Then the phone rang, for the second time that evening, and the roof of the house seemed to blow away, leaving the three of them at the mercy of sudden, torrential, demoralizing rain.
"It's probably one of my sisters," Quinta said quickly to Alan. "I'll get it, Dad. Leave your cordless in its holster." She gave them both a tight smile and realized the folly of her plan: Cindy Seton was never going to call, but they would still end up spending the rest of their lives jumping to the sound of the phone.
She pressed the record button, picked up the phone, and said hello. There was a click and a dial tone.
"Hung up," she explained with forced cheerfulness. "Good. Let's eat."
It wasn't the same as before the call, but everyone seemed to be trying hard to bring back the mood, and that in itself was rather heart-warming. Then the phone rang again.
"Dammit. I'll answer it this time," said Neil. He pulled out the cordless phone from a side-saddle and said, "Powers residence." A click and a dial tone.
"Maybe she wants Alan to answer," Quinta said softly. There was no point in trying to pretend anymore; she knew it was Cindy. "After all, she's after him too."
"You keep assuming it's Cindy," said Neil, irritated. "Use your head, girl. That ad'll bring everyone out of the woodwork. 'C.S. We know you're out there,'" he quoted, heavily sarcastic. The phone began ringing in his hand. "That's probably Carl Sagan calling right now."
"I'll take it," said Alan, reaching to take the phone from Neil. He punched the talk button and waited without saying anything. When no one hung up, he murmured, "This is Alan." Click and a dial tone. "Okay, that's not the magic word either," he told them with a wry look.
After that no one bothered much to eat; no one bothered much to talk. They simply waited around for the phone to ring, and it did: with teeth-grinding randomness, sometimes two or three times in a row, at other times once every twenty minutes or so. Then it stayed silent for almost an hour; by the end of that stretch they were as strung out as addicts denied their fix.
After it rang just before eleven and the caller hung up again, Quinta said, "I don't know about you two, but I've been jerked around on a string long enough. Can't we turn all the ringers off and go to bed? I say we've given her enough thrills for the night."
"If that's who it is," added Neil.
"You're right, Quinta," said Alan, standing up and letting himself have the luxury of a stretch and a yawn. "Maybe if we deny her, she'll be more anxious to talk."
"If that's who it is," repeated Neil.
"Why do you keep saying that?" asked Quinta sharply. "You're the one who saw her in the first place."
"If that's who I saw." Neil Powers was tense, and when he got tense, he got contrary. He pressed the button on his remote; the television flickered to life. News at eleven. Over the years he had developed the unvarying routine of a recluse, and tonight had been anything but routine. He needed his news.
Alan said good night, and Quinta walked him to the door. Mr. Locklear was still sitting in the hall, so Quinta stepped outside onto the porch with Alan. The porch light was turned off. "Do you think she's watching us?" murmured Ouinta.
Alan shook his head in the dark. "She's too busy dialing your number."
"Up until a little while ago, I really didn't think you believed us," Quinta confessed, absurdly aware of his nearness. The smell of late-blooming clematis from a nearby trellis wafted over them, placing the moment in her senses forever. "We still don't have much in the way of proof."
He flattened his hands on the back of his head and pushed, a small isometric to ward off the fatigue of sitting still. He was an outdoor man, a man of action; it must have been hard for him to sit around their parlor all evening, waiting. Almost as hard as for her father. And yet he seemed in no hurry now to leave. "In retrospect," he said, "we do have proof."
She tiptoed up to his remark carefully, as if it were a rare bird sitting on the bough of a pine tree; she wanted to identify it before it flew away. "Have I missed something?" she asked softly.
"Nothing that you knew about. My house was burglarized not too long ago. Some things were taken that could have no value—I see that now—for anyone but Cindy. She also threw my pajama tops in the toilet. That sounds like Cindy," he added in the quietly controlled voice that he used when he alluded to her.
"How strange."
