Chill of Fear (21 page)

Boyd."

"Stephanie. And don't mention it. You'll find a toolbox in there somewhere you may use. You also have my permission, Agent Hayes, to go through whatever records and other paperwork are stored in the basement of The Lodge."

Quentin was about to ask that she drop the formality when Diana spoke.

"And the attic?" she asked.

Stephanie appeared mildly surprised, but shrugged. "I doubt there's anything useful up there; as far as I can determine, it's a dump for old furniture, outdated decorations, and decades of lost-and-found items.

But feel free. Search to your heart's content. All I ask is that absolutely nothing be removed from the tack room, the basement, or the attic without my express permission."

"Agreed," Quentin said.

"Fine. Then you guys have at it. I've got to go up to the main building for a while, but I'll be back.

Always assuming, of course, that you don't find very quickly that there's nothing in the tack room to interest you."

Nate checked his watch, and said, "We've got a couple of hours before anyone's expected to need the use of the tack and equipment in that room, right?"

Stephanie nodded. "And Cullen has been asked to go on with his daily routine rather than hover in there watching you. I'd take advantage of the time, if I were you." She half lifted a hand in a casual salute and left them.

"I say we listen to the lady," Nate said. "Quentin, I'm assuming you'd prefer we conduct the search ourselves?"

"Yeah. Time enough to bring in more of your people when we find something."

"You're very confident we
will
find something," Diana murmured.

"I know we will." And, suddenly, it was true. Quentin knew without a doubt that they would find something in this old barn, something important. But this time it wasn't a whisper in his mind that told him.

It was an echo of that chill foreboding he had felt earlier.

It's coming.

He didn't know what it was, not yet. All he knew was that it was what he had sensed here during a childhood summer twenty-five years ago. What Bishop had sensed here five years ago. And what Diana had in some way touched only hours ago.

Something old, and dark, and cold. Something evil.

It was near. And for the first time, he could feel it.

Nate McDaniel had argued for the search because Quentin had asked it of him. But he never expected to find anything, not really.

Which made it all the more ironic that he was the one who found it.

The preliminary search of the fairly large, open room had been quick and simple. And revealed, as expected, nothing. So then it was time to begin tapping the plaster-over-lath walls in search of a hollow spot, with Nate and Quentin beginning at the same point and moving in opposite directions around the room. They used the handles of a couple of screwdrivers to more effectively sound out the walls.

"Think they could have a few more saddles in here?" Nate demanded in exasperation, stretching to reach around and above one hanging on a wall-mounted rack nearly as tall as he was.

"It
is
a tack room," Quentin reminded him dryly.

"There are maybe a dozen horses in this barn, and I've never seen one wear more than one saddle at a time; there must be thirty saddles in here."

Diana said, "It's easy to accumulate tack over the years. Different-sized saddles for different horses, changing styles, the preferences of different riders. Plus tack that gets worn or damaged and never repaired. Every tack room I've ever seen looks a lot like this one."

Surprised, Quentin paused to say, "For some reason, I didn't expect you to be a rider."

"Oh, yeah." She didn't elaborate.

He frowned slightly as he looked at her. She was standing in the center of the room, her gaze almost idly wandering from saddle to saddle, from bridle to halter to utility tray. Anyone watching her might suppose she was slightly bored, paying little attention to the search going on around her, even daydreaming.

But Quentin recognized the expression. He'd seen many psychics wear it in moments of quiet, that inward-turned, almost meditative waiting. The half-conscious stilling of the usual five senses so that the other ones could be heard.

Since she'd had no training, he didn't know whether someone else could help her focus or would merely be a distraction. He flipped a mental coin.

"Diana?"

"Hmm?"

"What do you hear?"

"Water. Dripping."

"Where?"

"Underneath us."

Before Quentin could question her further, Nate broke the quiet with a decidedly surprised exclamation.

"Holy
shit."

Quentin turned to see that the cop had somehow managed to shift one of the heavy floor-standing racks nearly a foot to one side, presumably to better get at the wall behind it. But he wasn't staring at the wall. He was staring at the floor.

"What?" Quentin went to join him.

"Either I'm out of my mind, or else I'm looking at one side of a trap door."

"You're kidding."

"Take a look." Nate went down on one knee, tracing with one finger the clear break in the seemingly solid floorboards. "Here.

The edge was hidden by the base of this saddle rack. And I'm betting that if we move the rack on the other side of this one, we'll find the hinges."

The two saddle racks were back in an awkward corner, each piled with several old saddles and musty-smelling saddle blankets and that plus a number of cobwebs made it obvious that they were well out of the usual traffic pattern of the room. They might well have sat undisturbed for years.

Diana came over to join the men, watching silently as Quentin and Nate carefully pushed the two heavy saddle racks out of the way.

It was a trap door, the hinges that had been hidden by the second rack old, heavy iron. There was no handle, but when Quentin wedged one of the screwdrivers into the edge opposite the hinges, it lifted easily.

They all saw the rough round opening in the ground beneath the door, large enough for a big man to pass through. They all saw the heavy iron ladder bolted seemingly to the granite bedrock and disappearing into the darkness. And they all felt and smelled the wave of damp, chilly air that wafted up as soon as the door was opened.

"Water," Diana murmured. "Dripping."

I don't know what's going on," Mrs. Kincaid said to Stephanie, "but I'm telling you that girl is up to something, Ms. Boyd." Stephanie took another sip of her strong black coffee, wishing she'd been granted another hour or so of sleep this morning. She hated mornings as a rule, and this one was turning out even worse than usual.

