Mystique

by Charlotte Douglas

  Her next impression was interesting. The majority of travelers were dressed in blue jeans, sweaters and other casual clothes, with only a few in business suits. Her greeter, however, was attired completely in black, with Italian boots of the finest leather, impeccably creased lightweight wool slacks and a finely knit black shirt, topped by a sleek leather jacket that accented the breadth of his shoulders, the nip of his waist and his narrow hips. Thick black hair brushed the collar of his shirt and the midnight-blue of his eyes was so dark that they might as well have been black, too.

  “Ms. Fairchild?” His deep, husky baritone broke her reverie and made her aware that she’d been standing in front of him, staring.

  “Yes. Erin Fairchild,” she said to remind herself as much as to answer his query. She didn’t have to worry about anyone noticing a resemblance to her sister. Deb looked like the pictures of their father, tall and athletic with dark hair and eyes. Trish, petite with blond hair and blue-green eyes, favored their mother.

  “I’m O’Neill, manager of Endless Sky. I’ll be driving you to the resort.”

  “Thanks for meeting me.”

  “All part of the service.” His attitude was formal, but not cold. Not particularly friendly, either. “If you’ll come this way, the car’s out front.” He folded the sign, tossed it into a nearby receptacle and reached for her carryall.

  Car, not helicopter. Thank you, God. “My other luggage—”

  “—will be delivered to the car by a skycap.” He motioned for her to precede him across the terminal, and she headed toward the exit.

  Ah, I keep forgetting that the rich are different. Rule Number One: never carry your own bags.

  O’Neill, who had apparently exhausted all conversation, said nothing further as they crossed the terminal. But she could feel his scrutiny as he walked behind her, a tingling sensation between her shoulder blades, like an itch she couldn’t scratch.

  Outside the main building, O’Neill directed her toward a large SUV, an impressive custom sky-blue Hummer with the resort’s logo, a silhouette of an Adirondack-style lodge perched atop a rock ledge and Endless Sky in rustic lettering, painted on the side.

  He opened her door and held out his hand to give her a boost into the Hummer’s high seat. Just before she gripped his hand, another presence brushed her mind.

  She froze and stifled a gasp. Deb? Are you there?

  She received no reply.

  O’Neill’s dark eyes narrowed. “You okay?”

  “Muscle cramp,” she improvised. “From sitting too long on the plane.”

  Even if she hadn’t been traveling incognito, she wouldn’t have tried to explain the psychic connection she had with her sister. Only the two of them shared that secret, a trait they had inherited from their mother. Trish’s earlier memories of communicating with her mother and sister had been a silent understanding, without the need for spoken words. After they’d been orphaned, the girls had been sent to live with their elderly great-aunt, whose dominant rule of child rearing was that children should be neither seen nor heard. As a result of their aunt’s strictness, the little girls, desperate to communicate, had developed their budding psychic ability into full-blown telepathy. When their aunt had isolated them in separate bedrooms, they learned to carry on telepathic conversations to console each other’s loneliness. They’d maintained their ability into adulthood, although distance negated the kind of full-blown dialogues they’d managed when living together. They could communicate fully only if in physical proximity to each other.

  Trish had always considered their telepathic abilities a blessing, a shared trait that strengthened the bond between her and Deb. She intended to use that skill and the heightened sixth sense it had given her to find her sister.

  “You can let go of my hand now.” O’Neill’s deep voice, tinged with irony, broke through her thoughts.

  She glanced from her hand, clasping his so tightly that his tanned skin whitened beneath her fingertips, to the hint of amusement dancing in his deep blue eyes and broke the contact instantly.

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “You were a thousand miles away.”

  “Still at home.” She forced a bright smile. “Wondering if I remembered to pack everything.”

  He angled his head to one side and considered her with a long, searching look that raised goose bumps on her skin and made her aware that there was more to O’Neill than met the eye. “And home is?” he asked.

