Nor did I want to see him. Ever. Never again. Quivering, I folded my arms over my purse, clutching it to my heart like a shield.
I looked up.
He stood, a shadowy presence, at the van’s side door, the wicked sheen of a knife in his hand. All I could see was that blade hovering bright in the darkness like a Cheshire cat’s grin. Every detail. Shining steel, maybe eight inches, honed to a razor edge on its curved side. The groove defining its gray spine—not just a pocketknife’s fingernail groove; this was a blood groove. Evil, that blade, meant to stab, slash, kill. Even the edge that did not cut, its back, seemed wicked and evil, concave to give a stiletto point to the tip.
The sight of that knife froze me in nightmare terror. In that moment I comprehended, irrationally but right to the marrow of my bones, that I wasn’t merely frightened of knives in general; I was terrified of that knife.
But . . . but I’d never seen such a knife before.
Had I?
A queasy sense of déjà vu squirmed in my gut. It had to do with—the dark form behind the knife, the man; thank God I couldn’t see his face, only the nasty curves of that knife and the sinewy hand and arm that wielded it.
I thought I saw him shifting slightly, as if he was swaying, maybe a bit dazed by my blow. Then—he still had the tire pump gadget, remember, complete with light? He flicked on the light and shone it straight at me, making me blink as well as shake.
With harsh force he demanded, “Who the hell are you?”
He didn’t know me.
Relief lifted my heart. This man, this pervert, this abductor, was a stranger to me.
Unless . . . he just didn’t recognize me. . . .
Stop it, Dorrie. Let it be.
Just the same . . . Years ago, my voice had been soft, like Juliet’s. Now I made myself use the forceful voice I’d learned from teaching school. Yet at the same time I knew I’d better be very careful what I said. I badly wanted to tell him I was the fat, interfering bitch in the Kia, but instead I answered, “I am worried about this girl.”
“You fat, interfering bitch.” He said it for me. Without looking at Juliet, he slammed her door closed, hand swinging as if he had slapped her across the face, while he cursed at me. “You ugly slut. Get out of my van.”
The power of command in his voice was strong enough to make my whole body isometrically strain to levitate off his floor. Luckily, I was tired. Very, very tired. And inertia had taken hold. I didn’t move.
“No.” Then, because I’d heard someplace that offense is the best defense, I accused, “You tried to kill me.”
“I still can.” Raising his knife, the shadowed man took a threatening step toward me—threatening, but unsteady, presumably from his having been conked on the head. I felt chillingly convinced that otherwise he would have cut my throat right then and there.
He ordered, “Out. Now. Get out of my van.” He put venom into his commanding voice, and teeth.
I hugged my purse tighter against my chest. “No.”
“Stupid bitch, are you crazy?”
With what I hoped was matronly dignity I declared, “I would hope that if someone saw my daughter being abducted from the parking lot of a shopping mall, she would try to do something about it.”
He stood there, maybe thinking, maybe realizing that he didn’t really want me out of his van or I’d go straight to the police. Maybe pondering what use he could make of me, or deciding how best to get rid of me. I couldn’t see his face, so I had no idea what was going on in his mind. He could see me clearly, but still, I hoped he had no idea what was going on in mine.
Gesturing with the knife, he told me very softly, “Fine. Stay and go to hell. I’ll kill you too.” With a wham that made me wince, he slammed the van’s sliding door.
Juliet turned in her seat to stare at me wide-eyed.
I told her the first, utterly inane, very likely untrue thing that came to my mind: “It’s going to be all right.”
She didn’t answer.
My eyes had gotten so thoroughly accustomed to the dark that I could see her hugging her bare shoulders with her hands and shivering, colder than ever now in her skimpy little top. Chilled by fear, I thought. But she looked not quite as panicked as a few moments before. The gallows look in her face was gone now that somebody, a Mom type, had joined her in the van.
God help us, I had to save her.
