The Dark Half(129)

'I'll just stay in the doorway,' he said with mock humility. 'I'll be a good boy. I won't peek.'.The babies were crawling busily around the living-room rug. They were cheerful, vocal, full of beans. They seemed to be delighted to be here, where they had been only once before, for a long winter weekend.

'They can't be left alone,' Liz said. 'The bathroom is off the master bedroom. If they're left here, they'll get into trouble.'

'No problem, Beth,' Stark said, and scooped them up effortlessly, one under each arm. She would have believed just this morning that if anyone but herself or Thad tried something like that '

William and Wendy would have screamed their heads off. But when Stark did it, they giggled merrily, as if this were the most amusing thing under the sun. 'I'll bring them into the bedroom, and I'll be watching them instead of you.' He turned and regarded her with an instant's coldness.

'I'll keep a good eye on them, too. I wouldn't want them to come to any harm, Beth. I like them. If anything happens to them, it won't be my fault.'

She went into the bathroom and he stood in the doorway, his back to her as he had promised, watching the twins. As she raised her skirt and lowered her panties and sat down, she hoped he was a man of his word. She wouldn't die if he turned around and saw her squatting on the john . . . but if he saw the sewing scissors inside her underwear, she might. And, as usual, when she was in a hurry to go, her bladder hung on obstinately. Come on, come on, she thought with a mixture of fear and irritation. What's the matter, do you think you're going to collect interest on that stuff?

At last. Relief.

'But when they try to come out of the barn,' Stark was saying, 'Machine lights the gasoline they've poured into the trench around it in the night. Won't that be great? There's a movie in it, too, Beth - the ass**les who make movies love fires.'

She used the toilet paper and pulled her panties up very carefully. She kept her eyes glued to Stark's back as she adjusted her clothes, praying that he would not turn around. He didn't. He was deeply absorbed in his own story.

'Westerman and Jack Rangely duck back inside, planning to use the car to drive right through the fire. But Ellington panics, and - '

He broke off suddenly, his head cocked to one side. Then he turned to her, just as she was straightening her skirt.

'Out,' he said abruptly, and all the good humor had left his voice. 'Get the f**k out of there right now.'

'What - '

He grabbed her arm with rough force and yanked her into the bedroom. He went into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet. 'We've got company, and it's too early for Thad.'

'I don't - '

'Car engine,' he said briefly. 'Powerful motor. Could be a police interceptor. Hear it?'

Stark slammed the medicine cabinet shut and jerked open the drawer to the right of the washstand. He found a roll of Red Cross adhesive tape and popped the tin ring off the doughnut. She heard nothing and said so.

'That's okay,' he said. 'I can hear it for both of us. Hands behind you.'

'What are you going to - ?'

'Shut up and put your hands behind you!'

She did, and immediately her wrists were bound. He crisscrossed the tape, back and forth, back and forth, in tight figure-eights.

'Engine just quit,' he said. 'Maybe a quarter of a mile up the road. Someone trying to be cute.'.She thought she might have heard an engine in the last moment, but it could have been nothing but suggestion. She knew she would have heard nothing at all, if she had not been listening with all of her concentration. Dear God, how sharp were his ears?

'Gotta cut this tape,' he said. 'Pardon me gettin personal for a second or so, Beth. Time's a little short for politeness.'

And before she even knew he was doing it, he had reached down the front of her skirt. A moment later, he pulled the sewing scissors free. He didn't even prick her skin with the pins. He glanced in her eyes for just a moment as he reached behind her and used the scissors to cut the tape. He seemed amused again.

'You saw them,' she said dully. 'You saw the bulge after all.'

'The scissors?' He laughed. 'I saw them, but not the bulge. I saw them in your eyes, darlin Bethie. I saw them back in Ludlow. I knew they were there the minute you came downstairs.'

He knelt in front of her with the tape, absurdly - and ominously - like a suitor proposing marriage. Then he looked up at her. 'Don't you get ideas about kicking me or anything, Beth. I don't know for sure, but I think that's a cop. And I don't have time to play fiddlyf*ck with you, much as I'd like to. So be still.'

'The babies - '

'I'm gonna close the doors,' Stark said. 'They're not tall enough to reach the knobs even when they get up on their feet. They may eat a few dust-kitties under the bed, but I think that's the worst trouble they can get into. I'll be back very shortly.'

Now the tape was winding figure-eights around her ankles. He cut it and stood up again.

'You be good, Beth,' he said. 'Don't go losing your happy thoughts. I'd make you pay for a thing like that . . . but I'd make you watch them pay, first.'

Then he closed the bathroom door, the bedroom door, and was gone. He absented himself with the speed of a good magician doing a trick.