Spellbinder (26 page)

Instinctively, she quickened her steps, seeking the security of the Toyota. With the door closed and locked, with the engine running, she could—

Emerging from the screen of thick-growing pines that grew beside the driveway, the orange car—a Chevrolet—was pulling across the entrance to the driveway, blocking it. The car stopped; its engine died. Inside the car, she could see the driver moving, opening the driver’s door, on the far side of the car. The dark-haired man was getting out of the Chevrolet. He was rounding the front of the car, smiling easily at her as he came closer. His features were regular, and his smile was pleasant. He moved gracefully, carrying his slim body with an easy assurance. Or was it arrogance?

Uncertain what to do, she simply stood in the driveway facing him. Why was her-heart hammering? Why had her throat suddenly gone dry?

“Hello—” He lifted his hand, half waving. His smile remained fixed, but she could see his eyes moving beyond her, narrowing slightly as he scanned the clearing, and the cabin. Did he know that she’d been alone in the cabin? With only one car visible—her car—it would be easy for him to guess the truth.

Now his eyes returned to her. His smile widened as he asked, “Are you Denise Holloway?”

“Why—yes.” Surprised, she turned to face him fully. “Who’re you?”

“My name is James Carson.” Within an arm’s length of her now, he stopped. “I came up on the plane with your father. Did he tell you?”

“Why, I, ah—” Why was she stammering? Why was she involuntarily backing away? “No, he didn’t.”

If the stranger—James Carson—had come to San Francisco with her father, then he must have stayed in the limousine during her father’s visit.

“Do you work for my father?”

Amused at the question, he genially shook his head. Speaking with an easy, informal familiarity, he said, “No, Denise. I don’t work for your father.”

“But you—you said you came up on the plane with him. And you know me.”

He stood silently for a moment before he said, “I’ve known about you for a long while. A long, long while.” As he said it, she saw the easy smile fade. With the smile gone, the face changed. The brown, muddy eyes, fixed now on her face, seemed to grow smaller, more intense. The mouth was distorting, twisted into a corruption of the smile. It was a deceptive, unpredictable face—a dangerous face.

She realized that, involuntarily, she’d moved toward the Toyota, still standing with its door open, its engine idling.

But he was moving with her—now ahead of her. He moved swiftly, smoothly—with a precise, practiced purposefulness. He slid into the Toyota, switched off the engine, took the keys from the ignition.

“
Hey
! What’re you
doing
?” As if she were listening from outside herself, she realized that her outraged exclamation was fugitive from her childhood—from all the terrible fights she’d had with Elton. Was it possible that, from then until now, she’d never been threatened?

Was
she threatened?

In danger?

Yes. This man—this stranger—threatened her. But why couldn’t she run? What perverse stubbornness kept her fixed where she stood, facing him as she’d faced Elton, so long ago?

Getting out of the Toyota and turning to confront her, he moved with the same smooth, lithe economy of motion that, already, she identified with him. He used his left hand to drop her keys into the pocket of his jacket. His right hand had disappeared under the jacket—and now reappeared, holding a knife. It was a hunting knife, with a thick, strong blade: the same kind of knife that Peter sometimes used. He held the knife low, with a thumb on top of the blade.

Now the corrupted, distorted smile returned: a diabolical twisting of his mouth. A kind of manic glee tore at his face, leaving only the brown eyes strangely dead. He was smiling because of the fear he could certainly see in her eyes—the fear that was suddenly choking her, suffocating her, immobilizing her.

The fear that was, plainly, his purpose for being there.

Your relative
, Mr. Byrnes had said.

Her relative? With his face twisted into this sadistic leer? Holding the knife as if it were a holy relic, something to be delicately, lovingly caressed?

“What’re you doing?” she said again. But, this time, she could hardly manage the words. Where had the bluster gone—the echo of her childhood bravado? “Wh—” Her throat closed. But, somehow, she must get it out: “Who are you?”

“I’m James Carson,” he said, his voice low and soft, silkily malicious. “I’ve already told you.”

“But—”

From her left, from the direction of the county road, she heard the sound of an engine. As if the sound triggered the instinct, she was moving sharply away from him, toward the sound—toward help, and surely safety. But, instantly, she felt his hand clamped on her wrist—felt a pain low in her back, above the waist. It was the knife.