I leaned forward and started struggling out of my car coat. Our eyes met at closer range. Our gazes locked and communicated, each of us saying wordlessly to the other: We’re in this together. Maybe we can get out of this together. Be strong. Be smart. There’s no time for us to cry, vent, chitchat. Whatever we say to each other must be important and He must not hear us.
That was how I conceptualized our captor. He. Him. Like a deity. A being with the power of life and death over us.
The chugging of the air pump began. Instantly Juliet asked me, “Are you with the police?”
“No.”
Her dark eyebrows arched. “Who are you, then? Where did you come from?”
Oh, God, my heart yearned and burned to tell her, I’m your mother, you’re my daughter, but a melodramatic revelation was the last thing she needed right now. I wanted to help her, not shock her silly. I babbled, “Me, um, I’m nobody.”
“But you know my name!”
Having already mentioned an imaginary daughter, I invoked her again. “My daughter goes to school with you.”
“Who is it? What’s your name?”
I hesitated, and tried to cover my hesitation by dragging my car coat out from behind my back. I didn’t want to tell her a false name to which I might fail to respond if she called. Yet I didn’t want to tell her my real name because I didn’t want Him to find it out. Instead of answering her question, I tossed my coat to her. “Put that over you.”
“Thanks.” She snuggled under the coat, which was quite large enough to serve as a blanket for her upper body.
Sitting back with my arms crossed over my purse, I realized that all He had to do to identify me was take it from me, look at my driver’s license, and then He would know where I lived. Hastily I shoved the purse behind me along with the flashlight. I shuddered.
Juliet was watching me. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. My blubber keeps me warm.”
“No, I mean like, seriously, when he had the light on you, you looked, um, infected. I mean, feverish.” Nice girl. Tactful, didn’t want to mention the rash growing like red mold all over my face. And concerned; she’d put aside her unanswered questions, focusing on me. “Do you have, like, measles or something?”
“Or something.”
Silence—He was moving the air pump to the last tire. With a glance that cautioned me to secrecy, Juliet squirmed, reached into her jeans pocket, and handed me a fistful of candies. She gave me an inquiring look; will those help? I nodded back; yes, thank you. Yes, I needed to eat something, even if it was only a hard candy. I unwrapped one and stuck it in my mouth.
Cherry flavor.
I felt the taste run through me like a physical memory, one that made me feel sick. But cherry candy—so what? I told myself. The symbolism of the cherry was universal among predatory males, although when I had been Juliet’s age, I hadn’t been aware of it. And I hoped she wasn’t either.
Maybe He hadn’t even given her the candies. Maybe she’d bought them at the mall.
Don’t ask.
The air pump started up again. At once Juliet asked, “You really followed me all the way from the mall? Did you call the police?”
“Yes, and yes, but I didn’t have the license number.”
“It doesn’t matter. He has different license plates he sticks on with magnets.”
This guy—He—had stalking and abduction down to a science, evidently
. “How does He unlock that seat belt?”
“I don’t know. He must have a control somewhere but I can’t figure out where.”
Lord. How many girls had He snatched, molested, raped, then—
Don’t go there.
I asked Juliet, “Could you lean your seat back and slip out from under it that way?”
The way she shook her head told me she’d already tried. “I’m strapped in like this is the electric chair,” she said. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”
“Partly to be difficult and partly to hide your little blue flasher light.”
Her eyes widened. “I forgot all about it! Where is it?”
“Under the—”
Silence silenced us. Juliet turned around to face front, pulling my jacket tight around her shoulders. I heard Him open the van’s rear door and toss the air pump in. Heard Him smack a license plate into place. Heard the door slam. Next moment the driver’s-side door opened.
“You in back,” He ordered as He climbed in, “get your fat ugly ass off the floor and sit where I can see you.”
Struggling to obey, I slipped one hand under the driver’s seat and palmed a small cylinder lying there.
