Obie shrugged and lifted the phone. Behind Dee Dee the door moved slightly and she stepped away from it, allowing it to open. Obie stared past her at the new arrival. Dee Dee turned then to look also. She stared for a moment, stifled a scream, and fainted.
Chapter Thirteen
“SISTER Diane had a little fainting spell,” Obie said, trying to shove the senator from the room. Calvin Taylor Dinwiddie stared from Obie to Dee Dee, who was lying on a couch, ashen-faced, sipping a drink. He could hardly see her for the other men in the room. Security guards in the guise of cooks, gardeners, teachers, they were all there. Senator Dinwiddie resisted the push toward the door.
“Now, Brother Cox, you just relax and take it easy now. Sister Diane is in good hands.” He gave ground, sidestepping slightly to go to the side of the door instead of through the doorway. “Sister Diane,” he called. “If you want me to get these people out of here, you just say the word.”
Dee Dee didn’t say anything. Obie gave up with the senator and announced generally, “If you gentlemen will kindly leave now. I’m sure Sister Diane is feeling better. If you will kindly leave us now and let us pray together….”
No one was paying any attention.
“Miss, did Johnny touch you?”
“Did he say anything to you?”
“Has he been in touch with you before?”
Lenny Mallard stood slightly behind the others watching Dee Dee closely. When she appeared to be regaining her composure somewhat, he said with authority, “I think that Miss MacLeish should be allowed to rest now. We can talk to her in the morning.” The others looked from her to Lenny, then one by one left the room. Lenny was the last to leave.
“You started to order some supper,” he said at the door. “Why don’t you go ahead and do that. You two must want to be alone. Things to talk about. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
Dee Dee sat up suddenly. “I want to go home,” she said.
Obie crossed the room swiftly to kneel at the couch and take her hand. “It’s all right now, Dee Dee,” he said. “There’s nothing here.”
She pulled loose and sat up. She looked at Lenny. “I won’t stay. I want to go home now. Tonight.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible, Miss MacLeish,” Lenny said smoothly. “There’s no transportation out of here tonight.”
“The plane is still here. I’ll pay whatever it costs to fly it out of here.”
“It’s out of the question,” Lenny said, less smoothly, but smiling still.
“I won’t stay here tonight! I won’t!”
“What happened?” Lenny reentered the room all the way closing the door after him. “You tell me now what happened and I’ll see to it that you go home.”
“Tonight? ”
“Yes.”
Dee Dee held out her glass and Lenny took it from her and refilled it from a decanter on a side table. She drank deeply, then said, “You won’t believe it. None of you will. I’ve read about your denials of his power.”
Very patiently Lenny said, “Try me.”
“All right,” Dee Dee said, sipping now, watching the gin and ice. “I came in to ask Obie, Brother Cox, about supper. I was standing at the door. Suddenly I felt strange, not myself. I was terrified all at once. I pulled the door open and he appeared there, just appeared out of nothing. And I felt him trying to get my mind, my brain. He was there, but he was inside me too. It was so horrible! I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything. It seemed to last for an eternity. Minutes, hours, I don’t know how long. Then I felt him shift, and I was able to move and scream. That’s all I know.”
Lenny continued to watch her without speaking. Dee Dee returned his gaze, her face smooth, untroubled, her eyes very clear. “So that’s to be the story?” he said finally.
“But that’s exactly what happened. I said you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Well you were right about that. I don’t.”
Dee Dee shrugged. “Perhaps you could explain it all a different way?”
Lenny started toward the door again. “No, I can’t explain it. I believe you planned the whole thing. I don’t think you really want to leave. I think this is the opening act of a charade that you plan to continue through the next two days, your planned stay with us. So, I will follow our agreement. I’ll call the pilot back. Be ready to leave within half an hour, please.”
“Please don’t throw me in that ole briar patch,” Dee Dee murmured.
Lenny’s expression didn’t change a fraction. He left them. Obie, still on his knees at Dee Dee’s side said, “What did happen to you? Are you all right now? You look strange.”
“I told him and you what happened, Obie. I was a perfect receiver for the Star Child. Obviously you aren’t, or you would have felt it too. I really can’t stay, because he’ll be successful the next time, and such a power isn’t confined by walls or time. But you must stay and go through your interview with him as you planned.”
Dee Dee wouldn’t add a word to that, and half an hour later, her bags still packed, never even opened, she left the estate as she had arrived there, by vertical take-off craft, heavily draped. This time she was the only passenger.
It was noon when Dee Dee watched the plane vanish into the blazing sky the next day. Several people were running toward her from the control shack. She left her suitcases on the ground and started to walk toward the men who managed the airstrip. Crisply she said, “Call the house and tell Merton I want to see him immediately. Tell him to drop everything and get up here. And get me a copter right now.”
Merton was there by the time she arrived. “Come on,” she said, leading him toward her suite in the mansion that topped the mountain. It was a three-storied house, with tall columns, wide porches, high ceilings, thick Persian carpets and antiques. Her suite, three rooms, office, bedroom, and sitting room, was all in jade and ivory with flaming pink pillows and draperies. She told Louise, her maid, that she wanted a bath, clean clothes, and lunch, all very fast. Louise nodded silently and vanished. Dee Dee started to discard the clothes she was wearing and Merton sat down and waited for her to begin the story. But Dee Dee remained silent until the maid said the bath was ready. “I’ll call you if I need you,” Dee Dee said. Louise nodded and left the suite.
“Now?” Merton said.
“They might have slipped me a bug,” she said.
Merton’s eyebrows peaked. He examined her clothing, purse, and suitcases very carefully, then shook his head.
Dee Dee motioned for him to follow her. She had pulled a flowing robe about her and she dropped it on her way to the bath. She caught up her long hair with a scarf twisting it all about her head, then stepped into the sunken bath of black and white ivory. Only then did she say, “The Star Child is Obie’s bastard.”
Merton sat down hard on an ornate bench before a dressing mirror. He stared at Dee Dee, visible from the neck up, the rest of her body hidden by rainbow-hued bubbles. Dee Dee was busy soaping herself, not watching his reaction at all. She turned on the spray then, and water spouted from dragons’ mouths on two sides of the rub, rinsing her as she stood up. Automatically Merton handed her a large towel that wrapped about her completely. His gaze was on her, but seeing nothing, as she let the towel drop, powdered herself, and left the bathroom to start dressing in the bedroom. Presently Merton followed. Dee Dee was brushing out her hair by then. She was wearing a white silk sari-like garment held at the shoulder by a cluster of pink rosebuds fashioned around a diamond pin.