“Maybe. But I have the feeling that it is the same as finding yourself in a pit with a tiger and turning away from it hoping it will disappear.”
“Aren't you being melodramatic?” Katherine asked.
“Perhaps I am. But I can't help but wonder if these Satanists will ever reach the point where they're tired of sacrificing things like cats and dogs and an occasional rabbit.”
“I don't understand,” Katherine said.
He did not look away from the road now, for they were entering the sharp turn at the top of the rise, where the right-of-way humped, creating a natural spillage toward either the rock wall on his side or the crevasse on hers. He drove on the wrong side, taking the risk of striking the wall rather than of toppling over the precipice. In a moment, they were up and over, striking directly along the driveway to the mammoth oak doors that fronted Owlsden.
He said, “What I mean is: suppose they get bold enough to try a human sacrifice?”
Relieved that the trip was behind her, Katherine's urge to be happy soared again. “Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Harrison, you really are into cheap movie plots now!”
“Mike,” he said. “Don't call me Mr. Harrison; I'm not that much older than you.” He wheeled around in front of the great doors and braked the Rover. “And its surprising how often old movie plots have parallels in real life.”
The twelve-foot doors of the house swung open, spilling yellow light across the snowfield, making iced points on the giant pine needles gleam like jewels on the end of miniature spears.
“I'll get your things,” he said, opening the door and stepping out.
She stood next to him as he placed the luggage in the snow and closed the rear door of the Land Rover, and she was aware that his attitude of jolly adventurism was gone. Instead, he seemed anxious to be away from Owlsden, as if he feared the place. He kept glancing up at the dark windows, at the slate roof, at the squat, dark figure that stood in the open doorway, watching them.
“I'd like to pay you,” she said.
“Not necessary.”
“I really think—”
“My father is a millionaire, and I'll be a millionaire one day too,” he said. “Now, if you can tell me what earthly good it would do me to take cab fare from you, I might accept it.” He smiled as he spoke, his face as incredibly handsome as it had seemed the first moment she'd seen him in the restaurant in town.
“Well, then I don't know how to thank you,” Katherine said.
“Your company was thanks enough, the sight of a new face and someone with a fresh outlook.”
“You flatter me,” she said. “I really don't know what I'd have done without your help, and I don't think any amount of conversation and fresh viewpoint repays you for that horrendous drive or the one you have to make to go back down.”
“The drive is second nature,” he said. “And without me, you'd merely have spent a week in town before coming up here. Maybe that would have been better than — maybe that wouldn't have been so bad.”
The man standing in the doorway came out to them. He was Katherine's height, five feet four, very broad across the shoulders, a beefy man packed with muscles like a weightlifter. His face was swarthy, his eyes dark and deep set. His mouth was wide, his lips thick and his voice European yet accentless when he spoke. “My name is Yuri, Miss Sellers. I am the general caretaker of Owlsden, and I hope you haven't had any serious trouble getting here in this abominable weather.”
“Thanks to Mr. Harrison, very little,” she said.
Yuri turned to the younger man now and smiled. From the coarse look of him, one expected the teeth to be broken and rotted. Instead, they were fine, white, pointed and even. “Mrs. Boland would like to invite you to remain for dinner.”
“I wouldn't want to impose,” Harrison said uneasily.
“No imposition,” Yuri assured him. “We set an extra place and cooked for another, in the expectation that only your Land Rover would be able to ferry Miss Sellers up here.” The gentle, cultured voice seemed odd coming from the brutal figure of Yuri.
“No thank you again,” Harrison said. “Please give Lydia my thanks and regrets. But I must get back down the mountain before the snow gets too much worse.” That was a lie, since everyone seemed aware that no degree of terrible weather could phase him as long as he had the Rover.
He went around to the driver's seat, closed his door after him and put the vehicle in gear. He drove jerkily away from them, kicking up clouds of snow behind.
“Come along,” Yuri said, lifting two of her bags. “I'll get your last two cases in a minute.”
He lead the way across the lawn toward the open house, oblivious to the bitter cold, the wind and the snow, though he was only wearing a light suit without benefit of even an overcoat, hat or scarf.
Katherine turned and looked back toward the edge of the mountain, not certain what she hoped to see. But, not seeing it, she suddenly knew: the Land Rover. It was completely out of sight now, even the glow of its powerful headlights swallowed in the white mouth of the storm. She felt terribly alone.
CHAPTER 3
The rooms of Owlsden matched the grandeur of the outside, with none of the brooding darkness that had bothered her about its mammoth walls. The entrance foyer was wallpapered in gold and white, carpeted in gold, with a bright, crystal chandelier filling half the ceiling with dancing strips of colored light. The corridor that lead from it to the main perpendicular hall that ran the great length of the mansion was also carpeted in gold, the walls paneled in rich, dark woods. Inset in the ceiling were flat plates of light, a strikingly modem touch in comparison with the antiquity of the house. The furniture that she saw — a writing desk, an umbrella stand, a few occasional chairs, a pedestal or two with busts and statues on them — was all heavy, dark and pleasantly modern, not chintzy Danish but modern furniture with a style, a feeling of artistic merit and value.
Yuri lead her down the south wing to the main drawing room through a wide, paneled arch into a bright room with a wine-colored carpet, cream walls, bold modern paintings and furniture of vinyls and plastics and polished, stainless steel.
“Miss Sellers,” he announced.
There were two people in the room, an old woman and a man about as old as Mike Harrison, twenty-four or twenty-five. For the first time, seeing mother and son together, it occurred to Katherine that Alex Boland had been what is often called an “autumn baby” or “late blessing” having been born when his mother was forty.
Lydia Boland was a tall — a good five inches taller than Katherine — regal-looking woman. She wore her hair off her forehead and then suddenly swept down at each temple, covering her ears. Her complexion was milky and flawless, her eyes dark and bright, quickly taking in everything about her new employee whom she had only met on the telephone and by letter prior to this. She was wearing a lounging pajama set of dark blue with a conservative white trim on the cuffs and collar. She stood up from her plush black vinyl lounge chair and crossed to Katherine, unexpectedly embraced her and — holding her shoulders and standing at arm's length — looked at her in unashamed evaluation.
“You're even lovelier in person than in the photograph,” she said.
Katherine blushed, felt her face redden, probably to a scarlet. She hoped they didn't notice. She said, “Thank you.”
“I think we'll get along famously. I know it.”
“I hope so, Mrs. Boland.”
“Lydia,” the woman corrected her.
When Katherine felt that the woman was waiting for her to repeat it, like a child learning a hard lesson, she said, “Lydia.”
“That's better!” Lydia said. “I hate being addressed formally, because it makes me feel old.”