Robynn was happily snuggled in between them in the truck. Jack had dug out the middle seat belt from the purgatory behind the seat so he could buckle in her car seat, and it was quite a tight fit in there. And he couldn’t help noticing that she was leaning more toward Althea than him. Robynn really liked this old woman, more than she liked her own grandmothers, which was not that hard for him to understand. Elley’s mother was a handful even for children, or perhaps especially for children, since only the most compassionate of young people would be able to comprehend why a grown-up was so emotionally needy. But Lois Eunie Gorman walked around as though under a perpetual spotlight, incapable of the kind of normal human conversation that required give and take, able only to hold court. It was little wonder to him why Elley’s father had abandoned the marriage the moment Elley had left for college, and equally little wonder that Elley was such an overachiever; growing up in a household where attention was constantly demanded by one’s parent but never given in return would turn anyone into a person with something to prove.
Robynn’s other grandmother, Rebecca Hayden, had been battling illness for the entire duration of the girl’s lifetime, which made it difficult to get the two of them together. Jack’s mother had seen her granddaughter as a baby, but even that had been something of an ordeal for her. She would not hold the child out of fear—real or imagined—of dropping her. Rebecca usually remembered Robynn with birthday cards and Christmas presents, but she was not a vital part of her grandchild’s life. Over the last couple of years, since Jack’s father’s death, his mother had been so chronically depressed that even he had a hard time being around her.
As opposed to her natural grandmothers, Althea truly seemed to like Robynn. Some older people just have a talent for grandparenting, whether or not the grandkids in question are their own.
Jack’s phone beeped again and this time he did not even bother taking it out of his pocket. He simply let it beep. He’d check in at the office later this afternoon or not, depending on his mood. Finally it stopped.
“Have you ever been up to the castle, Jack?” Althea asked.
“Castle?” he replied, dumbly. “Oh, you mean the Hearst place? Nope, missed it.”
“I was at the castle only once, many, many years ago.”
“Did a princess live there?” Robynn chimed in.
The old woman chuckled. “A woman who was treated like a princess lived there, sweetie. Her name was Marion and she had, oh, I guess you’d say boyfriend, and he liked to throw parties.”
“I’ve heard about those parties,” Jack said. “You actually went to them?”
“Just one. The theme of this particular one was the Renaissance, so everyone had to come dressed like Leonardo, or whoever. They had real painters running around in period costumes and painting portraits of the guests, and my Howard was one of them. I was there with him, and to lend atmosphere, kind of like a movie extra. I walked around in this gorgeous dress and tried not to faint if a movie star came up to chat. I think Howard got two hundred dollars for working that party, which was a fortune back then, but he earned it.”
“I should think so, having to whip up paintings of people so quickly.”
“They had a trick to them. They’d have already painted the background and the figure, everything except the actual face, which they were able to fill face relatively quickly. Remember, these were all movie stars, so they already knew what they looked like. The real trick, though, was covering the already-painted parts of the canvases with a light whitewash, so they looked empty. Then they’d take a big, broad brush, the kind you slop paint onto a fence with, and quickly wash down the canvas with water, revealing the part they’d already done beneath, and go on to the face. Something went wrong, though, in one instance.”
“What happened?”
“You know, that was so long ago, I can’t recall the details. But one of the people at the party was so upset that she had to be taken out, and it was all related to the painting of her.”
Another painting, Jack thought grimly. What the hell was it about paintings all of a sudden?
* * * * * * *
Elley was waiting for her luggage at JFK when she remembered that she had forgotten to ask Nola to pick up her dry cleaning. Stepping away from the baggage carousel, she punched the speed dial number for home and waited for Nola to pick up, but there was no answer.
Elley glanced at her watch and frowned. It was nearly seven in the evening New York time, which meant it was four in L.A. Nola should be there. Robynn’s kindergarten class let out at two-thirty, and even if they stopped somewhere on the way home, they should surely be there by now. Maybe Nola was in the bathroom.
It was taking forever for Elley’s suitcase to show up on the luggage carousel. Blaise Micelli’s had already bounced down and been retrieved, and he had gone out to the transportation area to hail a cab to take them to their mid-town hotel. Elley was just on the verge of going to the luggage office to complain when she saw her plain green bag sliding out of the chute. “’Bout damn time,” she muttered, grabbing it.
Once she had retrieved her suitcase, Elley tried calling her house again. Surely by now Nola would be out of the bathroom. But there was still no answer.
Elley was getting worried.
She tried calling Jack at the office, but he was not there. The receptionist actually asked her if she knew where he was.
Now Elley was getting angry.
Blaise was at the doorway of the terminal, waving at her. “Cab’s waiting, Elley,” he called.
“Just a moment,” she said, fishing through her purse until she found her address book. Looking up Nola’s home number, she tried calling it. Nola answered on the second ring.
“Nola, where the hell are you!”
“Miz Elley, I’m right here.”
“Is Robynn with you?”
“No, ma’am. Mr. Jack called me earlier and said not to come over.”
“What?”