  “Palm Beach,” she said quickly. “I stopped in Tampa on the way up to visit old friends. College roommates. I’ve known them forever. Couldn’t pass through town without seeing them.”

  She shut up and mentally kicked herself. She’d been babbling. She shouldn’t explain too much. She’d only raise suspicions.

  “Palm Beach.” His expression turned thoughtful. “So you’re one of those Fairchilds.”

  “Distant cousin,” she lied hastily, having no idea whom he was talking about. She studied his tanned face with its sharply chiseled cheekbones, broad forehead and generous mouth for signs of disbelief.

  O’Neill didn’t bat an eye. “It’s a big family.”

  He closed the passenger door, saving her from further explanations, rounded the Hummer and opened the hatch for the approaching skycap to load her luggage into the rear of the SUV.

  Her bags were almost new, purchased for a vacation in Aruba last summer, but they had obviously been bought at Sam’s Club, not Saks. She hoped O’Neill wouldn’t notice. Her wardrobe would be the diciest part of her deception. Her clothes were stylish and good quality, but definitely not designer or even top-of-the-line, except for a few outfits bought at a secondhand consignment shop. Maybe she could pass as a penny-pinching eccentric. At least she had Aunt Samantha’s diamonds to wear to the resort’s formal dinners to aid in her disguise as a wealthy guest. She swallowed a sigh. This little jaunt had cleaned out her savings account, but she’d gladly take out a second mortgage on her house if it meant finding her sister.

  O’Neill tipped the skycap and climbed into the driver’s seat with the easy grace of an athlete. The lowering clouds, which had held off until now, unleashed a steady rain. O’Neill switched on the windshield wipers and drove out of the airport lot.

  Lulled by the hypnotic swish of the wiper blades, Trish gazed out the window for a glimpse of the famous Blue Ridge Mountains. She saw only gray clouds and walls of dripping foliage.

  “So,” O’Neill said after they’d passed through the quaint downtown district of Hendersonville, “why are you here?”

  “What?” Her heart pounded in her throat. Did he suspect already that she was an impostor?

  “Some of our guests come for the solitude,” he explained, his gaze on the road, his tone conversational. “Others for hiking and white-water rafting. Some are here just to see and be seen. What brings you to Endless Sky?”

  Unaccustomed to deception, Trish felt her mind whirl like tires in mud. If she answered solitude, she’d have no excuse to mingle with the guests to discover all she could about Debra’s interactions before she disappeared. If Trish opted for hiking and white-water rafting, she’d spend too much time away from the resort to find out anything helpful. And to admit she’d come to rub elbows with the rich and famous seemed gauche and obviously nouveau riche.

  But wasn’t that part of her disguise?

  “I’m not much of an outdoors person,” she said, stalling for time until she could come up with the right words to explain her trip. “But I adore meeting new people,” she gushed and tried to keep from blushing at her over-the-top performance. “I’m also here to escape the heat. We won’t have cooler weather in Florida until November.”

  “The weather’s always cool at Endless Sky,” O’Neill said. “Often wet and cool, like today. But on sunny days, you can see for miles from our porches. The resort is famous for its spectacular views.”

  They had left the town behind and were driving along a narrow, two-lane highway that wound through a thick
forest, whose branches, heavy with rain, overhung the road and created the impression of a tunnel lined with dripping, deep green leaves, a few tinged with a hint of color. The Hummer’s headlights glistened on the dark wet pavement ahead.

  In the enclosed confines of the vehicle with soft rock playing on the expensive sound system, she found herself intensely aware of O’Neill. The heat funneling through the vents carried the aroma of his fine leather jacket, a balsam-scented soap and a pleasantly masculine aura. His long, tanned fingers gripped the steering wheel with practiced ease. He wore no wedding ring, an ambiguous deficiency. Under other circumstances, she would have found the man, with his arresting profile and mysterious air, attractive, but she’d come to North Carolina to find her sister, not a significant other.

  A significant other.

