincoat and was now wearing a tux himself. He looked good in it and moved gracefully, not at all like Harry at the senior prom.

Ronnie acted as if he had attended formal parties like this before — many times. Then she noticed that he didn't exactly seem to be poor himself. After all, this dress that he had purchased for her looked elegant and expensive.

Bianca's new gown was a pink-sequin creation with a low V-neck that showed off her cleavage and was all held up by only two thin straps. The dress fitted closely and was decorated with beads. The decorations created a floral design in front. The hem was asymmetrical — shorter in the front and longer in the back like a train. She was carrying a matching evening bag and was wearing pink leather sandals with sequined straps.

Ronnie acted as if he knew everybody. Many of the interns were from foreign countries — England, France, Italy, Japan and Latin America. Bianca couldn't count all the languages that she heard being spoken. Interns from the United States appeared to be in the minority.

Even more amazing, Ronnie moved from group to group with surprising ease. He talked a little German, a little French and a lot of Spanish. He even seemed to speak another language fluently, one that sounded a lot like Spanish but wasn't quite it. He was conversing with other interns whose name tags said "Brazil".

Ronnie poured her a glass of wine and told Bianca to just stand there beside him. If she didn't feel like saying anything, she was to act like a statue.

"Above all, don't fidget!" Ronnie hissed into her ear right before he launched into a long discussion in Portuguese with three Brazilian interns in tuxes.

Bianca didn't have anything else to do besides brood about her problems and look out the windows to see if perhaps Rick Roscoe had followed her here to carry out his threats. So, while she tugged at one of her turquoise earrings, she tried to count the number of people at the party. That was the sort of thing that Ronnie had told her to do — distract herself. Bianca hadn't gotten past fifty-one or fifty-two when she saw someone she thought she recognized. He was standing in a far corner of the room in the shadows all by himself. Why, it looked like Harry Fellini!

Bianca recalled their last meeting outside the library. That had been right before Marianna had spilled the beans about their relationship beyond any doubt whatsoever by showing Bianca photos.

Bianca clenched her jaw and ground her teeth together. What was Harry doing here? Trying to rub it in? Harry certainly wasn't a medical intern. In fact, he didn't belong in a medical crowd at all. Nevertheless, he was standing here dressed in an ordinary business suit eyeing her.

"Where are you going?" Ronnie interrupted his conversation for a minute to ask Bianca. He evidently didn't see Harry. If he did, he didn't recognize him in a suit.

"I — I just need some more wine."

Bianca tried to excuse herself as gracefully as possible. She held up her crystal glass and smiled. Indeed it was almost empty. She must have been sipping it all along, though she couldn't remember doing so. No doubt Ronnie would think that was another sign of her deteriorating mental condition.

Bianca inched her way toward the banquet table in the center of the room. It sat near the big picture windows where uniformed waiters were constantly refreshing the punch bowl as well as the number of wine bottles on ice. They were bringing more plates of shrimp hors d'oeuvres. They were refilling the three-tiered trays of sweets.

Harry seemed to get the message. He moved quickly and quietly toward the same table himself. He darted behind pillars whenever he could, hiding behind groups of doctors whenever he could not.

A waiter moved forward to grab Bianca's glass and automatically refill it. As soon as Harry stopped in front of the crystal punch bowl, one of the waiters stationed near it filled a cup of punch and handed it to him. The waiters in white coats and black suit pants retreated to the nearest pillar and stood there motionless.

Bianca and Harry eyed each other for awhile before speaking.

"Well, fancy meeting you here!" she snapped frostily.

"So this is your Dr. Byron Kingsley dude!" Harry nodded toward Ronnie and the Latin American interns. "I hear from the neighbors you've been shacking up with him all week long, ever since I left, in fact."

"At least Ronnie has enough taste not to invite photographers into the apartment. He doesn't have pictures taken in the bathtub the way you and Marianna Haynes do," Bianca hissed in a low whisper.

"Look, I don't know what lies that guy's been filling your head with, but he looks mighty suspicious himself — at least to me."

Harry glanced at Ronnie out of the corner of his eye. "I've been asking people questions about him, just like they're teaching us to do at the Academy in Brunswick. It's part of our surveillance and bodyguard training. Nobody knows anything about him. Oh, they know he's an English intern all right. They don't know anything else — except that he spends lots and lots of money."

"You can play James Bond all you want." Bianca drew herself up. "Ronnie and I are none of your business."

"What's more, nobody ever saw this Byron Kingsley before a week or two ago."

"He's from London!" Bianca reminded Harry. "He just arrived."

"Maybe so. But at lot of the other interns who just arrived a week or two ago have managed to meet lots and lots of people. They have connections, friends, girlfriends. He doesn't. Even his landlady knows nothing about him except what he filled out on his apartment lease — name, address, phone number and that sort of thing. She doesn't even know his birthday or his favorite flavor of ice cream."

"Is that a crime?"

"Even stranger yet," Harry leaned closer and whispered in a barely audible tone of voice, "I saw him in the pharmacy early this evening after I met you at the library. I was buying something for my mom. I was in line behind some guy. I saw the name Byron Kingsley on the credit card he handed to the cashier. He was buying a box of blond hair dye. I hid myself behind a mannequin until he left the store."

"Don't you have anything better to do than snoop!" Bianca was shocked.

"I followed him after that. He went to the local gym to work out. Everybody else was wearing shorts and T-shirts. He wore long pants and long sleeves, as if he had something to hide."

"What could he possibly have to hide?"

"I don't know. That's just the point."

Bianca turned to go. She sucked in her breath in surprise as Ronnie himself slipped his arm around her waist. He turned her back to face Harry. She should never attempt anything behind Ronnie's back. It didn't work. He knew everything that she did.

"What are you doing here?" Ronnie confronted Harry.

"Better yet, what are you doing stealing my girl?" Harry challenged him.

Ronnie looked Harry up and down and sniffed.

"Really, my dear," he said to Bianca, "I advise you to have better taste and not associate with the lowlife of St. Simons Island! A girl of your position and stature really ought to have more suitable friends."

Harry lost his temper. He threw his cup of punch in Ronnie's face.

Ronnie stood there glaring back at him, not moving an inch. He fished out his handkerchief and wiped his face. He grabbed his cellphone out of his pocket and summoned the police from outside the building.

"He assaulted me," Ronnie accused Harry once the police surrounded them. "This is the convict's kid brother — you know, Harry Fellini. It's in all the papers how Mike has escaped again. I suspect Harry had something to do with it."

"No, he couldn't have," Bianca spoke up in a small voice.

"Bianca, hush! Don't interfere in matters you don't know anything about," Ronnie scolded her in a low whisper as if she were a child and didn't know any better.

"But—"

Ronnie shook his head at her.

She bit her tongue. It was still hard to believe that Harry had anything to do with Mike when he had been at school in Brunswick.

The police arrested Harry. They handcuffed him, read him his Miranda rights, and dragged him off.

"You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. Anything you say can and will be used against you. . ."

Bianca's heart went out to her old boyfriend as they led Harry toward the door. Harry paused briefly at the top step and gazed back at her. Their eyes met. Then he was gone.

Chapter 6

As soon as Harry had been arrested and dragged out of the room, a dark pall seemed to be cast over everything. Harry had always been the one who had told Bianca that she could do everything, that she could overcome every fear by herself. He was the one who had always told her that she was strong. Even during the darkest days this past spring when Doc had put her back in the hospital, Harry had stood up for her and made her feel good.

Now she didn't understand what was happening to her. All the progress she had made toward overcoming her fear of the dark seemed to vanish in an instant. The darkness in the room closed in on her. It pressed down on her head and her shoulders. It forced itself down on her chest so that she could hardly breathe.

Ronnie grabbed hold of Bianca's elbow and escorted her across the room. There was an eminent psychiatrist that he wanted her to meet. The man gave lectures at Northern Florida University down in Jacksonville. He had helped to inspire Ronnie's interest in problems of the mind.

She felt the sweat start up under her arms as Ronnie introduced her to eminent physician after eminent physician. She could barely extend her arm to greet them and shake their hands. It took all her strength of will to keep herself from fleeing the dimly lighted room this very instant.

A chandelier blinked out near where she was standing. While one of the waiters changed the light bulb, Bianca couldn't help herself. She tugged at Ronnie's tuxedo sleeve. They were standing there by themselves before they met the next group of important doctors.

"Ronnie, I want to leave now."

"Bianca, the evening's just getting started. There are a lot more doctors I want you to meet."

She swallowed hard. "I'm sorry, but I have to go. Please! I don't want to spoil your evening. I'll make it up to you somehow. I promise."

"You know you should stay and fight your fears. That's the only way to conquer them. If you flee now, you'll only have to come back here again another night and confront the darkness all over again."

"Let's do it another night. Please!"

"Very well. You make the decision. I'll go get your shawl," Ronnie offered.

He led her over to the stairway. They climbed to the top step. She clutched his arm. He had to aid her every step of the way because she constantly felt as if she were about to stumble and fall. Even though they were merely stairs out of the dining room, they felt so high up.

"You wait here." He positioned Bianca exactly at the top of the stairway leading down into the ballroom. "Don't move until I get back."

She wanted to protest. Her tongue seemed all tied up in her mouth. She tried to avert her eyes from the plunge down the steps, but she couldn't.

Suddenly it reminded her of standing on top of the lighthouse clutching Little Katie, except that Little Katie wasn't here now. Bianca could be brave for the little girl. Yet when Katie wasn't here to help her be strong, she lost it. She clutched the banister, feeling herself beginning to sway. Her head whirled around and around.

"Are you all right, miss?" a waiter asked.

"Oh yes . . . I'm fine." She managed to smile.

Where was Ronnie? Why was he taking so long? She glanced toward the door to the outside. Bianca wanted to get there. She didn't know if she could manage it by herself. What was happening to her? She used to be able to get around town by herself. Bianca was becoming an emotional cripple.

Finally Ronnie slipped her shawl around her shoulders. With relief she leaned back against his chest.

"The car's waiting. I tipped the doorman to fetch it."

When they arrived back at Ronnie's apartment, she immediately turned on the lights.

"Now, Bianca, I want you to go lie down in the bedroom while I take my shower and get ready for bed." He led her over to the bed.

"Aren't you going to take off your shoes?" he asked as she did so. When he left the room, he flicked off the lights.

Again she was alone in the darkness. She clutched a pillow to her and tried to concentrate on the slim bar of light emanating from under the bottom of the closed bathroom door where Ronnie was taking his shower.

Finally she heard him coming out. Bianca leaped up off the bed and ran to him. She threw her arms around Ronnie and hugged him to her, dressed as he was now in his terry cloth bathrobe. He was rather formal. He always insisted on niceties like that.

"My, my, Bianca, get hold of yourself!" He stroked her hair and wound it around his fingers. "This does seem to be a rather severe regression on your part. We'll have to explore it in the morning when we have more time."

With that he picked her up and carried her over to his bed. Bianca woke up during the night and thought, This is dark, too. Then she told herself it wasn't the same. Ronnie was with her. His body was warm next to hers even if he was fast asleep.

So gradually her eyes closed, and she went back to sleep again. Her eyelids flicked open. Each time she would snuggle up closer to Ronnie, pressing her back more firmly against his. She even intertwined her legs with his.

When the room got impossibly dark, she turned and faced Ronnie. She couldn't see anything else except him. She couldn't feel anything except his striped pajama top. She could relax at last.

Bianca had planned to go to summer school the next day after Ronnie left for his internship at the hospital. He wanted to make a lecture given by Dr. Rankin, the Shipleys' family physician.

Ronnie's advice was different. He advised her not to exert herself. She should stay in the apartment and rest. When he got back, they could finish exploring together everything that had happened yesterday.

Bianca was afraid of flunking out of summer school. The teachers had already issued strict warnings about her grades. They had told her that she wouldn't graduate from high school if she didn't apply herself. Summer school was her last chance — unless she wanted to repeat grade twelve all over again in the fall!

Bianca phoned her lawyer. He had helped Harry when he had been arrested in the spring. That had been the last time that his brother, Mike, had broken out of jail. She directed the lawyer to get Harry out on bail if he could. It was the least she could do for him. She had done as much before. Everybody deserved a fair shake.

Bianca left the apartment for school. She thought to take her car, but she remembered that it was still parked at her house. She'd driven it there last night when she had gone home to pack her clothes. So she had to walk.

Black thunderheads had gathered overhead. Lightning streaked across the sky. Rain pelted down on to the pavement in torrents. There was a power outage at the school.

Bianca was in a basement classroom when the lights blinked out. There were no windows. It made her think of when Mike Fellini had clapped her inside that coffin inside the old McCollough mausoleum in the cemetery. She fidgeted in her seat while the other kids were joking and laughing. She couldn't take it any more.

"May I please be excused to go to the bathroom?" She gulped as she asked the teacher.

Bianca remembered that the nearest ladies' room had a window well. She could wait there until the lights came back on again. It was stuffy inside the bathroom in this heat. She struggled with the window handle. She tried to pull it open to let some air in.

