Don't Look Behind You Part 6

was creased with smile lines. It brought back a jolting memory of Jim Peterson, and I determinedly shoved that vision out of my consciousness."That should do it," said Lorelei when the second suitcase had finally been closed and the buckles secured. "I can manage fine without the other things.""But what about all your beautiful clothes!" I protested. "At least, let's try to pack the most expensive outfits.""There's not enough room," Lorelei said matter-of-factly. "Remember, we're driving my car, not your mother's station wagon. We need to take the boxes I've stored for your parents, and as much as I shudder to think of it, we also have to allow enough s.p.a.ce for Porky."Lorelei's Porsche was parked in front of her condo. I loaded the trunk with the boxes from the hall closet and carried the suitcases out to put in the backseat. As I trudged back and forth with my cargo, Porky glued himself to my heels in quivering terror that he was going to be left behind again. On my third trip out to the car, he managed to slide in ahead of the luggage and wedge his stout body into the small slot of s.p.a.ce between my overnight bag and one of Lorelei's suitcases. Heaving a sigh of relief, he made himself a nest there, so delighted to be coming with us that he didn't seem to care how uncomfortable he was.After I had finished loading the car, I waited in the hallway while Lorelei made one last trip through the condo, checking windows and turning out lights. When she came back, she was carrying my tennis racket."Jodi brought this over after school let out," she said. "She told me this is the racket you like to use for tournaments.""I can't play tournament tennis now," I said. "Dad's afraid I might get my picture in the paper.""Really?" Lorelei said. "I hadn't thought about that, but I suppose it makes sense. It won't take up much s.p.a.ce, so 139.let's take it anyway. If nothing else, we can use it for keeping that dog in line."

To my amazement, my grandmother didn't look back. When we reached the car, I automatically started to get in on the pa.s.senger's side, but Lorelei surprised me by motioning me into the driver's seat.

"You do the driving," she said. "I'll act as navigator. I'm not accustomed to one-handed driving like you kids are, and the last thing we need right now is to be in an accident."

Three months earlier, in another lifetime, I would have been ecstatic at being allowed to drive Lorelei's Porsche. Ironically, now I didn't feel happy at all. I had returned home expecting my grandmother to put my life back in order in the bossy, capable manner I remembered from childhood. Having her hand me the keys to her cherished sports car indicated a role reversal I wasn't ready for.

When we pulled up to the gate, Pat stepped out of the guardhouse, glancing with obvious surprise at the overloaded car.

"You going on a trip, Mrs. Gilbert?" he asked Lorelei.

"A little vacation on my doctor's orders," she told him. "New England is so beautiful in the summertime, and my granddaughter flew in today so she could drive me up there."

"I'll keep a close watch on your place while you're gone," Pat said. "I want you to know, we've really upped the security. I'll never forgive myself for letting that man get in here. I should have suspected something and checked his credentials."

"I'm sure you would have found them in order," said Lorelei. "You had no way of knowing he wasn't who he said he was."

Pat pressed the switch to lift the gate, and as we pulled away I could see him in the rearview mirror, gazing after us with a puzzled expression on his face.140.

"He thinks we're crazy for leaving at night," I said."He probably does, but that can't be helped," said Lorelei. "I hope, if he's asked, he'll say we were headed for New England." She glanced at her watch. "We're doing well with our time, it's only eight thirty. We should be able to make it as far as the border tonight. There's a road map in the glove compartment, and I'll chart a route for us. We'll have to make this trip without using my credit cards, so before we leave we'd better stop at a bank."It was while I was sitting in the car, waiting for Lorelei to withdraw money from the automatic teller, that I was. .h.i.t with a feeling that somebody was watching us. There was no particular reason for my rush of nervousness. Still, I felt an indefinable pressure between my shoulder blades as though a beam of cold, harsh light were being focused there. I turned in my seat to look back through the car's rear window, and of course I didn't see a hollow-eyed vampire. Except for our car, positioned in front of the money machine, the well-lighted parking lot at Norwood Savings and Loan was empty.I told myself I was simply being paranoid. There was no reason to think anybody would be tailing us. There hadn't been time for word to get out that I was back in town, and Lorelei had already been interrogated and discarded. Still, I was greatly relieved when my grandmother came back to the car and we were able to submerge ourselves in the Friday night traffic.Lorelei's prediction that we would make it to North Carolina that night was wishful thinking. We had been on the road only three hours when the stress of the day caught up with me and I had to admit I couldn't keep going much longer. In Petersburg, Virginia, we stopped at a motel with a lighted Vacancy sign, and I waited in the car with Porky while Lorelei went in to register. Behind the office window a sleepy-looking desk clerk blinked in surprise when Lorelei paid him in cash. He handed her two keys, and she gave one 141.back to him and asked a question that required a one-word answer. Then she came out to tell me that we would be staying in room 129 and the motel coffee shop opened at seven in the morning.