The knife.

He was close behind her, twisting her arm behind her back. She could feel his breath on her neck as he said, “Get in the car. Your car.
Now
.”

Pain shot through her shoulder as he levered her toward the car—off balance, stumbling, almost falling.

“Get
in
.” He hurled her into the front seat, behind the steering wheel. “Slide over.
Quick
.”

Sobbing now, fighting the steering wheel, the shift lever, the brake handle, she was obeying him. Everything was blurred, because of the tears that stung her eyes. She felt him beside her now—felt something hard on her upper thigh. It was the knife blade, shimmering through the tears. The knife was pressed flat on her thigh, its point touching the cleft of her pubes. He held the knife with his left hand, across his body. With his right hand, also crossing his body, he was awkwardly groping for her keys, in his jacket pocket.

“If they stop,” he hissed, “you better fucking well wave, and smile at them. Or I’m going to run this knife all the way in.
All
the way in. You hear?”

She couldn’t answer—couldn’t take her eyes from the bright, obscene knife.

The sound of the car engine was coming closer. Was it Peter? Please God, was it Peter? Could he have—

A dusty white van was visible through the trees, bouncing along the rutted road at a faster-than-safe speed. The single passenger—the driver—didn’t look aside, didn’t wave. It was another stranger. The van was drawing even with the orange Chevrolet—quickly gone, now only as real as the sound of its engine, diminishing as the driver continued on his way, up the hill toward the Taylor place. Something had been lettered on the side of the van. Meaning that the driver was probably a repairman, or a delivery man. Not a friend. Not someone who would help her, or recognize her.

The Toyota’s starter was whirring; the engine caught, roared. Using his right hand, Carson was putting the car in reverse, backing it expertly up the driveway, swinging it into the parking place she’d just left. Carson switched off the engine, and returned the keys to his pocket.

“Now,” he said, “we do it all over again, except with my car. Then we close the gate, and we lock it. And then we go inside—” He nodded to the cabin. “And we talk. Right?” The last word was almost a whisper. It was a lover’s question, spoken as a lover might speak: intimately, softly. As he said it, she felt the point of the knife touch her cleft.

It was a lover’s touch: gentle and delicate—yet knowing, probing, promising.

“And so,” he was saying, “that’s the whole story. Everything. Now you’ve got the whole picture. You and me together, we’re going to make me a million dollars. Cash and carry.” Smiling as he spoke, he looked at his wristwatch. He sat in the big old overstuffed easy chair that they’d found in a Mendocino flea market—the chair Peter always sat in. Carson had taken a small suitcase and a rifle from the trunk of the Chevrolet and brought them inside. Both the suitcase and the rifle were obviously new, doubtless bought in Mendocino, earlier in the day. Ordering her to sit on the dilapidated couch, he’d put the suitcase beside the easy chair, then sat down. From the suitcase, he’d taken a box of cartridges—caliber .30–.30, she’d read on the box. With maddening smugness, smiling, he’d explained that it was illegal to carry loaded firearms in an automobile. He’d also said, regretfully, that he couldn’t get a pistol—not in less than a week’s time. Then, with slow, deliberate fingers, he’d loaded the rifle: five cartridges, each thrust into a small, hinged receptacle on the side of the rifle. It was a frontier-style rifle, the kind she remembered from Western movies. When he’d finished loading the rifle, he’d worked the lever and then raised the gun, aiming it directly at her chest, between her breasts. He’d laughed as he’d done it—a high, unsteady laugh, terrifying for its tremor of latent hysteria. Finally, he’d lowered the gun, then eased off the hammer. Now he sat with the rifle across his knees. At his belt, the bone handle of the hunting knife protruded from its leather sheath.

Stealing a glance at her watch, she saw that the time was two twenty-five. For more than two hours, she’d sat immobile on the couch, listening to him talk. It had been an incredible monologue—an eerie, rambling, often incoherent account of one man’s hell on earth. Yet, in the beginning, he’d been crisp and concise, describing his plan in short, terse sentences. First, he’d said, he would chain her up, here in the cabin. As he’d said it, he’d opened the suitcase again, this time producing two long lengths of chain, and three padlocks. He’d dangled the chains before her, leering like some grotesque puppeteer, displaying the strings that would make her dance and shuffle to his command.

