by John Saul
At the top of the stairs, María Torres faded back into the darkness of the second-floor hallway, her black dress making her nearly invisible.
She had been sitting quietly in the large bedroom at the end of the corridor—the bedroom that, by rights, should have been hers—when the first of the cars had arrived.
No one, she knew, should have come back to the hacienda for hours, and she should have had the house to herself and her ghosts from the past. But now her reverie was shattered, and the pounding din of the gringo music, and the children of the gringos she had spent her life hating, filled the ancient rooms.
She had been in the house since seven o’clock, having let herself in with her own key as soon as Carolyn had left. She had spent the last four hours drifting through the house, imagining that it was hers, that she was not the cleaning woman—no more than a peón—but the mistress of the hacienda: Doña María Ruiz de Torres. And one day it would happen; one day, sometime in the vague future, it would happen. The gringos would be driven away, and finally the hacienda would be hers.
But for now she could only pretend, and be careful. The gringos were strict and never wanted her to be alone in their homes. She must leave the hacienda without being seen, and make her way back down the canyon to her little house behind the mission, and when she came back tomorrow, she must give no hint that she had been here at all tonight.
She glanced once more around the gloom of the bedroom that should have been hers, then slipped away, down the back stairs, the stairs that her ancestors never would have used, and out into the night. Then, as the gringo revelry went on—a desecration!—she kept watch, her ancient anger burning inside her.…
“Jeez,” Bob whispered. “Last time I saw this, it looked like the place had burned. Now look at it.”
The living room, across the entry hall from the dining room, was sixty feet long, and was dominated by an immense fireplace on the far wall.
The oak floor gleamed a polished brown that was nearly black, but the white walls picked up the light from sconces that had been wired into them at regular intervals to fill the room with an even brightness that made it seem even larger than it was. Twenty feet above, huge peeled logs supported a cathedral ceiling.
“This is incredible,” Lisa breathed.
“This is just the beginning,” Carolyn replied. “Just wander around anywhere, and make sure you don’t miss the basement. That’s Daddy’s part of the house, and Mom just hates it.” Then she was gone, disappearing into the mass of teenagers who were dancing to the rhythms of a reggae album.
It took them nearly an hour to go through the house, and even then they weren’t sure they’d seen it all. Upstairs there was a maze of rooms, and they’d counted seven bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, in addition to a library and a couple of small sitting rooms. All of it looked as if it had been built and furnished nearly two hundred years ago, then somehow frozen in time.
“Can you imagine living here?” Lisa asked as they finally started down toward the basement.
“It’s not like a house at all,” Alex replied. “It feels more like a museum. Hey,” he added, suddenly stopping halfway down the stairs. “I don’t remember this place ever having a basement.”
“It didn’t,” Kate told him. “Carolyn says her dad wanted his own space, but her mom wouldn’t let him have any of the old rooms. So he dug out a basement. Do you believe it?”
“Holy shit,” Bob Carey muttered. “Didn’t he think the house was big enough already?”
At the bottom of the stairs they found a laundry room to the left, and beyond that a big empty space that looked as though it was intended for storage.
Under the living room, occupying nearly the same amount of space as the room above, they found Mr. Evans’s private space. For a long time they stared at it in silence.
“Well, I think it’s tacky,” Lisa said when she’d taken it all in.
Bob Carey shrugged. “And I think you’re just jealous. I bet you wouldn’t think it was tacky if it was your house.”
Kate Lewis raked Bob with what she hoped was a scathing glare. “My mother always says the Evanses have more money than taste, and she’s right. I mean, just look at it, Bob. It’s gross!”
It was a media room. The far wall was nearly covered by an immense screen, which could be used either for movies or projection television. Along one wall was a complex of electronic components that none of them could completely identify. They were, however, apparently the source of the rock music, and they could barely hear Carolyn demanding that it be turned down for fear the neighbors would call the police. Nobody, however, was paying any attention to her, and much of the party seemed to have gravitated downstairs.