Talking slowly, Nola repeated, “Mr. Jack called me earlier today and said not to come. He was going to get Robynn.”
Elley took a deep breath. “Oh, okay. Sorry.” That at least made sense. Jack wasn’t at work, for whatever reason, so he decided to get Robynn himself. And knowing Jack, he probably took her out to some junk food restaurant and that’s why there was no one answering the phone. “There’s something I’d like you to do for me. Tomorrow when you get Robynn from school, I need you to stop at the Prestige Cleaners and pick some clothes up for me. The claim ticket is magneted to the fridge.”
Blaise was now shouting, “Elley, the cab’s waiting for us, let’s go!”
“But Robynn’s not in school, Miz Elley. Mr. Jack has him. They’ve gone.”
Elley stopped dead, five feet from the door. “What did you say?”
“Mr. Jack said they’d be gone for days.”
“Goddammit!” she screamed, silencing the noisy baggage claim area. “Son of a bitch!”
Blaise ran up to her and grabbed her arm. “Will you stop making a spectacle of yourself?”
Elley shook herself free of his grasp and glared him down. “You go to the hotel, Blaise. I have a problem at home I have to deal with. My goddamned husband has taken my daughter somewhere, and I don’t know where.”
“He’s the father, right?”
“What do you think?”
“There’s no law that says a father can’t take his own kid.”
“What if he’s kidnapped her?”
Outside the terminal, the cab driver, tired of waiting, accepted another fare and took off.
“I’m missing something here,” Blaise said. “If it was the babysitter, then that would be kidnapping. If you and Jack were divorced and he came and took her away, maybe that would be kidnapping. But right now, I don’t see a problem.”
“The problem, Blaise, is that I don’t know where they are!” she screamed.
Two airport security guards were now coming their way.
“Will you put a
fucking sock in it?” Blaise snarled, grabbing her.
“Let me go!” Elley lost control and slapped him so hard that her hand stung.
The guards were there in a flash, and one of them was on the walkie-talkie, stating: “Backup to United baggage terminal, we have a potential diversionary tactic in progress, repeat—potential diversionary tactic.”
Another guard, a very tall, tough-looking man, said: “Folks, I’m going to have to ask you to step over here with me.” He spoke quietly but in a tone of voice that conveyed there was no option for argument.
“Look, officer,” Blaise began, “she’s just a little distraught, is all. It’s nothing. You know how it is with women.”
The tall guard’s faced remained chiseled out of stone. “What I know is you’d better come over here with me. Now, sir.”
Elley remained silent as a guard with a dog appeared to examine their baggage, though Blaise complained, pointing out that they were trying to take the luggage out of the airport, not into it. They were then led away surrounded by uniformed security down a hallway and into a small room, where they were questioned for the better part of a half hour by a non-uniformed security expert who insisted upon being convinced that they had not staged the argument on purpose to deflect attention away from another person or persons, who might use the cover to engaging in dangerous, even potentially deadly, activities inside the airport.
Three-quarters of an hour later, after security had turned up no suspicious persons or parcels in the baggage area, he was finally convinced. Blaise and Elley were released and escorted to the exit.
“I suppose you’re going to tell me that tomorrow we’ll be laughing about this,” Blaise spat. “Well, don’t count on it.”
“I’m not.”
“My face is still stinging, you know.”
“Good.”
“Just what I fucking need. This is the most important client meeting we’ve had this year, and right when I need you most, you flip out. If you’re like this tomorrow—”
“I’m going back home, Blaise,” she said. “Whatever’s going on with my daughter is more important than the client meeting.”
“This is why I fucking hate married people! Listen, if you leave me in the lurch like this you’re finished!”
Not long ago, Elley would have reacted with dread at the thought of losing her job. But now she only said, “Whatever.”
“I mean everywhere! I’ll make sure you never get hired again by anyone!”
“Sure.” Elley pulled away from him and her heel and strode back into the terminal, lugging her suitcase.
“Goddammit, get your ass back here!” he shouted.
She did not look back, but raised the middle finger of her left hand to him over her shoulder, then marched to the marched up the stairs to the ticketing counter to reserve a seat on the first flight back to L.A.
* * * * * * *
Dani Lindstrom was driving south on the Pacific Coast Highway, away from her motel, away from San Simeon. On her right was the ocean, impossibly blue and imposing, glistening in the vibrant, soon to be fading, light of the afternoon. On her left were the kind of green hills that hoped to be mountains when they grew up, each one dotted with cows who stood around chewing grass so lazily that a tourist might wonder if they were on vacation too. It was a perfect kind of day, she thought; a beautiful day for a drive.
Now if only she knew why she was driving.
Dani had planned to spend the day poking around the remnants of historic San Simeon, but it turned out that did not take very long. Then she got Jack’s message saying that he was coming back up, and she went back to the motel. She tried reading for a while, but grew increasingly restless, the walls of her motel room seeming to close in on her. Almost out of desperation, she had decided to go to that spot on the beach a few miles up that attracted hundreds of elephant seals each year, for reasons known only to them. But once she had gotten into her car, she turned the opposite direction on Highway One and headed south, without understanding why. Before long she was slowing down to turn onto what was left of the road that led to Wood City.
