The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) (32 page)

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sinking feeling that he had withdrawn the cash from the Shipleys'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."