Quinta was wondering why he had married such a woman at the exact moment he said, "You're wondering why I married her. Because," he explained, "she told me she was pregnant by me, and I wanted to do the right thing. The funny thing is, she told me pretty quickly after we were married that she'd made it all up. Well—not so funny, really, but in retrospect, I sure am glad she wasn't pregnant."
"Oh." What could Quinta say to that? Better to return to a safer subject. "She didn't take anything worthwhile, then?"
"Oh, yes, she did, although probably not for that reason. A Fabergé box that she got from her grandfather was missing. And some plans ...." But here he stopped.
Quinta waited for him to finish, but he seemed to have no intention of it. Instead he shifted gears, as he so often did in his conversations, and said, "Do you have a nickname, Quinta?"
She had been looking down, savoring the sound of his voice wrapping around her like a clematis vine. Now she lifted her gaze. Her eyes had adjusted to the dark, and she saw in his face—or thought she saw—a warmth that transcended good will.
"Windy," she answered in a whisper. "My sisters called me Windy when I was a little girl. Sometimes they still do .... It sounds a little like Quinta .... I used to love a windy day ... because my father might take me for a sail ... and then, too, I talked a lot ... you know—'windy' ...."
She waited, as generations of young women before her had waited in the same spot on the same porch, for his kiss. When it came she was not prepared for the devastating effect it had on her sense of balance, or for the fire that scorched a path through her body. It's only a kiss, she thought dizzily, only a good-night kiss.
But her arms lifted up around him anyway, and that touched off a whole new series of flash fires. She felt his body up against her, his arms around her, and she knew that she was trapped, doomed to go up in flames. She could not escape if she wanted to; and when he broke away from the kiss long enough to whisper, "Windy," in a husky voice and then kissed her again—she understood for the first time in her life that there could be joy in annihilation. The thought was exhilarating, a pocket of pure, clean oxygen before the flames returned to consume her.
After another long kiss he let her go, but she wobbled, and he wrapped his arms around her more tightly, burying his face in her hair. She gave a small, shaky laugh and said inanely, "That was some kiss."
He laughed, not so steadily himself, and murmured in her ear, "I won't pretend to be sorry. I don't know what the hell's going on. All I know is, I'm not sorry." He held her away from him. "I haven't made out on anyone's front porch in quite a few years," he said ironically.
"You haven't forgotten a thing," she reassured him, her eyes half-closed with pleasure. "It must be like riding a bike."
He kissed her lightly on her mouth. "This is an unexpected complication."
"Which I suppose you don't need," she answered wistfully.
He smiled—sadly, she thought—and lowered his mouth to hers one last time, and then he was gone, leaving Quinta to reshape her cinders into the person she'd been before they came out on the porch. But it was no good; she was too giddy, too aroused, too apart at the seams to go in and face her father just yet. So she sat on the porch rail, and wrapped one arm around the porch column, and dreamed.
She might have been there still if her father had not yelled her name with such sudden, piercing urgency that she stumbled as she jumped off the rail onto the porch, then tore back into the house. Neil was staring at the television screen, along with Mr. Locklear.
"News at Eleven" was leading off with the kind of story that makes a broadcaster's heart beat faster: breaking
news, a live account of a fierce fire, climaxed minutes earlier by a series of chemical explosions, in glamorous Newport. Quinta recognized the wooden shed instantly, even with one wall collapsed in flames, and listened in stunned silence as the announcer told the tale.
"A raging fire has all but destroyed the 12-meter yacht Pegasus, one of America's best hopes to win back the America's Cup, the prestigious 135-year-old trophy which the Australians wrested from Dennis Conner and the New York Yacht Club three years ago," the newscaster intoned. "The yacht was being stored in the shed while it was being prepared for shipment to Perth, Australia, where preliminary trial races are scheduled to begin in October.
"Paint and flammable supplies destined for Australia were also being stored in the shed; the explosions are believed to have resulted from the igniting of these materials. The source of the fire is so far undetermined. We hope to have more for you later in the broadcast."