What had elicited Lisa Cochran’s criticism, though, was not the electronics, but the bar opposite them. Not a typical home bar, with three stools and a rack for glasses, the Evanses’ bar ran the entire length of the wall. Behind the counter itself, the wall was covered with shelves of liquor and glasses, and each shelf was edged with a neon tube, which provided a rainbow effect that was reflected throughout the room by the mirrors that covered the wall behind the shelves and the bar itself. The bar, by now, was covered with bottles, and several of the kids were happily filling glasses with various kinds of liquor.
“Want something?” Bob asked, eyeing the array.
Kate hesitated, then shrugged. “Why not? Is there any gin?”
Bob poured them each a tumbler, added a little ginger ale, and handed one of the glasses to Kate, then turned to ask Alex and Lisa what they wanted. But while he’d been mixing the drinks, Alex and Lisa had disappeared. “Hey—where’d they go?”
Kate shrugged. “I don’t know. Come on, let’s dance.” She finished her drink and pulled Bob out onto the floor, but when the record ended, both she and Bob scanned the crowd, looking for Alex and Lisa.
“You think they got mad ’cause we had a drink?” Kate finally asked.
“Who cares? It’s not as if we need a ride home or anything. Forget about them.”
“No! Come on.”
They found Alex and Lisa in the courtyard, staring up at the stars. “Hey,” Bob yelled, holding up his glass, “aren’t you two gonna join the party?”
“We weren’t going to drink, remember?” Alex asked, staring at the glass. “We were going out for hamburgers.”
“Who wants hamburgers when you can drink?” Bob replied. He reached down and pulled a bottle of beer out of a tub of ice and thrust it into Alex’s hands. Alex looked at it for a moment, then glanced at Lisa, who frowned and shook her head. Alex hesitated, then defiantly twisted the cap loose and took a swig.
Lisa glared accusingly at him. “Alex!”
“I didn’t even want to come to this party,” Alex told her, his voice taking on a defensive edge. “But since we’re here, we might as well enjoy it.”
“But we said—”
“I know what we said. And I said I wasn’t going to any parties, either. But I’m here. Why shouldn’t I do what everybody else is doing?” Deliberately he tipped the beer bottle up and chugalugged it, then reached for another. Lisa’s eyes narrowed angrily, but before she could say anything else, Carolyn Evans’s voice suddenly rose over the din of the party as she came out of the front door with her arms full of towels.
“Who wants to go in the pool?”
There was a momentary silence, then someone replied that no one had suits. “Who needs suits?” Carolyn squealed. “Let’s go skinny-dipping!” Suddenly she reached behind her, pulled down the zipper of her dress, and let it drop to the patio. Stripping off her panties and strapless bra, she dived into the pool, swam underwater for a few strokes, then broke the surface. “Come on,” she yelled. “It’s great!”
There was a moment of hesitation, then two more kids stripped and plunged into the water. Three more followed, and suddenly the patio was filling up with discarded clothes and the pool with naked teenagers. Once more, Alex glanced at Lisa.
“No!
” she said, reading his eyes. “We were only coming for a few minutes, and we weren’t going to drink. And we’re certainly not going into the pool.”
“Chicken,” Alex teased, shrugging out of his dinner jacket. Then he drained the second beer, put the bottle down, and began untying his shoelaces.
“Alex, don’t,” Lisa begged. “Please?”
“Aw, come on. What’s the big deal? Haven’t you ever skinny-dipped before?”
“It’s not a big deal,” Lisa argued. “I just don’t think we ought to do it. I think we ought to go home.”
“Well, I think we ought to go swimming,” Alex crowed. He stripped off his pants and shirt. “I didn’t think we ought to come here, but I came, didn’t I? Well, now I think we ought to go skinny-dipping, and I think you ought to go along with it.” Peeling off his Jockey shorts, he plunged into the water. A moment later he came to the surface and turned around to grin at Lisa.
She was gone.
