“Not past fifth grade. I read good, though. I’ve always liked reading. Movie magazines and all sorts of things.” She paused and then said, “I met Buck a year ago. He was a repairman. He came to fix the dishwasher in one of the houses where I was working. He asked me out, and we started seeing each other—well, pretty soon we got married. I guess you think that’s funny, don’t you? A handsome man like Buck marrying a person like me?”
“No. No, it’s not funny.” Marianne stumbled for words. She kept swinging her feet, scraping them up and down with a grating noise, hoping they would drown out any sound that Jesse might make in the bedroom.
“What are you making all that racket for?” Rita asked her irritably. “Can’t you keep your feet still?”
“I’m … sort of nervous.” Marianne stopped the swinging. “I’ve never been kidnapped before.”
“I’ve never been part of nothing like this before either.” Rita drew a deep breath. “It’s not my idea of fun, and that’s for sure. If it wasn’t for Buck …”
“Yes?” Marianne prompted.
“You wouldn’t understand. You’ve never lived like I have.”
“I could try to understand,” Marianne said encouragingly.
She thought, Jesse, Jesse, what is taking you so long? I can’t keep this going much longer!
“When a man is as handsome as Buck,” Rita said, “a woman doesn’t hold him easy. If a woman didn’t go along with his plans and things, he’d just up and leave her. He’s all I’ve got, Buck is.” She paused. “Can you understand that at all?”
“Yes, of course,” Marianne told her.
Jesse, she thought, please, hurry!
“I might not agree with everything he does. I mean, they might not be the things I would pick out to do myself. But when you’re married to a man like Buck, you don’t have a choice. Not if you want to hold on to him.” She regarded the girl earnestly. “Can you see that?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly, to Marianne’s relief, Jesse’s slim figure appeared in the bedroom doorway. She stood there for an instant and then began to move quietly along the wall toward the open door of their bunk room.
“Yes,” Marianne said, “I see.”
“It’s not like I …” Rita paused. “What are you looking at?”
“What?” Marianne hurriedly focused her full attention on the woman on the sofa. “What do you mean?”
“You weren’t listening to me. You were watching something.” She glared at Marianne suspiciously. Then suddenly she turned to look over her shoulder. “What was it? What were you looking at?”
“Nothing,” Marianne insisted frantically, bracing herself for the furor which would surely come. But Jesse had reached the bunk room door and, at the instant of Rita’s turning, had slipped inside. The danger of detection was over.
“Mission accomplished!” she announced later when Marianne joined her at last in the bunk room. “It was in her purse, just as I thought, and the purse was on her bed.” With a gesture of triumph she held up the key.
“Thank God it didn’t take you a minute longer.” Marianne seated herself on her own bunk. “Now I guess there’s nothing to do but wait until Buck comes back. We can’t let the boys out of the storeroom until the two of them are asleep.”
It had been a long wait. Lying quietly on their bunks, the girls had listened impatiently for the sounds indicating Buck’s return from the village. When they came, it was so late that Rita, too, sounded worn-out from waiting.
“What took you so long? I was scared something had happened to you.” There was a sharp edge to her voice.
“Nothing happened. I stopped for a few beers.”
“You stopped for beers! When you knew I was sitting here going crazy worrying about you? What if the police had got you?”
“How could they?” Buck sounded relaxed and unworried. “There’s nothing to connect me with anything. It’s Juan who’s talked to the kids’ parents.”
“What’s happening?” Rita asked him. “Has Juan made arrangements for the money?”
“Not completely. The Kirtlands and the Frenches have it. The Donavans are trying to get it. He can’t get hold of the Crete guy. There’s never any answer at the house, and he wasn’t at his office.”
“What is he going to do then? Get the money from the two families who have it?”
“Hell, no. We’ll have to pick up the whole bundle at once. It’s too risky doing it piecemeal.” There was a creaking of springs as Buck lowered himself onto the aging sofa. “The Donavans—they’re the blond girl’s folks—are trying to get hold of the girl’s father. He’s out on the Coast somewhere. They’ve left messages for him, but he won’t answer any of them. Seems like he’s the one with the money or the connections to get it, but he has washed his hands of the family and doesn’t want to be hauled into their problems.”
In the darkness of the bunk room Marianne stiffened. What was he saying? Perhaps she was not hearing correctly. Buck could not possibly be talking about her father!
“What if they don’t reach him?” Rita asked. “Or if they do and he won’t come through with the cash? What if Juan never gets hold of Mr. Crete? Do we settle for the one hundred thousand from the other two families?”
“Are you crazy!” Buck exclaimed contemptuously. “One hundred thousand, after all this risk? Remember, we’re going to have to split it with Juan.”
“But how—”
“Look, Rita, when I originated this thing, there were six families involved. That was going to net us a cool three hundred thousand. It was a bad break not having the Miller and Lindley kids on the bus. That knocked a third off the winnings right there. No matter what happens, I’m not going to settle for less than two hundred. The Donavans have to come through with their fifty thousand if it means they have to rob a bank to get it. And if we can’t reach Crete, the other families will have to make up the difference.”
