Dance with the Devil

CHAPTER 2

Descending the ridge into Roxburgh was such a hair-raising feat that Katherine nearly forgot about the dead cat, the Satanic markings on the floor of the barn and the fact that she was in a strange land. The tiny grain of fear in the back of her mind became even tinier as a new fear rose to take all of her attention: she was going to kill herself in this descent. She wondered if the same madman who had designed the rococo Owlsden had also had a hand in the planning of the only road that entered Roxburgh from the east. Surely, no sane highway engineer would have made the grade as steep as this or would have carved the two-lane so narrow that it looked more like a lane and a half. On the left, a rock wall jutted up fifteen feet to the edge of the ridge and then fell away, a constant reminder that she had only two or three feet of berm to use in case another car approached on its way out of the valley. On the right, the land dropped away for two thousand feet in the space of a yard, the way strewn with boulders and trees and tangled brush. No guard rails dotted that far berm to give even the illusion of safety; a slide on the icy pavement could very well end in a fiery tumble to the bottom of the gorge.

Without the snow, it would have been a simple matter. But the white flakes had mounted on the macadam, as yet undisturbed by a plow or even by another vehicle that had gone this way ahead of her, and it hissed across the windscreen, obscuring her view even as it lay like greased glass under her wheels. She did not use the gas at all and tapped the brake carefully, gently, keeping as steady a pressure on it as she could.

Over the top of the ridge, too, the wind blew harder than it had on the top of the mountain where the trees and the contour of the land bled its force. It gusted in like blows from a giant, invisible hammer. When she was a third of the way down the tortuous track, a violent blast struck the car from the direction of the precipice, startling her. Involuntarily, she stamped on the brake pedal, jolting herself forward as the Ford went into a perilously swift slide toward the right. The smooth gray stone wall, flecked with growing patches of snow and marred only occasionally by the twisted root of a hearty locust tree, rolled toward her as if the car were standing still and the wall itself was the motivated object.

She almost pulled the wheel to the left, realized that would be the worst thing to do and would only aggravate the slide — perhaps even send the car completely out of her control. Worse than the stone wall was the precipice on the left.

She let go of the wheel, except to touch it lightly with her fingertips and take advantage of the first loosening she might feel.

The nose of the Ford turned at the very brink of a collison and angled back in the proper direction. Her right, rear fender scraped the stone so softly that it could have been mistaken for the asthmatic wheeze of an old man…

Another explosion of wind boomed in from the abyss.

This time, she did not over-react, but let the car move gently down the snowy track toward the bottom of the valley.

Five minutes more, and she was on level land, ready to get out and pray at the nearest church. She felt she ought to thank someone for helping her down that awful incline.

The roughly made highway fed into a more clearly defined street which she saw, shortly, was called Costerfeld Avenue. It was a somewhat grandiose title for a half mile of curbed macadam, but she would not have traded it for the poorly maintained state highway she had just left — not for a guarantee of wealth, health or immortality!

In half a block, the mountain behind her was cut off by the great shafts of enormous pine trees which thrust up on either side of Costerfeld Avenue like sentinels guarding the approach to the town. Already, they were laden with soft, white snow like mounds of cotton or the gush of shaving foam from a spray can. Also, on either side of the street, small, snugly built houses were tucked back at the ends of short walks, slid in among stands of lesser trees — birch, elm, dwarf pine, dogwood. Perhaps, without the snow, it was a dirty place, as scarred and spread over with grime as any other neighborhood. In the snow, however, it was transformed into an almost fairylike scene, a cut of the North Pole straight out of a child's storybook. Snow hung from porch railings, softened the sharp angle of steps, whitened dark roofs and made marshmallows out of stubby chimneys. Indeed, it was all so still and lovely that it slowly ameliorated the fear she had felt in the descent of the mountain, just as the descent had shoved her fear of the Satanists to the background of her mind.

Katherine Sellers wanted to be happy. It took very little, therefore, to influence her always-ready streak of optimism.

Apparently, there were four main streets in Roxburgh, made up of the arms of two major roads which crossed in the center of the town to form a traditional “town square” with a small park in the center of it and stores on the outside of the circle. It would be interesting to explore the side streets and the curious little backwoods shops when she got a chance. But not now. Right now, the only thing that mattered was getting across the small town and finding the road that lead up the other side of the valley towards Owlsden.

Even as she thought that, the street broke from the pine boughs and began to angle up the other valley wall, only a few miles from the place where she had come down. Owlsden house waited at the top, looming over her, looking almost sentient, its dragon eyes glowing more fiercely the closer she drew to its gates.