  For a while, she’d hoped that Brad Larson, the physical education coach at her school, might fit that bill. As much as she loved teaching, she’d give her career up in a heartbeat for the right husband and children of her own to love and nurture. All her life, she’d wanted a family, and Brad had seemed to share her goal. But as good a friend as he’d been, he didn’t make her heart sing or her pulse pound. She feared, however, that the kind of love she longed for was a myth, the stuff of romantic movies and bestselling novels. At twenty-nine, if she wanted children, she couldn’t wait forever for a knight in shining armor to steal her heart. Maybe she’d give in this year to Brad’s proposal.

  But first, she had to find Debra and she might as well pump O’Neill for information while she had him as a captive audience. “Is the resort full?”

  He nodded. “You were lucky to get a room at such short notice. We had one guest, uh, cancel unexpectedly. The fall leaf season is our busiest time of year.”

  A canceled guest. Did that mean Trish had been placed in Debra’s room? Had they given up hope of finding her sister? And what had been done with Deb’s belongings? She peered through the passenger window at the unrelenting greenery and breathed deeply to steady her voice. “When do the leaves begin to change?”

  “They’ve already started at the resort’s altitude. If you stay for the two weeks you’ve reserved, you’ll probably see the colors peak.”

  If she stayed? Why would he say that?

  “I like meeting new people, but I’m not fond of large crowds,” she said, turning to a safer subject. “How many guests are there?”

  “Although Endless Sky is huge, we have only eight suites. Smaller numbers create a more intimate experience for our guests. We rarely have over sixteen registered at a time, fewer when most of the suites are single-occupancy, as they are this season.” He cast her an appraising glance. “Some of our guests have met the man or woman of their dreams at Endless Sky.”

  She suppressed a shiver. Had Debra met someone who’d ultimately been responsible for her disappearance? “I’m not in the market for a husband,” she assured O’Neill, but with just enough of a laugh and lilt to her voice to deny her assertion. The Erin Fairchild she’d conceived as her cover would be ditzy enough to be in the market for almost anything.

  He smiled, as if at a secret joke. “Then some of our other female guests will be less inclined to scratch your pretty eyes out. I know one or two who are here specifically to snag a wealthy husband. You’d put a real crimp in their style.”

  Was O’Neill flirting with her? While his words had been complimentary, his demeanor remained aloof. The contradiction increased his air of mystery. Maybe flattering female guests was part of his job description. Unable to think of an appropriate response to his comments, she remained silent.

  O’Neill turned off the highway onto a road even more narrow and winding than the last. “We’re on the Blue Ridge Parkway now,” he announced. “It takes us along the tops of the mountain ridges. If the weather weren’t so cloudy, you’d find the views breathtaking.”

  The Hummer’s engine strained on the steep grade that led them higher into the mountains and the clouds. At times, visibility was almost zero, but O’Neill seemed undisturbed by the enveloping mists and drove with the confidence of a man who knew exactly where he was going. At one point, the clouds parted to reveal a sheer drop of thousands of feet just beyond the shoulder of the road, and her fear of heights kicked in. The view was breathtaking, all right. In seconds, she’d be hyperventilating. Assaulted by her phobia, she could barely draw air, and beads of perspiration gathered on her fore head. She closed her eyes against the dizzying vista and forced several deep breaths to stave off panic.

  O’Neill, apparently oblivious to her distress, guided the Hummer along the torturous curves, and they met no oncoming traffic. Everyone else, she thought with irony, had better sense than to drive in such weather, especially on such a precarious route.

  When O’Neill turned off the highway onto what looked more like a dry creek bed than a road, a check of her watch indicated they’d left the airport an hour ago.

  “This is where the Hummer makes all the difference,” the resort manager commented.

  She opened her mouth to reply, but a jolt from traversing the roadbed filled with huge rocks caused her jaw to snap shut and she bit her tongue.

  “Can’t the resort afford a proper road?” she asked, mainly to see if her tongue still functioned.

  O’Neill threw her a smile. “What? And spoil the mystique? One of the draws of this place is its inaccessibility. If just anyone could drive up to the front door, it wouldn’t be exclusive, would it?”