When the window finally creaked open, Bianca gasped. There crouched Rick Roscoe in the window well with the rain pelting down on top of him. He pressed his face up against the screen.

"I figured you'd show up here. You're in big trouble for not kidnapping Little Katie for me. Don't think I've forgotten either. I'm planning something especially horrible for you. Don't even think about going to the cops, or I'll make sure that little girl doesn't see her third birthday."

Bianca backed away from the window. She ran into the sink. She kept on backing up until she got her hand around the doorknob. She flung it open and raced down the darkened hallway until she found the stairs. Groping up the stairs in the pitch blackness, she finally managed to reach the ground floor. She saw daylight down at the end of the hallway. That must be the door to the parking lot.

"Where are you going, Miss Winters?" the building secretary called after her as she spotted Bianca heading toward the door. The secretary had candles lighted all around her desk in the office so she could see.

"Did somebody threaten you?" A uniformed policeman stepped forward.

A policeman was stationed in the office every day of the summer session. It was like the spring all over again. No one could be sure whether the killer was after Bianca. Did the murderer think that she had seen him do away with Tom Jones that night on the yacht? Did he think he had to waste her? Was Bianca in danger of being kidnapped herself, just as Doc had almost made away with her in May because she'd witnessed him kill Mrs. Ingersoll?

No one wanted to take a chance with the life of the heroine of St. Simons Island!

"No ... ah ... I just don't feel well . . . that's all. . ." Bianca lied as she stopped in front of the office door. She did not want to tell the policeman about the darkness scaring her. He would think she was loony. Nor did she want to tip the policeman off about Rick Roscoe in the window well. She had Little Katie to think of.

"Do you want a ride home?"

The officer led her over to the entrance to the school. He started to signal to the officers who surrounded the school on all sides. They were there as a further precaution to ensure Bianca's safety.

"No ... ah ... I just want to walk. It will be good for me . . . you know, the fresh air and all. . .I thought I might even stop by the market and get some fruit. . ."

"But, Miss Winters, it's raining!" the officer objected.

Bianca tried not to blush. She had not told anyone that she was living with the new intern from England, Dr. Byron Kingsley. She did not want her parents to find out during their trip to Alaska. The police might very well call and notify them. Nor did she want some snoopy newspaper reporter to report it in the gossip column. Since she had saved Little Katie and inherited two million dollars, her picture frequently appeared in the paper.

"That's OK. . . I don't want to be too much trouble.''

"Nonsense!" The officer put up an umbrella for her and led her over to a policeman standing near the sidewalk directly in front of the school. "Miss Winters doesn't feel well," the first officer instructed him. "Take her home."

While the two officers were making small talk, Bianca caught sight of Rick Roscoe glaring at her from the far side of the school parking lot. He climbed into his old wreck of a car and started the engine as if he intended to follow her.

Bianca swallowed hard. If the officer dropped her at her house, she would be all alone. Rick could break a window. He could knock down a door and get to her easily.

If Bianca got back to Ronnie's apartment on her own, the landlady was always there. She had eyes like a hawk and could help protect her against Rick Roscoe.

Bianca waited until the policemen were turned another direction, waving to a fellow officer passing down the street in his squad car.

She made a dash for it across the lawn in the opposite direction from where Rick Roscoe was still sitting inside his car. She hid behind one live oak tree after another as she made her way down the street. Their branches were good for keeping the rain off her head.

While Bianca tried to sneak back to Ronnie's apartment, a refrain ran through her head: Oh, Ronnie, I wish I would have listened to you! You advised me to wait for you at your apartment. Now I've got Rick Roscoe after me again.

On the way back to Ronnie's apartment, Bianca had to pass Christ's Church Cemetery. She didn't like to go in there any more since Mike Fellini had clapped her into a coffin. But she had to duck into the cemetery today because it had one of the densest stands of live oak trees on St. Simons Island. Though it wasn't exactly safe to stand under trees during a thunderstorm, she had no choice if she didn't want to get totally soaked.

Right in front of her was Doc's grave, one of the newer graves in the cemetery in the paupers' section. The grave was not even two months old. With a pang she remembered attending his funeral when the urn of ashes had been placed inside his coffin. There had not been many mourners in attendance. He had not had that many friends. Instead there had been gawkers and onlookers attracted by all the publicity. And, of course, there had been the press.

The fragrant white magnolia blooms she had put there on her last visit some weeks ago were dried up and wilted now. With a pang of guilt she worried that she, who had been responsible for his death, had been forgetting Doc. His parents, haughty aristocrats that they were, had disowned even his memory after the revelations about his activities. They had refused to pay for the tombstone. Using the proceeds from her new trust fund, it had been Bianca who had paid for it instead.

"Doc." She spoke aloud as she stood there waiting for the rain to end. "I wish you could meet Dr. Byron Kingsley."

She paused for a minute. It was almost as if she could hear Doc answering her.

Of course he couldn't really say anything. So she continued, hoping that somehow he could hear her wherever his soul had flown.

"I think you would approve of him. He is a doctor, too, you know."

She heard a chirp. Maybe a bird had answered for Doc.

"He's real smart the way you used to be. He uses a lot of big words just like you. And he wants to help me out. In fact, he sort of reminds me of you more than a little, Doc. He really does."

Bianca did not like to dwell on the bad things that Doc had done, such as killing Mrs. Ingersoll, the Shipleys' maid, by pushing her down the steps and shooting her. She did not like to dwell on how he had tried to steal jewels from the jewelry box in Mrs. Shipley's bedroom. Nor did she like to recall how on that last night when he'd died, he had almost killed Harry by shooting him in the head.

Instead Bianca liked to remember the good things that Doc could have done if he had lived and continued his medical practice.

"That's what Byron Kingsley really reminds me of, you know, Doc. He reminds me of the good side of you, what you could have been. He's smart like you, but he wants to help people, too. He's very generous with his time.

He spends hours and hours with me alone. He never asks for anything in return. He acts as if doing good deeds is a reward in itself."

"Bianca!" A voice spoke.

She gasped. She looked around. Where had that voice come from? She'd been extra fearful lately. Her nerves had been preying on her mind. But she'd never actually heard voices before.

"Doc — Doc, it can't possibly be you!" Bianca exclaimed.

It sounded just like him. She had never forgotten his voice. She heard it almost every night in her sleep. It was as if she'd heard it yesterday, the last hour, the last second, it seemed so fresh in her recollection. His gruff, gravelly sounding, almost bass voice with his deep, upper-class Georgia accent always seemed to be there hovering in her mind. Yet never after his death had she heard the voice so distinctly like this — not since the night he had died, urging her on the stairs to shoot Harry.

"Bianca, I'm still here. . ."

She gaped down at Doc's grave. The voice seemed to come from his tombstone.

"Bianca, I've been here all along. I've been here watching you every minute of every day. . ."

"Doc!" Her legs shook so badly that her knees collapsed underneath her. She fell to the muddy, grassy ground. She couldn't take her eyes off his tombstone. She clasped her arms around herself and trembled as if she had a fever.

"You killed me too soon. . . There was so much I had yet to do. . . Now I can't go to heaven. . . I can't go to hell. . . I just he here watching the living and dreaming about what could have been. . ."

"No, Doc, no! Don't say that. Please don't. I'm not very good with guns, you know. The thing just went off. You reached for your gun. You lost your balance and fell and—"

"You shot me all the same! You killed me. I broke my neck when I fell down the stairs. The last thing I heard was the cracking sound."

"But you were trying to kill Harry, and—"

"That two-timing wretch who's not faithful to you. . . That wretch who steals your money. . . Who uses you. . . You see, the dead know all. . . We can see everything. . ."

Tears streamed down Bianca's face. "I — I didn't know Harry that well back then. . . I was stupid. I. . ."

"Very stupid, Bianca, very stupid. . ."

"I'm so sorry, Doc, so sorry. . ."

Bianca's trembling hand reached out and touched the soft, wet mud that covered his ashes, where a puddle was forming in the rain. It felt slimy to the touch, ice cold.

"I loved you, you know, Bianca. I really did. You never gave me a chance to tell you so before you went ahead and shot me. . . I'd planned grand things for us like getting married and having children. . . Now none of it will ever be. . . How could it be? My ashes lie here in the ground just moldering away. Worms crawl through me. So do slugs. . ."

She threw herself sobbing against Doc's tombstone. She clutched it to her. She tried to cuddle the cold, gray stone thing to her bosom as the rain pelted down upon her, drenching her to the skin.

Bianca!

Suddenly a hand clapped itself down on her shoulder.

She screamed and screamed and screamed.

Chapter 7

"Get hold of yourself! What are you doing kneeling in the cemetery with the rain coming down around you?"

"Doc?" She looked up.

Ronnie stared down at her disapprovingly.

"I've been searching everywhere for you." He stood there in his trench coat with his rain hat on. "I went back to the apartment. I went to the school. The secretary told me that you'd left during the power outage. I drove around the Village. Some passerby told me he saw you darting into the cemetery."

She sobbed.

"Didn't they teach you in grade school that you're not supposed to stand under a tree during a thunderstorm with lightning flashing?"

She couldn't talk she was crying so hard.

"I wonder if you have any sense at all."

He dragged her over to his waiting car with the windshield wipers going. He hurled her into the front seat, climbed into the driver's side, and slammed the door.

"I'm — I'm so sorry." She found her voice. "I thought I heard. . ." She looked back at the gravestone. "Well, it sounded like Doc's voice. . ."

"Doc's been dead for two months." Ronnie started up the car. "This is something new, Bianca, new and more serious. It's one thing to be scared of the dark. It's quite another to hear voices that aren't there."

Bianca hung her head as they drove through the rain.

"How long has this been going on?" Ronnie questioned her in his clinical fashion.

"Just — just now."

"It hasn't ever happened before?"

She shook her head.

"I'll have to bring it to the attention of your psychiatrists as soon as possible, the ones whose ranks I'm training to join. We'll put you on medication. Now we've got to get to the Shipleys' house right away."

Bianca forgot about her own problems at the mention of the Shipleys. "It's not Little Katie, is it?

"That's why I was searching for you. It wasn't for my health."

Bianca clutched his arm. "Mike Fellini hasn't tried to kidnap the child again, has he?"

"Dr. Rankin called me at the hospital and told me that he was going over there right away. The Shipleys are asking for you."

She practically leaped on him. "What happened to Little Katie?"

"In your state of mind I don't know if I should tell you anything. I don't know what you might do."

"You've got to tell me. It doesn't matter about me. Katie is far more important."

He looked her up and down as he drove.

"Get dressed first. There are clothes in the back of the car. I can't very well present you to the Shipleys like this, can I? You're soaking wet and muddy, like something a cat dragged in."

Bianca leaped over the seat. She cleaned herself off with antiseptic hand wipes. She dressed herself in record time. She didn't glance at the clothes that he had picked out. She put them on. She climbed back into the front seat.

"Comb your hair."

He handed her a comb out of the glove compartment. He pulled up in front of the Shipleys' house. Dr. Rankin's Cadillac was pulled up there. The family physician had gone inside.

She didn't wait for Ronnie to open her door. She raced out. Without an umbrella, she hurried up to the front of the house. Bianca burst through the door.

"Thank God!" Mrs. Shipley embraced Bianca. "Little Katie is fit to be tied. That nasty rash has spread. So have the blisters. None of the creams the doctor prescribed are working."

Bianca snatched Katie up from the middle of the floor, fussing and crying. Mr. Shipley had been trying in vain to interest his daughter in her toys. Bianca sat Katie on her lap and dried her tears. She picked up TR Bear and Lou, Little Katie's favorite bear toys. She made the bears talk to Katie. Soon Katie had stopped crying and was watching the antics of TR and Lou as the six-inch bears cavorted in front of her. Bianca had TR and Lou complaining about how they itched. The bears rolled around trying to scratch themselves. They stood on their heads. Little Katie chortled.

Dr. Rankin declared, "In my twenty-five years of practice, I've never seen anything like it. We've tested it as a common household poison. We've tested it as a contact dermatitis caused by typical outside allergens such as poison ivy, poison oak, poison sumac and other weeds. We've tested for a reaction to mold, mildew and dust commonly found in households. It's not chicken pox, measles or mumps. What I propose to do next is to send a sample to Dr. Bennett in London. He's a world-renowned specialist in skin rashes."

"Do it at once!" Mrs. Shipley urged. "I don't see how Little Katie's going to last much longer without having to be put under sedation."

"Wouldn't it be quicker if you took Little Katie to London? The doctor could see her in person. I bet it would cut down on the time involved." Ronnie broke into the discussion.

"That's a brilliant idea!" Mr. and Mrs. Shipley both exclaimed at the same time.

"That could, of course, be arranged, too," Dr. Rankin agreed.

"Call him! Make the appointment now!" Mrs. Shipley insisted.

"It's nine in the evening London time," Ronnie reminded them.

Bianca thought Ronnie was amazing, making suggestion after suggestion. He truly was brilliant.

"Do you have his home phone number?" Mrs. Shipley was not used to being kept waiting.

"We could look it up," Ronnie suggested.

They searched on the internet for a while and couldn't find it. Clearly the appointment would have to wait until tomorrow morning.