But, in the end, she did not get very close at all. Though driving up the icy slope was a good deal less trying than the uncontrolled descent had been, it was not nearly so easy on the Ford which fought the ascent at every turn. The tires spun in the dry snow and, at times, she found she was losing two feet of ground for every one that she surged forward. Again and again, she would gain a hundred yards on the slope, only to lose it in bits and pieces as the car slid inexorably backwards toward the village.

If she had been superstitious, she would have said that this was an omen, a sign that she was not meant to reach Owlsden house.

At last, wearier than she had realized, she let the Ford drift to the very bottom of the slope and backed it onto a widening in the berm where a picnic table rested under a huge willow. There was nothing left but to walk the last leg of the journey. Perhaps someone up at the house could bring her back, in a heavier car with chains around its tires, to collect her suitcases.

She turned off the lights, shut off the engine, took the key from the ignition, and opened the door.

Cold…

The air seemed twice as bitter here as it had on top of the mountain where she had found and buried the cat. The wind howled down the long, narrow, steep-walled valley just as water gushed through the natural contour of the land. It whipped the pine boughs around until they seemed like the arms of some unearthly dancers going through a frantic routine. Clouds of cold, grainy snowflakes snapped about her, stinging, seeking open cuffs, a crack at the collar, a gap between the buttons.

She turned toward Owlsden which lay a mile or better up the road from there and had taken only a dozen steps when she knew that she could never walk it. The steep grade would have her on her knees or sprawled full-length as much as she would be permitted to stand upright — while the wind, scouring the valley walls, would lift the hem of her coat like the cloth of an umbrella. She turned around and faced towards the town again, held her hand over her eyes to keep the snow out of them. It was nearly as far to the square in town as to Owlsden, but on level land where she would find sure footing. Tucking her chin down and squinting her eyes, she started to walk.

By the time she reached the square, it was just after six in the evening. The stores were closed, except for a grocery-newsstand combination and a cafe. She chose the cafe, crossed the tiny, bench-dotted park, and went inside, brushing the snow from her coatsleeves and shoulders as she did.

The cafe contained three men in lumberjack clothes: heavy plaid hunting jackets, sweaters beneath those, heavy jeans with legs that laced at the bottom and fitted neatly into heavy-duty, unpolished black boots. An old, white-haired man in a tattered sweater sat at a corner table, by a large window that gave a view of the square, sipping coffee and reading a newspaper. The waitress behind the counter and the man at the short-order grill were both plump, middle-aged, ruddy-complexioned and pleasant-looking.

She sat on a stool at the counter and said, “A cup of coffee, please.”

“Cream and sugar?”

“Both, yes.”

The waitress fetched the coffee and put it down. “New in Roxburgh?” she asked, smiling pleasantly. Her teeth were even, white and broad.

“Yes,” she said, unbuttoning her coat and shaking her damp, yellow hair away from her face. “I'm going to be Lydia Boland's secretary.”

“Really!” the waitress said, obviously charmed at that.

The man at the grill looked up and nodded, smiled. Evidently, Lydia Boland was a pleasant topic of conversation so far as these people were concerned.

“Yes,” Katherine said. “But I'm having some trouble getting up the highway to Owlsden.”

“It'll be locked in for days!” the waitress said, shaking her head knowingly. “The Roxburghs bought the town two plows and a cindering truck so we wouldn't have to depend on the State to clear our roads. It takes the State two weeks to get into places like this after a major snowstorm. But even with the local plows, the way the wind whistles through here and drifts the snow, it takes a few days to get things back to normal.”

“I'd imagine so,” Katherine said. She sipped her coffee. It was hot, burning a path down her throat, breaking up the cold in her stomach. “That's why I thought I really ought to get up to the house before things get even worse than they are. Could I use your telephone to call Mrs. Boland and see if they'll send someone down for me and my luggage? My own car's much too light to make that steep grade.”

“So will their car be,” the waitress said, swiping at the top of the counter with a damp rag.

“But I can't stay here when I'm expected—”

“Let me call around to see if I can find Mike Harrison. He's got a Land Rover that's equipped to go anywhere.”

“I wouldn't want to cause trouble—”

“Mike wouldn't be troubled,” the woman assured her. “He likes to show his machine to people, like a grown man with a toy — and he'd surely want to meet the town's newest resident. I'll warn you, though, that you'll have to endure a wild ride up the road to Owlsden; Mike doesn't spare the thrills when he gives someone their first demonstration ride in that crazy buggy.”

