Chill of Fear (4 page)

She sat down on a stone bench beside a weeping willow tree, telling herself she wouldn't remain long because the afternoon was waning and it got chilly this time of year as the sun dipped below the mountains. And then there was the fog, which had an unsettling tendency to creep across this valley and settle over The Lodge and its gardens so that finding one's way along the paths resembled a trip through a damp and chilly maze.

Diana definitely wasn't in the mood for that. But she nevertheless sat there longer than she had planned, finally opening the box of watercolor pencils and absently selecting one. They were already sharpened.

She opened the sketchpad and tried the pencil out just as absently, making yet another attempt to ignore the jumbled thoughts crowding her mind and concentrate on only one. Why she was having so much trouble sleeping here. It had been an issue now and then in her life, but not recently, not until she had come to The Lodge.

Nightmares had always been a problem for her, though still not regular occurrences, but since coming to The Lodge they had gotten worse. More intense, more... terrifying. She'd wake in the dark hours before dawn, gasping in panic yet unable to remember what it was that had so frightened her.

It was less traumatic to stay awake. Just curl up in the window seat in her bedroom, an afghan protecting her against the chill of the glass, and stare out at the valley and the dark mountains that loomed above.

Looking for... something. Nothing.

Waiting.

Diana came back to herself with a little start, suddenly aware of her aching fingers. She was holding one of the pencils, and most of the others lay beside her on the bench, out of their box, their once-sharpened ends dulled now. She had the sense that time had passed, and didn't want to look at her watch to see just how much.

That was all she needed—the return of something that hadn't happened to her in months. Blackouts.

Warily, she turned her gaze to the sketchpad on her knees. And saw, to her astonishment, the face she had drawn.

Slightly shaggy hair a color between gold and brown surrounded a lean face with high cheekbones and vivid blue eyes. There was a jut of determination to his jaw, and humor played around the faintly smiling mouth.

He seemed to be looking right back at Diana, those keen eyes curiously... knowing.

Artistically, it was better work than she knew herself capable of, which gave her the creeped-out feeling that someone else had drawn this. And lending weight to that was her certain knowledge that she had never seen this man before in her life.

"Jesus," she murmured. "Maybe I really am crazy, after all."

"I keep trying to tell you, Quentin, there's been nothing new." Nate McDaniel shook his head. "Matter of fact, since that time a few years back when you and—what was his name? Bishop?—helped find that missing girl out at The Lodge, we haven't had any unsolved disappearances or accidents anywhere in the area, let alone murders. It's been downright peaceful around here."

"Don't sound so disappointed," Quentin advised dryly. "Peaceful is a good thing." But his long fingers drummed restlessly on the edge of the desk, a gesture McDaniel took due note of. Not the most patient of men, was Quentin—which made it all the more interesting that he kept returning here in patient pursuit of answers.

McDaniel sighed. "Look, we both know that cold cases rarely get hot just because somebody sifts through all the paperwork one more time. And God knows you've sifted through it all enough times to be sure of that. The truth is, unless some new fact or bit of information comes to light, chances are that case stays cold. And after twenty-five years, what's likely to turn up now?"

"I don't know. But something has to."

Not without sympathy, McDaniel said, "Maybe it's time to let it go, Quentin."

"No. No, I'm not ready to do that."

"But you are ready to waste another vacation sitting in the conference room with dusty files and crime-scene photographs, and drinking lousy coffee for hours on end."

Quentin frowned. "As you say, that's hardly gotten me anywhere in years of trying."

"So try something else," McDaniel suggested. "I know you always stay here in town; why not get a room or cottage out at The Lodge this time?" He watched the play of emotions across the other man's expressive face, and added quietly, "I can guess why you've avoided that, but maybe it's time you hunted those ghosts where they're more likely to be."

"I hope you don't mean ghosts literally," Quentin muttered.

McDaniel hesitated, then said, "You'd know more about that than I would."

Quentin looked at him, brows raised.