I drove the Porsche around to the rear of the motel, where I unloaded my overnight bag and the smaller of Lorelei's two suitcases. Released from his cramped quarters in the backseat, Porky headed straight for some bushes at the corner of the building. Then he came bounding back and broke into a frenzy of high-pitched barking at a black Camaro that had pulled into a parking s.p.a.ce several units down from ours.

"We can't have this," said Lorelei. "Pets aren't allowed here. You're going to have to shut that dog in the car."

"He'll be all right once we get him inside," I promised.

"No, he won't," said Lorelei. "I know how he behaves. Every time somebody walks past the door, he'll start barking. Put him back in the car, and move it away from here. If it's parked at the back of the lot, he won't disturb people."

I moved the car as she asked, with an apology to Porky, who looked so dejected I could hardly bear to leave him. Then I went back to the room to rejoin Lorelei. Once we were secured for the night, exhaustion overwhelmed us, and we didn't even bother to turn on the television. Lorelei declined first use of the bathroom on the grounds that bathing with a cast on was such an ordeal that she didn't want to have to face it until morning. I was too grubby to go to bed without a shower, and the water felt so good I stayed under it for ages. When I finally returned to the bedroom, I found my grandmother, still fully dressed, stretched out asleep on one of the beds.

I stood for a moment, gazing down at her, shocked at how much she had aged since the last time I'd seen her. The bulk of the cast accentuated her fragility, and her fine-boned face, slack with sleep and without the benefit of makeup, showed lines and shadows that were usually concealed by142.

cosmetics. Most startling of all, to me at least, was the fact that her honey blond hair was coming in at the roots a stony gray.Carefully, so as not to wake her, I removed her shoes and placed them on the floor by her unopened suitcase. The room was turning cool from the air-conditioning. I tried to pull up the covers, but she was on top of them, so I took the spread off the second bed and laid it over her, experiencing once again the uncomfortable feeling that she had become the child, and I, the adult.When I clicked off the overhead light and got into my own bed, I expected to sleep like a dead thing straight through until morning. Expected to, but didn't, for the moment the room went dark, I came abruptly awake, shot through with the same odd chill that I had experienced in the parking lot at the bank. It was late enough so there were no sounds from adjoining rooms to disturb me, but I had the feeling that someone was awake and aware, reaching out with his mind to touch me in the darkness.Sliding out from under the sheet, I got out of bed and groped my way across the room to the door. When I placed my hand in its center, I knew instinctively that somebody on the far side was doing so also. Inches away, separated from me by nothing more than a wooden panel, someone was standing on the doorsill, trying to make a decision about what to do next. The drapes across the window were double thick, so he could not know for certain that our lights were off. Still, enough time had pa.s.sed since we had entered the room for it to be reasonable to a.s.sume we were asleep.I was suddenly acutely aware of how noisy our room was. Lorelei had started to snore, a sharp, rasping sound that overpowered the monotonous hum of the air conditioner, and the thud of my heartbeat crashed like a drum in my ears, so loud that I was sure it could be heard for miles. Then I heard the most frightening sound of all, the sc.r.a.pe of 143.something metalic being cautiously slipped into the keyhole. My mind flew back to the sight of Lorelei in the office, refusing the second key that was being offered her. The desk clerk had obviously realized there were two in our party. If someone had gone to him later and identified himself as Lorelei's companion, the clerk would not have thought twice about giving him the duplicate.

All this flashed through my mind in the fraction of a second it took for my hand to fly up and hit the deadbolt. The bolt slid into place with a sound like a gunshot, and without pausing for an instant, I leapt to the window and jerked aside the draperies. The security light by our door illuminated the section of pavement in front of the motel unit, but beyond that on either side lay pools of darkness. From what I could see, the sidewalk appeared to be empty.

In the room behind me, Lorelei continued to snore, undisturbed by my sudden burst of activity. Had anything actually happened, or had I imagined it? Was there a figure out there crouched in the darkness, or was I inventing terrors that had no substance? When I strained my eyes and stared hard into one of the shadow pockets, I could almost believe I could see a s.h.i.+ft in the blackness as though there were somebody there who was changing position.

I let the curtain fall back into place, and in the deluge of heavier darkness the lighted dial on the telephone on the table between the beds glowed softly. I crossed the room to the phone and dialed the office. After a dozen rings, I hung up the receiver. I could only suppose the Vacancy sign was now off and the weary clerk had finally retired for the night.