Dani did not want to go to the site. She wanted to turn around and go back, but seemed incapable of ordering her hands and feet to comply. That’s when the sudden attack of gooseflesh hit her; it was like she was no longer in control of her driving.
She continued to bump over the rutted, washboard road until she saw the figure standing in woods up ahead. It was hard to make out whether it was a person or a bear standing upright until the figure raised its arms over its head and waved, like it was trying to flag her down. As she approached, though, there was no sign of anyone.
Had it been her imagination? Or had it been Jack?
Dani brought the car to a halt and put down her window. She called out Jack’s name. A sound of some sort answered her from the woods, but it was too faint to understand. It might have been the cry of a person, but it might not have. If it had been Jack, she would surely see his truck soon, since she figured the point that became impassible by vehicle due to the toppled tree had to be nearby. Switching on her headlights against the darkness of the woods, she slowly crept toward the ruined town, the car bouncing with every rut in the road. When I get to the tree trunk, if Jack’s truck isn’t there, I’ll just maneuver around and go back, she told herself. I won’t get out of the car.
But the fallen tree that had prevented her and Jack from penetrating the woods any further by car only yesterday seemed not to be here this afternoon. Had somebody cleared it? Is that what the strange figure had been doing there?
Dani had only been in Wood City that once, but it had been enough to imprint the look of the ruins of the one-time village in her mind. But something was wrong; it was different now. The thicket of brush through which they’d had to fight in order to get to the site was no longer there either. There was no trace that it had ever been there.
An unfamiliar structure was looming up in front of her. It was one of the houses, but it was more or less intact. The paint had been worn away by the weather, but the building’s walls remained. She knew she had not seen it before; yesterday, when it was lighter and easier to see things, there had been no signs of any wooden buildings in this complete of form. Good god, was she on the wrong road, heading into the site from another direction?
Dani stopped the car and got out. She started walking closer to the building, but halted when she heard the creaking sound. It was the sound that wood makes under some kind of strain, but it was not rhythmic, like footsteps. It was more consistent, like something being slowly stretched, or maybe like something....
“Oh my god,” Dani whispered, her eyes locked on the house. It was moving. Somehow the beams and studs were moving, growing.
Now panicked, Dani started to run through the woods, trying in her mind to return to the car, desperately wanting to jump back inside, turn around, and get the hell out of here, but she was going the wrong way. She stopped and turned back, but could not see the car.
Dani started running again. She wanted to stop her legs from moving, but could not. She was passing more and more skeletons of buildings now, on each side of her, each one creaking and groaning, each one growing and reaching for the sunlight. No matter how fast she ran, she could not outrun the creaking wood sounds.
She was only able to stop when the city hall building came into view. Dani knelt down on the ground, breathless, then rose again and began walking toward it. I don’t want to be here!
There were no sounds coming from the massive stone building, but there was something different about it. It was less dilapidated somehow; newer, cleaner, more alive.
At that moment, the lights inside the stone structure came on.
Dani’s legs traitorously carried her to the steps of the City Hall, and then began to ascend them. There was nothing she could do to stop them.
It was like she was a puppet being controlled by strings, with no will of her own. Tears were now streaming down her face, all bu
t blinding her as she stepped through the open doorway and went inside.
There was no one inside; no other person to see her standing there; no other presence to help her.
Nothing human heard the scream that rose up from the depth of her soul.
BOOK TWO
CHAPTER TEN
SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO
Althea Dorneman had never felt more out of place, or been more fascinated, in her life. It was like she had been transported to a fantasy land of wealth and ostentation, someplace not really on the earth, or at least, not really in the United States of America. This was more the stuff of old decadent Europe than modern, progressive California. Or maybe it was simply a dream.
Althea had actually pinched herself through her stiff, beaded dress when Fredric March smiled and winked at her. A moment later, he was pulled away by his wife, Florence Eldridge, the actress who had played Mary, Queen of Scotts, who gave Althea a withering stare, as though the wink had been her fault. Althea didn’t mind at all. In fact the stare was almost as exciting as the wink, because it meant that a movie star was looking at her.
Althea was trying not to be star struck, but it was difficult. She did not want to do anything that would embarrass Howard, but here she was, decked out like a lady-in-waiting to a Renaissance queen (to good effect, if the reaction from March was any indication), in a palatial castle, the likes of which she did not think they made in this country, surrounded not simply by film actors, but by the kings and queens of Hollywood, people who until tonight did not, could not, seem real.
In one corner of the massive assembly room of the palace that William Randolph Hearst quaintly called his “ranch” Howard was feverishly working on a canvas depicting a woman who looked like Paulette Goddard, and probably was. In the opposite corner, looking a bit on the foolish side in his badly fitting Renaissance garb, was Hearst himself. He was a huge man, more than six feet tall and weighty, but paunchy and soft looking. One of Howard’s friends had called him The Lard of the Manor, but she could not help being awed by the sight of the man, and was startled to hear him speak in an incongruously high and squeaky voice.
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