Chapter 17
It was a red, red dawn, but not so red as the still glowing hunk of metal that lay twisted and molten in the charred embers of the shipyard shed. Alan Seton, sooty and bleary-eyed as any fireman, plunged his hands in his pockets and stared at the pitiful remains of a three-year dream. Pegasus: mythical winged horse, born of blood, favorite of the Muses. Pegasus: who threw his rider when he dared to fly up to Olympus, there to try to take a place among the gods. Pegasus, so aptly named.
Shit, thought Alan, kicking a charred cinder out of his way. We should have called it Phoenix.
It was impossible for him not to feel that this was a judgment for his having dallied on a front porch with a certain young woman. To some extent, it wasn't his fault: he'd been minding his own business, chasing the Cup, when Quinta Powers had first knocked on his door. And then Cindy got in the act, forcing them together. But the kiss, that was his fault. He'd always known that he was vulnerable in times of stress; most men were. He'd taken up with Mavis on the same night that he'd withdrawn from the competition in the last campaign. Would he ever learn?
He shook himself free from his meditation. That was not today's problem. He turned and smiled stoically and gave the thumbs-up signal to those of his crew who huddled forlornly near the spot, trying their best to understand evil and wantonness. In the campaign so far, they'd had their arms broken and shins gashed, and they'd suffered concussions and bruises and a variety of deprivations. They'd endured cold and wet and the kind of intense misery that only those who have taken on the sea can know. They were here not for the money, God knew, or even for the chance of glory. They weren't even here out of loyalty to Alan.
They had come back because their hearts and souls had been with the eleven men on the deck of Liberty when she lost the Cup three years earlier. They'd come back because they were Americans, just as the Australians were coming back because they were Australians.
If that sounded jingoistic, too damn bad. It was a good thing for nations to be proud, and a good thing for them to joust nobly with one another on the ocean. It beat the hell out of going at one another with planes and missiles, or sending ruthless killers to terrorize one another's citizens. That was the real banality of evil, he'd long ago decided: that it made you feel self-conscious about doing something good.
And yet at that moment he felt anything but self-conscious. They were going to Australia: with no supplies, missing a few sails and, oh yeah, without the fastest boat ever designed. But they were going. They would race Shadow, their trial horse, instead; coax her and if necessary flog her, for one last run at success. She was not the fastest any more, but she was surely one of the most reliable. Overbuilt for a 12-meter yacht, Shadow just might endure the boat-crushing waters off Australia, where a lot of faster but more temperamental thoroughbreds would surely fall. He had a small window of opportunity—maybe only a pinhole of opportunity—but he was going to take it. This time, he was going to take it.
****
Nothing could have been further from Mavis Kendall's mind than the thought of sex, but when she stepped out of the limo and saw Alan on the afternoon after the fire, the first thing that popped into her head was: he's lost interest in me. His mind was preoccupied with something besides the arson of the night before. She could see it in his look, or rather in the way he seemed not to look at her. She did not expect banter, and she did not expect a medal for her heroism in bed three days earlier. But she did expect his deep blue eyes to flicker when she came into his view. And they didn't.
She tossed her clutch bag on the small Formica table in the Airstream trailer, sat down, crossed her legs, traced the red enameled tip of a finger across a crease in her gray linen skirt, and said, "Well, Alan. It seems to me you've been here before. Any words of wisdom for the rest of us?"
"If at first you don't succeed, try, try again," he said with a wry smile, leaning his chair back against the trailer wall.
"You're taking it better than I thought."
He snorted and said, "Not by choice. They've taken away all the sharp objects around me, as well as my belt and necktie."
"Any clues yet?"
He shook his head and looked away. "Just that it was done by professionals. Did you know you can order the building of your choice burned down for a few thousand bucks? You can't buy a decent used car for that, and yet someone can take out a ten-million-dollar campaign with what amounts to pin money. You look tired."
"I've been on the phone nonstop. And you?"
"Meetings. Phone conferences. Talks with boat builders. Statements to the police."
