She felt herself blush. "Well, I guess he looks pretty good, but I don't go for blondes anymore." For some reason that made her dad grin broadly.
"Is that why you decided you liked Tim?" he needled. Lord! Once you start him you can't stop him! She almost wished he hadn't perked up. "Tim's got a great bod. Everybody knows that."
Like most of her friends, she'd started getting crushes on guys when she was around eleven. While most of her friends wanted rock stars, she'd been turned into a book nut by her dad and, until she was around fourteen, she'd get a crush on one writer or another, which was great, because they were always hanging around with her father.
She had started weaning herself about two years ago, when her father started getting famous and her friends wouldn't leave him alone. She hoped she hadn't acted as weird as they did. It was mortifying to witness. Thank God she hadn't been like Heather Ferguson and written stupid love letters--as it was, she could hardly look several of her dad's friends in the eye, and all she'd done was hang around and look moony. Heather, on the other hand, had written to her dad, and sent some Polaroids, too, but he wouldn't show them to her--he'd wadded them up and tossed them in the fire.
"Earth to Amber," her dad was saying. "Earth to Amber."
"Okay, Daddy, I know I had crushes on some of your friends, but I was just a little kid, so stop teasing me. I was trying to make you feel better."
He reached across the table and patted her hand. "I know. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to tease you."
She squeezed his fingers and looked him in the eye. "You know, if you worked out more, you could have a body like Tim's... "
"I guess I deserved that for teasing you."
"Yeah." She smiled. "You know, I'm a lot older now. I date."
"I know," he said glumly.
"So, maybe you should let me go out with your editor's assistant next time we go to New York. He's more my type." He stared at her, obviously unsure whether she was serious or not. "He's too old for you, kiddo."
At last year's Christmas party, Amber and Joanna's assistant, Rex, had gotten pretty friendly, and he had asked her out on a date. Then her dad got wind of it and told the young man that he was her father and that she was a mere sixteen. He'd used that tone of voice he had that could make suitors wet their pants. Rex hadn't asked a second time, to Amber's sorrow. Truthfully, she was a little serious. "I'm almost seventeen."
"He's too old for you," he said sternly.
"Okay, okay." She'd pushed one of her father's buttons again and she didn't even know it. Wanting him to stay in a good mood, she backed off a little. "But you've gotta admit, Rex sure smells good."
"I hadn't noticed," Dad said impassively. "Are you finished eating?"
Nodding, she rose and helped him dump the trash, then they walked outside, pausing on the south side of the pier to gaze at the high cliffs of Byron's Finger. The house, visible because of the lights left on, was almost directly across from where they stood. The beacon at Widow's Peak was considerably farther out to sea.
A pair of fishermen, carrying their gear, came around the end of the pier from the other side. "Look at that. That fool writer really did move into Body House."
It was an elderly woman's voice and the male voice that responded, "I'll be damned," sounded just as old. Amber didn't turn to look and she prayed her father wouldn't do anything embarrassing, like introduce himself.
"Ferd, over to the store, told me the fool'd shown up," the man continued. "But you know Ferd."
"Half of what he says is ferdilizer." The woman replied, and they both cackled.
Her father cleared his throat and started to turn, but Amber grabbed his arm as hard as she could. He got the message.
"You know what else Ferd said?" the fisherman asked his companion.
"What?"
"He's got a little girl with him. He's takin' a little girl into that hellhole."
"God help her, then."
The couple shuffled slowly down the pier and Amber sighed. "Little girl! I'm not a little girl. Thanks for not talking to them, Dad. I'd just die."
"You're welcome. Besides, there's something I want to talk to you about before we go back."
She leaned against the wooden railing. "Okay. What?"
"About what happened with Theo."
"The woman's a slut!" The words, bitten back all evening, slid out before she could stop them. "I don't want you to explain anything to me, Dad. Instead, just listen to me this once, okay? Pelinore's a slut. I told you that about Lorna, but you wouldn't listen then, either. Theo's no good. She'll use you. And she's a New Age nut, to boot"
"I'm not going to argue about Theo's personality with you, Amber. But I need to tell you something."