By this time I was too charged with adrenaline to sleep. I got back into bed and lay there, rigidly alert, with my ears attuned for the slightest rustle at the door. Hours pa.s.sed, while dawn crept closer and closer, and my mind churned with visions of vampire faces at the window and bloodstained talons picking surrept.i.tiously at door locks. It wasn't until I heard people beginning to stir in the units on144.

either side of our own that I was finally able to relax enough to doze off for a while.I awoke several hours later to the sound of water running in the bathroom and opened my eyes to find that the bed across from me was empty. Dragging myself out of bed, I pulled on my clothes and opened the door of our room to a blue and gold morning and the realization that it was much later than it ought to be. Except for the black Camaro that Porky had reacted to so violently, the cars on our side of the lot had all departed, and two girls in shorts were pus.h.i.+ng a housekeeping cart along the sidewalk and das.h.i.+ng into rooms with clean towels and sheets.I shut the door behind me and walked around the side of the building to the office. When I entered, I found that the clerk from the night before had been replaced by a plump young woman with frizzy hair."Good morning!" she chirped in greeting. "What can I do for you?""My grandmother and I are in room one twenty-nine," I told her. "We're getting ready to leave and can find only one room key. Neither of us can remember how many we had. Is there a second key we ought to be looking for?""I don't know," said the girl. "I just came on duty this morning. I'll check and see if any of the duplicates are missing." She turned to inspect a board of pegs on the wall. "No, as far as I can tell, they're all here.""Good," I said. "Then we don't have to do a room search." The relief in my voice was far from manufactured.After leaving the office I stopped by the car to get Porky, who immediately made a dash for his favorite bushes. Then I took him back to the room, where Lorelei, now bathed and dressed, was putting on lipstick."I thought that's where you'd gone," she said, nodding at Porky. "I hope he didn't chew up everything in the car.""Of course not," I said. "That's not one of Porky's vices."

145."It's nice to know he has one redeeming feature," said Lorelei.

She finished putting on makeup without a.s.sistance, but allowed me to help with the b.u.t.tons on her dress. Then I carried our bags back to the Porsche, and after checking out at the office, we drove around to have breakfast in the coffee shop. We were lucky enough to be seated next to a window, and the bright morning sunlight poured in across our table, flooding our plates and cups with molten gold. The coffee was hot and strong, and the rolls rich with cinnamon, and suddenly everything seemed much better than it had been. I considered telling Lorelei about my panic attack in the night, but the light of day made the whole adventure seem laughable. What was there to be gained by frightening my grandmother with a story about something I'd probably only imagined? It wasn't as though a key to our room had been missing. Everything at the office had been in order. There was always the possibility that the duplicate key had been borrowed and then returned, but it was far more likely it hadn't been taken at all.

So I sat and enjoyed breakfast with my grandmother, who was making a heroic effort to put the past behind her. When we got back in the car we made the discovery that we must have inadvertently packed the road map in one of our suitcases, so we had to stop at a service station to get another one. Our departure was further delayed by a stop at a convenience store to buy dog food, so it was after nine before we were finally under way. We stopped at noon for lunch at a Howard Johnson's and twenty minutes later were back on the road again.

It wasn't until midafternoon that I happened to glance in the rearview mirror to see that the car behind us was a black Camaro.

16.

There are thousands of Camaros in the world, and out of that many, a significant number must be black. It was nothing more than coincidence that the car that happened to be behind us on the freeway was the same make and color as one of the many cars that had been parked at our motel.I recited those statements over and over in my mind as I worked to get the rearview mirror repositioned so it would reflect the person at the wheel. The problem was that the car was too far back. I glanced across at Lorelei in the seat beside me. Lulled by the rhythm of the road and the monotony of the scenery, she had nodded off soon after lunch and was now napping peacefully with her head tilted back against the headrest. I hated to disturb her for something as insignificant as another black car in a world that was filled with such vehicles. First, I thought, I would try to draw the Camaro closer and see if I could get a look at the driver.Experimentally, I eased up on the accelerator, letting my speed drop slowly from sixty-five to forty in hopes that the Camaro would decide to pull out and pa.s.s me. Instead, it 147.too slowed down, continuing to hang well back, but still keeping pace with the travel speed of the Porsche. I accelerated, and the Camaro sped up also, although there was nothing strange about that, I reminded myself. It was natural when driving the freeway to pace yourself according to the car ahead of you. Actually, I had been doing the same thing myself. The Chevy station wagon in front of us had been doing a steady sixty-five for the past fifty miles, and I had been adjusting my cruising speed to coincide with that. If the Chevy had suddenly increased its speed to seventy, I would automatically have done so also in order to keep the distance between us constant.

Deciding to see what would happen if I altered the pattern, I abruptly changed lanes and pressed the accelerator down almost to the floorboard. The engine roared as the transmission snapped into high and the Porsche went shooting past the lumbering station wagon. The occupants, a man and woman and three children, all turned to gape at us with shocked disapproval as we left them lingering behind in a cloud of exhaust fumes.

I continued bearing down on the accelerator and watched the needle on the speedometer creep higher and higher until it seemed that the Porsche was on its way to becoming airborne.