"What do you expect me to do, Mrs. Kincaid?" she asked, keeping her tone brisk but pleasant. "Ellie Weeks hasn't done anything wrong. So far, anyway. Certainly nothing to merit any kind of warning from me."

"I realize that, Ms. Boyd," the housekeeper responded, her tone stiff. "And as head of the housekeeping staff, it is of course my responsibility to issue any such warnings. I simply thought it best to keep you informed."

Informed of what?
Stephanie wanted to ask. But she didn't.

Instead, she said, "I appreciate that, Mrs. Kincaid. And I trust you'll continue to do so."

"Naturally I will."

Stephanie nodded. "Great. And I wanted to inform you that the police have asked to review old paperwork and historical documents stored in the basement, as well as go through whatever's in the attic, so don't be alarmed to find any of them or Agent Hayes in the areas of the hotel normally out of bounds to guests."

The housekeeper frowned. "The attic?"

"Is there a problem?"

"I don't know what they expect to find in the attic."

"Neither do I, but since they're investigating the death of a child here at The Lodge, I certainly don't want to declare any area at all off-limits to their investigation."

"No, of course not." But the housekeeper's frown lingered. "I do hope you remind them, Ms. Boyd, that both the attic and basement are merely storage areas and, as such, are not cleaned or aired on a regular basis."

It was, Stephanie thought, rather amazing how some people became so protective of their domains.

First Cullen Ruppe down at the stables, resisting a search of his tack room, and now Mrs. Kincaid worrying about her reputation due to dust in the basement and attic.

Trying not to sound patronizing rather than soothing, Stephanie said, "I'm sure they'll understand that, Mrs. Kincaid."

"I hope so, Ms. Boyd." The housekeeper rose to her feet and turned to the door, then paused and looked back at Stephanie behind her big desk. In a rare moment of loquaciousness, she said, "I've been here a long time, you know. Longer than anyone else on the staff. And my mother worked here before me, as housekeeper."

Surprised, Stephanie said, "I didn't know that."

Mrs. Kincaid nodded. "That Agent Hayes—he was here as a child, with his parents. Twenty-five years ago. I remember him."

Since the housekeeper rarely had any direct contact with guests, Stephanie was even more surprised.

"After so many years?"

With another nod, Mrs. Kincaid said, "That was a bad summer, and not one I'm likely to ever forget.

One of our maids then had a little girl who was murdered. The police never found out who killed her."

She paused, then added, "He was a friend of hers. Agent Hayes. They said he was the last one to see poor little Missy alive. Other than the murderer, of course."

Stephanie didn't know what to say.

Returning to the subject that had brought her to the office, the housekeeper said, "I'll keep an eye on Ellie, Ms. Boyd. You don't have to worry about that."

"Fine." Stephanie wasn't about to remind Mrs. Kincaid that watching the girl was her own idea.

Apparently satisfied, the housekeeper left the office, closing the door softly behind her.

Stephanie sighed, then drained her coffee and got to her feet, deciding to return to the stables and see if the search of the tack room had turned up anything.

She had a feeling it had.

A very bad feeling.

Nate flatly refused to allow anyone to go down that ladder until the backup he called for arrived.

"There's no way in hell," he told Quentin, "that you're going down there without me. Which means neither of us is going down there until I get someone here to watch our backs."

Diana was reasonably sure that Quentin wasn't happy about the delay, even though he agreed readily.

She was very sure of her own emotions on the subject.

She did not want to go down there.

Not that either of the two cops had said or implied that she would, but she knew. She knew that she was meant to see whatever was down there, just as Quentin was. That she had to go down that ladder and into the darkness.

Shivering, she dug her hands deeper into the pockets of her jacket. Why was she still cold?

Nate checked his watch, then said, "Look, it'll take a good half hour or more to get some of my people out here and get set up. You two go get some breakfast. I'll wait here."

"You haven't eaten either," Quentin said.

"Yeah, well. Send somebody down with a gallon of coffee and an egg sandwich, and I'll be fine."

From the tack room door, Stephanie Boyd said, "I can take care of that." Her gaze was on the uncovered and open trap door, and she added incredulously, "You found something?"

Quentin took Diana's arm and guided her past the other woman as Stephanie stepped into the tack room. "We found something, all right. Nate, if you even
think
of going down that ladder without me—"

"I won't, I won't. Go eat breakfast."

"There's a ladder?" Stephanie was even more incredulous.

Diana couldn't help smiling wryly as she and Quentin moved out of the tack room and out of earshot.

"Why do I think she's going to want to go down that ladder too?"

Quentin must have heard something in her voice, because his question was immediate. "Don't you?"

"Not really."

"Why not? Something you sense?"

Diana took a breath and let it out slowly, shifting just a bit as they walked to remove her arm from his light grasp. "It's a black hole in the ground, Quentin. Doesn't seem very inviting. My usual five senses are telling me that much."

He didn't bother to remind her that she was responsible for the fact that they even knew about that black hole. Instead, he said, "You don't have to tell me you'd have been far happier if we hadn't found anything at all in there."

That surprised her, and she shot him a quick look.

"So you could tell yourself once again that you were just imagining things," he explained.

Diana couldn't think of anything to say in defense of her defensiveness, so she changed the subject.

"What can an old hole in the ground possibly have to do with murdered children?"

"I have no idea," he admitted.

"If you've been investigating this place for years, how did you miss it?"

"I haven't been investigating this place—unfortunately," Quentin said. "At least, not on site, and not farther back than the last twenty-five years. I have a feeling what we found is a hell of a lot older than that."