“In the middle of the back,” He commanded, and I meekly positioned myself behind the rearview mirror. From there I scanned the front, noticing a lumpy square of black tape stuck to the dash. Oh, my gosh. Electrician’s tape, hiding the little red light that flashed when His security system was turned on. A clever wad of slime He was.
He slammed His door closed. Swiveling in His seat so that He approximately faced me, He thrust His knife toward my face. He told me, “This is Pandora.”
Fixated on that blade, a chill silver flame in the gloom, I couldn’t move or speak.
He commanded, “Say it.”
I whispered, “Pandora.”
“Right. Pandora goes wherever I go. Pandora is the queen of all castrating bitches. You stay where you are and don’t move or Pandora will slit your fricking throat.”
No seat belt? No need. The tone of complete conviction in His threat froze me in place. You couldn’t have moved me with a forklift.
He stuck the knife into a sheath He wore at His belt. I heard a jangle of keys. Jamming one into the ignition, starting the van, He ordered Juliet, “Take that thing off you.”
“But I’m cold.” She used a quiet, reasonable tone.
“Oh, my poor Candy,” He said with such melting compassion that for that moment I could have sworn He was a Hallmark made-for-TV movie hero. “Poor darling, you’re cold.” His voice purred along with the well-tuned motor of the van; I heard in it not a hint of anything except heartfelt sympathy. “But I’ll soon get you all warmed up again, sweet, sweet Candy—”
“My name is not Candy,” she interrupted with a hint of edge. I stiffened, silently begging her, Be careful.
He said just as tenderly, “Of course not, sweetheart. You’re Juliet.”
How did He know her name? From ID she carried on her, maybe? Or had He coerced her to tell Him?
“And I’m Romeo. We’re fated to die together.”
I froze, feeling as if an icicle had shot up my spine.
His voice took on the prophetic fervor of certainty. “But in the cosmic sense you’re all Candies, all you sweet girls who look like her. You especially. You look more like her than any of the other ones did. You look just like her, sweet Candy.” As if operated by a toggle switch His tone flipped to brutal. “I want to look at you. Take that thing off.”
“All right,” she said, but then she added, “In a minute. Let me get warm first.”
“I said take it off!” He reached over to rip it away from her. She hung on as if my old brown coat were part of her now. Trying to get that coat from her was like trying to skin an armadillo. He couldn’t rip it off one-handed. He would have had to get out of the driver’s seat and out of the van and go around to her side to wrestle it away from her. I sat up straight, hoping He would be stupid enough to do just that. I would grab the seat, the wheel, the keys—
“Goddamn tight-ass slut! Take it off!” He tried to hit Juliet in the face. She jerked sideward away from Him, and His knuckles angled off her cheek.
She said quite calmly, “No.”
Oh, God, if He drew that knife—
But He cursed her briefly, then put the van in gear. He said, “You know it’s coming off once we get out of here.” A pit bull could not have sounded more threatening. He backed up to turn the van around and drove out of the parking lot.
* * *
Sam tried phoning his in-laws one more time.
“What do you mean calling so late, Sam?” the old man complained. “We were sleeping.”
Only manners drilled in bone deep kept Sam from demanding how they could go to sleep when their daughter was missing. Instead, he blurted like a child, “Dorrie’s still not back.”
“Not where she belongs? Then she’s gone to the devil again. We’ll pray for her. Good night.”
“No, wait! Don’t hang up.” Sam took a deep breath and tried to speak calmly. “Do you happen to have a recent photograph of her?” He knew the chances were remote. His in-laws, who felt to him more like out-laws, were no more camera-prone than he was.
“No reason why we should,” Father Birch said. “After what she brought upon herself, we did our duty for her and not a bit more. Good—”
“Don’t hang up! Please, I don’t understand. Why do you say such things about Dorrie? What has she ever done that is so unforgivable?”
Silence except for the whispering of the telephone wire.
Sam tried again. “Father Birch, I really, really need to know. What happened in Appletree?”