The burst of speed had jolted Lorelei awake, and she leaned against her shoulder harness to regard me with bewilderment. "What in the world do you think you're doing, April!"

"I'm sorry," I told her. "I didn't mean to wake you. I wanted to see if that car back there was tailing us."

I glanced in the mirror to see if the Camaro had pa.s.sed the station wagon and was following me at the speed at which I was now driving. It wasn't, but someone else was, which didn't surprise me, for I heard the siren one instant before I saw the patrol car.

"Of all the luck!" I muttered. "This would happen now!"148.

"What did you expect?" snapped Lorelei. "You're driving like a maniac!"With a sigh of resignation, I reduced my speed to a point where it was possible to pull over onto the shoulder of the road. The patrol car came to a stop several yards behind us, and the officer got out and came over to confront me."I'd like to see your driver's license," he told me. As I took it out of my wallet, he continued, "To say you were over the speed limit is putting it mildly. I clocked you at nearly ninety. May I see your registration, too, please? This is a lot of car for a kid your age to be driving.""This happens to be my car, young man," Lorelei informed him with dignity. "My granddaughter is driving it for me because I've had an injury.""I'm sorry, ma'am," the officer responded politely. "I'm afraid, though, it's our policy to check registration. Cars like this one have a habit of disappearing from their owners' driveways. If that happened to yours, I'm sure you'd be happy we do this."So Lorelei hauled the registration out of the glove compartment, and I handed over Valerie Weber's driver's license. Then we waited while the patrolman checked both doc.u.ments and took them back to his car to radio headquarters. In the meantime, the Chevy station wagon pa.s.sed us, creeping along at a snail's pace in honor of the patrol car, and I caught a snapshot glimpse of the family inside it, glaring self-righteously out at us through the side windows.The officer returned with our doc.u.ments and wrote out a speeding ticket."I see you've had your license only a month," he said. "It's a rite of pa.s.sage for every new driver to have a fender bender, but if you continue to drive like this you'll end up in the morgue."I murmured a few contrite statements and accepted the ticket.A few minutes later, when we were back on the freeway, 149.Lorelei suddenly said, "You may have been right about that car. It should have pa.s.sed us while we were stopped, but it didn't."

"There was an exit a mile or so back," I said. "He might have gotten off there."

"Or he might have pulled over and waited so he wouldn't lose us by getting ahead of us. If that's the case, he'll probably try to catch up with us."

We fell into silence, both watching the road behind us. Sure enough, it was not long before the black Camaro came into view, barreling along well over the speed limit in the fast left lane. It started slowing down before it came abreast of us and then casually s.h.i.+fted over into our lane, pacing itself behind us as though it had been there always, attached to our rear b.u.mper by an invisible cable.

"There should be another exit coming up soon," said Lorelei. "He won't be expecting you to take it. That's probably our best chance of getting away from him. Pull over into the fast lane and start speeding up. You may be able to trick him into overshooting it."

I nodded, following her meaning without need for elaboration. This time when I changed lanes, the Camaro did too. I again began to accelerate, keeping an eye on the car in the mirror, as the Camaro increased its speed to keep it consistent with ours. It was close enough now so I could see that the driver was a man who was wearing sungla.s.ses. The exit to Weston Road loomed up ahead of us, but I didn't brake to indicate that I was aware of it. Instead, I checked in the mirror to make sure that all the lanes to my right were empty and continued to increase speed until we were practically flying. Then, without hitting the turn signal, I whispered a prayer and gave the steering wheel a hard twist to the right. The Porsche leapt diagonally across the three vacant lanes and landed on the exit ramp, where it went careening around the loop like a walnut in a Mixmaster.150.

I was so occupied with the task of keeping the car on the road that I didn't dare lift my eyes to look in the mirror."What happened?" I managed to gasp. "Is he still behind us?"Lorelei swiveled her head. "I think he missed the exit." I could tell she was having to struggle to keep her voice steady.I let the car lose momentum before touching the brake and then gradually began to tap it down into a manageable speed. It wasn't until we were stopped at a four-way light that I discovered I had been gripping the steering wheel so tightly the blood had left my fingers. I peeled my hands off the wheel and flexed them to get the circulation going again, and then, feeling a little light-headed but back in control, I turned left onto Weston Road and drove at a sensible and legal thirty miles an hour into Tutterville, South Carolina.Tutterville, with its tree-lined streets and neat pastel houses, resembled a movie set for a G-rated film laid in Normaltown, U.S.A. Everywhere you looked there were men was.h.i.+ng cars in their driveways and housewives in shorts and halter tops pruning roses. Children romped in sprinklers, and older people, who could have served as a cast for the movie Coc.o.o.n, were rocking on porches or chatting with neighbors on sun-dappled sidewalks. It was a restful, summer Sat.u.r.day in a town so postcard-perfect that danger seemed a concept too ridiculous to contemplate."Maybe we just imagined it," I said shakily. "Maybe he wasn't following us at all.""He was following us," said Lorelei. "No two ways about it. He must have been right on our tail when we left the condo.""But how could he have known we were leaving?" I asked. "I hadn't been in Norwood more than two hours.""Obviously, my phone was tapped," said Lorelei. "He heard you say you were coming and was ready for whatever we decided to do next."