"You've been busy. What's the prognosis? Can they build another one in time for Perth?"
"Not bloody likely. We'll have to use Shadow."
"Shadow!" said Mavis, surprised. After a minute she added, "How ironic. If I'd known that Shadow was destined for the races, I'd have asked a higher price when I sold it to the syndicate."
He gave her a hard look, as if he were seeing her for the first time. It made her acutely uncomfortable.
"Is that all you think about, Mavis?" he asked. "Money?"
"It does give me pleasure," she answered coolly. She stood up and tucked her bag under her arm. "I see we're a little testy today. That's understandable."
"How're the sponsors taking this?" he asked, unaware that he'd offended her.
"On the whole—poorly. We've lost the Nickleby Cooler pledge, of course, and Sleptell is getting cold feet. Warren-Colgate Chemical is unhappy. Of the private donors I think we can kiss Johanssen, Dribbs, Heartner, and maybe Mrs. Petrel good-bye." Mavis smiled ironically. "The up-side is that our boat maintenance has been cut by half. I'll be at Beau Rêve if you need me."
She stepped outside, then came back in. "I think we had a phenomenal boat in Pegasus. But Shadow—"
She shook her head; he was wasting his time.
****
The two police detectives had come and gone hours ago, and Neil and Quinta, their spirits almost totally deflated, were still discussing the arson, obsessed by this latest turn of events.
"It had to be her," said Neil. "I don't mean she poured the gasoline herself. But you heard Alan: anyone can contract out the job. Not that the police believe there's a connection. But then, the police don't believe there's a Cindy."
"I know. And who can blame them? I'm beginning to think she's a poltergeist. I haven't heard her, seen her, touched her—and yet I know she's out there, somewhere. And now we know that she stole the plans to Pegasus when she broke into Alan's house." Quinta poured a stiffer gin and tonic than usual for her father, and a smaller one for herself.
"But I do not think that Cindy had the boat burned down, as crazy as she is," she continued. "No one could hate someone that much. And so many innocent people got hurt in this; so much effort and love and sweat were wasted. Not to mention, someone could easily have died in that fire. Why would she do that to people she didn't even know?"
"Because she's crazy, that's why." Neil tested his gin and tonic and grimaced, but he didn't send it back.
"It looks more lik
e sabotage to me. I could see some group doing this for political reasons. They might be willing to sacrifice a life for their much larger cause."
Neil was lifting himself with his arm braces from his wheelchair into an armchair that Quinta and Mr. Locklear brought up from the basement. That was the one bright spot in the events of the past couple of weeks: Neil had so thoroughly resented being victimized by a crazed female that he was putting twice his previous effort into keeping himself mobile.
He leaned his head back into the high-backed armchair, then sipped from his drink again. "You keep pounding that one note—the protesters—but if it was sabotage, there are a slew of suspects. It could be another syndicate; it could be a competing sponsor; it could be Alan himself, for crissake."
"It could not be Alan," Quinta said.
"Of course it could. Maybe he's afraid he's lost his competitive edge and just wanted out. Okay, so he's supposed to be a brilliant helmsman and strategist. But he missed the last campaign; maybe he knows he's peaked. Maybe he doesn't have what it takes anymore."
"He's steering the boat, dad, not lifting it. Anyway, he's not much over thirty; you talk about him as if he's got one foot in the grave."
Neil looked at his daughter suspiciously. "You're always defending him lately, always so touchy about his age."
"That's because you're always harping on his age!" she cried. "And I know why," she added recklessly. "I read the diary. I read about the gems—but then I read on. I know now that Grandmother was still married at the time she fell in love with a younger man than her husband. But, Dad, Grandpa Sam was much older than she was! There's no comparison!"
Quinta was assuming that her father was steering her away from Alan, away from possible complications down the line.
How wrong she was. "What has your grandmother's marriage got to do with Alan Seton?" Neil demanded. "What the hell is going on between you and Alan Seton? Are you telling me you're going to marry the man?"
By The Sea, Book Four: The Heirs Page 21