“If you really think he wouldn't mind,” Katherine said, “I'd appreciate his help. I'll pay him well enough for his trouble.”

“No need to pay,” the woman said.

“But—”

“I doubt he'd take your money, seeing as how he has more of his own than he can ever easily spend. His father owns a lot of timberland on up the valley and two of the largest planning and processing mills in the mountains. Nearly everyone in Roxburgh has worked or now works for him.”

“I see,” Katherine said. “But if he's who you say, he's probably busy with—”

“He hardly ever does a decent day's work,” the waitress said, though her tone was not sarcastic but warm, as if everyone looked kindly upon Mike Harrison's sloth. “I'll get him on the phone. Be back in a snap.”

She walked along the counter and said something to the man at the short-order grill, then disappeared into the kitchen where, apparently, the telephone lay.

Katherine finished her coffee and placed enough change on the counter to cover the cost plus a generous tip to compensate the woman for her telephoning as well as for her counter service.

By then, the waitress had returned. “Found him,” she said. “He says he'll be delighted to take you up there.”

“Wonderful!” Katherine said, thinking about the treacherous road she would have had to try again if Mike Harrison had not been available or willing.

“He says to give him fifteen minutes to get his Land Rover and be here.”

The time passed quickly as she waited in the cafe for Harrison, mostly because the waitress was a talker — and a good one, relating one anecdote about Harrison, the town, the Roxburgh-Bolands, after another. She was the kind of woman who laughed a great deal and who would have looked out of place without an apron around her waist, a grandmotherly type whose gossip was never malicious. Katherine knew that, whenever she had a day off and wanted to get a bite to eat outside of Owlsden, she would come back here for the conversation as much as for the food.

At a quarter of seven, with darkness full upon the land now and the snow falling just as fiercely as ever, Michael Harrison arrived at the cafe, his hair laced with snow, his face pinched into a bright red heartiness by the brisk fingers of the wind. He was a tall, rugged-looking, handsome man, only a couple of years older than Katherine. His face was cut in Roman lines, with a high, broad forehead, well-set blue eyes, a straight, thin nose, firm lips and a chin cut square and strong. His shoulders were wide, his carriage that of a man who knows how to handle himself in any situation.

He crossed the cafe and actually did a modified, courtly bow to her, something she had never expected to find here in the wilds. His smile was positively dazzling. “You're our new resident?”

“Katherine Sellers,” she said.

“I'm Mike Harrison, and I'm pleased to meet you.”

“Me too,” she said. She had swiveled away from the counter on her stool, but she had not risen. He was such a gentleman and made her feel — even after that brief exchange — like such a lady that she felt she ought to abide by more ancient traditions of manner and remain in her seat.

“I didn't know Lydia was hiring a new secretary.”

“Companion, actually,” Katherine said.

“I told her how much she'll like working for Mrs. Boland,” the waitress said. “Couldn't find a kinder lady.”

Katherine noted that, as the waitress spoke, a strange look passed across Mike Harrison's face, held more behind his eyes than in them, concealed but still partly evident. It was a look of irritation at what the waitress had said and, perhaps, an expression of qualification or disagreement with her sentiments about the Roxburgh-Bolands. It was the first sour note, no matter how small, she had discovered in the heretofore sweet apple of the family name, and she wondered exactly what it meant.

“Well,” Mike Harrison said, “shall we be on our way now?”

“Whatever you say,” Katherine said, standing arid buttoning her coat. “We'll have to stop at my car and pick up my bags before going to Owlsden.”

“Fine,” he said. “There's a storage compartment in the Rover that's big enough to move a household.”

“Now you take care of her,” the waitress warned him. “Don't you give her one of those insane roller-coaster rides like you give everyone else.”

Harrison grinned.

“You hear me?” the woman asked.

“Sure enough, Bertha. I will treat our Miss Sellers as if she were a carton of eggs.”

“See that you do, or you better not come back in here while I have a frying pan handy.”

Harrison laughed, took Katherine's arm and escorted her from the restaurant.

The wind struck hard against her flushed face. The temperature hovered just above zero and, with the chill factor of the wind figured in, must have been a subjective twenty degrees below.

“There she sits,” Harrison said.

He pointed across the street to a large, sturdily-built vehicle that looked like a cross between an armored car and a jeep. It was parked by the grass circle in the center of the square. The snow that had sifted over it in the few minutes he had been in the restaurant, had obscured the windscreen and softened the brute lines somewhat. Still, it was obvious that no amount of snow could stop this workhorse altogether, for it looked almost like power personified, a machine of pure force.

