The Dark: A Collection (Point Horror) (24 page)

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.