“What is it that scares you?”
He’s there, she thought. She wanted to say the words but couldn’t form them.
“When Renee called me,” Hudson said, “I think she’d just been there. Maybe she talked to them.”
“The cult members.”
He inclined his head. “She said something about colonies of people. She was excited. She meant Siren Song.”
“And I look like them,” Becca stated flatly.
“Yeah, well, that could mean next to nothing. I just want to talk to them. See if Renee asked them about Jessie, or maybe something else.”
Becca felt ridiculous, being so stubborn, when she’d been so gung-ho earlier. But it was like Jessie’s warning was playing over and over again in her head, an endless reel. Had that been what Jessie had been trying to tell her? Siren Song? But there were too many syllables in that message. Three, instead of two. So Jessie had to be trying to tell her something else, and Becca was sure it had to do with him.
Hudson pulled her into his arms. “I can go see them by myself.”
She shook her head, unable to explain the depths of her fear. She wanted answers as much as he did, yet now, suddenly, she couldn’t take the last few steps. She was profoundly frightened in a visceral, nonsensical way.
“I don’t want anything to happen to our baby,” she whispered.
“I won’t let anything happen.”
She didn’t say it, but she wasn’t sure he would be able to stop the cataclysm she sensed was coming for her.
Hudson suggested, “Let’s get another night at the B and B. I’ll take you there, then go see the people at Siren Song.”
“No, I’m staying with you. Don’t leave me.”
“Would you feel safer back in Portland, or Laurelton?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She turned toward him, burying her face in his jacket, clutching its leather folds with tense fingers. “I’ll go,” she said in a muffled voice against his chest. “I want to know, too. I’ll go.”
“What is it?” he asked again, holding her close. “Why now?”
“I can’t explain it.” She was torn between laughter and tears. “If I didn’t already know I was pregnant I’d be wondering, because my emotions are all over the place. I just feel something bad is going to happen. Like we’re prodding the beast. And though I want answers as much as you do, I’m afraid.”
“Maybe we should just forget about this for now.”
“No, you need to find out about Renee,” she said, steeling her courage. “And I want to know if Jessie met with them, and if Renee followed her path.”
He pulled back to look into her face, sweeping her wind-tossed hair from her eyes. “You sure?”
She nodded.
“Then we’ll drive over there and see how it goes. If you don’t feel safe, we’ll leave.”
“Okay.”
“Want me to drive?”
“No, I’m okay,” she said, turning toward the car. Ringo was standing on the front seat, his paws on the dashboard. He yipped at her and scratched at the dash.
“Sure?” Hudson asked.
She nodded tautly. “Sure.”
Mac shoved his cell phone into his pocket and made a sound of frustration.
“Still can’t get hold of her?” Levi asked.
Mac had made a half dozen calls to Becca’s cell and home phone numbers, but there was no answer anywhere. Levi only knew that Mac was anxious to connect with the woman he’d been dialing for the past hour because of something that had come up at work. “I was hoping to get an answer before we start heading over the mountains and I lose the signal completely,” Mac muttered.
Levi looked long-suffering. “I’m hungry. Is there anywhere to eat here? They got a Subway?”
“I doubt it.”
“McDonald’s?”
“We’d have to go to a bigger town.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Mac considered. They could drive to Seaside, which had any number of fast-food restaurants, but it would be a good half hour out of their way. Still, it might give him just enough time to connect with Rebecca Sutcliff before he headed over the mountains.
And what was he going to tell her? By the way, Becca, did you know that Jezebel Brentwood was your sister? Either good old Mom and Dad gave her up for adoption and kept you, or you were adopted out, too. Was that the kind of news-the kind that created more questions than answered them-that you delivered over the phone?
“Let’s go to Seaside,” he said gruffly, and they both got into his Jeep.
Becca found the turnoff to Siren Song after passing the entrance twice. It was little more than an opening between hedges of laurel and sturdy grasses that led to two lines of gravel whose center was a tall strip of weeds. Rain drizzled down to be flung in sheets by sharp puffs of wind, making the entry look desolate and cold. Anyone could believe this road hadn’t been driven on for months. Maybe Renee had been the colony’s last visitor.
As soon as they turned off the highway onto its bumpy surface, Becca gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, easing the Jetta along as its tires dipped and swayed through potholes filled with water. It was not an auspicious first impression, though Siren Song itself, the lodge, loomed large and imposing when viewed from Highway 101. This hidden, dreary access did not do the place justice, but maybe that’s just what the secretive inhabitants within its walls wanted.
“This must be it,” Hudson muttered.
“No other way to get to the lodge as far as I can see.”
“They could use some signage.”
They bumped and swayed along for over a quarter mile before the lane widened to provide a view to a tall stone fence that stretched east and west and a high wrought-iron gate with vicious-looking spikes whose double swinging gates provided a view into a grassy field where Siren Song stood. In the fading light its dark, cedar shakes and darker windows seemed to stare back at them.
Becca pulled to a stop in front of the gates, leaving the engine running. Both she and Hudson peered through the wrought-iron gate in silence. The gloom from the storm had deepened the shadows. Faintly, light shone from several windows on both the first and second floor. From a distance they heard the thud of a closing door.
“Someone’s here,” Hudson observed, reaching for the handle.
Becca began to shiver uncontrollably, but Hudson didn’t notice as he climbed from the Jetta and walked to the gate, peering through the bars. Ringo whined from the backseat.
Who are you? Becca silently asked.
There was no answer. Not even a feeling that someone received her message.
Becca saw Hudson straighten. He glanced her way urgently and she slowly got out of the Jetta, hearing the car’s door-ajar bell ding several times. The sounds were muffled by the wind, which was loudly shaking the trees, and something beyond the gate, maybe an unlatched shutter, was banging with surprising ferocity.
She moved in beside Hudson and with a distinct shock saw what had captured his attention. A young woman in a long dress standing beneath an umbrella. She was staring at them.
They stared back at her, and Becca’s mouth opened in a silent scream.
She looked just like Jessie!
Hudson grabbed Becca by one arm as she started to go down. He caught her before she slid into a dark puddle and pulled her quaking body into his arms. Glancing back, he saw the brush of the woman’s skirt as she entered through a side door of the building, heard the distinct plok of a thrown bolt.
“We have to go,” Becca chattered. “We have to go.”
“Wait.”
“No!”
“Okay, okay.”
“We have to go.”
“Fine. Then I’m driving.”
He helped her into the passenger side, alarmed at how white her face had become. Ringo, now in the back, bounced around wildly, scrabbling to reach Becca, but Hudson held up his hand to the dog. “Stay,” he ordered.