“Couldn’t we just burn the rest of it down? It’ll be faster.”
Henry picked up another box and handed it to Gus. “He’s going to get you to do most of the work anyway. You might as well start now.”
Gus didn’t bother to argue. He took the box and started dumping sodden photos into it.
“And while we’re cleaning up your house, what are you going to do?” Shawn said.
“I’m going to sit in my chair and watch you work,” Henry said. “And when I’m done enjoying that, I’m going to try to figure out what I can tell the Perths.”
Shawn picked up a stack of prints, each one of the happy couple sitting on their living room couch and staring straight into the camera.
“Maybe you can tell them that something interesting finally happened to them.”
Henry scowled at his son, then headed for the armchair in a far corner. But just as he settled in, there was a knock at the door. All three men froze.
“She’s back,” Gus said.
“What do we do?” Shawn said.
Henry pulled himself out of the chair. “I don’t know what you two brave souls are going to do, but I’m going to answer the door.”
“What if it’s Tara?” Shawn whispered.
“Then you can send her a psychic order to commit herself to the nearest nut hatch.” Henry walked to the door and threw it open.
His first thought was that someone had left a mannequin on his porch as a joke. The man was frozen absolutely still, one hand outstretched in retreat from the door it had just knocked on. After a brief moment, the man seemed to come to life, the hand retreating mechanically to his side.
Henry glanced back over his shoulder. “Shawn,” he said, “this has got to be for you.”
Chapter Fourteen
The ride through the mountains to Eagle’s View seemed even longer than it had before. The first time Gus had spent most of the drive terrified at the probability that he was being chauffeured by a psychopath. Looking back, that seemed like such a small problem, on a level with being caught reading under the covers with a flashlight or attracting the attention of the mean kids from first grade or all the other things that used to send him into a panic when he was six.
Now Gus realized that there was a great advantage to having a psychotic stalker as your driver: You didn’t have to worry about where she was or what she might be doing.
As Shepler piloted the car mechanically through the hairpin curves, Gus tried to keep his mind on the possibility that Steele’s assistant might slip into one of his mind-freeze moments just as they rounded a switch-back, and send them plummeting hundreds of feet to a fiery death. But as with most of Gus’ attempts to keep a cheery thought in the face of imminent disaster, the appealing notion of dying kept being replaced by the more troubling image of what Tara might be doing now.
It was an issue he’d tried to raise with Shawn when Shepler first showed up at Henry Spencer’s door. Shawn, not surprisingly, had seen his arrival as a reprieve from the onerous task of cleaning up his father’s house. Of course he tried to hide that fact from Henry by insisting he was motivated only by his fiduciary duty to a man who’d entrusted him with an investment fund of one hundred million dollars. And that started an entirely different argument.
“Please tell me that this is another attempt to cheat your way to the world Monopoly championship,” Henry said.
“First of all, that wasn’t cheating,” Shawn said, jumping back into an argument that had reached an armistice fourteen years ago as if they’d been in the middle of it when Shepler knocked on the door. “I was going to bring the concept of monopolization to Monopoly itself. If I’d been successful, it would have changed the game forever.”
“Whatever,” Henry said. “It’s a silly game for silly children, and nothing a grown man should be wasting his time on.”
“As opposed to say, cutting out pictures and gluing them into albums?” Shawn said.
“I’m preserving my clients’ precious memories, and if you think that’s a waste of time, I feel sorry for you,” Henry said.
“And I’m being paid to invest Dallas Steele’s money,” Shawn said. “Maybe you can feel sorry for me about that, too.”
“Technically speaking, we’re not getting paid,” Gus said. “Not until we show a profit.”
“If I wanted to speak technically, I would have chosen a profession that required some actual knowledge,” Shawn said.
“Maybe that might have paid some actual money,” Gus said.
There was a discreet throat clearing from the front door. Shepler stood at the doorstep like a vampire waiting for an invitation into the house. “Mr. Steele has a small window available and would very much like to speak with the two of you.”
“I’d think in that monstrosity of a house he’d have every size window you could think of,” Shawn said. “How did you find us here anyway?”
“Is that how you talk to a man who entrusts you with one hundred million dollars?” Henry said.
“This isn’t that man,” Shawn said. “And how would you talk to someone who gave me a hundred million dollars?”
“First I’d make sure his straitjacket was on securely,” Henry said.
“Oh, well, as long as we’re speaking respectfully,” Shawn said.
Gus glanced at his watch. He figured that Shawn and Henry could keep going at each other for at least another three minutes, which was fine with him. He needed the time to figure out what they should do.
The first choice was easy—they could go with Shepler. After all, Steele had entrusted them with a huge responsibility, and if he wanted to meet, it seemed ungenerous to refuse. It was disconcerting to have Shepler simply arrive with a summons, Gus had to admit, but he’d never met a multibillionaire before. Maybe that was how they did things.
