Part 20 (1/2)

”Just for a minute. You're right in the next room.”

”Why?”

”I just want to be alone for a minute, that's all. I just want to . . . to think the dream out.” She didn't move. ”Please. I love you.”

She looked at him with sad eyes. ”Just for a minute then.” Leaning over to where he sat on the bed, she kissed his cheek. ”I don't want to lose you.” Then she was gone.

His gut twisted. Did he so much want to be straight? All the time he had thought he had come to terms with himself, did he really want, in the true heart of him, to be straight, to love women and not men? He remembered himself with Jeff, and with the other men before Jeff, drew up the sense memories as vividly as he could, playing them across the screen of his mind like the X-rated gay films he had gone to once and never again because there was no love in them. Gay people should not be romantic, he thought, and there, he surmised, lay his flaw. Even though nearly everyone who'd ever known him had thought of him as a hard-headed pragmatist, he was a romantic, and had looked for years until he'd found Jeff, who was just as romantic as he.

But now, as the moving bodies writhed in his mind's eye, although he felt aroused, there was nothing of love in the acts, no tenderness. If there had been once, he was now incapable of seeing it. Coupling bodies, sweaty release, the ease of climax, relaxation of tumescence, all, all, all senses were remembered, deeply felt, even treasured.

But where was love?

And now he knew. All these years he'd blamed guilt for his life, but he knew that guilt was innocent.

It was romance that had made him join the Marines, that had made him become a mercenary, the last dog soldier in these days of push-b.u.t.ton wars.

It was romance that had drawn him to Jeff and kept him there for years.

It was romance that had led him to The Pines, that had pushed him into the arms of Gabrielle Neville and had pushed the love of her into his heart to stay even after the house had withdrawn what it had given him.

And it was romance that would lead him to ask the house for it back again.

He did not plan to do it, not consciously, but that he would was as certain as the fall of leaves from the trees outside.

The three of them spent the waking time much as they'd spent every other-they ate breakfast, played some pinochle, then went up to the third floor playroom, where Gabrielle painted and the two men read. Wickstrom was working his way through Moby d.i.c.k (”I like it when something happens, but that's not very often,” he'd told McNeely), and McNeely resumed his Edgar Wallace. Though he had only thirty pages of the book to finish, he took forever to reach the last page. The words were little more than black bugs on which he placed his eyes while he kept thinking about other things. And the longer he thought, the stronger the question grew, until he could ask it to himself consciously.

How could anything that could bring me so much good be truly evil?

After all, what had the house done? It had changed Seth c.u.mmings into a beast, but was that the house's fault? Wasn't it more likely, as he'd suggested to Gabrielle, that the evil had been in c.u.mmings and not the house, that what it had offered him in innocence-even perhaps for good-he had turned to evil because of his own l.u.s.t for power? And if that were true, what else had the house done?

It had given him the strength to kill c.u.mmings, but that had protected them all, had saved the lives of Gabrielle and Wickstrom and himself. There were the dreams and the faces, but those could have been born of their own fears. In fact, that was a much more rational explanation than any malicious intent on the part of whatever lived here in the house. Perhaps all one really had to do to contact it was to reach out a hand. Or a mind.

They'd been so careful, the three of them, to avoid being alone, to avoid any possibility of the house contacting them. Why? he thought almost joyfully. To approach it with good intentions, honorable intentions, might bring out the good in it. And if he sensed anything else, he could always pull back, seek the others. He had pulled back before, when he had met it in the kitchen, and it had left him when he'd wanted it to. What's more, it hadn't seemed angry, had it? Only confused. ”It was what you wanted”-that was all it had said. And perhaps because of his own fright, it had grown confused enough to think it had erred, and, so thinking, had made him the way he'd been before. If that were the case, all he had to do was to ask to be changed back again.

Simple.

And then he remembered from somewhere an old saying that came unbidden to his mind-he who sups with the devil had best use a long spoon. He laughed it away, closed the unfinished book, and waited for their appointed night to come.

It did, after a session in the exercise room, another meal, and more reading aloud from Dostoevsky. When they finally went to their bedrooms, he had had his excuse planned. As they lay together and her kisses grew more demanding, he sighed.