"Oh, come on, Quentin. The SCU's been gaining quite a reputation in law enforcement circles, you know that. I'm not saying I buy everything I've heard, but it's clear you guys deal with stuff that's more than a little bit out of the ordinary. Hell, I always wondered how you and Bishop found that little girl, as if you went straight to her. I've followed a few
hunches
myself over the years, but they were never as accurate as yours clearly were that day."

"We got lucky."

"You had a damned sight more than luck on your side that day, and don't try to deny it."

"Maybe," Quentin admitted finally. "But whatever we had, whatever I have, it doesn't open a window into the past. And I'm no medium."

"That's somebody who talks to the dead, right?" McDaniel strove to keep the disbelief out of his voice but, judging by the other man's wry smile, failed.

"Yeah, a medium communicates with the dead. But, like I said, I'm not a medium."

Then what are you?
But McDaniel stopped short of asking that question, uncomfortably aware of how it would sound. Instead, he said, "Maybe there aren't any ghosts at all out at The Lodge. I mean, there's been talk over the years that the place is haunted, but what old building doesn't have those sorts of stories around it? Anyway, what happened, happened out there."

"Twenty-five years ago. How many times has the place been remodeled or redecorated since then?

How many people have come and gone? Christ, there aren't more than a handful of employees who were there, and I've talked to them all."

Responding to the last statement, McDaniel said thoughtfully, "Funny you should mention that. I'd forgotten, but as it turns out, there is a new employee there now who was also there twenty-five years ago. They just rehired him a few months back. Cullen Ruppe. He manages the stables, the same job he had back then."

Quentin felt his pulse quicken, even as he heard himself say, "I don't remember him. But then, there's a lot I don't remember about that summer."

"Not all that surprising. You were—what?—ten?"

"Twelve."

"Still. Maybe Ruppe can help fill in the blanks."

"Maybe." Quentin got to his feet, then paused. "If I do want to come back and sit in that conference room again—"

"You're welcome to, you know that. But unless you do find something new out there..."

"Yeah, I know. Thanks, Nate."

"Good luck."

Quentin hadn't yet checked into his usual motel in Leisure, and when he left the police station he barely hesitated before driving his rental car the fifteen miles or so along that lonely blacktop road out to The Lodge. It was a route he knew well, yet the journey never failed to rouse in him a vaguely uneasy sense of leaving civilization behind as the winding road climbed up into the mountains and then descended into the valley that housed The Lodge and nothing else.

Though it catered to guests year-round and actually provided fair skiing for at least a couple of months in winter, the busiest time of the year for The Lodge was from early April through October.

So Quentin knew he was lucky when the front desk clerk found a room for him despite his lack of reservations. He even wondered if it was fate.

Malevolent fate.

"We have the Rhododendron Room available for the next two weeks, sir. It's in the North Wing."

In the middle of filling out the registration card, Quentin paused and looked across the desk at her.

"The North Wing. Didn't that burn down, years ago?"

"Why, I believe it did, sir, but that must have been at least twenty or thirty years ago." She was new, or at least no one Quentin had talked to on his previous visits, and seemed to be not the least bit fazed by the fact that there had once been a fire here.

"I see," he said. He hadn't bargained on staying in the North Wing. Hadn't even thought about it, in fact.

"The Lodge
is
over a hundred years old, sir, as I'm sure you know, so having a fire here at least once in all those years isn't all that surprising. I was told it started accidentally, but not due to faulty wiring or anything like that. And it was rebuilt, of course, even nicer than before."

"I'm sure it was." He knew it had been. He had been in that part of the building many times. But he had never stayed there, never spent the night there, not since it had been rebuilt.

For the first time, Quentin had to ask himself if he did believe in ghosts. It was a surprisingly difficult question to answer.

The desk clerk hesitated for a moment, studying his face. "I don't believe we have another room available for the full two weeks, sir, but if you're willing to change rooms partway through your stay here, I'm sure I can—"

"No, I'd prefer to stay put, I think. The Rhododendron Room will be fine, thank you."