Little Katie was fussing and scratching herself. Bianca was beside herself trying to keep the little girl quiet. Dr. Rankin prescribed a warm bottle of milk. The little girl was so exhausted that she would probably nod off immediately.

Bianca fed Little Katie herself and sang her a song. She put the child to bed. Katie's last words before going to sleep were, "Anca! Anca!" At two she couldn't pronounce Bianca's full name.

Bianca wanted to stay with Little Katie and suggested she could sleep in the spare bedroom.

"I think you need a good night's rest yourself." Ronnie took Bianca's arm and led her toward the door.

"I'll bring Bianca by myself early tomorrow morning," he assured the Shipleys.

Little Katie was the only thing that kept Bianca sane while the Shipleys made arrangements to leave for London. There was to be a delay of a couple of days. The eminent physician, Dr. Bennett, had to perform surgery on a movie star who had been burned in a car accident. He consulted with the Shipleys by telephone, fax and email. He assured them they would have the first possible appointment after the series of skin graft surgeries. The Shipleys would wait. They wouldn't settle for seeing Dr. Bennett's assistants.

After sitting with Little Katie the next morning while the arrangements with Dr. Bennett went forward, Bianca called Ronnie at the hospital.

"Could you please come by at lunchtime and give me a lift to school? I know I've missed the morning. I still have two classes during the afternoon."

"I thought you were staying with Katie."

"Mrs. Shipley knows it's important I get my diploma. She says she can take care of Little Katie herself when I'm in class. I can hurry back."

Ronnie sighed. "I'll be right over."

The phone rang. Mrs. Shipley said, "Bianca, the call's for you."

"Hello?" Bianca answered.

"I'll be waiting for you in the window well today just like yesterday," Rick Roscoe promised. "I'll be waiting for you every day."

She hung up.

"Who was it?" Mrs. Shipley asked.

"Just somebody trying to sell something," Bianca gulped.

She went out to Ronnie's car when he arrived. "Ah . . . something's come up. The Shipleys need me. I — I won't be able to go to school today. Maybe not any day."

"That's a wise decision." Ronnie squeezed her hand. "At least until we can get this matter with Little Katie cleared up — as well as this business about hearing voices. I'm sure the school will understand. I'll call the principal myself."

Ronnie was as good as his word. The principal called Bianca at the Shipleys' house. He assured her that they would work something out so that she could get her diploma. Perhaps she could take night-school courses in the fall. Perhaps she could take a correspondence course online once the matter with the Shipleys was cleared up.

The dermatology lab that Dr. Bennett ran was very thorough. First he wanted to examine the parents and study their skin before he saw Little Katie. He wanted to consider the girl's condition from all possible angles, including the genetic one.

"We'll need your help, of course." Mrs. Shipley told Bianca. "Little Katie wouldn't want to be parted from you. You're the only one who can manage her."

"I'll pack my bags." Bianca didn't hesitate.

"Do you have that passport we got you in case you had to accompany us on one of our trips?" Mr. Shipley asked.

They sent a maid over to her house to fetch it. The maid came up empty-handed.

"Don't you remember where you put it?" Ronnie questioned Bianca.

In a flash Bianca remembered. She had packed it along with her dresses that night that Marianna had surprised her in her bedroom. She'd been bringing it over to Ronnie's apartment. Now all those clothes as well as the passport were in Rick Roscoe's hands. She couldn't tell Ronnie or the Shipleys. Instead she shook her head.

"I'm afraid I lost it."

Ronnie got on the phone and called the passport office. "There will be a delay of at least a couple days in getting a new one," he informed the Shipleys.

The Shipleys worked the phones and tried to pull strings. Even with their connections in the government, it was still going to take extra time. All they could do was reduce the amount of time.

"What are we going to do?" Mrs. Shipley fumed. "Dr. Bennett must see us right away. His genetics lab has a big job coming up. They are going to be booked solid for months. We've simply got to keep the appointment for Mr. Shipley and me to have skin samples taken and tests run."

"If we take Katie without Bianca, the child won't want to go," Mr. Shipley observed.

"Why don't you volunteer to take Little Katie to London yourself as soon as you get your passport?" Ronnie suggested to Bianca. "That way the Shipleys could fly to London and keep their appointment. It's better that the genetic tests get run first before Dr. Bennett sees Little Katie."

Bianca was encouraged by Mrs. Shipley's smiles as she made her offer to take Little Katie to London herself as soon as she could.

Mrs. Shipley looked at her daughter sitting in Bianca's lap. "I'll miss her so much!"

"Yes!" Mr. Shipley agreed. "It will be hard to do without her for even a few days. We'll worry."

Bianca handed Little Katie to Ronnie so she could reach TR Bear and Lou who had fallen on to the floor.

Little Katie shrieked, "Anca!" The little girl flailed her arms and legs.

Bianca soothed her, smoothing down the child's hair. She handed Katie the toys.

Little Katie beamed a smile at her "Anca" and started playing in the middle of her lap.

Mrs. Shipley shook her head. "We'll have to let you bring Little Katie as soon as you get your passport. The child wouldn't be able to part from you." Mrs. Shipley reached over and patted Bianca's knee. Then she clasped her daughter's godmother's hand and pressed it.

"I don't know what our family would do without you, Bianca. You're our angel. Maybe even our fairy godmother," Mr. Shipley added.

Little Katie chortled with glee and clapped her hands. The child always agreed with anything good that someone said about her "Anca".

"I'll escort Bianca and Katie to London," Ronnie volunteered. "My parents are very good friends with Dr. Bennett, the dermatologist. My father's a doctor, you know."

The Shipleys made arrangements to fly to London the next day. Bianca stayed in the house overnight while they packed. Mr. and Mrs. Shipley stood in the living room with their suitcases, saying goodbye to Bianca and Katie. Bianca held Katie up to kiss her parents.

"We'll follow you tomorrow morning at ten sharp," Ronnie assured them. "Bianca's passport should be ready by then. You can meet us at Heathrow Airport at lunchtime the next day." He had his arm around Bianca's waist.

"We'll call as soon as we get in tonight," Mr. Shipley promised. "Let us know how Little Katie's doing. The doctor will want the latest report."

"The servants have been instructed to obey you as if you were us," Mrs. Shipley assured Ronnie and Bianca. "Here's one of our credit cards." She handed it to Bianca. "You can charge up anything you might need for the trip. Anything at all. There's no limit, not for Little Katie's angel."

Bianca smiled. She'd been trying extra hard to reassure the Shipleys about her ability to take care of Little Katie by herself.

Ronnie positioned himself with Bianca and Katie squarely in the center of the big picture window in the living room. He stood there waving goodbye beside her. He raised Little Katie's hand and made her wave as well.

As soon as the Shipleys' limousine disappeared up the street, Ronnie grabbed Bianca by the arm. He propelled her over to the kitchen sink. He poured her a glass of water.

"Remember that medication I told you about?"

She nodded. Truthfully, she'd forgotten — she'd been so busy the past couple of days.

He held up the plastic bottle and screwed off the lid. "Take one every morning as soon as you wake up. The pills will calm your nerves and prevent you from hearing voices."

"What's in it?" She hesitated a little as he raised the pill to her mouth.

"A sedative, of course."

She took the pill obediently. Within a few minutes, she began to feel the effects of the medication. It was so strong that her head whirled around. She clutched the back of the kitchen chair for support.

She didn't feel alarmed any more. It was as if she couldn't feel anything. Her nerves felt dulled and groggy. It was hard to even remember where she was.

Ronnie escorted Bianca to the middle of the living room where Little Katie's toys were strewn about.

"Play with Katie. Keep her occupied," he ordered Bianca. "I've got a lot to do." Before he left her, he took the credit card. "Someone in your state can't be trusted with something as important as this."

She nodded dreamily. "Yes, Ronnie."

Ronnie called upon the servants — everyone from the cook, to the butler, to the upstairs maid, to the gardener. He barked orders as if it were second nature, and he was used to doing it every day of his life.

"Go to the florist. Get flowers for Miss Bianca and Little Katie. Here's exactly what I want." He handed the errand boy a note.

Bianca began to wonder why the emphasis on flowers and floral arrangements. It seemed strange. Her brain was so foggy that she could barely think. She should be glad that Ronnie was here to make decisions for her. There was probably some obvious reason why he wanted the flowers. She, dimwit that she had become, had forgotten it. It would make her look more stupid to ask.

He told the maid, "Go up to the attic. Bring down all the suitcases that you can possibly find."

"Why do we need so many suitcases, Ronnie?" Bianca asked in confusion. "We're only supposed to be in London for a few days. Or did I get that wrong, too?"

"There are many things that need to be brought for a short trip," Ronnie replied with a note of impatience. "That's no concern of yours. Play with the girl and leave the rest to me. Nobody in your condition could do something as demanding or complicated as plan for this trip."

Bianca nodded. She could hardly keep track of where Katie was on the floor. Once or twice she lost her behind a chair. She smiled to think that Ronnie would take care of everything.

Ronnie sent the Shipleys' butler to the jewelry store. "Have the jeweler call me if there are any questions," he instructed him as he gave him a note.

What did Ronnie need with a jewelry store? Bianca must be getting pretty dull-witted if she couldn't figure any of this out. She just kept on smiling. She was sure everything would turn out all right.

Bianca sat in the middle of the floor playing with TR Bear, Lou and Little Katie. She was interrupted by a flurry of papers that she had to sign. Most of them seemed to be credit-card receipts. Ronnie thrust them in front of her one after the other.

"Sign here."

He didn't give her time to focus on what she was signing, not that her eyesight was that clear. It was all one blur of pen marks. Her hand was so unsteady that he had to hold her by the wrist so that she could write.

He continued to direct her. "Not over there. Over here. See the line?"

"Couldn't you do it for me, Ronnie?" She looked at him and blinked. He faded in and out.

"Mrs. Shipley left the credit card in your name only. I didn't have time to explain how badly off you are, how she should leave it in my name instead."

Next Bianca had to stand up because somebody had arrived to take her measurements. Ronnie had to pull her up by the hand and steady her, or she might have fallen over. She was none too sure of her footing since this morning's pill.

"What do they need my measurements for, Ronnie?" she asked, like one not quite awake.

"You need a wardrobe for London. It wouldn't be necessary, but you haven't paid much attention to your clothes since you inherited your money. When I sent the maid over to your house to pack what was hanging in your closet, there was not only nothing suitable there — there was nothing there at all! Mrs. Shipley said you could buy whatever you needed."

Bianca vaguely remembered something happening to her suitcase some days ago. She wrinkled her forehead and tried to recall what. Some guy with a car. . . Somebody threatening her with a gun. . . Bianca shook her head at the effort it took to remember his name or his face. She could not recall him no matter how hard she tried.

People she had never seen before were rushing in and out of the Shipleys' house. A pile of boxes was getting higher in the foyer. She might be addle-brained. But she was certain that they could not take all this stuff on the plane to London. Could they? Mr. and Mrs. Shipley had left with only one suitcase each and one carry-on bag in addition to Mrs. Shipley's purse! Or had Bianca gotten that wrong, too?

Bianca thought, Perhaps I just shouldn't try to think at all. Yes, that would be better.

Br-r-r-r-r-r-ring!

Bianca gaped at the phone. Ronnie seemed to be oblivious to the sound. He was standing outside on the front porch directing the stream of traffic created by men in uniform delivering boxes. He was talking on his cellphone at the same time. He probably didn't hear the phone.

"Ronnie!" Bianca called. He obviously didn't hear her either.

Should she answer it? It rang persistently like somebody who wanted to get through. It stopped and started right away. She had answered the Shipleys' phone before when she'd been babysitting with Little Katie, hadn't she? At least she thought she had.

Could it be the Shipleys? They could be calling on their cellphones from the airport to give her some last-minute instructions or to ask some question. Maybe they wanted to talk to Little Katie. Yes, it was her duty to answer, though she wished Ronnie would do it for her.

"H-hello?" She picked up the receiver with an unsteady hand.

"Bianca!"

It sounded like a familiar voice.

"Yes, this is Bianca Winters," she replied in the monotone that had become her voice today.

"Bianca, you don't sound like yourself. You sound groggy, sleepy, like you're on something."

She wrinkled her forehead. She didn't know what the caller was talking about.

"Ex-excuse me, I — I haven't been well lately," Bianca tried to explain politely. "But I'll get Ronnie — I mean Byron Kingsley. He's a doctor, you know. He's right over there on the front porch. He's the one you want to talk to anyway, I'm sure."

Bianca was about to put the receiver down when the voice protested. He shouted her ear off.

"Bianca, don't you dare hang up on me!"

Her hand stopped, frozen in place. Lately she was beginning to learn to respond to commands. She gaped at the receiver. The voice was becoming more familiar to her fogged brain. She blinked.

"It's you I want to talk to — not that creep who treats you like you were one of those remote-control cars from Radio Shack, the kind I used to get for Christmas. The kind where you push a button and make it go."

Bianca was more confused than ever. She did not understand why the caller was talking about remote-control cars from Radio Shack. Maybe he was trying to sell something. That must be it. Those callers phoned at the most inconvenient times.

