Riverwatch

Chapter Three: Blake

As Jake drove his Jeep along the winding road that led from the tall iron gates marking the entrance of the Riverwatch estate to the mansion itself, he glanced out over the lake to his left. The beauty of the setting sun as it reflected off the still waters had not lost its appeal in the years since he’d first seen it.

He had arrived in Harrington Falls five years ago, after spending almost a decade in New York City. The romance of the metropolis had long since worn away by the time he’d made the decision to leave. He’d grown tired of the crowds; tired of the press of humanity on all sides, tired of the hectic pace. He needed a cleansing of the spirit that just wasn’t possible to find in the city and one afternoon he decided he had enough. He sold almost everything he owned, packed his Jeep, and headed northeast. Eventually, he wandered into Harrington Falls and decided to stay.

He accomplished a lot since then. With the help of a local bank, he started a construction company, finally putting the engineering degree he’d earned at NYU to good use. He started small, concentrating on additions to existing structures, home improvements, that sort of thing. After a time he discovered that he had a true talent, and interest, for restoring the older homes in the community, bringing them back to the vitality of their youth. He changed the focus of his business and now had a strong following in the surrounding communities. It was his success that brought him to the attention of his current client, Hudson Blake.

Blake was a direct descendant of the family that had started Harrington Falls in the late sixteen hundreds, a fact that he never let anyone forget. Jake had agreed to renovate one of the family mansions, a place known as Stonemoor. He knew the job would provide steady work for the rest of the fall and on into the winter, a period when the available work became scarce.

Jake was beginning to regret that decision.

He hated these meetings with Blake. Held once a week, they were ostensibly to check the progress the crew was making on the renovations. Blake’s nature had always made Jake feel inferior. The man was a pompous, condescending ass who wanted everything done yesterday, and got verbally vicious when it wasn’t.

No, this was not going to be a fun meeting.

Jake pulled into the cul-de-sac at the end of the drive, and parked beside a sleek, silver Rolls Royce, circa 1937. A wide brick walkway curved across the lawn to the main door of the mansion.

He picked up the door’s knocker, a heavy piece of brass molded into the shape of a lion’s head, and rapped it sharply three times.

A moment passed before the butler, Charles, opened the door. He glanced at Jake’s attire with clear disapproval. Jake was still wearing the jeans and work-shirt he’d had on at the site. Coming across the threshold, Jake returned his best Up Yours stare, with a certain sense of satisfaction.

It was bad enough that he had to take such flack from Blake. Taking it from the man’s servant was just too much.

Without a word, Charles turned and led the way through the first floor until they reached a set of broad oak doors near the back of the house. Having been there before, Jake knew it was the library.

"Wait here a moment," Charles said, in that toneless servant voice he had cultivated and turned away without waiting for an acknowledgment. He knocked softly on the door in front of him before noiselessly sliding into the room. When he returned, he indicated Jake was to be admitted.

Jake stepped inside and heard the doors close firmly behind him.

Blake was seated at a desk formed from a massive piece of black stone that squatted in the middle of the room’s hardwood floor like an altar erected to some particularly vile god. He didn’t look up or acknowledge Jake’s presence in any way. He merely continued to read through the papers held up before him.

Instead of standing there and growing uncomfortable, which Jake knew was the purpose of this little ‘exercise’, he used the time to study his employer.

As always, whenever a few days had passed without seeing Blake, Jake was repulsed anew by the sight of his client. It wasn’t that he was physically disgusting; he didn’t have grotesquely scarred features, no loathsome birth defects that made looking at him a trial in itself. Nothing one could point to and say, "There’s the problem." Nothing like that. Instead, it was an odd sense of discomfort that crept into his bones, an unsettling feeling that slowly came over him. A feeling that said the heart at the center of this fruit was shrunken and black with rot. Add to that Blake’s long bony frame and small evil looking eyes set in a ferret-sharp face, and Jake figured it was pretty understandable that he felt the way that he did.

Blake continued the charade for several long moments, letting the silence stretch.

Finally, "You’re late," he said, in a tone that showed his own disgust, never once looking up at his visitor.

"I know," Jake replied calmly.

Blake suddenly threw the papers onto the surface of the desk and Jake found himself staring into the man’s beady little eyes. "I suppose you have some kind of excuse?"

Jake still hadn’t been offered a seat. He knew he wouldn’t be. He chose to ignore the verbal jibe as well. "I’m afraid I have some bad news," he answered instead. "I was forced to stop work in the cellar this afternoon because of something my workmen uncovered."

The look changed in the man’s eyes as his words registered, and for just a moment Jake thought he saw a gleam of excitement there before his employer’s expression went carefully neutral.

"What do you mean?" Blake asked, his tone now as flat as his expression.

"We finished pumping out the river when we uncovered the entrance to a set of stairs leading deeper underground. I went down with my foreman and followed the tunnel to a point some two hundred yards later, where it has been bricked shut. I thought it was best if we waited to see what you wanted us to do before going any further."

"I see…." Blake replied, and then swung his chair around so he was facing the window, his back to Jake, so that the younger man wouldn’t see wide smile of surprise that spread slowly across his face. "And what did you do then?"

"Nothing. I sent the boys home, locked up, and came on over here."

"I see," Blake responded again.

The silence stretched for an unusually long time, with Blake staring out the window lost in thought, and Jake reluctant to disturb him and break the man’s good mood, but finally, Jake felt that if he didn’t interrupt, they’d be here until Tuesday.

"Mr. Blake? What do you want me to do about it?"

"Hhmm? Oh, nothing. Nothing at all."

The chair swung back around. Jake was unable to read anything behind the man’s carefully blank expression. "I’m afraid I’m going to have to think about this for awhile before I come to any decisions. Why don’t you and your men take the next few days off?"

Then came the clincher.

"With pay, of course," Blake said.

Jake couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Days off? With pay? Had somebody turned the world upside-down and not told him? But Jake was nobody’s fool. Whether he believed that Blake was really being a nice guy or if he had ulterior motives, Jake knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth. He quickly agreed with the idea, left off the paperwork he’d been requested to bring, and made plans to get back in contact with the man before the end of the week. Then he got the hell out of there before Blake could change his mind.

A few days off?

Hell, yes. Sounded good to him.

Climbing into his Jeep, Jake finally allowed himself to grin at his good fortune.

Once the fool had gone, Blake let a triumphant smile emerge as he pondered the implications of the news. His ancestor’s journal had long hinted at a secret vault upon one of the family estates, but after spending thousands of dollars and months of effort searching for it, he’d finally dismissed it several years ago as foolish nonsense.

Today’s news changed everything.

There was no sense putting himself at risk to be certain, however. He’d pretend to give the situation some thought and then call that young fool back later tonight. He’d tell him he’d changed his mind and give him permission to investigate further.

His smile grew wider as he realized what he had hunted for for so long might now be close to his grasp.

Which wasn’t really all that surprising, by any means.

He was, after all, a Blake.