"But-- "
"Hush. Listen to me now."
He told her about the third floor, about the perfume and the cold spots and how Theo had kissed him. Looking at the hickey on his neck, Amber figured he was leaving a lot out of the story, but she didn't say so. He told her how the door had stuck, then flown open, hitting his head. Finally, he told her about the light turning off by itself.
"Wow!" she said. "I guess Body House wanted to prove your first-night theory was wrong." She paused, studying him, seeing the pallor in his face. "Dad? Are you worried?"
"No, not really." His chuckle sounded hollow and false. "But this manifestation is beyond anything I've ever seen before. It's incredibly strong. It even had an effect on me."
That surprised Amber. Nothing ever got its hooks into her skeptical father. Into her, either. "What kind of effect, Dad?"
He hesitated. "It definitely drew off a little of my energy. And I had . . . certain feelings . . . that weren't my own. The point is, hon, I think there's a good chance that Theo is probably psychically unstable and that she's the main reason the manifestation was so strong. But until we know what we're dealing with, the third floor's off limits."
"Even to me? Nothing bothers me, Dad."
"I didn't think anything bothered me either, kiddo. Look, the painter didn't finish painting the room this happened in. He left paint spilled all over the floor, and the ladder was tipped over. Something scared the bejesus out of him. So, don't go up there, not by yourself."
"Okay." She shivered, crossing her arms against the cold. "You ready to go home?"
He stared at her for a long moment, then smiled. "Let's go home." He put his arm around her shoulders and they began their walk back down the pier.
Chapter SixJuly 11
Body House: 7:50A.M.
In the dream, he did not refuse her, as he had last night, but pushed his fingers into her thick black hair and hung on for dear life. As she worked, she held him riveted with eyes that could see down to the very bottom of his soul.
Slowly, she reached up and took his hands, tugging him down to the floor. Her hypnotic stare kept him imprisoned as she straddled him and began to move with a ferociousness that made him lose control.
"Dad!" Fists hammered on the door. "Dad! Are you up?"
Dimly aware of the voice calling him, he shouted out as an orgasm washed over him. It was so powerful he thought it might kill him, but he didn't care.
"Dad!"
He came awake, eyes flying open, heart thudding in his chest.
"DAD!" Amber pounded on the door. "Are you okay?"
He glanced down, saw that he'd kicked off nearly all the covers. "Fine," he called, grimacing at the wet stain spreading on the sheet over his crotch. Oh, God. He hadn't had a wet dream since he was fourteen years old.
"Dad!" The phallic door latch started to depress.
"I'll be out in a minute," he rasped. "I'm getting dressed."
The handle returned to its original position. "Why'd you scream?" she called.
Oh God, I yelled out loud. No wonder his throat hurt. "Had a nightmare, kiddo. I'm fine."
"The rat lady's here."
"Who?"
"Mrs. Willard. Wait'll you see her. What a fox."
"Amber, be nice. She'll
hear you."
"She's downstairs. She can't hear me. Sound doesn't carry for spit around here. I'm supposed to tell you breakfast'll be ready in a half-hour."
"Great. Are you done with the bathroom?" He hadn't showered since they left Barstow yesterday morning and he was beginning to feel pretty ripe. He caught sight of the sheets again. Make that ready for harvest, he thought wryly.
"Yeah, I'm done. The shower's funky."
"Are there towels?"
"When we got back from the pier last night, we brought in the knapsack with all the bathroom stuff, remember?"
He’s going senile was the unspoken codicil. "Oh, right.
“Listen kiddo, why don't you go downstairs and get acquainted with Mrs. Willard while your old man tries to wake up."
"Give me a break, Dad. I'm going to explore."
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Not the third floor." The words came out sounding more urgent than he wanted.
"No, not the third floor," she said in a put-upon voice.
"I'm just going to check out the lighthouse."
"It's not safe. The stairs--"
"I'm not going in it, Dad," she said in her best long-suffering tone. "I'm just going to walk out to it and back."