"Sorry, we're about ready to leave now for London. We don't want to buy anything today." Bianca hung up.

Br-r-r-r-ring!

"H-hello?"

"Did that creep make you hang up?"

"Cr-creep?"

"Yeah, alias Dr. Byron Kingsley. The creep!"

Bianca looked towards Ronnie. He was still standing outside on the front porch.

"You — you shouldn't call Ronnie names. He's very smart and well educated. He's an intern at the hospital. He's training to be a psychiatrist, you know, and—"

"Bianca, don't you remember me? You act as if you don't know my name."

She put her hand to her head. "No, no, I'm sorry, I don't recall—"

"What's that bastard got you on? It's Harry, Harry Fellini!"

"Harry Fellini. . ." She mouthed the words. That did sound familiar from somewhere. It was on the tip of her tongue. "Oh yes, the bad one. The one who went to jail."

"No, that's my brother, Mike Fellini. Don't you remember, hon? I was supposed to be your boyfriend until this Byron Kingsley character showed up."

Boyfriend? All she could think to repeat aloud was, "Sorry, Ronnie wouldn't approve."

"You sound like he's got you drugged to the point you hardly know your own name. That doesn't surprise me after what I've found out. Look, his British passport's fake. I don't know who he is. He's not Byron Kingsley. There is a Byron Kingsley in London all right. At least there was. He died last Christmas. He was an eighty-five-year-old dentist. And—"

Ronnie snatched the phone from Bianca's hand. She smiled with gratefulness. He had saved her from the strange caller.

"Fellini, how did you get out of jail? I heard from Bianca's attorney that he couldn't spring you on bail this time for any amount of money. Did you escape like Mike?" Ronnie confronted the caller.

Bianca could hear the caller on the other end of the line. It sounded as if he were shouting at Ronnie.

"What kind of game are you playing, Byron Kingsley, not that that's your real name!"

"You're babbling nonsense. Perhaps you take it for some perverse game. Your family seems to be fond of perverse games, doesn't it? Bianca and I are very busy. Bother someone else." Ronnie looked disgusted and ready to hang up.

"Talk about games, what are you doing to Bianca?"

"Bianca is my affair. She's not well. Nor is she the subject for public discussion. My next call will be to the police, Fellini. Goodbye."

Ronnie scowled at Bianca. "You're not to answer the phone again. I don't care how many times it rings."

She clutched Little Katie and nodded woodenly. She hated it when Ronnie was angry at her.

When the phone rang again — as it did as soon as Ronnie was out of the room and back out on the front porch — she just stared at it. If the Shipleys later complained that they had called, she would have to say that she'd been outside in the backyard with Little Katie, trying to distract the little girl from scratching her rash.

Bianca didn't have long to sit there and wonder what to do next. Ronnie was telling her that it was time to go back to his apartment.

"Back to the apartment?" she asked without any comprehension of where that was. "But I can't —" She looked at Little Katie.

"There are some things I need to do there, some loose ends I need to tie up if I'm going to be away. Who knows exactly how long we'll be in London? Nobody knows how many tests the doctor will run. Who knows how long it will take Little Katie to get better? I may have to take a formal leave from my job at the hospital."

"But Katie. . . I—"

"We'll bring the child with us to the apartment, of course."

Bianca didn't really care where she went as long as Little Katie was with her. Little Katie was not familiar with Ronnie's apartment and wailed. It was all that Bianca could do to keep her quiet and entertained.

Ronnie was busy making more phone calls and packing his briefcase the whole time. He talked to the Shipleys after they arrived in London and told them that Katie was as well as could be expected. Katie babbled on the phone to them before she went to bed.

That night Bianca had a strange dream that she couldn't decipher. She was racing down long, darkened corridors. The blackness was pressing in on her, making her feel panicked and forcing her to run faster. Finally at the end of the last corridor there was a bright light. She raced toward it. When she got to the end, she found that the bright light was only empty sky. She was falling through it with clouds all around her. Beneath her was the sea ready to swallow her up.

Chapter 8

She screamed and hit the sea.

She opened her eyes. She was lying on their mattress. The first rays of dawn were filtering through the drapes, which Ronnie kept tightly shut. Katie lay right next to their bed on her own mattress, sound asleep. She was cuddling Mr. TR Bear and Lou. One of Lou's cinnamon ears was in her mouth.

Bianca wanted to slip her arms around Katie and carry her back to her bed. It would make her feel more secure. But the little girl was so peaceful that Bianca didn't want to disturb her. Lately she had been so miserable with her unexplained skin rash.

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!

Ronnie was mesmerized by his conversation. He wouldn't notice when she decamped. She would have to call him later and tell him what had happened, that was if she could get through on his cellphone. She was amazed that his battery juice hadn't run out!

Bianca clutched the door handle. Rick Roscoe slowed down to almost nothing when he reached the next bump. She tried to unlatch the door. Nothing happened. She leaned against the door and pushed. Still nothing happened. The door felt as solid and firm as a block of concrete. It had opened back at the rest stop along the interstate. Now it didn't move an inch.

Rick Roscoe smirked at Bianca in the rear-view mirror. She realized with a sinking feeling that he had locked the doors using the automatic door lock on the driver's control panel.

Wherever he was taking her, she would have to escape once she got there. She would be alert and wait for her first opportunity.

Maybe she could contact the Shipleys on her cellphone. She fumbled in her purse for it. It should be tucked away safe and sound in its usual compartment.

Bianca almost had her fingers on it. It kept on slipping away. She got her fingers on it again. She waited a minute while she figured out what to do next.

Bianca wouldn't be able to tell them what was going on over the phone. Yet she could say something out of context that didn't make sense. Or she could sit there silently and let them listen to the car sounds. That might alert the Shipleys that something was wrong. Maybe they could have the call traced. The police would be able to find them before any harm had come to Little Katie.

Bianca tried to find the Shipleys' cellphone number, which was in her phone book.

There was no lighted display. She looked down at the thing, wondering what was wrong. She shook it. Then she noticed.

The battery pack was gone!

Chapter 9

In the rear-view mirror Bianca spotted a dark blue quad coupe, a Saturn Ion, following them. The car's windows were tinted but not as darkly tinted as in the black car. She could barely begin to make out the driver. Bianca did a double take! Why, it looked like. . .

Bianca would recognize anywhere the driver's fiery, violet eyes and the coal-dark, curly hair cascading down over her shoulders. The plucked eyebrows also looked familiar, as did the fat cheeks and the eyelashes lengthened with black mascara.

What didn't look familiar was her uniform. Marianna Haynes had once worked at the Island Theater behind the concessions counter. She had worn a thin cotton, pinstriped uniform complete with a red-and-white striped cap then. Yet this uniform looked very different!

Marianna was wearing a white blouse with a kind of blue vest over it. She had a blue cap pinned to her hair. It reminded Bianca of a uniform that she had seen before someplace. Right now it was escaping her exactly where.

Rick did not speed up his limousine or start a chase. He acted as if he had expected that Marianna would be there all along.

Bianca squeezed Ronnie's arm. He waved her off and kept on talking as if nothing else in the world mattered except his cellphone conversation.

"I just saw Marianna Haynes," she hissed. "She was Rick Roscoe's girlfriend. She was after me this past May in the cemetery, too, and—"

"Really, Bianca, you're making it very difficult for me to hear what's being said," Ronnie objected. "It's very important I get all the details straight."

Bianca was cornered, surrounded on all sides. Rick Roscoe, no doubt, had teamed up with Marianna Haynes to kidnap Little Katie. It didn't matter if Marianna had become Harry Fellini's new girlfriend. Old friends, old ties, old habits died hard.

They kept on driving down the long, bumpy dirt road, seemingly to the end of the world. Bianca kept on looking around for signs of where they might be. She noticed an old wooden billboard that advertised SMITH'S AIRFIELD. The words were written in faded paint that was flaking away.

Smith's Airfield? That was certainly not the name of the Savannah International Airport! They emerged from the shaded forest and the dirt road into the sunlight. They were riding across an open field. She gasped when she saw what was parked in the middle of it. A huge jet aircraft! It must be a Boeing 737. It was parked at the end of a long, paved runway.

She tugged on Ronnie's sleeve furiously. For all she knew, Rick Roscoe was going to drive the car aboard some sort of lift, and it was going to end up in the cargo hold of the aircraft! They were going to be taken as contraband goods to God knew where.

"Ronnie, there's an airplane parked out there in the middle of the field! Look! It's a 737. I can't be imagining it this time. Rick's headed straight for it."

Finally Ronnie glanced out his window and looked back at Bianca. "Right. Right." He dismissed her objections. "We're at the airport. We're right on time." Then he kept on talking Portuguese.

"Ronnie, we're not in Savannah. We're not anywhere near it. We're out in the middle of nowhere!" she whispered in the capacious back seat of the limousine.

Rick Roscoe brought the limo to a stop. Marianna leaped out of her car and waltzed past the limousine. She knocked on Bianca and Katie's window. Then she blew a kiss at them and winked. Next she proceeded to board the aircraft.

The boarding stairs were pushed into place. The hatch stood wide open. Marianna stopped at the top of the stairs and waved at Bianca, still sitting in the limousine. Only then did Bianca realize what that uniform was. Why, it was a flight attendant's outfit!

Marianna disappeared inside the aircraft.

Rick Roscoe jumped out of the front seat.

He went around to the trunk. He got out what looked like his own personal flight bag. He also unloaded Bianca's and Doc's suitcases. He reached back into the front seat and stuffed several magazines into his bag. Then he pushed up a baggage cart, which appeared to be sitting nearby under a tree. He loaded the luggage on to it and wheeled it toward the aircraft, following Marianna Haynes.

None of this made any sense. If Rick and Marianna were kidnapping Katie and abducting Byron Kingsley and Bianca, you would think that they would pull a gun right about now. They would threaten them and march them toward the aircraft at gunpoint.

The engines of the aircraft started up. The pilot must be aboard. Were they going to take off and leave Ronnie and Bianca sitting there in the limousine in the middle of the field? Was this abduction a big joke? Was this Rick and Marianna's perverse idea of having fun?

Bianca shook herself. Where would Marianna and Rick get the money to pull off such an elaborate hoax? They couldn't afford to rent an aircraft! Marianna couldn't afford the car she had been driving, which looked rather new and flashy, like a current-model-year vehicle. Even the flight attendant and chauffeur uniforms had to be bought or rented somewhere. Bianca doubted if they could afford them either.

As Bianca sat there in complete bewilderment, looking from side to side and all around, wondering if she was dreaming, Ronnie at long last said, "Goodbye. See you when we get there!" in English. He pushed the end button to conclude his epic cellphone conversation.

Ronnie stuffed his cellphone into his suit pocket. He opened the limousine door and came around to Bianca's side.

"Everyone's aboard and ready for our flight!" He held out his hand to help her out of the limousine.

Bianca sat there and gaped up at him. She did not give him her hand. She did not move.

"What — what did you say?"

"Here's our flight!" he announced with a sweeping gesture of his arm. "Everything's ready — except we're not aboard."

She blinked and blinked.

When Bianca continued to sit there, Ronnie reached for her hand and forced her out of the car.

"We don't have time for one of your nervous attacks right now. I've got plenty of pills with me. I'll give you one as soon as you're aboard."

She swallowed hard. "Is — is this the plane that's taking us to London?"

"Our very own private jet. I discussed it with the Shipleys yesterday. They're paying for it. They think it's a smart idea — to take a plane to London from a private airfield out in the country and to charter the aircraft. There won't be any other passengers aboard except us and the crew. Much safer for Little Katie."

By the crew did he mean Marianna and Rick? What kind of crew was that? She didn't know that they'd gotten jobs with the airlines!

"I — I don't remember your talking to the Shipleys about it," Bianca ventured.

Ronnie waved his hand in dismissal. "You don't remember much of anything that really happens, do you, sweet?"

"But — but why didn't you tell me? I was scared to death the whole time. I — I was afraid that we were being abducted by Rick Roscoe and Marianna Haynes and—"

He patted her hand. "Now, now, now, my poor little Bianca! You are scared to death most of the time, aren't you? We'll have to see to that as soon as we climb aboard and get seated for our long flight across the Atlantic. I promise you'll feel much better very soon."

She let Ronnie take her free arm and slip it through his own. They walked toward the aircraft. She was clutching Little Katie in her other arm. She stopped halfway toward the boarding stairs and glanced back at the limousine.

"Who — who is going to drive the limousine back to St. Simons Island?" She couldn't see anybody else around.

"Smith's Airfield provides that service."

Bianca didn't see a terminal building. She didn't see a building of any kind. All she saw was a cow some yards off grazing on some high grass.

Ronnie nudged her forward. She hesitated at the base of the stairs.

"I — I think I may have left my comb in the car."

"I'm sure there's one aboard the jet. As you will see, I've had it well stocked ahead of time with essential supplies."

Ronnie pushed her ahead of him and followed behind her up the boarding stairs. At the top stood Marianna in her uniform. She was grinning down at Bianca.