Ten minutes later, he was settling into what was actually a very nice, beautifully decorated suite with a small sitting room adjacent to the spacious bedroom and bathroom, when he found a card cheerfully explaining the "historic" meaning of the rhododendron flower "according to some sources."

He felt again the consciousness of malevolent fate taking a hand when he saw what the meaning was.

Beware.

"Well," he murmured aloud. "No one can say I haven't been warned."

Nate McDaniel waited until nearly the end of the day before he placed the call, not because of reluctance but simply because things got busy. So it was after five before he dug into the clutter on his desk to find the scrap of paper with the cell phone number scrawled on it.

He wasn't really surprised, though, when the call was answered immediately; few cops worked nine to five.

"Hello, Captain."

Nate knew it was Caller I.D. rather than psychic ability, but it still caught him slightly off guard, and it was that which made his tone a bit aggressive.

"Okay, you called in the favor and I paid. I suggested that Quentin might want to stay at The Lodge this time, and I'm pretty sure he went out there."

"I appreciate your help, Captain."

"Yeah, well, I'm not all that happy about it, so don't thank me. He might find something he's not looking for out there, and if it's trouble, I'm going to feel like shit. Plus, you know, I kinda like the guy."

"Just remember it was my idea."

Nate's unconscious frown deepened. "You know something. What is it?"

"All I know is that it's time Quentin settled with his past."

Nate wasn't about to call an FBI agent a liar, so all he said was, "And you get to decide stuff like that, huh?"

"No. I wish I did, but no."

"Well, I just hope you know what you're doing." "Yes," Bishop said. "So do I."

Diana.

Opening her eyes with a start, Diana looked around her bedroom warily. It was dark, but not so dark that she couldn't see every corner. Nobody there, of course. Just her wayward mind not quite hearing voices.

She refused to hear voices.

Because that would make her delusional or psychotic, she knew that. So she wasn't hearing voices.

Just her own random thoughts and fragments of thoughts, and so what if those fragments occasionally held her name?

The birds had begun to sing outside and darkness was shading into a slightly misty, gray dawn, which told her that she had indeed slept for at least an hour or two. Curled up in the window seat, wrapped in a soft chenille afghan.

She stirred and moved stiffly off the window seat, getting to her feet and beginning to unwrap herself.

Stupid way for a grown woman to spend the night when there was a perfectly comfortable bed nearby; the housekeeping staff probably thought she was out of her mind—

Diana.

And maybe she was.

Diana went still, waiting. Listening.

Look .

For the first time, Diana was certain that the voice—this particular voice, at any rate—was outside herself. Like a whisper in her ear. On her left side, closest to the window.

Slowly, Diana turned her head.

The center pane of the window looked fogged or frosted, as though someone had breathed warmly on it. None of the other panes, just the center one. And on that pane, very clearly as if a firm finger had traced them, were two words.

HELP US

Diana caught her breath, staring at the words, the plea. A wave of coldness swept over her. But she found herself reaching out, very slowly, until she could touch the glass. That was when she realized that the words had been traced on the outside of the glass.

She jerked her hand away and quickly moved to the nightstand beside the bed and the lamp there.

She turned it on, blinking in the light, and looked back at the window.

Gray, featureless panes of glass. No fog or frost.

No desperate plea.

"Of course," Diana murmured after a long moment. "Because I'm obviously out of my mind."

She managed to at least partially shake off the cold uneasiness she felt, telling herself it had probably been her imagination anyway. Just... a leftover wisp of whatever she'd been dreaming.

Probably.

She turned on a few more lamps in the cottage, checked the doors to make sure they were all locked, and then went and took a long, hot shower.

She actually wished she could believe there had been someone outside her window. Because if someone
had
been out there, then at least that would have been a flesh-and-blood thing. A real thing.

Whether an attempt to frighten her, a stupid joke, or an actual plea for her help, it would have been
real.