“What do you think?” he asked, obviously proud of the Rover.

“I'm no longer worried about reaching Owlsden,” she said. The wind snatched her words from her mouth and carried them away, but not fast enough to keep him from hearing her. He smiled and nodded. “Does it have a heater?” she asked.

“All the luxuries,” he said, taking her elbow and leading her across the slippery street. He put her in the passenger's side and went around to get behind the wheel.

The engine started the first time he tried it, a noisy, roaring behemoth of an engine.

“Not as quiet as a Cadillac, perhaps, but able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

She laughed and settled back, relieved to be in Mike Harrison's hands.

He drove into the street, circled the park and started out of town in the direction of the narrow road that lead up to Owlsden, his hands tight on the wheel, his driving experienced and sure.

“Not even a little skid,” she said.

“Wait until we start up the mountain!”

“Remember what Bertha said.”

“Don't worry,” he said. “I'm not going to give you a heart-stopping thrill ride. In this weather, I don't need to.”

Then, for a moment, there was an awkward silence, since all the banal conversation about the weather and the Land Rover had already been exhausted and neither knew the other well enough to know what to talk about next. He broke the silence after a minute had passed. “I wouldn't think a young, attractive girl like yourself would choose to move into a place like Roxburgh.”

“That's where the job is,” she said, lightly.

“There are other jobs, surely, in places with more lights, more glamour and more things to do.”

“Solitude appeals to me,” she said. “At least I think it does.”

“You'll have a great opportunity to learn whether or not it does if you live long in Roxburgh!”

“And the job sounds interesting,” she said. “Everyone seems to like Lydia Boland.”

Again, she saw a subtle reaction pass through his features: a tightening of the jawline, a squinting about the eyes. She wished she knew him well enough to solicit his obviously different opinion of the Bolands.

“Everyone does,” he said. “Everyone likes them.” But she was still certain that he did not like them very much at all.

“Your car?” he asked a moment later as they came within sight of the roadside picnic area where she had parked the Ford.

“Yes,” she said.

He pulled the Land Rover up next to it. “If you'll give me your keys and tell me where the suitcases are, you won't have to get out of the Rover again.”

“I'm putting you to a lot of trouble,” she said.

“Nonsense.”

“But I am.”

He grinned. “Then I'll get even when we go up the mountain.” He pointed ahead at the narrow, snow-laden roadway which looked, suddenly, twice as steep and harrowing as it had earlier when she'd attempted to climb it in the Ford.

He took her keys and got out, closed the door and clomped over to the Ford, opened the trunk and lifted out two cases which he brought back. A rear door of the Rover opened to admit the cases and, in a moment, the last two as well. He slammed it shut, locked it, got in behind the wheel again and gave her the keys.

He said, “It's a good thing you decided not to force your way up in that car of yours. Even if you'd been lucky and made it most of the way to the top, you'd have gone over the edge on the last turn. It's a menace for the Rover, let alone for something with worn winter tires and a high speed rear end, like the Ford.”

Swallowing hard at the prospect of having pitched over the brink in the old car, she said, “How long will it take to get up there, in this?”

He looked ahead. “It's a mile and a quarter, but all steep and all icy. I'd say there's six to eight inches of snow…”

She waited while he thought it out.

“If I heed Bertha's warning and take it easy, we ought to be up there in fifteen or twenty minutes. All right?”

“Fine,” she said.

He looked at Owlsden, what they could see of it from this angle. “I don't think I'll ever understand why anyone would want to build a house in such an unapproachable place — or, for that matter, found an entire town in the middle of nowhere.”

He slammed the Rover into gear.

They jerked as the engine groaned and caught hold.

They moved forward toward the road and the ascent to the Roxburgh estate at the top of the valley wall.

Even the Rover wallowed a bit in the treacherous climb, though Mike Harrison did not seem to think the ascent was all that spectacular. While Katherine tried not to look out her window at the yawning pit that opened on her side of the road but found herself looking in fascination anyway, he talked amiably, as if they were out for a Sunday afternoon drive to admire the local scenery.

At last, because talking about anything would be better than staring into the ever-growing chasm beside them, Katherine joined in the conversation and brought up the dead cat she had found in the barn.

“Where was this barn?” he asked immediately, taking his eyes away from the road for a second.

She told him. “It was absolutely terrible,” she said.