Still, Gus didn’t like to think that Steele could send his minion for them whenever he wanted, and they’d be expected to jump. Even ignoring the question of just how Shepler had tracked them down to Henry’s house, there was the issue of the precedent this would set. If they agreed to come now, would that say that they’d be available for Steele no matter what they were doing? What if they were in the middle of a case? What if they were undercover? What if they were tracking a dangerous suspect?
And that was what was really troubling Gus. They weren’t tracking a dangerous suspect, and they should be. Tara was somewhere out there planning to enforce some twisted version of Shawn’s desires, which was a truly terrifying thought once you considered how twisted Shawn’s own version of Shawn’s desires could be. She was a monster they had helped to create, and it was their responsibility to track her down and put her back in a cage. Beyond that, someone had taken half a dozen shots at them, and that seemed like something that could use some investigating.
Unfortunately, by the time he’d come to this realization, Shawn was already halfway to Shepler’s car and Henry was yelling after him, “This mess is going to be here when you get back!”
Gus gave Henry an apologetic smile along with the half-filled box of charred photos and ran after Shawn.
As soon as Henry’s house had disappeared from the Bentley’s rear window, Gus tried to make Shawn share his urgency. “We have got to make this meeting short,” he said. “We’ve got to find Tara.”
“What’s the hurry?” Shawn said. “Odds are she’ll find us sooner or later.”
“The hurry is what she might do in that time between sooner and later.”
“She’s only doing what she thinks I want, right?” Shawn said. “It’s not like she’s going to kill anybody.”
“Are you sure?”
Shawn thought about that. “I think I’d remember if I sent her psychic orders to commit murder.”
“You mean you did order her to tase your dad?”
“Not exactly,” Shawn said. “But I’m pretty sure I was complaining about his ridiculous scrapbook hobby at least one time she was driving us around.”
“And wh
o else were you complaining about?” Gus said. “What are we going to do to protect all those people?”
Shawn glanced out the rear window as the car began the long slow ascent up the mountains. “For the moment, nothing.”
Gus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “She’s already beaten one guy into the hospital.”
“If you can call him a guy,” Shawn said. “What kind of man is going to be taken out by a girl?”
“And she set your father’s house on fire.”
“For which the neighborhood-improvement committee will probably give her a medal.”
“Do you think this is funny?”
“Not Monty Python funny, but maybe Brady Bunch funny. You know, no big laughs, but a wry smile, a warm chuckle, and that nod of recognition that we’re all riders in the same cockeyed caravan of life.”
Shawn glanced out the back window again. Gus wanted to grab his face and force Shawn to look at him. Pretending it was all a joke wasn’t going to make this any less serious.
“Then let’s not think about her innocent victims for a minute,” Gus said, forcing his voice to stay calm. “Let’s think about us. The police know she beat up that BurgerZone kid, and if they don’t know what she did to your father, they will soon. If she acts again now that we know what she’s doing, they will come after us.”
Shawn glanced out the rear window again. “So that’s what you’re so worried about? That Tara’s going to do something awful before we can stop her?”
Gus wanted to scream. “Yes!”
“Then I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
“Why not?”
“Look.”
Shawn pointed out the rear window. The road stretched out for a hundred yards behind them, then disappeared around a hairpin curve.
“I don’t see anything,” Gus said.
“Keep looking.”
Gus did. All he saw was the roadway, the sheer drop next to it, and a pair of hawks circling slowly over a road sign. “I still don’t see—”
Just before the car twisted around another switch-back, there was a flash of metallic red emerging from around the last twist.
“That’s why,” Shawn said.
For the rest of the ride up, Gus kept his eyes on the rear window, just to make sure Tara was still following them. There were long stretches when there wasn’t a hint of red, and he feared that she’d come just far enough to make sure where they were going, then turned back to Santa Barbara. But every time he came close to panic, he’d catch a glimpse of her creeping around a turn.
When they crested the last rise before the descent into the cereal bowl, Gus couldn’t help craning his head for another long look at the famous house. The last time they were here, the sun was shining and the sky was brilliant blue. Now there were storm clouds hiding the sun and painting the entire valley a dismal gray. To Gus’ delight, Eagle’s View was even more magnificently ugly in the gloom.
A thick wet drop splashed on the windshield. Shepler flicked on the windshield wipers before it could even start to trail away toward the roof.
“So what happens if it rains a long time up here, Shepler?” Shawn said, peering out at the clouds. “Does the whole bowl fill up? Or is there a drain somewhere you just have to pull the plug on?”
Shepler ignored Shawn, focusing all his attention on the spiraling road ahead.