Then, he’d said, he would drive to a nearby gas station, where he would phone her father. He would take her driver’s license, and her social security card. To prove that she was his captive, he would read the cards’ numbers to her father. Then he would spell out his demands, and his instructions for delivery of the ransom. The delivery, he’d said, would be somewhere in San Francisco. She would be left here, in the cabin, still in chains. When he had the money, he said, he would make another call, telling her father where to find her.

That much, he’d told her quickly, briskly. But then he’d begun telling her why he was doing it. Austin Holloway, he’d said, had schemed against him—schemed to have him jailed, conspired to have him killed. Then, as if to justify his actions, he’d begun to ramble, describing how her father had worked against him and his mother, all their lives. As he’d talked, he’d become more agitated. His voice had risen; his mouth had begun twisting and writhing—slowly going wild. Even his eyes, at first so strangely expressionless, had kindled at the memory of his past life, snapping sparks of hatred. As he continued regressing into his childhood, the focus of his fury directed itself against his mother—and, striking an occasional glancing blow, at his uncle.

And, sometimes, his anger had focused on her—on her privileges, and her manners, and even on the clothes she wore: the blue jeans and the wool plaid shirt. She was, he’d said, pretending to be something she wasn’t: a “poor girl,” instead of a “rich bitch.”

Every time he’d said it—rich bitch—his voice had risen, his mouth had contorted. As his story rambled on and his focus veered from childhood to prison, from all the wrongs he’d suffered to all his fantasies for the future, she’d seen sweat begin to glisten on his forehead. Clamped on the rifle, his hands had been white-knuckled. His breath had come faster, rattling in his throat.

Until, finally, he’d spewed out the essence: Austin Holloway was his father, and she was his half sister. And he hated both of them “for what they’d done to him.”

Having said it—accused her and her father of ruining his life—he’d fallen silent, staring at her with his strange, dulled eyes, as flat and lusterless as two pieces of dark brown lava.

“Are you—” Her throat closed. She shook her head, coughing. She had to talk—had to get him talking. Dealing with psychopaths, she’d read, it was essential to get them talking—
keep
them talking.

“Are you sure that my—my father and your mother—” Suddenly aware that she’d made a mistake, she broke off. Saying instead: “Are you sure that my father—” It was another false start. Finally: “Are you sure—positive—that he’s your father?”

“I’m sure,” he answered, his voice deadly calm now. “I’ve seen the papers. Everything.”

“Were they—they married? Before he married my mother?”

For a moment he didn’t respond. Gripping the gun barrel, his finger tightened. Then, speaking softly, venomously sibilant, he said: “No, they weren’t married. My mother was his whore. And it drove her crazy. That’s where she is now—in an asylum. And he’s going to pay for it. And you’ll pay, too.”

“But why me?”

“Because,” he answered, “you’re both guilty.”

“Both guilty? Of what?”

“Of driving my mother insane.”

“But that’s cra—that’s unfair. Completely unfair. How could I have done anything to her?”

He didn’t answer—didn’t stir. He only stared.

“Have you ever considered the possibility of just asking him for help—for money? If what you say is true—if you can prove it—then my father will help you. I know he will. If he owes you something, he’ll pay. I—I’ll help you, if you like. I’ll talk to him.”

“You’d talk to the police. That’s who you’d talk to—the police. I can see it in your face.”

“No, you’re wrong. I promise you, I’ll—”

“Besides, I’ve already asked him. That’s why we’re here. Because I tried to see him. And I couldn’t see him. So now, he’ll pay. And you’ll pay, too.”

“But, Christ, you—”

Suddenly he rose to his feet, angrily gesturing with the rifle barrel. “Get up, and get into the goddamn kitchen. Let’s see how you like being chained to that goddamn stove, in there, while I make a couple of phone calls.”

“H
ERE IT COMES,” FLOURNOY
said, “as advertised.”

On the TV screen, Merv Griffin was looking straight into the lens as the camera came in for a closeup.

“And now,” Griffin said, “I think, ladies and gentlemen, that you’re going to be very interested in what our next guest is going to say. Because he’s someone who’s known, literally, to millions of you. His name is Austin Holloway, and he’s one of the handful of people—TV pastors—who has, literally, changed the face of religion in America.