151.Her down-to-earth acceptance of what had happened convinced me she was tougher than I'd thought, and I decided to share the experience I had been withholding.

"Last night I thought I heard someone trying to get into our room," I said. "When I looked out the window, n.o.body seemed to be out there. I checked at the office this morning, and no keys were missing. I've been trying to make myself believe I only imagined it."

"Maybe you did, and maybe you didn't," said Lorelei. "Doors can be opened with other devices than keys. The important thing now is we seem to have shaken the Camaro. The driver must have a low opinion of our intelligence or he wouldn't have taken the risk of following so closely. I imagine now he'll expect us to keep driving south and to get back onto the freeway the next chance we get." She was silent a moment as she studied the road map. "What I think we should do is reverse directions and take the state highway north instead of south."

Relieved to have the decision made for me, I did as she suggested and drove north on Highway 15 to a town called St. George. There we reentered the freeway and drove back south again for four more hours until we crossed the state border into Florida and stopped at a motel in St. Augustine for the night.

At least, that was our plan. It didn't work out that way. After we checked into our room and I napped for an hour, Lorelei and I had dinner at a seafood restaurant. Then we returned to our room, and I brought in our bags.

That was when we realized something was missing. It was Lorelei who first became aware of it as she rummaged through her suitcase.

"I don't have the map," she said. "Is it in your bag?"

"No," I said. "I thought it got packed in yours."

There was a pause. Then my grandmother said, "Make a search for it. Maybe it got shoved down under some of your clothes."152.

"I know I don't have it," I said. "We must have left it in Petersburg. Does it really matter? There's a second map in the car.""That's not the point," said Lorelei. "I marked our route on the original map. If it didn't get packed, then it must have been left in our room.""You mean-you think-" I realized where she was headed and felt a sharp taloned hand close over my heart. "You think that man may have gotten into our motel room?""The maids were doing the housekeeping ch.o.r.es when we left, and the doors to all the units were standing open. Anybody could have walked into any one of them. We must have been in the coffee shop half an hour. That was plenty of time for someone to have checked our room to see if we'd left anything meaningful behind.""But if he'd had a marked map, he wouldn't have had to follow us," I said. "Wouldn't he just have driven on through to Grove City?""He'd still have had to locate your parents when he got there," said Lorelei. "He doesn't know where they live or what name they're using. It would take time to find that out, and since he knew we were headed there anyway, the simplest thing would have been to let us lead him.""Newcomers stand out in a town that small," I said. "If he asks around, he's bound to find someone who's noticed us."On the screen of my mind I saw my parents and Jason, seated in the living room playing Monopoly, with the figure of a vampire poised in the doorway. Or worse, the creature would come for them while they were sleeping. I pictured the front door swinging silently inward while the fans in the windows covered the sound of footsteps. As always, the doors to the bedrooms would be standing open to the hall to allow the air to circulate through the house. Mike Vamp 153.could walk straight into my parents' bedroom without even having to place his hand on the doork.n.o.b.

By the time I had gotten that far, the phone receiver was in my hand and I was frantically dialing the number of our house in Grove City. The phone rang over and over without an answer.

"*They're out," I said. "That's odd, because they never go anywhere."

"Maybe they've gone to a friend's house," Lorelei suggested.

"They don't have friends," I said. "They keep to themselves."

We sat on the motel beds, across from each other, each seeing her panic reflected in the eyes of the other.

"Nothing has happened to anybody yet," said Lorelei, trying to make the statement sound rea.s.suring. "Even if he drove nonstop from the time we left the freeway at Tut-terville, there hasn't been time for him to have reached Grove City."

"Tom Geist is the person to call, but his number's unlisted," I said. "We have it at home, taped to the base of the telephone, but I never thought of copying it and carrying it with me. I guess we'd better get back in the car and start driving."

"You're worn out," said Lorelei. "We've been on the road all day. I'll drive the first few hours so you can rest,"

"You can't do that with that cast on your arm," I objected. "You said yourself you can't manage one-handed driving."

"I retract that statement," said Lorelei. "I'll manage fine. It can't be as dangerous as your daredevil stunt on the freeway. Besides, we don't have a choice. If we don't warn your parents, that monster who broke my arm may injure your mother."

So we got back into the car and took off again, with Lorelei driving the first two hours, and me, the second two.154.