“That was actually a major concern of the original landscape architects who designed the property.” Gus was happy to have history take his mind off the present. “There was much debate about how quickly natural runoff would occur, and what the risks of flooding were. They ended up carving out a series of drain tunnels that would channel . . .”
Gus spent the rest of the ride explaining the landscape architecture of the Eagle’s View grounds. Shawn spent the rest of the ride pretending to listen. Every so often Gus glanced out the rear window to see if there was a red Mercedes behind them. But Tara must have decided the concentric rings into the cereal bowl would be too exposed for her to follow surreptitiously. Gus hoped that she was waiting at the top of the pass.
When the car finally pulled into the driveway, Steele was there to meet it. He marched up before Shepler put on the parking brake and flung open Shawn’s door, a champagne bottle in one hand and three flutes in the other.
“Welcome back to Eagle’s View,” Steele said. Gus was practically blinded by the brilliant white of his teeth against the gray sky. “I guess you don’t need to be psychic to know why I brought you here.”
Shawn and Gus scrambled out of the car as the cork exploded out of the champagne bottle.
“I’m getting a celebratory vibe,” Shawn said. “It seems like someone’s happy about something.”
“Try ecstatic.” Steele threw his arms around Shawn and Gus, and led them into the house. Shepler started the car and steered it toward the entrance to the underground garage.
“So I guess we’re doing okay on the investments?” Gus said as Steele led them through the atrium. This time they passed both Steele’s massive office and the game room.
“Let’s just say that it seems particularly appropriate that we meet in the celebration room,” Steele said.
Gus gasped with excitement.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m about to get another history lesson?” Shawn said.
“The celebration room was famous in its day,” Gus said. “They had huge parties where the rich and famous could do whatever they wanted, because there was no chance anyone would ever find out. There were rumors of drugs, orgies, you name it.”
“That’s really exciting,” Shawn said. “But we could also meet in the ‘pay your consultants a ton of money room’ if that’s convenient.”
Steele let out a booming laugh and turned them down a wide, dark corridor that dead-ended at an enormous bronze door. As Gus got closer, he could see it was covered in a frieze of couples engaged in various sexual activities. Sometimes trios.
“Are they doing what it looks like they’re doing?” Shawn said.
“Oh, yeah,” Gus said.
“Wow,” Shawn said, studying the images. “Try to bring this into the bathroom with you. No wonder they invented magazines.”
After giving Shawn and Gus a few moments to study the images on the door, Steele reached past them and pushed on it. Despite the door’s massive size and weight, it glided open silently at a touch of Steele’s finger.
Gus squeezed his eyes shut as the door swung open, wanting to get the full impact of the reveal. When he opened them, he found himself staring into a small black box of a room, barely more than a closet. A rough wooden floor ran for no more than six feet before hitting a plain stone wall. A couple of folding chairs leaned in one corner; a tray of rat poison lay open in another.
Steele reached up and pulled the chain that switched on the lone bare bulb. “Gentlemen,” he said, his smile even wider now, if that was possible, “welcome to the celebration room.”
“Must have been some rocking parties here,” Shawn said. “You could fit at least four people in this room.”
“I don’t understand,” Gus said. “There are supposed to be rotating beds. And where’s the obscene Maxfield Parrish mural?”
“Where did you hear about those?”
“I studied this house in school,” Gus said, surreptitiously rapping his knuckles against a wall to see if it would slide aside to reveal the real room. It didn’t. “I read accounts of the parties.”
“And who wrote those accounts?” Steele said.
“People who talked to people who’d been at them, I guess,” Gus said.
“But never a firsthand account, right?” Steele said.
Gus tried to think back on his texts. “I guess,” he said.
“Because there were no firsthand accounts,” Steele said.
“Right.” Gus was putting it together now. “Because the parties were so private and the behavior so scandalous that no one would ever dare talk about them for fear that th
ey’d be exposed.”
“Because there were no parties. Elias Adler hated people. Despised being in their presence. And yet he wanted them to worship him. So he had his architects leak false information about an enormous, decadent room that would be dedicated to elaborate celebrations. He had this door imported from Padua and let one reporter sneak a photograph of it. Just a hint of all the terrible things that were going to happen behind it.”
“And then no one would admit they’d been to the parties for fear they’d be accused of perversion,” Gus said.
“Adler never even invited anyone,” Steele said. “He just had his paid flacks spread rumors of all the movie stars and politicians that had showed up for his parties. At first, they tried to deny it. But no one believed any of the denials, because who wouldn’t deny being in such a place? After a while the parties had such a cachet that people hoped no one would believe their denials. Adler became the most famous host in the United States, and he never let a guest cross his threshold.”
Psych: A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Read Page 16