”I'm sorry, love, but I'm just exhausted. That d.a.m.ned thing earlier got to me, I'm afraid.” He shook his head, then touched her face tenderly. ”Let's sleep a bit. Then, who knows?” He kissed her with as much pa.s.sion as he could muster, heard her whispered ”all right,” and moved up against her when she turned her back to him so that they lay like spoons in a silverware drawer. His groin pressed her b.u.t.tocks, but neither of them moved in a way that would lead to more.

He kept his eyes open, listening in the dark for the sounds of her sleep.

Chapter Fourteen.

Sterne was out of shape. If he hadn't known it before, he knew it by the time he reached the house. It was slightly less than a mile from the cabin, but it was uphill all the way and took him over ten minutes. Once he got in sight of the huge stone building, he tried to call Monckton's name, but all that emerged from his aching throat was a dry croak. He stumbled on, falling once and bruising his knee against some loose stones. When he saw that the doors and windows were secure, he breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed, bending his body in the middle to try to comfort the side st.i.tches that seemed to be eating their way through him. Straightening up, he called Monckton's name loudly, but received no reply. He began to walk around the house, his eyes sweeping the high gra.s.s of the lawn, searching for a larger mound amid the clumps of wind-twisted gra.s.s and leaves. The chill air stung his overworked lungs and he paused, resting again until his breathing came more slowly. Then he moved on around the west wing toward the back of the house.

He noticed the ladder immediately. It was lying half on the walk, half on the lawn, like some toy flung away by a giant. Then he looked up and saw the arm dangling over the edge of the balcony.

”Oh, Christ!” he muttered. ”Oh, you a.s.shole ... ” Tears of frustrated rage welled up in his eyes. He ran to the ladder, picking it up and propping it against the wall, then climbed up it as quickly as he could.

He found a shattered Monckton lying on the tiles, legs impossibly awry, blood coming from one of them. There were also slow trickles of blood from both nostrils. Sterne gingerly picked up a wrist and felt for a pulse. It was there, faint but steady. The idea struck Sterne of running to the front door of The Pines and banging on it for help, but behind the door, he remembered, was a steel plate. And even if he could have gotten in, there would have been no way to get help from Wilmer-there was no phone.

Down the mountain, he thought wildly. I'll get him down the mountain and then Renault will never know he was here. He could have fallen off the cabin roof, out of a tree. . . . He wondered if he could get Monckton down the ladder, then put his hands beneath Monckton's armpits and exerted slight pressure.

There was a dull pop and a feel of something giving beneath his hands, and he quickly let the body slump back to the balcony floor. He swallowed painfully and looked around in panic, but there was no one to help him. The perspiration was soaking through his underclothes, and he wrenched off the down-filled jacket, tossing it on the tiles. Manhandling Monckton down the mountain could very well kill him, of that much he was certain. Even if he survived, how could he explain away the injuries-and would Monckton even back him up when he regained consciousness?

If he regained consciousness.

Sterne licked his lips nervously as he wondered whether or not the plan would work.

Simon, Monckton's gone ...

I don't know. The noise of the Jeep woke me, but by the time I looked out he was gone.

He'd been acting strangely, Simon. Saying funny things about the house. I'm not sure, but I think he might have been planning to leave for a while.

I can handle it by myself until you send someone up. No problem.

Renault couldn't have Monckton searched for-it was Monckton's Jeep. The worst that had been done was breach of contract. And once the month was up, nine days from now, they would find Monckton, and it would be a shame.

It would work. It would clear Sterne, it would shut Monckton's mouth, no one would ever know that Sterne had let Monckton go up to the house.

Sterne decided to let the man die.

”I warned you,” he said, kneeling down as though Monckton could hear him. ”It's not like I didn't warn you. You'd probably be dead before help could get here anyway.”

At that moment Monckton's eyes jerked open spasmodically. They were tired, pained, but clear, and they recognized Sterne. Some blood had dried on Monckton's lips, and the chill wind had chapped them further, so that when he opened them, they made a sound like softly ripping parchment.

”Ster . . .” He struggled to speak, but stopped, a cough shuddering through his body. It started his nose bleeding again, but he seemed unaware of it. ”Sterne,” he got out breathily. ”Dead . . . dead.”

Sterne could barely hear the words over the rush of wind. ”What? Dead? Someone's dead?”

Monckton nodded, grimacing at the pressure his muscles placed on his shattered shoulder.

”Who? Who's dead?”

”c.u.m-mings.” He said the name in two distinct syllables, as if to make sure Sterne would understand.