“We don’t talk about that.” The old man’s tone sounded frostily final. “Not to anyone. Now, I want to get some sleep. Good—”
Sam demanded, “Did it have anything to do with Don Phillips? The district attorney?”
“I told you, we don’t talk about it!” The old man slammed the phone down. Sam stood for a moment listening to the whispers in the phone line and in his mind.
“Huh,” he muttered, replacing the receiver quite gently in its cradle.
After a moment’s thought, he picked up the phone again and called Pastor Lewinski.
He answered on the second ring, “Hello, can I help you?” as cordially as if he had not just been awakened from righteous slumber.
“It’s Sam White again,” Sam said perhaps unnecessarily, but then again, perhaps the bedroom phone was old and lacked caller ID.
Lewinski didn’t miss a beat. “Dorrie’s still not home?”
“No. I managed to get the police to take an interest, and they want a recent photo of her, but I, um, I don’t have any.” Sam was going to explain how Dorrie treated cameras on a duck-and-cover basis, but apparently Lewinski needed no explanation.
“We’ll find one,” he declared. “Meet me at the church office, okay?”
“Um, okay.” Sam hung up, feeling a bit dazed. He was used to telling his employees what to do, unaccustomed to being a follower, but he needed leadership right now, and he accepted it.
Habitually thrifty, Sam started to turn off the lights before leaving, but then he changed his mind and kept them all on, just about every light in the house, sending up a mute prayer for Dorrie to come home.
Backing the pickup out of the driveway, Sam acknowledged himself to be tired. Very tired and upset. He hadn’t been this upset in many years, since the day his sister had taken a bad fall off a horse and everybody had thought she was going to be paralyzed. Now she was fine, of course, and living in Paris, France. Happy ending. With that in mind, Sam ordered himself to pay conscious attention to his driving. It wouldn’t help Dorrie any if he got in an accident.
He took th
e short drive slowly to find that Pastor Lewinski had reached the church before him. The light through the office windows felt like a warm embrace to Sam, making him fervidly hope Lewinski wouldn’t actually try to hug him; Sam felt afraid he might break down, embarrassing himself.
Being on emotional edge prevented him from saying anything as he walked in. Even if he could have talked about what was on his mind, it would have been no use to ask Lewinski whether he knew what had happened to Dorrie and her parents in Appletree; the pastor didn’t go back that far. He’d come to this pulpit a few years ago straight out of seminary. Sitting at the computer in his pajamas and slippers, his red hair wildly disheveled, bringing up a screen of photos, Lewinski looked like a teenager. To Sam’s relief, he didn’t even glance up, just waved, then gestured toward a nearby chair. “I’m trying the most recent covered-dish supper first,” he said, intent on Photoshop, “and right there with you in the food line, confronted by a dozen kinds of macaroni and cheese, is your lovely wife. Now if I can just get her facing the camera . . . okay, there’s one. There’s another.”
As Sam watched with more anxiety than interest, Lewinski clicked the mouse on several photos, selected “Edit” from a menu, then started cropping and enlarging the modified images until several reasonably helpful photos of Dorrie emerged, some of just her face but some also showing her distinctive figure and dress style. In none of them was she aware of the camera. Most of them caught her either talking or eating. To Sam she looked wonderful in all of them.
As Lewinski printed them out on card stock, he ventured, “I suppose you spoke with Dorrie’s parents.”
“Yes,” said Sam, at the same time shaking his head as if he hadn’t. Or wished he hadn’t. He blurted, “They complained because I called after bedtime and woke them up.”
“Ow. Ouch,” said the pastor softly. “Really?”
“Yes, really. When their daughter is missing. I—I don’t understand them.”
“Neither do I,” admitted Lewinski, handing Sam the improvised photos and waving his thanks away. “Usually I can manage insight into people whether they’re pleasant or not, but—this has to stay between you and me, Sam—Dorrie’s parents baffle me.”
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