Come on, I tell myself. This is David Kinney we are talking about, or whatever name I think he goes by now. Ethan Greene might not even be David Kinney for all the clues in my sleuthing. I might have been kidding myself this whole trip. Ethan Greene might turn out to be some psychopath who is permanently holed up in his mansion, kind of like the mad scientist in Edward Scissorhands.
“Folks don’t talk without a reason,” Rick warns me. “Say, you hungry? I’ve got a break coming up in fifteen minutes. If you want to grab a quick bite – ”
“No thanks.”
He seems disappointed.
“I’ve already eaten,” I add.
“So . . . you wanna wait till eleven when I get off . . . or do you want to go find my Mom? I can call her right now.”
I make a swift decision. “Sure. Call her. I’ve been driving all day and I need to shower and stuff.” I’m sure I smell ripe, though Rick is too polite to say so. “Do you have an address? I can go find the place myself.”
“Sure.” Rick seems eager again.
He sketches some directions involving turning this way, and that way, and looking out for landmarks like ‘the old red barn’ and ‘the broken scarecrow’ on the back of a magazine. I’m beginning to feel more and more like Dorothy stepping out of Kansas.
“You got it?” he asks me, concerned.
“Yeah, I’ve got it. After all, I found Kelowna, didn’t I?”
“Yes, you did.”
“See you later.” I take the magazine and straighten my hair. I’m in a simple red blouse which I wear over a comfortable pair of jeans. I’m dressed to drive long distance, not to impress guys.
Outside, the rain is screaming down as if the sky hasn’t opened since the days of Noah. I don’t have an umbrella. The magazine with the directions is too precious to use as a shade, and so I bolt to my car, very glad for the fact that I parked it curbside.
I drive off, putting my windscreen wipers on max, and even that is not enough to confer visibility of more than ten meters. I have my headlights on too. For once, I’m glad I’m in a small town and there isn’t a lot of traffic for me to contend with.
I’m good at following directions, and so I drive very slowly. It’s a bitch to peer through the rain. The houses and buildings look washed and semi-translucent, like someone has splashed a grey coat of paint all over them. The road is a winding mess.
I don’t know exactly how I wound up at this junction, but I think I’m lost. I stop the car in the middle of the road, aware than any moment, a blaring truck could crash into me from behind. But somehow, I don’t think there are many blaring trucks out here.
A weather-beaten signboard is lighted in front of my car by my headlamps. It has an arrow pointing upwards, and it says ‘PINE’S LOOKOUT’.
I’ll be damned.
It’s kismet.
I know I should be trawling out of this tangle of roads to head for Rick’s mother’s home. Possibly to a comfortable bed and a warm shower and some good, old-fashioned Key Lime pie. But the words ‘PINE’S LOOKOUT’ is calling impossibly to me, like some sort of siren. I’m a sixteen-year-old fan again in LA for the first time – in an open top bus, peering at the homes of celebrities in Beverly Hills.
David Kinney used to live in LA when he was still working there, and we kind of camped outside his modest Hollywood Hills house, hoping for a glimpse. Which, of course, we never got.
I should wait till tomorrow morning, really. I should wait till it’s bright and dry and cheery and more conducive to snooping.
I step on my gas pedal.
The car starts its cranking way up Pine’s Lookout.
Somehow, I think, even then . . . I wanted to be burned.
3
Visibility is really, really poor. The road up Pine’s Lookout is narrow and steep, made comfortably for a single vehicle, although there are expansions here and there to allow double traverse. The trees on either side of the road are dense. They whip around like frenzied marionettes.
I think I made a mistake.
I think I should turn back. Only there isn’t anywhere to make a U-turn.
The engine grinds and squeals as I step on the gas, practically inching upward. What an awful place to live in. No wonder Ethan Greene doesn’t get out much. It’s too much of a bother getting up and down. With his money, he should build a wider road . . . or a cable car. I wonder how the mailman gets up there, or maybe Ethan Greene doesn’t have any mail.
