The Spiral Path (57 page)

Rainey covered a yawn. "When I
called Emmy Herman to arrange for the car rental, I also asked her to let the
Gradys know you were coming. My guess is that Alma stopped by to unlock the
door and turn on the lights to make it look friendly."

He headed down into the rutted road.
"Having good assistants is like having invisible elves smoothing out one's
life."

He hoped Rainey was right that the
lights were just a friendly gesture. Though he liked the Gradys, he was in no
mood to deal with anyone else. Hard to believe that it was only this morning
that Nigel Stone had revealed his sordid past. It had been an endless day
covering eight time zones. A third of the way around the world.

Tired to the bone, he pulled up in front
of the house and turned off the ignition. A low-powered outside light
illuminated the area as they climbed from the SUV. He lifted the two largest
suitcases from the back of the vehicle and crossed to the house.

Pulling a wheeled case, Rainey opened
the door into the kitchen for him, then gasped. "Have we come to the right
place?"

He stepped inside and set the suitcases
down on the mellow, well-worn tile floor. "I called Callie Spears, the
interior designer I used on the beach house, and asked her to fix the place up.
The kitchen was pretty dismal."

"You were right about elves taking
care of life's hassles." Rainey ran her hands over the oak cabinets, then
stroked the vanilla-colored countertops. "This particular elf really knew
her business--the kitchen is simple but gorgeous. Just right for this house.
Smart of Callie to keep the tile floor and stucco walls and exposed beams--the
good stuff." Her eyes narrowed as she studied the room. "But the old
hutch, table, and chairs look like the Gradys' furniture. Those wonderful
Indian rugs are awfully familiar, too."

"Alma said they might seem
charmingly authentic to outsiders, but to her they were worn rugs and beat-up
old furniture, and she was looking forward to going out and buying exactly what
she wanted for once in her life. She only took a few items that had sentimental
value to her."

Two furballs tore into the kitchen,
skidding on a rug as they rounded the corner. They were the gray and tabby
kittens from the litter Rainey had visited weeks before. These two had doubled
in size, and were utterly fearless.

He scooped up the gray kitten, a male
who wriggled ecstatically at the attention. Noticing a note on the table, he
said, "If we're hungry, there are enchiladas and frijoles and salad in the
refrigerator."

"Alma is a genius. A saint.
Bringing the kittens to greet us was a master stroke." Rainey caught the
dancing tabby kitten, rubbing her cheek against the soft fur. "I'll put
the food in the oven. By the time we're settled, dinner should be nice and
hot."

"Which bedroom do you want? The two
at the end of the hall are the largest." It was the most tactful way he
could say that he couldn't bear to sleep with her.

Rainey got the message. She walked down
the hall and checked out the bedrooms. "I'll take the one on the right--the
velvet and brocade patchwork quilt is spectacular. I've always liked the
Southwest interior design style, but there's no substitute for the real
thing."

He took his bags into the other bedroom,
glad Rainey had left it for him. He liked the antique quilt pieced together of
whites and faded blues that Callie had found. The designer had also bought a
dresser and wardrobe made from a silvery weathered wood that suited the house
perfectly.

Curious, he moved through the other
rooms. The two smaller bedrooms were clean but empty. The sofa and reclining
chairs in the living room were new, upholstered in soft tan leather that
invited touching, while a tiny powder room had been tacked into a hall closet.
He made a mental note to give Callie a bonus for achieving so much in such a
short period of time, most of it with local labor. He'd specified that, knowing
that the area needed the work.

The last major project had been to
renovate the bathroom. Rainey caught up with him there. "Oh,
bliss,"
she said reverently. "A thoroughly modern bathroom, with whirlpool and
separate shower. This place is a gem, Kenzie."

She was right; it was a house he could
live in forever. And probably would.

After
a very long day and a good meal, he thought he'd sleep well, but no such luck.
He couldn't even blame the bed, since Callie had installed the same type of
mattress he used in the beach house.

Whenever he closed his eyes, nightmare
images assaulted him. Incidents that he thought forgotten returned in a flood
of horrific detail. Suffocating, gagging, at the mercy of sweaty male bodies.
His desperate need to please. Terror at being dominated, body and soul--and the
utter hopelessness of believing he deserved nothing better.

He'd survived by separating his mind
from the body of the powerless child compelled to perform on command. During
the ordeals, he'd mentally fly away to better times. Afternoons in the park
with his mother, visits with her to the cinema. They'd both loved movies, and
would watch double and triple features at cheap rerun theaters.

That detachment had kept him sane, but
behind the wall of separation churned a holocaust of emotions. The wall had
been built so high and wide that in time he'd managed to almost forget the
details of his early years. Then John Randall cracked the wall, and Nigel Stone
had smashed it to splinters, releasing the horrors as irrevocably as Pandora
when she'd opened her box.