"Okay." Against his will, he added, "Be careful."
"Oh, Daddy, you know I will."
After waiting a moment and not hearing her leave, he called her name. There was no reply. Amber was right, Body House ate sound. Body House, he mused, realizing he'd already forsaken his determination to restore its proper name. Oh well, I'll fit in better with the locals.
Quickly, he made the bed, so that Mrs. Willard wouldn't discover his embarrassing secret. After the washer and dryer arrived, he'd launder the sheets himself. Gathering together his day's clothing, he wondered if the bedding was on loan from Theo or her agency or if she'd purchased it for him. He'd have to find out.
He padded across the hall to the bathroom. He'd been so exhausted last night that he'd barely noticed the room, but now he looked around, exhaling air through his teeth as its garishness sank in. The room was a virtual twin to the green and rose one downstairs, but here the primary tiles were a disturbing shade of crimson--sort of a bloody cherry--with pearlescent pink trim. The other way around would have been much easier to take. Examining the shower fixture, which was ornate brass that matched the nouveau faucets and spindles quite well, he thought that it had probably been added in the late thirties, when Drake Roberts, a popular matinee idol, acquired the place as a weekend retreat. Though it wasn't apparent in his films, the actor was only five-foot-two, and the showerhead was mounted just high enough to hit six-foot-two David in the chest. Amber, at five-seven, probably got it square in the face. Another eighteen inches of pipe, plus a massage head, would remedy the situation. As for the rabid red tile, perhaps a ceiling full of fluorescents would cheer the place up for now.
He showered and shaved, happy to see that the bruise on his forehead was barely noticeable, then, uncomfortable in the room, tucked a towel around his waist and carried his clothes back across the hall. He pulled on a pair of khaki Dockers, a T-shirt, and an Irish wool sweater. July or not, the weather was evidently always cool here, so far out on the headland. Sitting down to pull on his shoes and socks, he wondered why he disliked the bathroom and concluded it was purely an effect of the color. It depressed him.
Too, Drake Roberts had probably died in that particular bathroom, if David recalled correctly. The actor had had a heart attack in a bathroom not long after he'd moved in. All that red, David thought, probably set it off.
He smoothed the bed, then went to the window and released the latch on the casement windows and pushed the upper pane down. Inhaling deeply, he savored the freshness of the damp salt air. Stratus clouds etched the blue sky and gulls cried over the muted roar of the ocean. Pleased, he thought these sounds would be the perfect background music to write by.
The lighthouse, ominous and imposing last night, now looked as scenic as a photo on a travel brochure. As he watched, Amber appeared from behind the structure and started back toward the house. He remembered that she'd said something about breakfast and his suddenly growling stomach ordered him to go downstairs immediately.
But when he reached the stairwell, he decided to first take a peek in the third floor room that had hosted the spectacular phenomena the previous night. He only hesitated an instant before trotting quickly up the stairs.
A little thrill of excitement wormed through his belly as he opened the door on the dormer room. Everything looked the same as it had last night, though the heavy atmosphere had dissipated. The light switch, he noted, had been switched off, which was a much more interesting phenomenon than the light bulb merely burning out. He flicked the switch and found that the bulb was fine.
He walked into the center of the small room, then, hands out, walked in a spiral, feeling for cold spots. "Gotcha," he whispered, when he finally found a small slimy-feeling area near the west-facing window. Calmly, he pushed the fingers of his right hand into the orb and, as he expected, it slowly oozed further onto his hand, like a cold glove. These spots, he theorized, were akin to miniature black holes, and he always wondered what would happen if a bolt of lightning struck one. That, in fact, had been the subject of Dead Ernest, his first bestseller. He smiled as the cold crawled onto his wrist. He had a soft spot for cold spots.
The sensation of cold increased suddenly and he pulled his tingling hand back, shaking it, realizing he shouldn't let it consume any more of his energy. The very fact that it had grown in strength surprised him because it meant it had actually managed to draw from him, and that was something that had only happened once before.