Bianca paused four stairs shy of the top. She turned and gaped at Ronnie. "Is she going with us?"

"We have to have a crew, don't we? It's customary to have a flight attendant to serve you even aboard a chartered aircraft."

"But—"

"Don't tell me you're starting to have paranoid delusions about the stewardess! On top of hearing voices and all your phobias, this represents a decline in your mental state. I guess the excitement of travel can bring that on, too."

Ronnie escorted Bianca inside the cabin. Marianna slammed the hatch behind them and fastened the lock firmly in place. Bianca swallowed hard.

Chapter 10

Ronnie seated Bianca in the first row in first class. She occupied the window seat. He took his place beside her. She craned her neck to gawk over her shoulder. There appeared to be other passengers behind them in the first-class seats. She and Ronnie were not alone.

"Ronnie. . . I — I thought you said this was a chartered aircraft for us only."

"Just a few friends of mine that we'll have need of during the flight. I want to consult with them before we reach our final destination."

What could Ronnie want with a man dressed in a conservative black suit carrying a Bible? She could make out that the man had a minister's rounded collar. Beside him sat another man in a three-piece suit that looked expensive. He had a swarthy complexion and looked Latin American. He was carrying a leather briefcase that was open on his lap. Shuffling through reams of papers and making notes, he was assembling, stapling together and stamping some sort of important-looking, official documents.

Why did Ronnie need these men on their trip to London? Why couldn't he wait until after they had landed and arrived at their hotel?

"Are we ready?" Marianna asked Ronnie.

"We're waiting for one more passenger, if I'm not mistaken." Ronnie replied.

Marianna wheeled up a cart with soft drinks and snacks. Little Katie reached for a candy bar and gobbled it up. She offered a bite to TR and Lou. The only bright spot was that the child was feeling much better than she had in days.

Ronnie turned up his nose at the snacks. "Bring on the wine instead," he ordered Marianna.

"I thought that was being saved for later," she answered cryptically.

"No, no! You mean the champagne. The wine's for now," Ronnie replied.

Marianna returned with several wine bottles along with frosted glasses.

"That's better!" Ronnie smiled. "Much more appropriate for a day like today."

He poured Bianca a glass of wine. He took the other glass and tapped it against hers as if toasting.

Marianna opened the hatch one last time and locked it. This must be the other passenger that they had been waiting for. Bianca's mouth fell open.

"Harry!" she exclaimed. He was the last person she expected to see here today.

A dark-haired young man shuffled into the first-class section and took a seat across from them.

"Surely not another delusion, dear! This is getting to be a nasty habit." Ronnie eyed Bianca as he sipped his wine.

Bianca studied the young man who acted as if he didn't know her. He wasn't waving at her or making any attempt to talk to her. It was odd indeed. He boasted Harry's flyaway black hair that was thin, fine and straight. His eyes were big and dark. He was slim like Harry. If it wasn't him, Bianca had never seen anybody else who reminded her of him more!

The newcomer got up, fished something out of his pocket, and handed the small package wrapped in brown paper to Ronnie.

"Thank you, thank you," Ronnie said effusively with more emotion than was common with him. "It's about time. Now we can get under way."

He tore open the package. He popped open the ring box. There were two rings. One was a plain gold band. The other was a diamond. Ronnie examined the diamond from every angle.

Bianca had only seen a diamond as big as this once in her entire life. This ring resembled the antique diamond ring that Mrs. Shipley had once owned, the one in her jewelry box that Doc had been trying to steal two years ago when he had killed Mrs. Ingersoll. It looked like that same ring that Doc had tried to steal again in May when he had died on the stairs.

Bianca could swear that it was the same ring! It was every bit as brilliant and as scintillating. It was cut in the same way as Mrs. Shipley's old ring. It had to be the one that had made Bianca remember Doc's face as the murderer's when she'd stepped on it in the hallway two months ago.

But it couldn't be the same diamond! Mrs. Shipley had sold it after Doc's death. She had complained that no jewel was worth people's lives. Where would Ronnie get hold of such a rare find? Some millionaire had probably bought Mrs. Shipley's old ring by now! Nor would Ronnie be able to afford it on a hospital intern's income.

"Job well done." Ronnie got out a one-hundred-dollar bill and slapped it down into the palm of the stranger who looked like Harry. "Of course, there will be a lot more of that where we're headed tomorrow. Then I'll pay you in full, as we agreed."

The guy flashed a smile. When he smiled, he showed his teeth. Bianca noticed that his front incisors were chipped. Harry's front teeth were not. Close-up observation highlighted several other differences. His skin was a shade paler. His hair looked almost the same color but not quite. His facial expressions did not seem the same as Harry's. Again, he showed no signs of recognizing her.

"Tell the pilot I want to speak to him," Ronnie barked the order at Marianna. "It's getting late. It's almost dark."

Marianna knocked on the cockpit door. Was Bianca to assume that Rick Roscoe was inside as the pilot or copilot? She didn't see him anywhere else. She'd clearly seen him board the plane.

"Hello, hello, this is the pilot." A heavily accented voice came on over the loud speaker.

"We're ready to get underway," Ronnie told him.

"Right away, sir," the pilot concluded in what sounded like the accent of one of those Latin American interns that Bianca had met at the Cloister.

The plane started down the paved runway in the middle of the grass-covered field. It taxied out to a place where it turned, then stopped. The plane charged forward with a new earnestness, going faster and faster. Suddenly the wheels weren't making contact with the pavement. They were airborne.

They climbed over water as they turned out to sea. Remembering her dream from last night, Bianca did not much like the idea that there was only the Atlantic Ocean beneath them. She turned away from the window toward Ronnie.

Ronnie put down his glass of wine, which he had finished. He started to clap. Everyone in the first-class section began to applaud, including Marianna. Marianna had buckled herself into the hostess seat in front of first class during take-off. She unbuckled herself and leaped up cheering.

"This calls for a celebration! Bring on the champagne." Ronnie's voice sounded more carefree and party-like than Bianca could ever remember before.

Marianna uncorked several champagne bottles, which bubbled over. She got out the chilled champagne glasses. She poured the expensive stuff and started passing out the filled glasses to all of the passengers in the first-class section.

Ronnie tapped his glass against the startled Bianca's glass. "Let's toast to us."

"To — to us?" Bianca hesitated to raised the glass to her lips. "What do you mean, to us? Shouldn't we be toasting to Little Katie's welfare? She's the reason we're taking our trip to London."

The child's rash looked as if it had subsided more than a little. Little Katie was scratching herself hardly at all. She was playing with TR Bear and Lou contentedly in Bianca's lap. Perhaps it was because they were now away from St. Simons Island. No doubt something there had been reacting with her skin.

"Yes, I guess you could say Little Katie's the reason we're taking our trip. Certainly she's paying for it — or at least her parents are. They're dishing out top dollar."

Ronnie spoke in a rather disrespectful tone. He snickered. Up to now he had always sounded deferential and polite when he had talked about the Shipleys.

Bianca was stunned. "Of course they're 'dishing out top dollar'. They'd do anything to help their daughter. They love her more than anything in the world — just as I do."

"My dear, you'd better learn to spread your adoration around." Ronnie took hold of her chin and caressed it. "Little Katie might have golden-blond hair and curly locks. She might look as pretty as a princess in a fairy tale. She's certainly as rich. But I'm far more brilliant and well educated. And after all, I'm to be your new husband."

"My — my husband? Is this a proposal?"

"You can take it as a proposal if you like. Reverend!" He turned around and called to the man with the rounded, white collar. "We're ready for the ceremony. We have no reason to wait."

Marianna rushed back into the empty passenger-class section of the airliner. She hurried up to Ronnie's and Bianca's seats with her arms full of flowers. Bianca could smell them before she could see them. Their heavy, musky scent reminded Bianca of magnolias.

Were these the flowers that Ronnie had been buying from the florist yesterday? Florists even in Georgia didn't usually sell the big, showy white blooms that grew in everyone's yards this time of year. But these were particularly fancy blossoms, much finer than roses, with perfect, waxy green leaves surrounding them. They looked as if they might have been cultivated by a florist.

Marianna held the blossoms out to Ronnie. He studied them and selected the finest one in the center. "Yes, that one will do nicely."

Marianna took the other blossoms away. She returned to fasten the blossom that Ronnie had chosen in Bianca's hair. She attached it with a hair comb.

Magnolia blooms grew in profusion in Christ's Church Cemetery. Bianca had been gathering them for the past two months to leave as remembrances on Doc's grave. Doc had always loved magnolia blossoms. A true Georgian, they had been his favorite flower. Her hair-piece could not help but remind her of Doc. Bianca fidgeted in her seat.

She wondered, Why would Ronnie choose a magnolia bloom over roses or some other flower? Magnolias don't grow in London!

In a flash the reverend appeared before them. He read the words of the wedding ceremony aloud. Bianca listened in total confusion, not able to understand what was happening. Finally the reverend reached the part where she had to respond.

"Do you, Bianca Winters, take this man, Dr.

Byron Kingsley, to have and to hold, to honor and obey, from this day forth as long as you both shall live?"

"I ... ah. . ."

"She does," Ronnie answered for her. "She's not herself today. Too much stress, you understand. Now, Bianca, answer the reverend."

"Ah ... I. . ."

"Say you do."

"I do."

"Do you, Dr. Byron Kingsley, take this woman, Bianca Winters, to have and to hold, to honor and cherish, from this day forth as long as you both shall live?"

"I do. Let's get on with it, Reverend. Don't dawdle."

"It's time to exchange rings." The reverend hardly needed to remind Ronnie.

Ronnie slipped that big diamond ring, as well as the matching gold band, on to Bianca's left ring finger.

"I now pronounce you man and wife." The minister concluded the ceremony, "You may kiss the bride."

Ronnie leaned over and gave Bianca a big smack on the lips.

"Now for the important part," Ronnie called back to the lawyer. "Bring those papers up here. I assume you have them ready."

"Ronnie," Bianca squeezed his hand, "why — why did you want to marry me on an airplane? Why so fast? Why couldn't we have waited until we got to London and the Shipleys could be there? Why couldn't we have waited for my parents to get back from their Alaska cruise? I've been dull-witted lately, but I don't get it."

"You are a little bit slow catching on, my dearest darling." He took hold of Bianca's chin and brought her face up to his. "Or rather I'm devilishly clever. I planned to marry you from the first moment it was my privilege to really become acquainted with you. That was a little over two years ago."

"But — but you met me only a few weeks ago when summer school started. It was the beginning of July. You never saw me before that."

"We've known each other at least a little bit all of our lives. We used to be next-door neighbors, if I remember correctly."

"We did?"

In her mental condition, she didn't have much of a mind left. Ronnie liked to remind her of that all the time. She couldn't imagine forgetting an important fact like this.

"Granted, this summer I've had to live in an apartment. Rather cramped and inconvenient. That's about to change when we arrive in Rio de Janeiro. You should see the mansion that the Shipleys' money and that one hundred thousand dollars that you loaned me rented for us. That is until we can find more permanent quarters — perhaps something by the beach overlooking the sea."

"The sea?"

"We'll pay for that with the rest of the money that you had transferred to a bank in Rio yesterday. Not that I don't have money of my own. I had the foresight to transfer it into Swiss bank accounts months ago, long before I took on my new name and identity."

This must be a nightmare. She must be ready to wake up at any second. No one could sleep long with their heart pounding as hard as Bianca's.

"What do you mean by Rio? We're headed to London, aren't we? I don't remember loaning you one hundred thousand dollars. Not that I'd begrudge it to you. Did I loan it to you, and I don't remember? Is that it?" she asked anxiously. "I can't recall a thing about having my money transferred to a bank in Rio." She grabbed the seat with the free hand that wasn't convulsively clutching Little Katie around the waist.

"Look deep into my eyes. Tell me that you don't know me." He touched his nose to hers. "I used to live across the street, Bianca dear, when you lived in your old house near the Shipleys. That was before you came into that delightful two million dollars that enabled your parents to move into more opulent quarters."

Bianca knew that she MUST be dreaming. She wanted to pinch herself. Ronnie had never lived across the street from her before she and her parents moved into their new house. Only the Shipleys had — the Shipleys and the McColloughs, Doc's parents.

A cold fear clutched at the pit of her stomach. She looked into his eyes as he had commanded. Her head whirled around. He was drawing her deep down into a whirlpool. She was holding her breath the whole time. She felt as if she might drown. Only one other person had that power over her before . . .

"Some glimmer of consciousness inside you has recognized me all along." Ronnie still spoke in his English accent. "It felt the same when you were with me. In the middle of the night when you woke me and clutched on to me because you'd had a nightmare, because you were afraid of the dark, your arms went around me in exactly the same way as mine went around you. Every time I kissed you, your lips parted in the same way as before."

She shook her head and groaned. The moan welled up from deep within her being.

"You can't be him. He's dead. He died in May when he fell down the stairs at the Shipleys' house."

"You mean when you shot me, my dear. We mustn't forget an important detail like that. You were wearing those turquoise earrings that I gave you for your seventeenth birthday, as you are now." He reached across the seat and tugged at one of them.

