Кей Хупер - Chill Of Fear

"What about after construction?"

"Well, then the records get just a bit murky." She shrugged, frowning a little herself. "I know enough about record-keeping to know that the entries I've found so far concerning illnesses, disappearances, and deaths here were noted with an absolute minimum of detail, almost casually."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that from the get-go, any sort of bad news for The Lodge — especially of the death-on-the-grounds variety — was strongly downplayed."

"Wouldn't that be expected for a hotel?"

"To a certain extent, yeah. But your average hotel, when faced with the disappearance, death, or even murder of one of its guests, would have paperwork up the wazoo. Police reports, security reports, doctors' statements. Every piece of paper that could possibly be required to acquit the hotel and all its employees of any wrongdoing."

"Which The Lodge doesn't have."

"Like I said. If you ask me, somebody very early on made the decision of how bad news was to be handled. And whether it became habit or an ironclad rule, that's how it was done from that point onward."

"No paperwork."

"No paperwork, and only the bare mention of an occurrence. Name, date, not much more. Usually buried in accounts of the day-to-day running of the place."

Nate rested his forearm on her desk, fingers drumming absently. "I know how many deaths and disappearances we're talking about in the last twenty-five years, thanks to Quentin's obsession. What about before that? How many?"

"Oh, jeez, it'll be weeks before I can tell you that. I'm barely up to about 1925."

"Okay. How many up to 1925?"

Stephanie drew a breath. "Counting the deaths during construction, I have reported on the grounds of The Lodge more than a dozen deaths by 1925."

It took a minute, but Nate finally said, "Of those, how many were suspicious?"

"In my opinion? All of them, Nate. All of them."

"Are you dead?" Diana asked incredulously. Beau smiled. "No."

She took a step closer, uncertain. "Are you a medium?"

"No." Diana looked around her at the gray easels with their gray canvases daubed and stroked with varying shades of gray paint. She looked at the gray plants here and there in the conservatory, looked down at her own gray self and then up at him. Gray too. Everything was gray.

"Then I repeat. What the hell are you doing here?"

"I told you. Waiting for you."

"Beau, do you know where we are?"

"I think you call it the gray time."

"What do you call it?"

He looked around him, as though in mild curiosity, and said, "Your name fits. It's an interesting place. Or — time."

"Only the dead walk here."

"You walk here."

"I'm a medium." She stopped, startled, and Beau smiled again.

"Is that the first time you've said it?"

"I guess so. First time I meant it, anyway."

"It'll get easier," he told her. "Not so surprising. Even ordinary, after a while."

Diana shook her head. "Never mind that. I don't understand how you're here."

"It's a knack I have. My sister says I'm... very plugged in to the universe."

"Is that supposed to be an explanation?"

"Probably not. Diana, it doesn't really matter how I'm here. All that matters is that you see what I have to show you, and listen to what I have to tell you."

"You sure sound like a guide," she muttered.

"Sorry." He turned, beckoning her to follow, and led the way to the back corner where her easel was set up.

Her easel. Her sketchpad. Her drawing of Missy, there despite the fact that she knew it was in the tote bag in her cottage. But more astonishing, there was a brilliant scarlet slash across the sketch, glistening wetly and, in fact, still dripping onto some rags below the easel.

Scarlet. Not gray.

Like the green door, this was a color she could see.

"Why?" she asked, sure somehow that she wouldn't have to explain her question more fully.

"Signposts," he said. "The gray time has them as well. Things to pay attention to. Things to remember, so you can find your way. Only here they stand out a bit more."

Diana thought about that. "The green door I get; it's the way back. The way out. But this?"

Beau stepped back, gesturing for her to move closer to the easel.

She did so, looking at the sketch that certainly looked like the one she'd drawn. At the scarlet slash across Missy's delicate form. The scarlet that seemed to be... bleeding off the edge of the paper. Almost as if...

Diana took another step and bent slightly forward, looking more closely at the scarlet marring the sketch. It wasn't easy to see, because the scarlet (paint? blood?) had run, distorting the shape of the... letters?

"It wasn't clear at first," Beau said from behind her. "Just looked like a slash of color. Then, slowly, the letters began to appear. That's when I knew you needed to see this."

Absently, she said, "Why not show me on the other side of the door, outside the gray time? It's there too, isn't it?"

"It's there. Here. But it's only a slash of color, no letters. Someone suggested I take a look here in the gray time, in order to see what was really there."

"Someone?"

"Bishop."

Diana wasn't surprised. "I should have known you were a part of that team. He expected you'd see a warning, huh?"

"I think so. And said you needed to see it. He also said it would be tonight, which surprised me. After the day you've had, I didn't think you'd try this so soon."

Diana straightened with a sigh. "I don't suppose he offered any instructions for me?"

"No. Not something he often does in cases like this."

"What's really astonishing is that there are cases like this. All this time, I thought I was alone."

"You aren't."

"Yeah. I'm getting that. I just hope it isn't too late."

"If it helps," Beau said, "my window into the universe tells me that Quentin is your ace."

"I've sort of been getting that too." She drew a breath. "But he is not going to like what I have to do next."

"You know?"

Diana nodded. "I do now. Seeing this... I remember all the nightmares. All the messages Missy has been trying to send me since I got here. Even before I got here. She's been preparing for this all this time. Knowing I'd come. Knowing Quentin would be here as well. She's been... very patient."

"Some things have to happen just the way they happen. In their own time."

"Ironic that I learn that in a place with no time."

"As long as you learn it."

With a sigh, Diana said, "Anybody ever tell you that you sound a lot like a fortune cookie?"

"It has a familiar ring."

"I'm not surprised. And I don't suppose you can answer the one question I came here this time to ask?"

"Sorry."

"That too will come only in its own time?"

"Yes. Until then, you have other things to worry about, Diana. You've already been here too long."

"I know." The cold had been seeping into her very bones, and she felt stiff, almost sluggish. Even her thoughts were beginning to drift.

"Go back. Now."

Diana looked around her, frowning, and said, "I'm a long way from the door."

"Diana—"

"A long way. And I think..."

Tha-thum.

Tha-thum.

"I think it's looking for me."

Beau came awake with the suddenness of one leaving a nightmare, which was pretty close to the truth. He had to move quickly, and yet his body felt stiff and cold, and as he got himself off his bed and started toward the door, he was abruptly aware of a deeper appreciation of the colorful, three-dimensional world around him.

Stupid thing for an artist to need a reminder of, but one visit to the gray time had certainly cured him of any tendency to take this warm and living world for granted.