“I can imagine.”

“It was all that I could do to touch the poor thing, let alone to dig its grave. But, I guess, someone had to do it.”

“You buried the cat?” he asked incredulously.

Again, he took his eyes away from the road and looked at her. She wished he wouldn't do that.

“Yes,” she said.

“You shouldn't have.”

The Land Rover slipped sideways with a ratcheting noise, toward the brink, corrected smoothly as Harrison touched the gas and shifted down a gear.

“Whyever not?” she asked.

She tried not to think about how close they had been to loosing a wheel over the abrupt lip of the berm. This situation was trying her optimism as badly as the descent down the other side of the valley had. Perhaps this was another omen, a warning to turn back, go home, find another job in a more conventional atmosphere.

“The people who did that thing — the people who tortured and hung that cat are not sane, Katherine.”

“I realize that,” she said.

“Well, you should have gotten away from there as soon as you realized what had taken place.”

“Someone had to bury the cat,” she insisted.

“What if one of them — one of these Satanists had come back?”

“I thought, once they'd used a place, they wouldn't be too open about returning to it. I didn't think those kind of people would show themselves in public, in daylight. They can't be proud of it, after all.”

He nodded, still handling the wheel expertly as the Land Rover crawled laboriously along the snowy track toward the dark, towering mass of Owlsden above. “Perhaps that's true,” he said. “Especially considering the public outcry that goes up every time someone uncovers a trace of these Satanic goings on in Roxburgh.”

“You mean that people around here find this sort of thing regularly?” she asked, her attention finally diverted from the road altogether, for the first time.

“Not every day, mind you.”

“But often.”

“Yes. Every month or so for the last year, year and a half. Sometimes the ceremonies are done in dilapidated buildings, sometimes in open forest clearings. I imagine more are performed and go unnoticed than those we find clue to.”

“It's hard to believe,” Katherine said.

Terrifying her by the gesture and drawing her attention back to the danger of the storm and the road, he raised a hand from the wheel and waved it to indicate the craggy mountains, the great forests, the thickly grown and yet somehow barren landscape. “Considering this place, this land, it wouldn't seem so strange to me.”

“Please use both hands to drive,” she said.

He laughed. “We're nearly three-fourths of the way up now, and you've not come close to death yet.”

“Close enough,” Katherine said.

The windshield wipers thumped faster as he turned them up, hollow and heavy like the rapid beat of a panicked animal's heart as it escapes the hunter's line of sight Ice had formed in the corners of the windshield shortly after they left the cafe and now began to send tentative crystal fingers toward the center. He also turned up the blast from the heater, melting the hazy barrier that had started to form on the glass.

To get her mind off the road again, and because she was curious, she asked, “Hasn't anything been done to find out who these — these devil worshipers are?”

“Oh, in a town as small as Roxburgh, there has been a lot of spying on each other, neighbor watching neighbor.”

“Nothing more?”

“What would you do?” he asked.

“The police—”

“Have no jurisdiction. Aside from the fact that they kill someone's pet now and again — usually a cat— they don't break any laws. Christianity is the preferred religion in the area, but not codified by law.”

“Well, then,” she said, “even with neighbor spying on neighbor, someone ought to have aroused suspicion.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” he said. “Besides, it's equally likely that the Satanists are from another town. Within a thirty mile radius, there are a dozen villages ranging anywhere from five hundred to a thousand in population. It could be someone from one of those, leaving their hometown to perform the rituals and thus keep the heat off their own neck of the woods.”

“I see.”

“Are you frightened by the notion of devil worshipers?” Harrison asked, a touch of humor in his voice.

“Not really,” she said.

“You should be.”

“Oh?”

The Rover shuddered as it bumped over some obstruction in the road that was hidden by snow, sidled toward the ravine, came under his control again and ground relentlessly toward the final curve before they crested the top of the road.

“You don't believe in black magic and the power of evil, do you?” she asked, teasing him.

“Of course not,” he said. “But you've got to be wary of people who do believe in things like that, because they aren't exactly right in the head.”

“I suppose so.”

He frowned, his mind clearly on more than his driving. After a moment, he said, “Everyone in Roxburgh is afraid of them; everyone is waiting for something to break because of them, something bad. Only the Boland family poohpoohs the notion that they're dangerous.”

“They do?”

“Yes. The subject has been brought up at the town meeting a number of times. Lydia always attends— and Alex, her son, usually does. They always make light of the subject, joke about it. The other townspeople respect them so much that the subject is usually dropped.”