While researching Dead Ernest, he'd spent the night in a notoriously haunted house in Boston. He'd been fighting off a miserable case of the flu, was working under a deadline from hell, and had recently broken off with Lorna Dyke, the woman before Melanie, and she'd spent the last several weeks screaming at him by phone, sending him suicidal letters, and driving by his house at all hours of the day and night. He should have listened to Amber, he realized later. She'd told him that Lorna--an unpublished (and unpublishable) poet who worked in a gas station-was a psychopath, and she'd been right. The night he broke it off, she'd even threatened to kill him.
So, when he decided to sleep in the most haunted room in the most haunted house in Boston, he'd been a little stressed out--a little under the weather, as it were. He hadn't been physically or mentally up for the experience, but he refused to put it off. He awoke at three in the morning, trembling because of a nightmare about swimming in a room filled with blood, and shivering from the cold. The whole room was frigid even though the little space heater nearby glowed red. The manifestation simply ate the heat. When he stood, he found that his legs would barely hold him up and, as he staggered toward the door, an apparition appeared. Fascinated he watched it- it was his first visual ghost--and it floated toward him, nothing but a pale amorphous ovoid. Just before it touched him, he panicked and tried to run for the door, which seemed to take forever because he hardly had any strength left and because a telescoping phenomenon--an effect that made the door look like it was a million miles away--impeded him. But he had made it out before the apparition touched him. To this day, he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't woken when he did, even though, intellectually, he thought he was being a superstitious idiot. Not only did the experience frighten him badly, but he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. The fever dreams became an integral part of Dead Ernest, his fifth book, and his first bestseller.
Now he caught a faint whiff of jasmine, and he smiled. After Dead Ernest, he arranged to secretly witness a black magic ritual that was to be held in an abandoned warehouse in Chicago. The building had been the scene of a horrendous gangland slaying in the thirties and, naturally, it was supposed to be haunted. From everything he'd read, he'd believed it probably was--but that was nothing compared to the ritual. It so horrified him tha
t he was glad he was hidden too far away to see everything in detail, but it taught him that reading or writing about such a thing and actually witnessing it were very different experiences. The energy the cult members expended was eaten by the haunting and soon he began to feel the unnatural cold, even up on the catwalk where he hid.
Below, he saw vapor issuing from the mouths of the cultists as they chanted. Then something happened that scared him as badly as the Boston haunting had: first he heard--felt, really--the rush as the air pressure changed, hurting his ears just as it had in this room last night. Then suddenly the catwalk started swaying and his microcassette slid off the narrow metal walkway. The cultists heard it and looked up.
Fortunately, he'd come prepared with colored smoke bombs and, as he rose, he began dropping them to hide his escape. The catwalk swayed harder, slowing him down, and the air pressure played havoc with his inner ears, almost causing him to fall several times. By the time he got to the ladder, the cult members were almost upon him. He slid down the ladder and threw the last smoke bomb in front of them, then ran like hell, only a few steps ahead of them. If his new lady friend, Melanie Lord, who was parked across the street, hadn't seen him coming and careened her T-Bird around in the best Hollywood rescue style, they would have caught him. Caught them both.
He went home and wrote Bloody Little Secrets in a frenzy and it went to the top of the Times ' Bestseller List and stayed there. The next book, Remains to be Seen, currently on the stands, was also a bestseller--there was already a miniseries deal in the making. It had been inspired by a close brush with a suspected serial killer, one that would have resulted in his becoming a victim if Melanie hadn't alerted a friend of hers on the police force. Her friend got the glory of the arrest and David got invited to be present at the exhumation of bodies buried under the monster's house. He still had nightmares about that.
Quite unexpectedly, the scent of jasmine grew strong enough for him to catch the scent of decay underlying it. Fear trickled coldly down his spine as the odor continued to strengthen. The coldness moved onto his hand and, forcibly, he shook it off. Don't panic! he ordered himself. Don't panic! Just leave! He knew his fear was allowing the manifestation to feed on him. "See you later," he said as calmly as he could, then walked out and pulled the door firmly shut behind him. He thought he heard the laughing woman as he headed for the stairs, but wasn't sure.
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