She got out at her stop, picked up some groceries and walked home. She had put the key in her mailbox, when she saw a figure waiting in the vestibule, and she knew at once that it was Uncle Henry. He was taking up more and more of her life.
She led him up two flights of stairs, noting how fatigued the climb made him. Once inside, she offered him a cup of tea or coffee, which he declined. He got right down to business.
"Your reports have been excellent," he said. "We have decided to let you into our laboratory. There is much to be done and little time to do it. There are three rules you must obey: Follow instructions. Do not ask questions. And remain at all times within your restricted area. Do you understand?"
She did. She also thought of many questions, but figured now was not the time to pose them. She imagined she'd be allowed one, though.
"When do I start?"
"Tomorrow."
Jude and Skyler did not approach the Big House by walking up the front drive lined by the ancient oak trees. That seemed too brazen. Instead, they walked in the shadows of the trees, keeping their eyes glued on the windows and door for any sign of life.
Not that they expected any. The place was a mess and gave every indication of having been abandoned. Most of the windows were knocked out, several metal gutters were hanging loose and swaying in the breeze, and a large tree had fallen on a section of the roof, collapsing it. One of the front columns had toppled backward, causing the small balcony above to sag dangerously.
The place looked used, decrepit, shrunken — not at all the majestic palace that Skyler had constructed in his memory.
When they reached the front steps, he went first. He treaded lightly upon the old wooden steps and tried the front door. It was stuck. He tugged, then took the brass knob in both hands and pulled with all his might. The door flew open, crashing against the outer wall with a force that shook loose a shower of rainwater trapped on the balcony above.
They exchanged looks and froze. When a half minute passed, they relaxed. If that sound didn't arouse a response, it was likely the place was deserted. They stepped inside, no longer worried about making noise.
First, they went to the basement room in front, the very one that Skyler and Julia had snuck into so long ago when they were spying upon Rincon and trying to hear what he was saying. Jude went down the staircase first and watched Skyler come after him, looking at his face, which was strained and breaking out in perspiration.
This has to be hard on him, thought Jude.
They went next to the Records Room, which was mostly empty. Two filing cabinets were there, but their drawers were missing. A table with nothing on it had been shoved into a corner. Half a dozen pieces of paper lay on the floor. Jude turned them over; they were blank.
"Nothing," said Skyler. "This is where it all was, all the records."
Jude's heart sank. What could they possibly hope to find now?
He barely noticed that Skyler had moved over to the other door, the one that led to the morgue. By the time he realized it, Skyler was gone, having disappeared through the door into the operating room. Jude tore after him.
Mercifully, this room too had almost nothing in it, nothing to indicate its former use. There were some empty cabinets affixed to the walls, a stanchion, and the floor slightly angled toward a central drain.
The stainless steel table, where Julia's body had been, was also empty.
They went back upstairs, searched the first floor and found nothing. The couches and chairs near the open windows were waterlogged, and branches and leaves had blown inside. Even the ashes and cindered logs in the fireplace were wet.
They climbed the stairs to the second floor, where Skyler had never been before, and split up. Jude walked through two rooms that were mostly empty, retaining only a few pictures on the walls and rugs. He came to a small hallway and knew he was entering the master bedroom.
And there inside was a four-poster bed, a bureau, and a night table. But what caught his eye was an object lying on the floor, incongruously on its side, spilling sand and bits of cactus onto the carpet.
It took Jude some time to realize what it was — a terrarium.
How bizarre.
Jude almost yelled out. He was tempted to share his find with Skyler, to ask him what it meant. But Skyler wasn't there any longer, for he had made a discovery of his own. He had run out of the house. For peering out a window on the second floor, he had spotted the old oak tree, the one that he and Julia had used for sending messages.
And looking at the base of the tree, he saw that the rock had been moved. It was positioned, according to their code, to arrange a rendezvous at the old lighthouse.
Chapter 26
Skyler ran back into the Big House, yelled to Jude that he would be back, and disappeared under the oak trees. He ran across the Parade Field and past the barracks and into the meadow. He kept running even on the path on the other side that led to the woods, and then finally he had to slow down to catch his breath. From then on he mostly jogged, but when he came to a downhill stretch, he ran again.
He knew it was foolish to exhaust himself like that — he told himself to conserve energy, for he had no idea what awaited him in the lighthouse — but he couldn't help it. He felt driven by a force over which he had no control.
Then he rounded a bend, past the sand dunes and the ruts in the road, and he saw the familiar sight, the old tower rising up with its faded red and white stripes, so incongruous amid the brushed green of the loblolly pine and the pale blue of the sea. He stopped for a moment, squinting in the sun, looking at it. It hadn't changed — there was no outside sign as to what momentous surprise it might hold for him.
He reached the base of the lighthouse and pushed open the door, which sent the birds to flight, a frenzy of beating wings and loose feathers that drifted down slowly to the concrete floor. Then he mounted the spiral staircase, moving with a kind of hunter's stealth, as if he might scare away the prey above, whatever it was. He came to the gap in the stairs, stepped across it and moved higher, his eyes continually on the small passageway at the top. When he reached it, he paused, trying to calm himself.
Then came the moment. He tightened his muscles and pushed ahead, passing through the doorway and entering the glass room. It was hot and the sun's rays refracted from one lens to another in a dizzying crisscross, so that it was like stepping into a gallery of blazing light.
He looked around him. He looked at everything in sight, at first rapidly, sweeping the balcony with his eyes, and then slowly and methodically, so as not to overlook anything. He looked around the glass house and at the metal track, the circular walkway, the giant lens, the ceiling, the floor, the walls. He examined every inch of the place.
Jude had finished searching the master bedroom and a neighboring bedroom when he heard a sound coming from a narrow hallway. It was a grating noise, like something ripping, and it was magnified in the silence of the old manor house, so that it seemed incredibly loud.
Jude's first thought was that Skyler was behind it — he was opening something, cutting something — but he knew at once that that was impossible. Skyler had already left.
He walked to the entrance of the hallway and listened. The noise stopped for a moment and then resumed. It emerged from the darkness and seemed to come straight at him, as if it were directed at him. He felt around for a light switch — there was none. So he took a step into the hallway, feeling the walls on both sides, moving one foot slowly ahead. He continued in this fashion, sliding his feet before him as if he were walking on thin ice. Halfway through, he paused and cocked his head to hear better; the sound was irregular. It was not the sound of inanimate objects.