"Doc!" she gasped. No one knew about the earrings except Doc himself.

"Yes, I'm Doc Ernie McCollough all right. That's who I've been all along. That's the man you married. Look at the name I'm signing on the marriage certificate." He pointed at the paper that the lawyer had slipped on to his lap.

Bianca watched in horror. He signed the name she had been so familiar with in his dark, bold, cursive hand. It was hard for her to make a sound. He pushed the pen into her hand and then, when she couldn't hold it, forced her hand to close around it.

"Sign the marriage certificate right under mine on the dotted line. Remember that you are now Mrs. 'Doc' Ernie McCollough."

Her hand spasmed. She dropped the pen. He forced her hand around it again.

"Sign!" he commanded her.

She was so spellbound by shock that she couldn't move an inch to save her own life.

"You're going to have to get used to taking orders from me. I'm your husband now —" he dropped the English accent in favor of the old Georgia accent that she had associated with Doc — "and I'm still your doctor. You're in no fit mental condition to make your own decisions."

His southern accent was the same voice that she had heard when she had been kneeling in the cemetery in the rain. She had thought that Doc's voice had been speaking to her from beyond the grave. On the basis of that impression about her own mental condition — that and Rick showing up in the window well — Bianca had stopped going to school or just about anywhere else that Dr. Byron Kingsley couldn't accompany her. She had ceased to have any free will. Now he was sitting here telling her that it had been a cruel hoax.

"Don't gape at me as if I were some vampire returned from the grave!" he snorted. "I never died, despite the melodramatic piece in the cemetery. It was very sentimental no doubt, worthy of a Shakespearean drama. You were clutching my gravestone, tears streaming down your face, listening to me as I hid behind a tree and mimicked my own voice."

"But—"

"Oh yes, I pretended that my neck was broken in May as you clutched me to your breast and then ran shrieking down the street. When the ambulance drivers took me to the hospital, I bribed them to act as if I were dead. A doctor in my pay dragged out an unidentified body from the hospital morgue. He declared that anonymous body dead in my name. He had the other body cremated for my funeral. You never saw my corpse lying in the church in state, now did you? No one did, not even my parents."

She groaned.

"The whole while, I was lying low, making plans for Doc Ernie McCollough's reincarnation."

Chapter 11

"Doc had dark hair. He had dark eyes. You have blond hair and blue eyes." Bianca found her tongue.

"After I supposedly died, I flew to Rio using a new, fake British passport that I had purchased for a hefty price on the black market. It told me that my new name was Byron Kingsley. Byron Kingsley might have been a British dentist who just passed away. I didn't mind."

Doc laughed at his own cleverness.

"I met the Brazilian business people as well as the foreign doctors I'm going to be dealing with in Rio. I found a job at the local hospital there and took a crash course in Portuguese. I was talking to my chief Brazilian contact this afternoon all the way to Smith's Airfield. I paid dearly to have facial reconstruction done in the hospital in Rio. It's the sort of thing that actors and spies do. It was such a good job that I could fly back to St. Simons Island, meet the Shipleys, hobnob with my old friends, even meet my own parents and siblings, and nobody recognized me.

"But—"

"I had a new voice as well, thanks to the acting lessons I took in Rio after I got out of the hospital. I thought I should talk like a Brit to match my new passport." He switched back to his British accent.

"But—"

"Working out in the gym developed some shoulder muscles that I didn't have before either." He stretched out an arm to show off his torso. "I have to be careful to wear long sleeves and long pants. I didn't want anybody to see the injuries I suffered when falling down the stairs at the Shipleys' house in May."

He pulled up his suit pant leg to show Bianca a scar.

"This summer I was able to go back to the same old Brunswick Memorial Hospital and sign on for another internship. Nobody had the slightest suspicion. Like you, they thought Doc was dead. I have to remember to wear my contacts so my eyes are blue. I have to dye my hair once a week so that none of the roots grow in dark. I have to shave a lot, too. You might notice I spend a lot of time in the bathroom."

Harry had been right! When he had warned Bianca that night at the party at the Cloister Hotel, she should have listened. He had told her that there was something suspicious about Dr. Byron Kingsley. He had no friends. He was a loner. He was buying blond hair dye at the drugstore and working out at the gym in long pants and long sleeves in the hot, humid summer weather.

When Harry had called and told her that there was nobody by the name of Byron Kingsley except a dead British dentist, Bianca should have known that something was wrong. Yesterday she'd been on that medication that had fuddled her brain. It was hard to remember exactly what Harry had told her now. Bianca had not even recognized him on the other end of the phone! Only now could she recall his voice.

"What do you want with me?" Bianca swallowed hard.

He lifted the child off Bianca's lap and lowered her on to his. Little Katie started wailing at the top of her lungs. She flailed her arms and legs wildly about, dropping her toys onto the floor.

Bianca snatched the child back without thinking. She picked up Little Katie's toys.

"I'm kidnapping Little Katie Shipley. Just as you are, my dear," Doc answered.

"We? Kidnap Little Katie? I — I would rather break my own neck."

"We left a ransom note on the coffee table for the Shipleys to find — or rather for their servants to send to them in London. It's very explicit. A cool five million will be fine, thank you, all in cash to be conveyed by a system I've researched that can't be traced."

"But Katie —"

"The child will be returned safe and sound. We'll hire somebody to drive her to Mexico City and put her on a plane. It wouldn't be safe to send her back directly from Rio. I might be traced. She won't have her skin rash by then. Why, she won't have any traces of it by tomorrow morning!"

"How do you know?" Bianca pressed.

"The skin rash was caused by a poison I prepared at the hospital's medical lab. It was a mixture using croton oil as the main ingredient."

"Croton oil?"

"Yes, mayapple — croton oil's other name — is harvested in the southwestern United States. I stopped there on my way from Rio to St. Simons Island last month. I rubbed it on the insides of Katie's clothes whenever I was over at her house with Dr. Rankin or you. The dose was strong enough to cause a skin rash, not strong enough to kill her if she ingested it by sucking on her clothing."

"Mayapple?" Bianca had not heard of that name either.

"The first signs appear almost immediately. It causes blistering. If taken orally in a strong enough dose, it can kill you. I made sure I mixed in only enough mayapple to cause a severe rash."

With a sense of desperation, Bianca glanced out the window into the darkness. She looked back at him again.

"If you notice, we're flying south. We're not headed northeast to London."

The lawyer handed Doc a paper. Doc gave it to Bianca. "This is a Xerox of the ransom letter we both signed." He explained as if lecturing about overly complicated matters to a child.

"I never signed it. I—"

"Don't you remember the stack of papers that I gave you yesterday at the Shipleys' house? The ransom note was among them."

It was just too terrible to be true. She tried to tear it up. He snatched it away from her first.

"Remember, it's only a Xerox, not the original. Right now, it's the only copy we have."

"The Shipleys would never believe I'd kidnap Little Katie! I've always protected her."

"When they get our marriage announcement in the mail, sent from my old address at the apartment, they will believe it. They know how sweet you are on Dr. Byron Kingsley. That's how the ransom note is signed. I have no intention of letting them know I'm really Doc Ernie McCollough come back from the grave to haunt them. Just you, sweet." He caressed her cheek. "I shall remain dead to the rest of the world."

She shrank away.

"Why so shy? After all, we're legally married. I had you sign the marriage license yesterday before we left. I didn't forget a detail. Not even the blood tests — though mine had to be faked. I don't want them to use DNA testing to identify me and trace me through that."

He slipped his arm around her shoulders and pressed her lips against his. She tried to wriggle away. He wouldn't let her. He concluded his kiss by putting the pen back in her hand.

"Sign the marriage certificate!" he barked at her. "That's the last detail to make everything perfectly legal and binding."

"But what is she doing here?" Bianca pointed at Marianna, who was leering at her from across the cabin.

"I hired Marianna and Rick Roscoe to work for me, just as I hired the Harry look-alike." He glanced across the aisle at the guy who had brought him the rings. "I needed to get Harry out of your head if I was going to get anywhere. What better way than to pretend Harry was fooling around? That was accomplished by employing someone who looked like him at a distance. He posed in the tub with Marianna. I took the photos."

Marianna blew Bianca a kiss.

"But — but I heard Marianna answer Harry's phone in his dorm room!"

"She had a key made. She let herself in and answered his phone when he was in classes. Harry was none the wiser."

"You hired Rick Roscoe? Did you know he tried to kidnap Little Katie himself on the day that she came down with the rash?"

Doc chuckled. "I paid Rick to try to kidnap Little Katie. Who knows? It might have worked. You might have been able to take Little Katie to the movies and hand her over to me that night when Rick drove you up to the Shipleys' house and held a gun to your head. We might have left for Rio sooner. It was my back-up plan in case the mayapple didn't work."

"Your back-up plan?" Bianca could not fathom just how intricate Doc's plot was.

"By the time Rick brought you to the Shipleys' house, I knew the mayapple was working beautifully. If you remember, I stood there on the doorstep pretending that I was waving goodbye to Dr. Rankin. Really I was signaling Roscoe that I didn't need him there any more. I assumed he had already snatched the passport in your suitcase by then. My plan to abduct you on the way to London was already well under way."

"Rick returned to threaten me again in the window well of the school, the day the power went out."

"I wanted him to terrify you so you were more completely in my power," Doc boasted. "I wanted you to flee the school that day and never return. I followed you to the cemetery and pretended that my spirit was talking to you from the grave."

"Where is Rick, anyway?" Bianca looked around. She had not seen him since she had boarded the plane.

"He's up in the cockpit with his buddy, the pilot that I bribed to fly us to Rio. Manuel comes from Brazil. He's such a slime that he and Rick took to each other right away. They think alike. Of course, Rick is on hand in case I need him back here at a moment's notice."

So that was why Bianca hadn't seen Rick in hours! She shouldn't have asked. It didn't exactly make her feel safe to know that the pilot thought like Rick Roscoe.

"Were you the one who tried to kidnap Little Katie on the night after her second birthday party? You chased me off the yacht?"

He nodded. "Everything could have been very short and sweet if you hadn't escaped me then."

"You murdered the bodyguard, Tom Jones?"

"That was an accident. I wanted to defend myself when he challenged me and asked who I was, trying to board the yacht in the middle of the night. My bullet went wild."

So Doc had slain his second victim! First it had been Mrs. Ingersoll. Now it was Tom Jones.

"You chased me up the lighthouse tower?"

"I rescued you, didn't I? I made sure I was on the ambulance and made certain it was around the corner at dawn. I had it stocked with a sledgehammer in case the door was somehow locked. I brought a fireman's net. I carried you down the stairs after crawling out on the roof after you myself."

That had been the beginning of Bianca's severe relapse into feeling all these fears. She had thought that she'd overcome them this past spring. The lighthouse episode had made her nervous about heights for the first time.

"You tied me to the tree so the alligator could chew on my shoe?"

"Alligators have no brains. They are easy to scare away. I had to make Byron Kingsley look like a hero rescuing you so you would fall for my charms right away. I was careful not to tie your gag too tightly, so you could scream."

"You were the one in the elevator in the library, the one who put your fingers around my neck?"

He caressed her throat. "I didn't make red marks."

"What about Mike Fellini? Did you tell him to clap me into a coffin in the cemetery?"

A nasty look suffused Doc's face. "Fellini? I never have anything to do with Harry or his jailbird brother if I can help it. Doc Ernie McCollough doesn't stoop that low."

His tone made Little Katie cry. Bianca had to dry the little girl's tears.

"I'm running out of patience with you, dear. Now sign our marriage certificate!" he thundered.

Shakily she picked up the pen and signed: "Bianca Winters".

"The state of Georgia now allows you to sign whatever name you like, maiden or married. They like to be modern and don't care what name you use as long as you are consistent. I'm more old-fashioned. I insist you sign Bianca Winters McCollough."

She humored him. She didn't want him holding a gun on her, let alone Little Katie. She didn't like the idea of guns at 30,000 feet. Now that she knew Ronnie was really Doc, she was positive that he was capable of anything — anything at any time.

Doc snatched up the marriage certificate as soon as she had added "McCollough" to her name. He glanced at her signature with a smile.

"That will be the last legal document we will file with the state of Georgia. It will arrive in Georgia in a plain brown paper envelope from an anonymous address in Mexico. From now on it's Brazil for everything! I thought of getting married by a priest in Rio. But I wanted the folks back home to know that you were mine in every sense of the word — especially that Harry creep."

Doc passed the marriage certificate on to his lawyer friend to file away in his briefcase full of stacks of legal documents.

Doc said something to the lawyer in Portuguese. They smiled in triumph and shook each other's hands. Doc patted the lawyer on the shoulder. Doc got out a wallet that was fat with one-hundred-dollar bills. He had handed the guy who looked like Harry a cool one hundred earlier. He handed the lawyer a wad of one-hundred-dollar bills right now.

Bianca had the sinking feeling that he had withdrawn the cash from the Shipleys' bank account yesterday with his carte blanche to do anything to prepare for the trip. She knew that the Shipleys were going to bed in London right now, expecting to see Little Katie in the morning. She didn't want to imagine the expression on Mrs. Shipley's face if she could see that the plane was flying to Rio instead of Heathrow Airport.