  Trish gripped the edge of her seat as the SUV lurched up the steep incline through the overhanging evergreens. She felt as if she had entered another dimension, a world of shadows and mystery where the unknown lurked just beyond her sight. She wondered how O’Neill could see the road. Every tree, shrub and boulder was shrouded with gray mist and slick with moisture. Wisps of clouds formed and dissipated, like ghosts that materialized, then disappeared.

  The tough suspension of the Hummer couldn’t absorb every jarring bounce in the rugged road and by the time they reached the top of the ridge, she was wishing the weather had been clear enough for the helicopter. At least arriving by air, although equally terrifying, would have been over faster.

  O’Neill, however, didn’t seem to mind the bone-rattling passage. He navigated the rocky trail with an irritating calm.

  But thoughts of O’Neill vanished as the huge bulk of Endless Sky loomed through the clouds. The massive three-story resort perched on the jutting ledge of mountain among granite outcrops like a giant predatory bird. Shrouded in fog and mystery, with its numerous gables, encircling porches and towering balsam firs, the resort appeared more like the set for a Stephen King movie than a luxury hotel and brought to mind tales of Tar Heel ghosts and Cherokee legends she’d read as a child.

  She shivered from the pervasive dampness and an unnamed fear. Isolated from the world by dis tance and an almost impassable road, she was entirely on her own.

  Deb?

  Her mind reached out to her sister, but a deathly silence was still the only response.

  Chapter Two

  O’Neill crested the top of the ridge and guided the Hummer onto the gravel drive that circled the wide, formerly well-tended lawn at the rear of the resort. Intended for the guests’ enjoyment of croquet, volleyball and picnics, as well as used as a helipad, the area was now a sea of churned grass and mud, the recent staging area for four-wheel drive and all-terrain vehicles used in the search for Debra Devlin. He made a mental note to call the landscapers to repair the damage as soon as the search had ended.

  The ATVs and pickup trucks of the search-and-rescue teams had departed temporarily earlier this morning. While waiting for the weather to break, the volunteers would grab some sleep, hot food and dry clothes and be ready to hit the trails again when the cloud cover lifted.

  Clear skies were forecast for the evening, and the sheriff’s department’s helicopter, equipped with infrared heat sensors, would sweep the mountainsides again, looking for signs of a warm body.

>   Warm being the operative word.

  If Debra Devlin had fallen to her death from one of the paths that skirted cliffs and ravines, the chopper wouldn’t spot her. But if she were alive and merely lost, the equipment would be invaluable in locating her among thousands of acres of wilderness and rough terrain.

  The woman’s disappearance had been a nightmare. For over an hour last night, the FBI had grilled O’Neill in his quarters, a two-story cottage separate from the resort. He’d cooperated as best he could, not only for the sake of the resort but because he liked Debra Devlin. Her exuberant, unassuming personality had been a breath of fresh air among the self-absorbed guests who now filled the lodge. O’Neill hoped she’d be found soon and unharmed.

  “We know Ms. Devlin was here to interview Quinn Stevens,” the senior agent had told him. “Is Stevens among the guests?”

  O’Neill shook his head. “I can assure you that Mr. Stevens isn’t a guest, nor has he been a guest this season.”

  The agent studied him with a dubious glance. “You’re sure? I understood that no one knows what this Stevens guy looks like.”

  “Stevens is my boss,” O’Neill said. “I’m the only one at Endless Sky who’s ever met him in person.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “About my height and weight. Midthirties. Brown hair, brown eyes. Ordinary,” O’Neill added. “He wouldn’t stand out in a crowd.”

  “We’ll need an address where we can contact him.”

  O’Neill had reluctantly complied and given them the address and phone number of Stevens’s home in Monterey, California. Stevens hated intrusions on his privacy, but a disappearance at the resort he owned demanded desperate measures.

  “Were any of the guests offended by the fact that Ms. Devlin was a reporter?” the younger agent asked.