The road gets windier and windier, until I’m almost convinced I’m riding on the back of a tossing dragon. Trees would appear suddenly in my path, and I realize the road has made another sharp bend. And then another. Yup. I have got to turn back now. Only there’s no place. Everything is too narrow, as though I’m in a funnel.
Funneled by spooky trees.
Another copse of trees bar my path. I curse. I swear those trees can walk, the way they seem to be materializing at every inopportune moment.
And then it happens.
The reason why I shouldn’t be here in the first place – why I should have listened to that nagging voice inside of me, the one that insists upon that hot shower and that warm slice of pie.
One moment, I’m safely tucked in my vehicle, with its four wheels clinging to the slippery slope. The next, I’m flying –
Oh shit.
I’m really flying in the air. It’s so dark and stormy and I can’t really see where I’m flying to, or how I got to be airborne in the first place. I must have missed a turning and crashed over some divider. Fuck it, there’s probably no divider. Just a gap in the smug, betraying, extremely sneaky and sentient trees.
I’m scared now. I’m really scared. Somewhere between the seconds of floating in deep space, I think I peed in my pants. I’m going to die and I should have stayed home and listened to my mother and never gone to be a reporter and never grown up, come to think of it.
Oh how stupid, stupid, stupid I am.
But that’s the way with accidents, right? You never want to be in one, but when you’re in one, you analyze the shreds out of it. I should have done this, I should have done that. OK, maybe that was a fucking stupid thing to do.
Provided you actually survive to analyze the hell out of it.
I’m not sure I’m going to survive.
The car lands with a resounding crash. Everything is pitch black, and I’m screaming so hard that I’m almost competing with the thunder out there.
That’s it.
I’m officially dead.
4
I wake up.
OK, maybe I’m not dead after all, but I can’t be sure. Though I am pretty sure the last time I was alive, I was in my rented Avis Chevy.
But not now.
I’m on a bed.
And what a bed. It’s gargantuan four poster one with a canopy on the top, and I feel like I’m in Kublai Khan’s pleasure dome. The sheets are pure silk, though I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between pure silk and unpure ones . . . meh.
My head is spinning and the posterior part of my skull hurts something wicked. Ow. I think I must have had a concussion. At least the pillows are geared to cushion that concussion. They are fluffy beyond fluffy, and soft as a baby’s bottom.
Despite my vertigo, I make myself peer around the bedroom. The ceiling is high and decorated with frescoes of lotus leaves. Where am I? India? The curtains are thick and double-layered, and the carpet smothers the floor like a blanket. The furniture is dark and rustic and polished to the hilt.
I don’t think I’m in a hospital room.
And I also don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore.
I try to get up on the bed, and a wave of giddiness assails me. Uh oh. I collapse back into my pillows. Gawd, but I’m thirsty.
After a while, the door swings open. I squint.
A very tall man enters my room. He’s so tall that I have to blink twice to make sure that he’s not scraping the ceiling. He appears to be fifty-something, with a full head of dark
hair shot with silver. He wears a black suit over a crisp white shirt, the kind that looks as though it needs to be starched in the twentieth century way.
“Ah, you are awake.” He carries a tray with a thermos on it. “You are hungry, I presume?”
“Yes. And you are . . . ?”
“Jeffrey Pendergast.” He sets down the tray on the table beside me. “Don’t move. You’ve had a concussion.”
Ah. I know where I am now.
Despite my obvious state, I’m kind of excited.
But should I be afraid after all the spooky tales I have heard about this place and its inhabitants? After all, my premonition did warn me that I should not be attempting Pine’s Lookout in a raging thunderstorm. That very premonition is telling me now that I should be bolting out of my bed and making a run for it before I end up like that poor, undiscovered, but obviously not forgotten hooker.
I quell my nervousness. I say aloud, trying to make my tone cavalier, “I figured as much. Why am I not in the hospital?”