Bianca remembered the servants back at the Shipleys' house. She wondered if any of them had found the letter with her signature on it that Doc had left on the table for the Shipleys. No doubt it was enclosed inside a fancy envelope attached to a basket of flowers delivered by the florist.

The servants would not dare open the fatal letter themselves. They would forward it to the Shipleys — by FedEx. She doubted if they would dare to open it long enough to fax it. The Shipleys valued their privacy too much. They had a standing order that no one else was to open their mail. When she had been babysitting at their house, Bianca had always brought in the mail and laid it neatly in a pile on the dining-room table.

FedEx International usually took two days to get there — two whole business days. There was a new service that the Shipleys often used. It was called FedEx International First. They had once had her take packages of theirs to the FedEx drop-off station when she had been babysitting. That service got letters delivered earlier in the morning to select international locations — still usually two days later.

FedEx had to be flown to Memphis, Tennessee, as Mr. Shipley, who did a lot of international business transactions, had explained to her. The package was put on another plane and flown to major hubs in Europe. It had to be put on a truck early in the morning and delivered by 8 a.m. local time. Mr. Shipley had his own FedEx account number. Even that would not get anything delivered faster than two days — unless you were sending the package directly to London from a big city like New York or Los Angeles, when maybe it would take one day. St. Simons Island was no New York City!

Early tomorrow morning nothing would happen. The Shipleys would wake up. They would get the London edition of The Times at their suite at the hotel before the appointment with Dr. Bennett. They would pick up the phone to call the airport to see if the plane from Jacksonville, Florida, had arrived yet. It had been scheduled as an overnight flight leaving at about 9 p.m. Eastern time. It had been due to get in mid to late morning, London time, the next day. They would be expecting to call a limousine to take them to the airport to pick up Dr. Byron Kingsley, Bianca and Little Katie.

It made Bianca cringe to imagine how the lady on the other end of the phone would cheerfully explain that the flight was on time and was due to arrive at 10 a.m. sharp. Suspecting nothing, the Shipleys would drive to the airport and watch as the passengers disembarked. Even with airport regulations tighter than they had been before, the Shipleys would get permission to go as far as the gate. They would comment to each other that Bianca wasn't first off the plane. They would be expecting her to be first since they knew that she had first-class tickets.

When everyone had disembarked and there was no Little Katie, no Bianca and no Dr. Byron Kingsley, they would get alarmed. They would call on their cellphone back to their house in Georgia and question the servants, making sure that Bianca and Byron Kingsley had left on time. The servants might mention the letter attached to the bouquet of flowers that they were having FedEx-ed. The Shipleys would think nothing of it at that point.

Next the Shipleys would call the airport in Jacksonville to ask if passengers by those names had checked in and boarded the flight. This was information that would be classified. It would not be revealed to the general public. The Shipleys had ways of getting around such things. They owned the controlling shares in the airline that Bianca and Ronnie were supposed to have flown.

When the Shipleys discovered that Bianca and Byron Kingsley had not boarded the flight in Jacksonville, they would call the police and hire a detective. They would not suspect either Bianca or even Ronnie of kidnapping. They would assume that they had been abducted by another kidnapper on the way to the airport.

The tension would mount as the hours ticked by. The Shipleys' suite at the hotel would become a command center. The FBI would be notified. A manhunt would ensue. Mrs. Shipley would lie collapsed on the sofa weeping for Little Katie. Bianca could hear the lady's sobs right now, though she was sitting on the plane at 30,000 feet.

At long last the FedEx package would be delivered to their suite by the next morning at 8 a.m. There would be a pause of consternation and disbelief. Then all hell would break loose.

Bianca could only hope and pray that they would not believe that she had willingly signed that ransom note. She hoped that they would guess what had really occurred. She wished that she could reach out and rip that page out of time so that it would never happen. She knew that she couldn't.

"Bianca, do you hear me? There is another paper to be signed right now. It won't wait." Doc was prodding her.

Bianca had no idea what this paper was. It looked like another one of those documents written in mysterious legal jargon that she could neither make sense of nor understand.

He slapped it down in front of her on the food tray that he had fastened to her seat. "Sign right here on the dotted line."

She couldn't read a word of it either. It was written in Portuguese.

"What — what is it?"

"It's your power of attorney."

"My what?" She really didn't understand now.

"You're turning over your power of attorney to me as your new husband."

"What does that mean?"

He sounded impatient. "I'll be able to sign all documents and bank instructions as if I were you without having to forge them. I'll be able to make withdrawals from your account in your name without your signature once we get to Rio. I'll be able to pay bills by writing checks on your two-million-dollar account. I'll be able to take loans using your credit. I'll be able to invest your money in your name now that it's all there in the new bank in downtown Rio."

"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 Manuel 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.

Doc stood outside the cockpit door like a hovering vulture, unable to come in for the final kill. He was waiting for his prey to come out, the prey that was eluding him.

"Why didn't you call the police as soon as you'd jumped the pilot and Roscoe? Why did you take off from Smith's Airfield?" Doc questioned Harry.

"At that point you could still have made a good case for saying that you were flying to London. You could claim you were Dr. Byron Kingsley. You'd done nothing to incriminate yourself yet. Last night you did. I have everything you confessed to Bianca recorded on tape in the cockpit. You admit to the murders. You say you're kidnapping Katie. You claim you're Doc. I couldn't have hoped for more."

"Oh, Harry!" Bianca couldn't restrain her tears. Had he done this for her after the way she'd treated him? She couldn't believe that anybody could be so heroic!

Doc quelled her with a look.

Harry had confessed his suspicions at the Cloister Hotel. He had picked up on the smallest details. No one else had believed him. Harry had stuck to his guns.

"C'mon!" Doc motioned to the Harry look-alike and Marianna. "Let's break down the door."

They ran against it with their shoulders. They tried to use the drink cart.

Harry assured them over the loudspeaker. "I have myself pretty well barricaded. I worked on it yesterday after Roscoe entered the cockpit. It's something they taught us in pilot training. The Shipleys paid to have me learn to protect Little Katie. That's what I'm doing."

Doc called for the tool chest that he'd brought with him. He tried to take off the door screw by screw, bolt by bolt. He kneeled down on the floor to work on the bottom screws.

It didn't work, no matter how hard Doc tried. Doc gave up and threw the screwdriver aside.

"Isn't there something important you're forgetting, Fellini?" Doc challenged him. "I've got Little Katie and Bianca. You might have saved your own neck. But you won't be of much use to them."

Harry did not answer right away. "I thought we'd be back to the Jacksonville Airport before you caught on. That's why I flew out over the Atlantic and didn't return until everybody was asleep. I hoped you'd wake up in Jacksonville with the police standing over you the next morning."

"It's not so easy to defeat Doc Ernie McCollough!" Doc proclaimed.

"I've alerted the police, you know," Harry continued. "I called them as soon as we took off. They believe me now all too well — about Dr. Byron Kingsley, of course. The big shock will come when they find out it's you, Doc, returned from the grave. I suspected it all along myself."

"You won't win."

"No? I don't think I've got much to worry about." Harry sounded assured.

"I could threaten to blow Katie's and Bianca's brains out if you touch down at Jacksonville."

Bianca held Katie more tightly to her.

"I don't think you will, Doc," Harry insisted over the loudspeaker. "Bianca and Katie are your whole kingdom, your whole world. You don't have any other subjects except a little baby and the sweetest girl ever to worship you and call you a god. You're nothing without them, are you?"

Bianca thought, Don't make Doc angry, Harry. He's liable to do anything when he feels cornered.

"It's rather pathetic, isn't it?" Harry taunted Doc. "You're the one who belongs in the psycho ward, not Bianca. She's one tough cookie."

Bianca spotted the bathroom door in front of the first-class seats. It was open. She ran for it. She barricaded both herself and Little Katie inside.

"Bianca, what do you think you're doing!" Doc pounded on the bathroom door. "Open that door at once!"

"Please don't ask me. I — I can't."

"Now!"

"I'm doing it for Katie. If it were just me, I wouldn't care."

"You always listen to me, Bianca. You never do anything else."

"Forgive me, Doc. I have to make sure she's safe until we land," Bianca begged in a soft, soothing voice. She didn't want to excite him any more.

"You're my wife, Bianca. Are you forgetting that?"

She glanced at the big diamond ring and the matching gold band. A sob caught in her throat. It took all her strength of will to suppress it.

"No, Doc, I haven't forgotten." She remembered last night. A strand of Doc's hair was sticking to the skirt of her suit.

"You promised to obey me. Open that door!"

Doc ran against the door with his shoulder. The door wouldn't open. She could hear him working on the door with his tool kit. She didn't know how to barricade herself in the way that Harry had.

Doc soon had the door open. He grabbed Bianca by the hand and forced her out.

"If Fellini wants to land this plane in Jacksonville, we'll take a different flight." He was yanking her away from the cockpit door.

Had Doc taken leave of his senses?

"What — what are you talking about, Doc? There isn't any other flight."

"You show a limited imagination, Bianca. You have to trust me. I'm so much smarter than you are, my dear."

He pulled her back to the coach section. Doc had packed gear into the overhead compartments. She remembered those boxes he had been buying the day before they'd left. He looked as if he had been buying goods for a lifetime — as if he never intended to return to the United States.

Doc ordered the Harry look-alike to take down a box. He grabbed equipment from it.

The others helped him by holding flashlights. They had switched on some overhead lights above the seats and found that it was still too dim. Bianca could not help but shiver at how dark it was up here, though she could see tiny lights way down on the ground.

"Here, put this on!" Doc fastened something around Bianca's waist.

"What is it?"

"A parachute, of course," Doc informed her as he put on his own.

The other crew members were hastily climbing into theirs as well. Apparently they had come prepared for all eventualities. Lights flicked on up and down the coach section.

She gaped at Doc. It took her a few seconds to recover her voice. "But — but, Doc, I — I can't jump from an airplane."

"Your lover boy has left us no choice. I had a royal welcome prepared in Brazil. We'll have to rough it until I can arrange for another flight with a more reliable pilot."

He acted as if he'd asked Bianca to do no more than descend a stairway. Bianca had become nervous about climbing up on to the stage at school. She felt her head start to whirl around.

"I'd —"

"I'll pull it for you."

"Little Katie would get sucked right out of my arms."

Doc fastened a special papoose attachment on to the front of Bianca's parachute. He took Katie from her and strapped the child in. His twisted mind had thought of every last, little detail.

Bianca clutched his hand. "Let's leave Little Katie on the plane. Let's not take her with us. I'll go with you instead."

It would be hellish to part with Little Katie. But anything would be better than risking her life.

Doc shook his head. "We can't leave Katie here. She's worth too much. Besides, you like her. She's useful to have around."

Doc forced Bianca down the aisle toward the back of the plane. She dug in her heels. She lifted Little Katie out of the parachute. She held the bawling Katie with one arm and tried to grab on to every seat back she could with the other.

The darkness closed in around her. It was like that time she'd been stranded on the roof. She had felt as if she were falling head over heels all the way to the ground. This time she would be dead before she reached it. The fright would kill her. The lighthouse had been one hundred feet tall. She didn't want to imagine how high up she was now.

She relived her dream. Bianca had pictured herself falling from a great height. How had she known ahead of time that was going to happen? Had Doc whispered to her what he might do when she had been asleep? How would Doc know then that Harry was going to catch him with his pants down? She bet that this time it wouldn't end like her dream. She wouldn't wake up in bed.

Doc continued to yank Bianca and Katie toward the hatch in the rear of the aircraft.

With Katie as her responsibility, she couldn't allow herself the luxury of a swoon. She had to hang in there and fight Doc with everything she had left.

She couldn't drop Katie on one of the seats. Katie wouldn't be strapped in. She wouldn't know how to take care of herself. Even worse, she might try to come after her "Anca". The toddler would get swept out of the airplane if Doc opened the hatch. Bianca couldn't reach Harry to give the child to him.

No matter what, she couldn't let Doc pull her out of the airplane as long as Katie was alive.

"Harry! Help me!" Bianca called.

"Hold on, Bianca!" he answered. "We're almost back. The police should be out in force. The Shipleys might be back from London. When I radioed the tower the first time, they told me they would inform them. They might have taken a private jet back here. If they left London at once, they should be touching down in Jacksonville right now."

If the Shipleys were going to be in Jacksonville, Bianca couldn't allow them to hear that their little girl had fallen to her death out of a jet!

"Doc's trying to parachute out of here. He's taking me and Katie with him!" Bianca screeched as she fought against Doc with every bit of strength that she had left.

"Not from this height!" Harry practically hollered over the public address-system.

Doc called out, "I'd rather risk anything than being hauled in by a bunch of stupid policemen who don't know what I'm capable of, who don't understand that the ordinary laws don't apply to me, who will try to pin the rap on me for killing two nobodies who happened to get in my way. YOU have a choice, Fellini. DON'T LAND IN JACKSONVILLE. Then I promise not to jump."