As the road unrolled like a long, black ribbon before us, I comforted myself with the knowledge that when the Camaro arrived in Grove City the driver would still not know how to find our house. Even if he were able to get our address, the lack of street signs and curbside numbers would make it almost impossible to locate it at night. We'd had a hard enough time finding it ourselves, even with written directions and a map to guide us.About five miles short of Grove City we hit the rain. At first it was only a spatter of drops on the winds.h.i.+eld, but it grew increasingly heavier until by the time we reached the town limits the heavens had opened, and I couldn't see more than a couple of yards in front of me. It was late enough so there were no other cars on the road as I inched the Porsche down the river that had once been Orange Avenue, guided by the blur of water-curtained streetlights. I missed the entrance to Lemon Lane completely and had to make a U-turn to go back and search for it. When I finally did find the road and turn the car onto it, Lorelei stared out her window into the immensity of the darkness like a traveler in s.p.a.ce who's been sucked into a black hole."There really are houses along here?" she asked doubtfully."A few," I told her. "They're back behind the trees.""This rain is probably a blessing in disguise," she said. "It's hard to imagine anyone locating anything in this downpour unless he knew exactly where he was going."Even I had trouble finding our house, and it was with relief that I finally spotted the mailbox. When I eased the Porsche into the narrow mouth of the driveway, I became aware of a strange, dark shape at the side of it. It took me a moment to recognize what it was, and when I did a scream rose into my throat and hung there, caught, unable to move any farther. Yanking the steering wheel hard, I sent our car spinning around in a half-moon curve so it shot off the drive 155.and plowed through a thicket of palmetto shrubs to come to a stop facing back toward the road.

There, in the beam of our headlights, was my parents' Plymouth, nose down in the surging waters that swept through the drainage ditch.

17.

Before the engine had stopped running, I was out of the Porsche and down on my knees at the edge of the embankment, straining to see into the water-filled interior of the car. What had happened was all too obvious; whoever had been driving the Plymouth had neglected to center it at the point where the driveway narrowed to bridge the ditch, and the left front wheel had slipped off the edge of the driveway, so the car had taken the plunge diagonally and was now positioned hood down with the rear end elevated."Whose car is that?" asked Lorelei, materializing beside me. I could tell by her voice that she'd already guessed the answer."It's ours," I said, "but there isn't anybody in it.""Thank G.o.d for that!" exclaimed Lorelei. "But someone was in it! One or both of your parents and maybe Bram.""It was Mother," I said. "I'm sure the driver was Mother." The knowledge rose up to confront me, stark and unavoidable. "Mother's started drinking since we've been in Florida, not just on special occasions, but all the time. She's 157.been so unhappy, so frustrated about her writing. We've none of us wanted to recognize it, so we've closed our eyes to it."

Scrambling up from the ground, I broke into a run back across the yard to the house. The waterlogged steps of the porch gave beneath my feet like rotten sponges as I pounded up them with Porky at my heels. When I groped for the doork.n.o.b, I found the front door was already open, as though the last one through it had been in too much of a hurry to close it behind him.

The house was dark, and my hand shot up to the wall switch. With a click, the living room leapt into existence, the cream-color walls that Mother had recently painted a striking contrast to the shabby furnis.h.i.+ngs and the sun-bleached curtains at the windows. The room was just as it had been when I had left except that the Sunday paper had been tossed on the sofa and the coffee table held a c.o.ke can and what appeared to be a half-empty gla.s.s of orange juice.

Porky paused to shake himself, but I dashed on down the hall, snapping on lights as I ran, driving the pervasive darkness out of each room in turn. None of the rooms was occupied, and the neatly made bed in my parents' room had obviously not been slept in. Jason's bed was a mess, but that didn't mean anything, since he almost never made his bed in the morning, and Mother only did it for him on the one day a week she took the sheets to the launderette. In the kitchen, Mother's typewriter was set up on the table with ma.n.u.script pages scattered around it like dry leaves in autumn. My eyes flew automatically to the door of the refrigerator, which was where we always left notes for each other, but it didn't hold any message. On the counter beside the telephone, however, there lay a sc.r.a.p of paper that told as much of the story as I needed to know. Jotted on it in my mother's familiar handwriting was Kim Stanfield's telephone number.158.