“Maybe they've got the right idea — treat it lightly and let it evaporate eventually.”

“Maybe. But I have the feeling that it is the same as finding yourself in a pit with a tiger and turning away from it hoping it will disappear.”

“Aren't you being melodramatic?” Katherine asked.

“Perhaps I am. But I can't help but wonder if these Satanists will ever reach the point where they're tired of sacrificing things like cats and dogs and an occasional rabbit.”

“I don't understand,” Katherine said.

He did not look away from the road now, for they were entering the sharp turn at the top of the rise, where the right-of-way humped, creating a natural spillage toward either the rock wall on his side or the crevasse on hers. He drove on the wrong side, taking the risk of striking the wall rather than of toppling over the precipice. In a moment, they were up and over, striking directly along the driveway to the mammoth oak doors that fronted Owlsden.

He said, “What I mean is: suppose they get bold enough to try a human sacrifice?”

Relieved that the trip was behind her, Katherine's urge to be happy soared again. “Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Harrison, you really are into cheap movie plots now!”

“Mike,” he said. “Don't call me Mr. Harrison; I'm not that much older than you.” He wheeled around in front of the great doors and braked the Rover. “And its surprising how often old movie plots have parallels in real life.”

The twelve-foot doors of the house swung open, spilling yellow light across the snowfield, making iced points on the giant pine needles gleam like jewels on the end of miniature spears.

“I'll get your things,” he said, opening the door and stepping out.

She stood next to him as he placed the luggage in the snow and closed the rear door of the Land Rover, and she was aware that his attitude of jolly adventurism was gone. Instead, he seemed anxious to be away from Owlsden, as if he feared the place. He kept glancing up at the dark windows, at the slate roof, at the squat, dark figure that stood in the open doorway, watching them.

“I'd like to pay you,” she said.

“Not necessary.”

“I really think—”

“My father is a millionaire, and I'll be a millionaire one day too,” he said. “Now, if you can tell me what earthly good it would do me to take cab fare from you, I might accept it.” He smiled as he spoke, his face as incredibly handsome as it had seemed the first moment she'd seen him in the restaurant in town.

“Well, then I don't know how to thank you,” Katherine said.

“Your company was thanks enough, the sight of a new face and someone with a fresh outlook.”

“You flatter me,” she said. “I really don't know what I'd have done without your help, and I don't think any amount of conversation and fresh viewpoint repays you for that horrendous drive or the one you have to make to go back down.”

“The drive is second nature,” he said. “And without me, you'd merely have spent a week in town before coming up here. Maybe that would have been better than — maybe that wouldn't have been so bad.”

The man standing in the doorway came out to them. He was Katherine's height, five feet four, very broad across the shoulders, a beefy man packed with muscles like a weightlifter. His face was swarthy, his eyes dark and deep set. His mouth was wide, his lips thick and his voice European yet accentless when he spoke. “My name is Yuri, Miss Sellers. I am the general caretaker of Owlsden, and I hope you haven't had any serious trouble getting here in this abominable weather.”

“Thanks to Mr. Harrison, very little,” she said.

Yuri turned to the younger man now and smiled. From the coarse look of him, one expected the teeth to be broken and rotted. Instead, they were fine, white, pointed and even. “Mrs. Boland would like to invite you to remain for dinner.”

“I wouldn't want to impose,” Harrison said uneasily.

“No imposition,” Yuri assured him. “We set an extra place and cooked for another, in the expectation that only your Land Rover would be able to ferry Miss Sellers up here.” The gentle, cultured voice seemed odd coming from the brutal figure of Yuri.

“No thank you again,” Harrison said. “Please give Lydia my thanks and regrets. But I must get back down the mountain before the snow gets too much worse.” That was a lie, since everyone seemed aware that no degree of terrible weather could phase him as long as he had the Rover.

He went around to the driver's seat, closed his door after him and put the vehicle in gear. He drove jerkily away from them, kicking up clouds of snow behind.

“Come along,” Yuri said, lifting two of her bags. “I'll get your last two cases in a minute.”

He lead the way across the lawn toward the open house, oblivious to the bitter cold, the wind and the snow, though he was only wearing a light suit without benefit of even an overcoat, hat or scarf.

Katherine turned and looked back toward the edge of the mountain, not certain what she hoped to see. But, not seeing it, she suddenly knew: the Land Rover. It was completely out of sight now, even the glow of its powerful headlights swallowed in the white mouth of the storm. She felt terribly alone.