“The snow’s fairly deep up here and I’ve never really learned to drive in it.” It was New England-bred Justin who had taught her how to reduce the possibility of skids to a minimum.
And: “Tell Maria not to bother phoning me—” Dickens ought to approve of this “—because everything’s fine and I’m just going to bed myself.” In her agitation over Amanda’s nonappearance Maria must have gotten it across that they were depending upon her because of their arranged flight east.
What gave her away? A very slight tremor of the tightly gripped receiver as she realized the risk she was running in this total dependence on Justin’s quick-wittedness? From behind, Dickens suddenly reached around and wrenched the receiver from her hand. Amanda saw the silhouetted flashlight, his thumb ready on the button, poised against the snow outside and aimed in the direction of the waiting pickup. He said, fast and dangerous, “What’s your name?”
“Amanda. Morley.” She had to add it, to defuse these perilous few seconds.
A further burr, and then Justin: “Hello?” Amanda closed her eyes; it seemed the final bitterness, after her vain attempts to reach him from Mrs. Balsam’s house, that she could hear him quite clearly. He sounded eager and out of breath, as though he had battled with his door key to answer this summons.
“Mr. Lopez?”
Justin, going flat: “I’m afraid you have the wrong— “Oh, wait, sorry, that’s someone I’ve been trying to reach for the last five minutes.” Which could happen easily; Amanda had often made this kind of mistake. “I’m calling for Amanda, there seems to be trouble on that line. She’s at Mrs. Balsam’s, taking care of Apple and the horse while her aunt’s away and baby-sitting at the same time. We had quite a job getting Rosie to sleep —strange house, I guess—and she wanted me to let you know that she’s staying there tonight.”
We. The intimacy of putting a small child to bed, possibly taking turns with stories, probably having a drink afterward by way of mutual congratulation. Was Justin believing it? There was no reason why he shouldn’t. He didn’t know about her self-imposed solitary evenings, and Dickens was projecting himself as courteous and civilized; no one listening to him would dream of a snatched receiver, a menacing flashlight. Mrs. Balsam, not naive, had trusted him to the extent that he had access to her house and the cellar into which he had introduced a killer.
The unsuspected cellar, which held a special bafflement: It had no windows, and surely that was unusual?
“ . . . I see. I tried the house and couldn’t get an answer,” said Justin, now neutral, and Amanda, hearing that, imagining the welcome ring and the familiar voice, clenched her hands hopelessly. Where had she been? Out feeding the palomino? Wrestling the car along the road? Or—hardest of all to bear—standing frozen in Mrs. Balsam’s bedroom, listening to the telephone ring and whispering to Rosie that they wouldn’t answer it?
She could turn her head right now and cry, “Help!’ and no matter how fast Dickens was Justin would hear. But by the time he had called the police (with no idea of where this call was originating) and they had taken his name and address, and hers and very possibly Rosie’s, and inquired as to his place in all this, what would have happened to her, and where would Rosie be?
Justin was saying something about the storm, and then: “Thanks for calling, Mr. . . .?” He was careful about such details, and of course he would think he was getting a real name.
“Williams.” Let him try looking that up, in case some oddity occurred to him and he wanted to call back. “No trouble. Goodnight.” Dickens was friendly and brisk—until he hung up the receiver, opened the door for a shower of weak gold light, turned on Amanda. If there had been more room in the booth, she knew that he would have swung the flashlight at her face. The openness that he could will into his eyes had been replaced by a cold and blazing rage. “Goddamn you, I ought—”
He stared out at the pickup, visibly controlling himself, and then back at Amanda, lashes narrowing as he added up the hour, the snow, the fact of a semi-invalid child. “The parents aren’t expecting her back tonight, are they?”
Amanda, briefly unable to speak, shook her head.
“Understand one thing. That kid is nothing to me, nothing. She doesn’t look like she’s got too long anyway,” said Dickens with casual brutality. “Another trick out of you and she’s going to get mislaid someplace. Hive you got that?”
Amanda nodded mutely and then, sensing a return of his fury, said, “Yes. All right.”
Her whole being echoed with shock as she walked ahead of him back to the pickup. She had thought she recognized Dickens for what he was, a man without scruple of any kind, trading on his looks as successfully as an attractive and poisonous plant, but insensibly, because outward appearance had a tendency to govern even in the face of facts, she had relied upon his being the more rational of the two, the more approachable. She had been wrong. He might be better balanced than the man who had walked into a store and carried a girl off to her death, but he was nakedly singleminded: He was going to get them both out of this at whatever cost, and his commitment made his temper a terrifying thing.
From her exhausted little sniffles and gasps, Rosie had been crying. Had she simply run out of energy, or had she been stopped with a slap? In the pickup, Amanda gathered her close and kissed a wet cheek, trying to communicate comfort with her arms. That kid is nothing to me, nothing.
Someone braver might have asked boldly as the truck was set in motion, “Where are you taking us? What are you going to do with us?” To Amanda, who had never deceived herself about being brave when