The effects of the two fast beers suddenly neutralized by the cold water, Alex scanned the crowd, sure that Lisa must be among the kids still on the pool deck. Then he was equally sure she was not. If she’d made up her mind not to come into the pool, she wouldn’t change it.
And Alex suddenly felt like a fool.
He hadn’t wanted to come to the party, he hadn’t really wanted the two beers he’d drunk, and he certainly didn’t want Lisa mad at him. He scrambled out of the water, grabbed a towel, then dried himself off and dressed as fast as he could. As he started into the house, he asked Bob Carey if he’d seen Lisa anywhere. Bob hadn’t.
Nor had anyone else.
Ten minutes later, Alex left the house, praying that his car wasn’t blocked in.
* * *
A quarter of a mile down Hacienda Drive, Lisa Cochran’s quick pace slowed, and she wondered if maybe she shouldn’t turn around and go back to the party. What, after all, was so horrible about skinny-dipping? And who was she to be so prissy about it? In a way, Alex was right—it had been her idea that they go to the party. He’d even argued with her, but she’d insisted. Still, he had drunk a couple of beers, and by now he might be working on a third. And if he was, she certainly didn’t want to drive home with him.
She stopped walking entirely, and wondered what to do. Perhaps she should walk all the way into the village and wait for Alex at home.
Except that her parents would be up and would want to know what had happened.
Maybe the best thing to do was go back to the party, find Alex, and convince him that it was time for them to go home. She would do the driving.
But that would be giving in, and she wouldn’t give in. She had been right, and Alex had been wrong, and it served him right that she’d walked out on him.
She made up her mind, and continued down the road.
Alex jockeyed the Mustang around Bob Carey’s Porsche, then put it in drive and gunned the engine. The rear wheels spun on the loose gravel for a moment, then caught, and the car shot forward, down the Evanses’ driveway and into Hacienda Drive.
Alex wasn’t sure how long Lisa had been walking—it seemed as though it had taken him forever to get dressed and search the house. She could be almost home by now.
He pressed the accelerator, and the car picked up speed. He hugged the wall of the ravine on the first curve, but the car fishtailed slightly, and he had to steer into the skid to regain control. Then he hit a straight stretch and pushed his speed up to seventy. Coming up fast was an S curve that was posted at thirty miles an hour, but he knew they always left a big margin for safety. He slowed to sixty as he started into the first turn.
And then he saw her.
She was standing on the side of the road, her green dress glowing brightly in his headlights, staring at him with terrified eyes.
Or did he just imagine that? Was he already that close to her?
Time suddenly slowed down, and he slammed his foot on the brake.
Too late. He was going to hit her.
It would have been all right if she’d been on the inside of the curve. He’d have swept around her, and she’d have been safe. But now he was skidding right toward her …
Turn into it. He had to turn into it!
Taking his foot off the brake, he steered to the right, and suddenly felt the tires grab the pavement.
Lisa was only a few yards away.
And beyond Lisa, almost lost in the darkness, something else.
A face, old and wrinkled, framed with white hair. And the eyes in the face were glaring at him with an intensity he could almost feel.
It was the face that finally made him lose all control of the car.
An ancient, weathered face, a face filled with an unspeakable loathing, looming in the darkness.
At the last possible moment, he wrenched the wheel to the left, and the Mustang responded, slewing around Lisa, charging across the pavement, heading for the ditch and the wall of the ravine beyond.
Straighten it out!
He spun the wheel the other way.
Too far.
The car burst through the guardrail and hurtled over the edge of the ravine.
“Lisaaaa …”
CHAPTER THREE
It was nearly two A.M. when Ellen Lonsdale heard the first faint wailing of a siren. She hadn’t been asleep—indeed she’d been sitting in the living room ever since the Cochrans had left an hour earlier, growing increasingly restless as the minutes ticked by. It wasn’t like Alex to be late, and for the last half-hour she’d been fighting a growing feeling that something had happened to him. The siren grew louder. A few seconds later it was joined by another, then a third. As she listened, the mournful wailings grew into shrill screams that tore the last vestiges of calmness from her mind.