How could he survive the agony
saturating his mind? He thought of asking Rainey for another tranquilizer, then
rejected the idea. The earlier one had knocked him out but hadn't relieved the
pain. No more drugs. Having an addict mother had taught him the danger of
seeking peace in a pill.

He tossed and turned, his anguish
increasing as his mind spun from horror to horror. Sweating despite the cool
night air, he gave up trying to sleep and rose. After yanking on clothes, he
found a flashlight in the kitchen and went outside in search of fresh air and
oblivion.

The emptiness of the night was as vast
as the emptiness within.

∗ ∗ ∗

Alone, alone, all, all alone;

Alone on a wide wide sea;

And never a saint took pity on

My soal in agony.

∗ ∗ ∗

But the Ancient Mariner had killed an
albatross, and his ordeal had been punishment for unnecessary cruelty. What had
little James Mackenzie done to bring such suffering on his innocent head?

When his eyes adjusted to the darkness,
he saw there was enough moonlight to make the flashlight unnecessary as long as
he stayed out of the shadows. By luck, he found the path that started behind
the farm buildings and led up into the hills.

He began to climb. The cool mountain
night was sharp with the scent of pines and aspens and things he couldn't
identify. Just above the ranch buildings was a shallow, saucer-shaped meadow
surrounded by pines and carpeted with pale wildflowers that fluttered in the
moonlight. Too agitated to admire the subtle loveliness of the sight, he
continued upward.

Fragments of plays and poetry buzzed
through his mind. Some were relevant to his situation, others less obvious.
Living with Professor Trevor Scott-Wallace for more than six years had been an
advanced course in British literature.

∗ ∗ ∗

Fall fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made:

Those are pearls that were his eyes;

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

∗ ∗ ∗

But he hadn't a clue who his father
was--what nation owned him, whether he was living or dead, whether he had any
idea that he'd made a son with a beautiful girl too young to understand what
she'd been doing.

As a boy, he'd liked to imagine his
father as a Highland lad who lay with Maggie among the heather, then joined a
regiment and went off to see the world, as Scottish youths had done for
centuries. Even today, the regiments sent recruiting units marching into
Scottish towns with pipes and banners flying to capture the imagination of
bored young men who yearned for adventure. Maybe Maggie's lover had gone off
promising to return for her, then died overseas in one of the nasty little
skirmishes that regularly flared up around the world.

Of course, Kenzie's father might have been
a drunken clerk who'd paid Maggie five quid to spread her legs. Or an
incestuous relative who'd molested her and sent her fleeing in terror from the
only home she'd known. There was no way to know. He prayed that she'd found
some pleasure in his begetting. She'd had little enough joy in her life.

∗ ∗ ∗

Break, break, break,

On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!

And I would that my tongue could utter

The thoughts that arise in me.

∗ ∗ ∗

Tennyson had known grief, too.

At the top of the hill he halted,
panting from the steep climb. What the devil should he do about Rainey? He'd
bought this retreat partly to have a home with no memories of her, yet now she
slept under his roof.

He was desperately alone, and she was
the only person he could bear to have near. But she wanted to give their
marriage another chance, and that was more impossible than ever. He was so
knotted up sexually that he wasn't sure they could ever again share the
glorious, healing passion that had been the bedrock of their relationship.

Seven long, celibate years had passed
between his sexual servitude as a child and hs first relationship as a mature
male. Those years had let him see himself as a different person. In fact, he'd
felt like a nervous virgin with his first lover, an actress fifteen years his
senior who had taught a workshop at RADA. Her unselfconscious sensuality had
helped him make the transition to an adult sexual identity.

But now he could no longer separate
Jamie from Kenzie. The merest hint of a sexual thought about Rainey caused his
stomach to clench as images of degradation rose and obscured her.

Agonized, he looked down over his
valley. He was high enough to see the glint of moonlight on the small alpine
lake, and the A-frame contours of the Gradys' new home beside it. The house was
dark, since sensible people were asleep at this hour.

Physically drained but no more at peace
than when he came outside, he started back down the path. Tomorrow he'd have to
tell Seth Cowan that he would not do the thriller he was slated to start
shooting in Australia in two months. He hadn't signed the contract yet so they
couldn't sue, but Seth would still go through the roof. Better to leave a
message early, on Seth's voice mail, so he wouldn't have to discuss his
decision.

What the devil would he do with the rest
of his life? To be an actor was to bare parts of oneself, and he felt too raw,
too exposed, to ever act again. Most people dreamed of what they'd do if they
ever had the time, but his only desire at the moment was to become a hermit and
never interact with the world again. But how did hermits fill the empty hours?

Between one step and the next, he found
the perfect angle that turned the almost circular lake into a moon-silvered
mirror. His mind flashed to the labyrinth at Morchard House. It was strange how
walking that winding path had relaxed him. He supposed it was because physical
motion used up restless energy, allowing the mind to be still.