“Because it’s nothing I can’t fix.” Jeffrey towers over me, and he’s such a vertically-enhanced monster that I can’t help but cringe as he puts his hand gently upon my head. For the first time, I realize I have a bandage wrapped around it. Why didn’t I notice it before?
“Where is this place?” I ask, despite knowing the answer.
“You are in the house of Mr. Ethan Greene.”
The name sends a frisson of excitement down my spine, despite not being sure than this is the guise David Kinney – the object of my youthful adoration – is wearing today. Something tells me that Mr. Ethan Greene’s stickler for absolute privacy is what’s keeping me here in his guest bedroom and not in the hospital where I belong.
Still, he could have sent Jeffrey to the ER with my moribund body.
Ah well –
Jeffrey says, “You’ll be all right.” He straightens himself, and his frame blocks out most of the light from the window.
Light!
“How long have I slept?” I ask.
“Two days.”
Two days! This time, I bolt up in amazement.
“Two days, and you didn’t bring me to the hospital?”
“It was a concussion, nothing more serious,” Jeffrey pronounces patiently, as though to a child who is hard of understanding. “I dressed your wound. It was nothing serious.”
I wonder what Rick must have thought when I didn’t show up. Maybe he thinks I have bolted from Kelowna. I wouldn’t be the first person to do that. Or maybe he thinks I’m lying in an unmarked grave right now next to the poor, undiscovered hooker.
“What happened?” I demand.
“Your car slid off a cliff and fell into a ravine. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a particularly deep one, or you wouldn’t be alive.”
Figures. It sure felt like I was flying forever in that plunge, nevertheless.
“But you did hit your head against the windshield. You sustained some scratches in addition to your concussion,” Jeffrey continues. “Luckily, you were wearing your seatbelt.”
Lucky indeed.
“What happened to my car? How did you find me?”
“I was returning from an errand. Your car is still in the ravine from which I extricated you. It was badly damaged.”
Gad, and that’s a rental. I hope Avis has good insurance.
Should I go to a hospital?
“Just rest, Ms. Tremont,” Jeffrey instructs me.
I frown. “How do you know my name?”
I’m certain I didn’t tell him. The reporter instinct in me rears its suspicious head.
“I took the liberty of looking in your purse for identification. I understand that you are out of state.” Jeffrey’s lined face is a mask.
“You looked in my purse?” I am aghast. OK, well, I shouldn’t be. Most good Samaritans do look in the purses of accident victims for some sort of identification. Except that I’m not sure Jeffrey is a completely good Samaritan.
“What were you doing driving up Pine’s Lookout, Ms. Tremont?” Jeffrey cocks his head slightly, even though his serene expression has not changed. “Are you aware that it’s private property?”
Rats.
“I got lost,” I say sheepishly.
“What were you looking for?”
“I had some directions drawn for me on a map. I must have taken a wrong turn. I tried to turn back when I realized my mistake, but there was nowhere for me to make a U-turn.”
That was semi-truthful, at least.
I’m bursting with questions, of course, but I realize I have to be very careful. I’m glad I don’t have anything linking me to the newspaper in my purse. I never do.
“Would you like me to call whoever it was you were looking for?”
“Uh no. They weren’t expecting me anyway. I was just looking at some property belonging to my aunt out here, but it’s not important.”
What I meant to say is ‘I can stay here awhile longer to snoop around, if it’s OK with you’. I sink back into the pillows and attempt to look woozy – which is not completely an act.
Jeffrey pours some hot water into the thermos flask and hands it to me. “Here, drink this.”
I take it, grateful for some fluids. Any fluids.
“I’ll bring you some food,” he says. “What would you like?”
I would like to meet Ethan Greene, if I may, thank you very much.
“Um, whatever you have would be nice.”
“Some bacon, eggs, sausages and toast?”
Ah, a man who understands my healthy appetites. My stomach suddenly lets out a rumble.
“Yes, please.”
I make sure that he exits the bedroom before I attempt to get out of bed. So much to do. Where do I begin? I swing my legs over the side, and realize that I’m in some sort of old-fashioned cotton nightgown.