Immediately, I realized what must have happened. Somehow Mother had learned I was not at Kim's house. Sinse Kim was not in town to tell her, the only person who could have given me away was Larry. Jason had said he'd attempted to reach me on Thursday, and his ego must have been dented when I didn't return his call. Perhaps he had followed up with a call on Sunday and Mother had told him I'd gone to Kim's for the weekend. Larry's response would have been to say that was impossible since Kim had gone to Miami with her family.The scenario rolled through my mind, so clear and immediate it was hard to believe I had not been there to see it- Mother phoning Kim's house and, getting no answer, rus.h.i.+ng out to the car to drive herself over there. Had she gone alone, or had Dad and Jason been with her? And had anyone been hurt when the car went into the ditch? Was there anybody in town who would know what had happened?Stricken with guilt and panic, I grabbed for the telephone and dialed the only local number I could think of. The phone seemed to ring interminably before it was answered and a man's unfamiliar voice mumbled a groggy "h.e.l.lo?""Please, may I speak to Larry?" I asked in a rush."To Larry?" the man said irritably. "Who is this anyway? Don't you know it's one o'clock in the morning?""I'm Val Weber, a friend of Larry's," I told him. "I'm sorry to call at this hour, but it's terribly important.""Weber?" the man said. "I've heard that name. You must be one of the people that guy who called here earlier was trying to get hold of.""Somebody tried to call us at your house?" I asked weakly."The guy who phoned Larry said he was looking for some people by the name of Corrigan. He called at midnight and woke up the whole blasted family. I heard Larry ask him if those 'Corrigans' might be going by the name of 159.'Weber' and have a daughter who plays tennis and a son with two-color eyes. I don't know what kind of game you people are playing, but I've got to be at work at seven in the morning, and I don't appreciate being waked up twice in one night."

"Please, Mr. Bushnell, let me speak to Larry," I begged. "I've got to know what else he may have told that man. Did he give him directions about how to find our house?"

"You can ask him that in the morning," the man said firmly. "I'm not going to wake my kid up again tonight."

The phone clunked hard in my ear and was replaced by the dial tone. Behind me Porky's toenails clicked rhythmically against the weathered kitchen linoleum as he came trotting in to explore the room.

From the living room Lorelei's voice called, "April? Where are you?"

"In the kitchen, using the phone," I called back to her, trying to make a decision as to what to do next. My first thought was to call the police for protection, but how could I convince them of the extent of our danger? Since I wasn't allowed to tell them we were in the Security Program, they would think my fears were excessive and ridiculous. The only person who would understand was Tom, and for all I knew, my father might already have phoned him. When Dad found out I'd run off, he was sure to have guessed I was headed for Norwood, and the reasonable thing to have done was inform Tom Geist.

I had just picked up the phone and was in the process of turning it upside down so I could read the number taped to its base when Porky suddenly burst into a volley of barking. It was the high-pitched, staccato sort of yapping that usually meant he had spotted something strange and exciting. When I glanced at him I saw that his head was lifted and his eyes were riveted to the far side of the room at about the level of my shoulder. I turned to follow his gaze and gasped160.

in horror. There, behind the rain-streaked pane of the kitchen window, was the face of a vampire.I could not move. I was not capable of screaming. All I could do was stand there, frozen with shock, as the reincarnation of my worst childhood nightmare stared back at me. His lips were pressed tightly together, but the corners of his mouth were curved upward in a smile that was almost as horrible as if he had been displaying fangs. He might have come straight out of The Lost Boys or Salem's Lot, but I knew that he was more dangerous than any fictional character.This was the real-life bloodchaser-this was the hitman.Lorelei spoke from behind me. "Porky, be quiet! You'll raise the dead with that infernal barking. Whom are you calling, April, the police or the hospital?"Her voice broke the spell, and I was able to move again. The phone fell out of my hands and crashed to the floor as I dashed across the kitchen to the outside door. I shoved the lock into place and whirled to face my grandmother."The front door!" I cried. "Did you lock it when you came in?""Probably not," said Lorelei. "I was in such a hurry to see if your mother was here that I didn't even think about it. What's the matter? Why is Porky barking?""He's there at the window!" I told her. "Don't you see him?" I gestured toward the gla.s.s, but the face was gone. All that could now be seen was a world of blackness, alive with the eerie movement of wind-tossed tree branches."I'll go lock it now," said Lorelei. "You phone the police. Tell them a prowler is trying to break into the house."She started back down the hall, but I tore past her, knowing I'd let too much time go by already. The front door was not only unlocked, it was standing open, and as I had feared, the living room was no longer empty. The man with the vampire face stood framed in the doorway, backlit by a 161.brilliant sledge blow of lightning. He was tall and lean, and his water-soaked T-s.h.i.+rt accentuated the long, hard muscles in his arms and shoulders that made the gun in his hands an unnecessary accessory. This time there was no blond wig to cover his thick, dark hair, but I recognized the piercing black eyes immediately.

"What do you think you're doing here?" I demanded.

"I'm here to visit your father," Mike Vamp told me. His voice was low-pitched and cultured, almost a purr, which seemed to rea.s.sure Porky, who stopped his barking and started instead to wag his tail in greeting. "I presume you're April-or perhaps you'd prefer to be called Valerie? People seem to have trouble knowing how to refer to you."

"That's the man!" Lorelei said from the doorway. "He's the one who attacked me!"