“I don’t like this.” Rita’s voice was so low that Marianne had to strain to make out the words. “I wish we had never got into it.”
“You won’t wish that when it’s over with and we’re living high on the hog for a change. You won’t say no to a fur coat and a new car and a big house with servants to clean it for you, will you?”
“No.” Her voice was still low. “No, I guess not.”
“Better dump some wood on the fire before we turn in. It’s going to be a cold night.”
There was movement in the living room, and after a few minutes there was the sound of Buck going into the kitchen to check the lock on the storeroom door.
“Those boys will freeze in there tonight,” Rita commented, and Buck answered, “They’ll make it all right. They’ve got sleeping bags.” His footsteps sounded on the wooden floor as he came to stand momentarily in the open doorway to the bunk room. His broad shoulders blotted out the light from the living room, and Marianne lay very still, forcing herself to breathe slowly and deeply. In the bunk across from her Jesse was doing the same.
“They been causing you any trouble?” he asked Rita, and she said, “No. They’re scared. They do whatever I tell them to.”
“Come on then, let’s hit the sack.” His voice slurred a little, whether from weariness or the beer he had been drinking, Marianne did not know. He moved away from the door, and for a moment the room lightened and then went into real blackness as he flicked the switch on the living room light.
It had been a few moments before their eyes adjusted enough to distinguish the soft glow of the fire as it shone through the bunk room door. By that time Buck and Rita had retired to their own bedroom and the house had settled to the silence of the night.
And now there must be more waiting until it was certain that the couple were solidly and permanently asleep. Marianne lay tensely in the heavy quiet, hearing the words that Buck had spoken, the terrible, unbelievable words, uttered so casually in answer to Rita’s question: They’ve left messages for him at all his haunts, but he won’t answer any o
f them. Seems like he has … washed his hands of the family and doesn’t want to be hauled into their problems.
Not Daddy! He can’t mean Daddy!
She closed her eyes and he came to her, as he had so many times before, her big, handsome father with his easy charm and his booming laugh.
“Where is everybody?” he would roar, banging the door closed behind him. “I’m home. Where is everybody!” She could remember the rough feel of his jacket against her cheek as he hugged her, the familiar mannish smell of shaving lotion and tobacco. “Where is everybody! Come and welcome your lord and master!”
“We’re all here, Jack,” her mother would say. She would appear from the kitchen, where she had been doing the dinner dishes, or call down from upstairs, where she was putting the boys to bed. “Where have you been? I kept dinner waiting as long as I could.”
“Ran into some old friends. You know how it is.” His hand would ruffle Marianne’s curls in a careless gesture, as though he were stroking a puppy. “How are you doing, baby? How’s my little doll? You’re not mad at your old daddy for being late, are you?”
There were times, of course, when he was more than late, when he never got home at all. There were times when he was away on business trips or visiting some of his many friends or sometimes just wandering.
The time Jay had scarlet fever, he had been gone.
“Where can we get in touch with him?” the doctor had asked, and their mother, her small face pinched with weariness and worry, had answered, “I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him in over a week now. He doesn’t respond to any of my texts or the messages I leave on his voicemail.”
By the time he returned, days later, the crisis had been over.
“I don’t see anything to make such a fuss about!” he had exclaimed in apparent bewilderment. “Jay is on the upgrade now, and there’s nothing I could have done if I had been here that you weren’t already doing.” He had paused, and then, when his wife did not answer, he had gone over to her and tilted her face upward and smiled down at her, with the easy affection which was so much a part of his nature. “Hey, honey,” he had said softly, “let’s have a little smile. Come on, just a little one. Aren’t you glad to see me?”
Had her mother smiled? Marianne could not remember. She had not really noticed; she had been too busy watching her father.
“Marianne?”
Startled, Marianne turned in the darkness as Jesse’s whisper reached out to bridge the space between them.
“Everything’s been quiet for a long time now. Don’t you think we had better get started?”
“I suppose we should.” Shoving the thoughts of her family from her, Marianne sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bunk. It was a relief to be moving, to be doing something. “Come on,” she whispered. “The first thing to do is to get the boys.”
It was a simple thing to unlock the storeroom door. The cold of the tiny room came sweeping out to meet them. The boys, fully awake, wrestled their way out of their sleeping bags and came trooping out quietly into the dim warmth of the kitchen.
“What took so long?” Glenn’s voice was low. “We were afraid you weren’t able to get the key. We had almost given up on you.”
“We had to wait until Buck and Rita went to sleep. They stayed up forever.” Marianne moved to stand beside him, steadied as Bruce was by the mere fact of Glenn’s presence.
Across the kitchen Dexter’s glance found Jesse. “You’re all right? There has been no trouble?”
“No.” Her face was a blur in the shadows. “What’s the plan now? Do we all go out to the car?”
“You girls go back to the bunk room.” Glenn took over the instructions. “Lie down on the bunks, as though you were sleeping, so if Buck and Rita should happen to waken and look in on you, everything would seem normal. Dex and I will go out and try to get the car started. Bruce will be go-between. When we get the engine going, we’ll send him back to get you.”