It was Alex. Deep in her soul, she knew that the sirens were for her son.
Then, inside the house, the phone began to ring.
That’s it, she thought. They’re calling to tell me he’s dead. Her feet leaden, she forced herself to go to the phone, hesitated a moment, then picked it up.
“H-hello?”
“Ellen?”
“Yes.”
“This is Barbara, at the Center?”
The hesitancy in Barbara Fannon’s voice told Ellen that something had gone wrong. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Barbara’s voice remained professionally neutral. “May I speak to Dr. Lonsdale please?”
“What’s happened?” Ellen demanded again. Then, hearing the note of hysteria in her voice, she took a deep breath and reminded herself that Marsh was on call that night. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Just a moment, Barbara.”
Her hand shaking in spite of herself, she laid the receiver on the table next to the phone and turned toward the hall. Marsh, his eyes still bleary with sleep, stood in the doorway. “What’s happening? Something woke me up.”
“Sirens,” Ellen breathed. “Something’s happened, and the hospital wants to talk to you.”
His eyes immediately clearing, Marsh strode into the room and picked up the phone. “This is Dr. Lonsdale.”
“Marsh? It’s Barbara. I’m in the emergency room. I hate to call you in this late, but there’s been some kind of an accident, and we don’t know how bad it is yet. Since you’re on call …” Her voice trailed off uncertainly.
“You did right. I’ll be right there. Does anybody have any details at all?”
“Not really. Apparently at least one car went off the road, and we don’t know how many people were in it—”
“Maybe I’d better go up there.”
There was a hesitation; then: “The EMT’s are with the ambulance, Doctor.…”
Now it was Marsh who hesitated, then grimaced slightly. Even after five years, he found it hard to accept that the emergency medical technicians were, indeed, better trained to handle such situations than he himself was. “I get the picture, Barb. Say no more. See you in a few minutes.” He hung up the phone, then turned to Ellen, who stood behind a chair, bo
th hands gripping its back.
“It’s Alex, isn’t it?” she breathed.
“Alex?” Marsh repeated. What could have put that idea into Ellen’s head? “Why on earth should it have anything to do with Alex?”
Ellen did her best to steady herself. “I just have a feeling, that’s all. I’ve had it for about half an hour. It is Alex, isn’t it?”
“No one knows who it is yet,” Marsh replied. “It’s an automobile accident, but that doesn’t mean it’s Alex.” His words, though, did nothing to dissipate the fear in her eyes, and despite the tension that still hung between them, he took her in his arms. “Honey, don’t do this to yourself.” When Ellen made no reply, he reluctantly released her and started toward their bedroom, but Ellen held onto his arm, and when she spoke, her eyes, as well as her words, were pleading.
“If it isn’t Alex, why did they call you? There’s an intern on duty, isn’t there?”
Marsh nodded. “But they don’t know how many people might have been hurt. They might need me, and I am on call.” He gently disengaged her hand, but Ellen followed him into the bedroom.
“I want to go with you,” she said while he began dressing.
Marsh shook his head. “Ellen, there’s no reason—”
“There is a reason,” Ellen protested, struggling to keep her voice level, but not succeeding. “I have a feeling, and—”
“And it’s only a feeling,” Marsh insisted, and Ellen flinched at the dismissive tone of his words. He relented, and once more put his arms around his wife. “Honey, please. Think about it. Automobile accidents happen all the time. The odds of this one involving Alex are next to nothing. And I can’t deal with whatever’s happening if I have to take care of you too.”
His words hurt her, but Ellen knew he was right. Deliberately she made herself stop shaking and stepped away from him. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s just that … Oh, never mind. Go.”
Marsh offered her a smile. “Now, that’s my girl.”
Though her husband’s smile did nothing to alleviate her pain, Ellen picked up his wallet and keys from the dresser and handed them to him. “Marsh?” she asked, then waited until he met her eyes before going on. “As soon as you know what’s happened, have someone call me. I don’t need details—I just need to know it’s not Alex.”