"I don't have enough fuel to take you to Rio," Harry announced.

"Take me to any other airport. I'm not picky."

"There's an alert out at every airport all the way up and down the East Coast. They know the description of the plane. Besides, we're being tracked by radar."

"Land at Smith's Airfield out in the middle of nowhere. We can escape from there. The limo should still be parked under the tree." Doc's brain worked fast. "The police won't be expecting it and won't have enough time to—"

The lights went out. The floor fell out from underneath Bianca's feet. Her knees collapsed. She plummeted to the floor along with everyone else. Marianna shrieked. Doc swore.

Harry was doing a nosedive, racing down out of the skies toward the ground at a record pace. They lost thousands of feet in seconds.

Doc's iron lock on Bianca's hand had been knocked loose. Her head was whirling around. She was disoriented. She wasn't sure that she was still conscious and that her head hadn't been bumped against something. She crawled down the aisle on her hands and knees with the child in tow. She clapped her hand over Little Katie's mouth to try to avoid giving herself away.

"Come back here, Bianca!" Doc shrieked. "I don't have time for a game of cat and mouse."

She thought she saw him get up and move about the cabin behind her, a shadow in the blackness. Doc sounded as if he were feeling along the ceiling for the light switches above every individual seat. He was cursing and swearing under his breath.

Harry had cut the power to the cabin. Harry wanted to help her escape. That gave her courage. She felt him pulling for her every second.

The plane dove lower. It flattened her against the floor of the cabin.

"We've got to jump, Bianca," Doc hissed. "I can't wait. Already I can see the airport lights and the runway."

Bianca kept mum.

"Bianca, this is your last chance."

She bit her lip.

"All right, Bianca. I'm leaving by myself, if that's the way you want it. I'll be back for you if I make it. I swear it. If I don't make it, think how guilty you will feel. You will have killed me not once-BUT TWICE!"

Footsteps were heading away from her rapidly. Doc must be walking toward the hatch in the rear of the aircraft. If he opened that hatch, she and Little Katie would be swept out. Neither would stand a chance.

Bianca scrambled into the first seat she came to. She strapped herself in. She'd better not try to hold Katie. If the cabin depressurized she might not be able to keep the child in her arms.

Bianca strapped the toddler into the seat next to her so tightly that the little girl protested. She held on to Katie for dear life as she heard a loud, wrenching sound. In her mind's eye she could see Doc force the door open. It felt as if she were in a tornado. Winds tore at her. They pulled at her head. They tried to suck her backward like water going down a drain.

The air was being sucked out of the cabin as well. Something hit her head. It was the oxygen mask that had fallen down out of the overhead rack. She took Katie's and struggled to position it over the little girl's head so the child could breathe normally. At the last minute, just before she was going to lose consciousness herself, Bianca positioned her mask over her own mouth.

Out of the corner of her eye, in the bare, milky glow of the approaching airport, she thought she saw Doc leap from the plane. He seemed to be struggling with his vest to open his chute when he disappeared through a cloud. The cloud was just becoming visible in the early light of dawn.

In her mind's eye she saw him hurtle through the air. She could imagine the look of horror on his face as he realized what was about to happen to his brilliant future. He was about to be really stone-cold dead.

Her lips moved. She said a little prayer for Doc's soul if the worst should happen. Her heart seemed to stop for a minute. Had he hit the ground?

"Doc!" She gave a little whimper.

She felt the air being forced out of Doc's lungs. She felt his bones being crushed as if the same had happened to her. She saw Doc's last flash of consciousness. Then the darkness swallowed Bianca, too.

No sooner did the plane touch down in Jacksonville than it was swarming with police and searchlights. Even before the police reached Bianca, Harry did. He must have unbolted the cockpit door and raced back to the rear section of the aircraft. When she opened her eyes, his face was the first thing that she saw.

Bianca reached her arms around his neck and hugged him as he helped her take off her parachute.

"Bianca, is it really you?" Mrs. Shipley's voice made itself heard over the policemen who were arresting Marianna, the lawyer, the minister and the Harry look-alike, all wearing parachutes. They had chickened out. They had not jumped like Doc. With their oxygen masks on, they sat strapped into seats behind Bianca.

Mrs. Shipley and Bianca clung to each other and then looked toward Little Katie who sat strapped into her seat wearing her oxygen mask. She was still holding her two favorite bears, TR and Lou.

"Harry told us over the radio during the last few minutes before landing that Doc Ernie McCollough wasn't dead! You poor thing! How you must have suffered." Mrs. Shipley hugged Bianca.

Mr. Shipley picked up his little daughter. "Bianca's better than a whole troop of private detectives. She's worth her weight in gold. That's just what you'll get out of this — your weight in gold and diamonds. I hope it compensates you a little for what you've been through."

Bianca protested. The Shipleys were adamant. On the spot they also hired Harry to be Little Katie's bodyguard. He would draw a top salary while he was finishing surveillance school.

It didn't matter about his brother. Mike Fellini, the jailbird, had just been picked up. He had been lurking about the Jacksonville Airport, thinking that he would have a chance at Katie and Bianca if they showed up there.

"You're lucky." The police chief shook Harry's hand. "Instead of coming to arrest you for breaking out of jail, we're here to congratulate you."

They stood talking in the aisle as the police pushed past with Rick Roscoe and the Brazilian pilot, Manuel, in handcuffs. Rick gave Bianca a dirty look as he stomped by. He mumbled under his breath.

"Just wait until I get out of jail, bitch!"

The Shipleys left with Little Katie, assuring Bianca that they wanted to hear about her experiences as soon as she'd rested.

Bianca collapsed against Harry. He had to carry her down out of the plane to the cheers of reporters and photographers who flashed their cameras in her face. She kept searching the crowds and the runway, looking for what she didn't really want to see. She had a responsibility to know what had happened to Doc, even if he had turned into a red spot on the pavement.

Harry walked with Bianca and held her hand. The police took her into a private room at the airport and questioned her about Doc Ernie McCollough and his nine lives.

"Have — have you found his body?"

Bianca sat on the edge of her chair. She could barely get the words out of her mouth.

"We're searching the grounds of the airport."

"What are the chances of his surviving?" she asked.

"Was he an experienced chutist?"

She shook her head — no.

"I — I don't think so. He might have done it before. He might have taken lessons just like he took Portuguese lessons. He couldn't have done it many times."

"Then they'd be nil to nothing leaping at night under such bad conditions. He probably landed in the ocean and drowned. That explains why nobody's found his body."

Bianca closed her eyes in pain at the very images it evoked. It reminded her of her nightmare again — falling through the sky until you hit the sea.

"Bianca's had enough questions for now," Harry told the police when he saw her wince. He squeezed her hand as he whispered into her ear, "I'm sorry you have to go through this."

Harry escorted Bianca back to her house as the sun came up. They drove in silence and didn't talk. He gave her a hug before they got out.

Bianca's parents had been informed of what had happened. They had been lifted by helicopter from their Alaska cruise ship and transported back to Georgia by private, chartered jet at the Shipleys' expense. They were arriving just as Bianca did. She was overwhelmed by hugs and kisses. Her parents made her a quick breakfast with lots of hot tea. Harry stayed to see that she drank every bit. Then she was put to bed.

Before Bianca went to sleep, she became conscious of something pressing against her ring finger on her left hand. It was the diamond ring and the matching gold wedding band that Doc had given her last night during their wedding ceremony.

She was too numb and stunned to feel much of anything. The grief would come later. She slowly took the rings off her finger and placed them on the nightstand beside the turquoise earrings that Doc had given her for her seventeenth birthday.

She wondered about the diamond. Why had Doc gone to so much trouble to steal it again and again? There must be something more to the story that he hadn't told her. That part of the story would almost certainly never be known now. It would all become part of the mystery that had been Doc.

As Bianca fell asleep, her eyes kept on popping open to gaze at the rings. What was Bianca going to do with them now that she was probably not a married lady? Without knowing the answer, she fell into an exhausted slumber.

The last thing she heard was Doc speaking his final vow to her. "I'll be back for you if I make it. I swear it."

***

During the next several days the island was abuzz with the story about Doc and his return from the grave. Newspaper reporters from other cities came to cover the news. They wanted to interview Bianca. Her parents and the Shipleys firmly but politely turned down all offers, even the ones with money attached.

The island and the waters offshore were searched for any traces of Doc. Two days after the jumping incident a fisherman reported seeing a white parachute floating on the surface of the ocean, being tossed about by waves. Police went out to investigate and pulled it ashore to examine. It was identified as Doc's parachute. There was no body anywhere around.

Could Doc have been eaten by sharks? The waters off coastal Georgia were full of them. That was what the coroner concluded and wrote on Doc's second death certificate, throwing away the certificate from two months before.

Bianca attended a second funeral for Doc, along with her parents and the Shipleys. The McColloughs refused to come. An empty coffin was lowered into the same grave, the one where someone else's ashes had been buried. Those ashes had been removed.

Bianca told herself, "He's dead now. He's got to be." She tried to put his voice behind her, the one that spoke to her in her dreams promising to return someday soon.

One week later Bianca sat with the Shipleys and her parents at Harry's graduation ceremony. He had been calling every day, but they hadn't seen each other alone since the morning he'd driven her back from the Jacksonville Airport. He was getting his degree from the police surveillance academy in Brunswick. Bianca and her family had the best seats in the front row. Little Katie herself rested on Bianca's lap.

Harry graduated at the head of his class. He made a speech. He gave credit to Bianca.

"If you want to see a real hero, don't look at me," Harry proclaimed to wild applause. "Look at the brown-haired girl with chestnut-brown eyes in the front row. Her name is Bianca Winters, as if everyone here didn't already know that."

Everyone rose in a standing ovation. Katie clapped. She had her bears clap, too. Bianca had trouble fighting back her tears. She didn't feel like a hero.

After the ceremony, Bianca handed Katie back to her parents. She got into her car and drove off. She knew that Harry had seen which way she had gone. He came right after her in his own car, a graduation present from the Shipleys.

She stopped at the Christ's Church Cemetery and wandered over to Doc's grave. She stared down at it, promising herself that she would try not to feel guilty about his death in which she'd had no part.

Soon Harry was beside her. They turned to face each other. Now he had a grip on both of her hands.

"Doc left me with a problem," she tried to explain, "when he gave me that diamond ring. I've finally decided how to solve it."

"How?"

She grabbed Harry's arm and took him for a stroll down the main path in the cemetery. They waited outside the church. There was a ceremony going on inside. A minute later the double doors opened. A wedding party came out. The guests lined the sides of the walkway, throwing rice on the young couple.

After the photographer took the pictures and everyone shook everybody else's hands, after the wedding party began to get into cars to leave for the reception, Bianca led Harry inside the church with the stained-glass windows. They walked hand-in-hand up to the altar, which was still decorated with flowers.

Bianca turned to Harry. She took out a medal that she'd had made. In one corner she'd had the jeweler place the diamond from her engagement ring over Harry's name. She reached up and pinned the medal to Harry's suit pocket.

Bianca read it aloud:

To Harry Fellini, My Hero From Bianca.

Beneath her name was the date.

"Do you really want to give this to me?" Harry asked after a pause.

"I tried to return the stolen diamond to its rightful owners. After they heard my story, they said they didn't want it back. I could keep it."

He rubbed the tears from his own eyes.

She felt for the gold band that Doc had given her, dangling from a chain around her neck. She would keep it in remembrance of him like the turquoise earrings. She couldn't wear it as a wedding band when she wasn't a married lady.

"I have something for you, too." Harry reached down into his pocket. "I was going to see you later, and. . . Well, now may be the best time of all."

He thrust a ring on to her finger. It also was a diamond. It was not nearly as big as the one that Doc had given her. Nor was it as showy. But Harry had bought it all by himself.

"The Shipleys didn't give it to me. I bought it with my paycheck as a chauffeur. Now that I'm Katie's new bodyguard as well, I've gotten a raise."

His lips found hers. Suddenly the church got darker. She looked up startled to see a passing thunderstorm go by.

"Still scared of the dark?" he teased.

"How could I be scared of anything with you around?" She smiled and kissed him back.

Author’s Bio

Linda lives in Tucson, Arizona with her husband, Gary, her son, Kenny, and her dog and cat — Sabaka and Putlitz. When school is out she travels around the country looking for ghost stories. One of her favorite spooky places is the haunted lighthouse at Saint Simons Island, Georgia, the setting for Hang Loose. Another is Amelia Island, Florida, the setting for Pool Party and the home of many haunted Victorian mansions. Virginia Beach has creepy swamps and a Norwegian monument with a story to tell, the subject of The Surfer. The waterfalls of the Sierra Nevada have suggested many a tale as has the crashing surf along the central Oregon coast. When the thermal features at Yellowstone hiss, Linda listens. Even a cave in southern Arizona has been featured in a novel. You may reach her through her author's website at www.lindacargill.org or at the Cheops Books website: www.cheopsbooks.org or www.cheopsbooks.com where she has a blog. Her email address is lindabcargill@cox.net.

Table of Contents

Copyright

The Dark 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

The Dark 2

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

about the author