"How are you tonight, Mrs. Gilbert?" the hitman asked her. "What a pleasant surprise that we meet again so soon. I trust your arm is mending the way it should be?"

Lorelei did a magnificent job of concealing her emotions. "If you have any sense, you'll get out of here," she said. "My granddaughter's called the police, and they'll be here any minute now."

"Oh, I rather doubt that," said Mike Vamp. "There wasn't enough time. I saw her drop the phone before she started dialing." He came farther into the room and closed the door, shutting out the incessant beat of the rain.

"If it's Dad you want, he's not here," I told him defiantly. "We can't tell you where he is, because we just got here."

"I'm aware of that," he said. "My car is parked at the side of the house, and I sat and watched as you pulled in the driveway. I thought at first it might be your parents returning, but then, from the lights, I realized it had to be the Porsche. I must admit I was surprised to see you. I hadn't expected you ladies to drive straight through."

"How were you able to find the house?" asked Lorelei. "We hardly found it ourselves in the rain and darkness."162.

"I had directions," Vamp told her. "During your phone conversation with your granddaughter, she mentioned a friend named Larry Bushnell. There was only one listing for Bushnell in the phone book. Larry didn't seem very happy with you, April. When I told him I was a federal agent tracking down an embezzler, he was more than willing to do his patriotic duty. I didn't have any problem finding the house.""How did you find us in Richmond?" The question burst out of its own accord, and I braced myself for the answer I didn't want to hear."It was your letter, of course, in your boyfriend's mailbox. That was the first piece of mail he'd received in a week, so I figured there was a good chance that it was from you. The postmark gave me the city, and you said you were on the fourteenth floor, which narrowed down the number of hotels I had to check before I found a family that got all their meals through room service.""What are you planning to do with us?" asked Lorelei. "There can't be any reason to harm my granddaughter.""She's served her purpose," said Vamp. "She brought me here. Her only use to me now is as a hostage. Family men like Corrigan turn into p.u.s.s.ycats when they hear their beloved children pleading and crying.""I told you, Dad's gone," I said. "We don't know where.""That's quite all right," said Vamp. "I don't mind waiting.""For all we know, he may not be coming back here!""I think he will." He gave me his tight-lipped smile. "This is his nest, and he's bound to return eventually.""This is all so crazy!" I cried. "Dad doesn't know anything! He never had evidence against anybody but Loftin!""The people I work for don't take chances," said the hitman. "Too many lives are involved and too much is at stake. I'm going to have to stash you ladies somewhere.

163.April, you're familiar with the house. Why don't you take your grandma and me on a tour of it?"

So we walked down the hall together, with stupid Porky romping ahead of us, still wagging his tail. I'd pa.s.sed the point of fear and had settled into numbness, as though I had no connection with what was happening. Visions of people I loved leapt into my mind as if each one had come to bid me good-bye. I saw Dad's gentle smile and hopeful expression as he suggested our ill-fated trip to Disney World. I saw Mother at the typewriter, lost in a world of her own creation, and Jason, his small face radiant after Song of the South. I saw Steve and Jodi and Sherry, and I even saw Jim Peterson with his craggy face and his arms piled high with packages.

Jim-I whispered silently-Jim, I'm so sorry! I'm the one who did it, I called in the vampire. I was stupid and selfish and caused a tragedy to happen, and now, G.o.d help me, I've done the same thing again.

It was dumb, Jim said, and I actually heard his voice as clear and kind as though he were walking beside me. You 're a kid from the Cinemax generation, April. You can't believe real-life stories don't all have happy endings. You were dumb, all right, but dumb's not the same as stupid. You've got a brain, so get on the ball and use it.

Our tour was abruptly over at the end of the hallway.

"I don't care which room you lock us in," I said dully. "A bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, it doesn't matter. Whatever you do, though, please don't make it a closet. I can't stand being shut in a place without windows."

"I'm afraid you won't have much of a choice," said Vamp. I didn't need to look to know he was smiling. "I'm going to have to barricade the door, and only the closets have doors that open outward."

We ended up in the walk-in closet in my parents' room, jabbed by hangers and nearly smothered by clothing. As we heard the sound of the dresser being shoved against the164.

door, Lorelei said bitterly, "He took such joy in doing this. You should never have told him you have claustrophobia. This is a man who gets pleasure from making people suffer.""I know," I said. "But things aren't as bad as they might be. Brer Fox doesn't know it yet, but he's thrown us in the briar patch."

18.

I reached up and groped for the string that triggered the closet light. It took me a while to find it, and I was beginning to panic at the thought that it might have broken or come loose from the overhead fixture when it suddenly brushed my hand like the edge of a cobweb, and I grabbed it and pulled.

The bulb went on, and my grandmother's face appeared inches from my own, taut with a combination of fear and exhaustion.