“It will be freezing, out there. Wait a minute.” Jesse slipped away, and a moment later was back with a heavy leather jacket. She held it out to Bruce. “It’s Buck’s. He dropped it over a chair in the living room when he came back tonight. You’ll need it most. You’re the one who will be running back and forth between the car and the cabin.”
“Thanks, Jesse.” Bruce’s hands, as he reached for the jacket, were shaking. Watching him, Marianne thought, he is scared. We are all scared, all except Glenn. Glenn is never scared of anything.
As though in confirmation of her thoughts, Glenn turned to look down at her. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “In a few minutes now we’ll be out of here and on our way home again.”
“Good luck,” Marianne whispered.
That had been almost half an hour ago.
“They haven’t been able to do it.” She spoke softly in the darkness of the bunk room. “If they had, they would surely have done so by now.”
“At least they are still trying. If they thought it was impossible, they would have given up and come back in.” Jesse’s voice dropped suddenly to a barely distinguishable whisper. “What was that?”
“What?” Marianne stiffened. Her breath caught sharply in her throat, “Oh, my God, somebody is up! Someone is out in the living room!”
“Perhaps it’s Bruce?” Jesse breathed hopefully and then said, “No,” as a heavy tread moved past their doorway and into the kitchen, and there was the unmistakable sound of a cabinet door being opened, slammed, and reopened.
“It’s Buck!” Marianne sat up quickly. “We’ll have to go out there!”
“Why? Maybe he’s just getting a drink. If we wait quietly, he’ll go back to bed.”
“But what if the boys come back in the meantime? They won’t know he is up—he hasn’t turned any lights on.
She swung herself off the bunk and started out into the living room, conscious an instant later that Jesse was right behind her. Through the kitchen doorway she could see the bulk of Buck’s broad shoulders bent forward over the counter, and then, as he straightened and turned, she saw that he had been opening a can of beer.
“What the …” He started as he caught sight of the girls. “What are you doing, sneaking around out here? Do you want to get locked in with your boyfriends?”
“We’re not sneaking.” Marianne tried to make her voice indignant. “We just came out for—for—a glass of water.”
“Well, you get back in that bunk room. You can get water in the morning.”
He left the kitchen and came through the door into the living room, carrying the beer can with him. He had evidently been asleep, for his red hair was mussed forward over his forehead, and his face had a slack look about it, as though he were still only partly awake. He was fully dressed—of course, we are also, thought Marianne inanely, I guess you don’t take time for all the little niceties of life when you’re involved in a kidnapping—and she could make out the bulge of the pistol in his trouser pocket.
“We couldn’t sleep,” she said, “we—”
It was Jesse, standing behind her, who was first conscious of the front door opening. She turned and flung herself backward, as though to block with her slender body the thing that was happening. But her movement was too late, for before she could reach it, the door had swung fully open, and Bruce, impossibly small in the black leather jacket, was framed before them.
“Dex started it!” he said. “He—”
His eyes flicked past them and focused on Buck, and for an instant he stood frozen. The red-haired man was equally startled. For a second all motion hung suspended, and Marianne was conscious of the picture before her, as though it were a painting; the boy in the doorway, his lips still parted with the words he had been about to utter, the fairy-tale scene behind him of snow and trees and the van its roaring engine throwing up a cloud of steam into the night. And bent over the open hood of the car, clearly outlined in the moonlight, the figures of Glenn and Dexter.
For only an instant it hung there—a
nd then the silence was shattered.
“Run!” Jesse’s voice rang out shrilly through the quiet. “Bruce, run! Dex—Glenn—”
Like a startled rabbit, loosed suddenly from captivity, Bruce whirled and bolted, running toward the trees and the roadway beyond. The boys by the car turned also and then, as though suddenly realizing the situation, began to run across the path of moonlight to the protective darkness of the nearest trees.
The taller figure immediately outdistanced the other, and Jesse’s voice rang out again, in shriek after shriek, of agonized terror.
“Run! Dexter, run! Hurry! Hurry!”
But the red-haired man had come to life and, shoving past the girls, was running also, his hand reaching for his pocket. A pistol shot rang out across the night, and one of the running figures crumpled and fell.
Marianne opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came.
Chapter Nine
THE BODY OF PETER Godfrey, the driver of the missing school bus, was found late Friday afternoon by two little boys who were chasing the family cow. It took awhile for the police to piece together the complete story, for the boys were Mexican and in the excitement of the moment their grasp of the English language deserted them. Their father, to whom they had reported the discovery, was even more agitated, and the result was that it took most of an hour for them to convey the simple fact that a man, with most of his face blown away, was lying in the bushes just west of their farm.
Later that evening an engaged couple, searching for a romantic parking area along the bank of the Rio Grande, discovered and reported the deserted school bus.
Both stories appeared in the Saturday morning paper, along with a photograph of Mr. Godfrey, taken eight years before as a gift for his wife on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. A quote from Mrs. Godfrey said, “It is terrible, terrible. I can’t believe it. I can’t imagine why anyone would do such a thing. Peter didn’t have an enemy in this world.”
Interviews with some of the high school students who had ridden the bus on Thursday afternoon had belatedly brought to light the fact that Mr. Godfrey had not been the driver on this occasion.