But another giant tsunami of dizziness hits me and I fall back into the bed like a limp doll.
So much for exploring today.
5
It’s two whole days more before I can get up and walk about. I do not insist on seeing a doctor, even though I know it isn’t one of my better decisions. My sleuthing is paramount, my health comes . . . um, not even second, I guess. I might have more than a concussion. I might have intracranial bleeding that is causing intra-tentorial herniation, whatever that means.
But somehow, the possibility of me dying a crushing brain death is not as exciting as being in the same house as . . . possibly . . . David Kinney.
Drat. I have got to get my priorities straight.
Jeffrey feeds me and clothes me with my own clothes from my own suitcase. Apparently, he has climbed into the ravine and retrieved my battered suitcase from my trunk. Eyeing him from top to toe, I fully believe he can slay dragons.
“Um, were you a basketball player in a previous life, Jeffrey?” I ask him.
He smiles, and I can see gap teeth.
I like Jeffrey. He’s soundless and efficient and learned and crisp. But I have been stuck two days here in this room and I have yet to meet his boss.
“Where’s Mr. Greene?” I venture.
“Out of town on business.”
“What does he do?”
“Business.”
Like, duh.
“What kind of business?”
“Mr. Greene has many investments in his portfolio.” Jeffrey clams up, as if they are too numerous and complicated to count. Then, “Now that you are up and about, I should see to getting you safely home, Ms. Tremont.”
Erm, that’s not exactly what I had in plan.
“I don’t actually feel that well,” I say, pretending to sway a little. “I’m not in a hurry anyway. It’s a long way from home and it’s kind of my vacation.”
He raises an eyebrow. “In Kelowna?”
“My aunt – ”
“Ah yes, your aunt.”
I think he full well knows that I don’t have an aunt who owns property out here, and I’m a curiosity seeker like eve
rybody else.
“Mr. Greene will be returning tomorrow,” he says pointedly.
“Would he mind if I were here?”
Jeffrey seems unperturbed. “We have hardly any guests, Ms. Tremont, so your guess on his reaction would be as good as mine.”
“I see. Well, I will try to get better as soon as I can for your sake, Jeffrey.”
“Indeed, Ms. Tremont.” He gives me a look that says ‘You’d better’.
*
As soon as Jeffrey leaves me alone, I scamper out of bed to explore. Jeffrey didn’t say I couldn’t, and so I pad out of the room. There’s a long corridor outside that leads to other rooms, albeit with closed doors, and a stairway at the end that winds downstairs. The corridor walls are decked with gorgeous pieces of art – so gorgeous that I have to stop to savor them for a while.
There are watercolor landscapes. Impressionist-like scenes, only set in modern environs. Still life. There isn’t any particular style but a mélange of styles that seem to harmonize and flow smoothly into one another. But then, I’m not an art critic.
I try the handle to the door of the room next to mine. The door yawns open a tad too loudly for my taste. I enter a library of sorts. Or maybe it’s a study. There are rows and rows of books from the floor to the ceiling, and I read some of the titles: ‘Modern Film’, ‘A Renaissance of Film’, ‘Movie Guide to 1000 Classics’. A gleaming samurai sword is mounted on two wooden pegs against one bare patch of wall. I reckon it might be some sort of film prop.
So Mr. Greene is a film buff. My theory warms up the thermostat by several notches, and I allow myself a smile of satisfaction. If Ethan Greene is indeed David Kinney, then why does he choose to hide away like this – far from the public eye? Did he just get tired of all the attention? Was he feeling too much pressure to perform – to deliver hit after blockbuster hit year after year – as though he’s some sort of human jukebox?
Or was he disfigured so badly in some freak accident that he now resembles the Phantom of the Opera?
This last makes me cringe. I cannot imagine a face as beautiful as David Kinney’s being maligned in any way. It would be a travesty. A disaster of the highest magnitude.
Damaged Beauties (Romanced by the Damaged Millionaire (Erotic Romance)) Page 2