Кей Хупер - Chill Of Fear

"The waiter brought up two cups," he continued, "so maybe he knew something I didn't. Then again, maybe it was just a screwup with room service. In any case, you're welcome to join me. There's plenty." He gestured toward a nearby small table, on which sat a silver tray with a coffeepot, cream jug and sugar bowl, the second cup and saucer, and a plate holding assorted pastries.

"I — you obviously wanted to be alone up here," she managed to say finally.

"Want didn't have much to do with it," he said. "Most of the early birds are up for a reason. Golf, swimming, the morning ritual of coffee and newspaper. I'm just up because I couldn't sleep. And up here because I might as well be looking at nice scenery if I have to be awake at the crack of dawn. How about you?"

Diana hesitated for another moment, then went to the small table and poured coffee into the second cup, vaguely surprised to find her hands steady. "I couldn't sleep either. Think maybe the place is haunted?"

She had meant it as a lame joke, but when he didn't respond right away, looked up quickly to catch a fleeting expression she instinctively identified as pain or loss. He does think the place is haunted. And the ghosts are his.

"I think a sleepless night could make me believe in almost anything," he said lightly, smiling. "But then the sun comes up, the world looks and feels the way it should, and I'm not quite so willing to believe. My name's Quentin Hayes, by the way."

"I'm — Diana Brisco."

"Nice to meet you, Diana Brisco."

He stepped toward her, free hand outstretched, and Diana hesitated only an instant before shaking hands with the man whose face she had sketched yesterday.

Before ever setting eyes on him.

Madison Sims was what her mother termed "an imaginative child," a definition Madison herself understood perfectly. It meant that her mother and other grownups didn't believe her when she told them that her so-called imaginary friends were actually real — if not flesh and blood.

Madison was a very bright eight-year-old and had caught on quickly to the fact that saying things like that made people uncomfortable. And her uncomfortable, since it led to conversations between her parents in hushed voices, and visits to doctors, and wary looks from other grownups.

So she had stopped talking about her friends, and when her mother oh-so-casually asked about them, had lied without a blink. Did she still see children dressed as if they had stepped out of an old movie, children who seemingly walked through walls and whose laughter and voices only she could hear?

Nope. Nuh-uh. Not Madison.

Mama wouldn't be mad at her if she told the truth, she knew that, didn't she?

She knew it. But Madison had discovered even in her young life that there was truth... and then there was truth. And she had learned that some truths were better kept to herself.

Besides, she didn't always see the other children. Never at home, in their almost-new house near the ocean. And seldom at the homes of other family or her "real" friends. Just, mostly, at places like The Lodge, old places.

She liked The Lodge, even though there was a sad feeling to some of the rooms and parts of the grounds. She loved the gardens, where, she had discovered the previous day, it was possible to walk for hours with her little Yorkie, Angelo, and not be scolded by the gardeners for trampling the flowers.

Where the other children liked to play.

It was still very early when she was allowed to excuse herself from the breakfast table and left her parents to finish their meal on the veranda while she and Angelo went off to explore the gardens they hadn't got to the previous day.

"Don't go outside the fence, Madison," her mother warned.

"I won't, Mama. Come on, Angelo."

The Lodge provided a little postcard map of the gardens, and Madison consulted that as she and her attentive companion paused just out of sight of the veranda. Rose Garden, she'd seen that yesterday after they'd arrived here. And the greenhouse. She'd also seen the Rock Garden the previous day. But she hadn't seen the Zen Garden, and that certainly sounded like something worth seeing.

She glanced back toward The Lodge, her gaze traveling up to the observation tower she had also seen the day before. Her eyesight was very good, and she could make out a man and woman standing up there, looking down at her.

"This way, Madison."

She looked back toward the gardens to see a smiling little girl beckoning. Feeling suddenly happy, Madison waved gaily to the couple up in the tower and then followed this new friend toward the path leading off into the Zen Garden.

"Is she yours?" Diana asked as the little girl waved up at them and then raced off with her dog toward one of the garden paths.

"No, I've never seen her before." Quentin frowned slightly, adding, "Haven't seen any other kids here, in fact, since I got here yesterday. I hope someone's keeping an eye on her. This isn't the safest place for children."

"Isn't it? Why?"

He returned his attention to Diana and smiled, neither of which was difficult. "Oh... streams and ponds, horses, snakes from the mountains. That sort of thing."

It was her turn to frown just a little, those very green eyes of hers direct and thoughtful. "I get the feeling that's not really what you meant, though."

Quentin was hardly in the habit of confiding in strangers, so he was surprised by his impulse to confide in this one. He was unusually drawn to her. There was something about Diana Brisco, something in those green eyes or the vulnerable curve of her mouth.

She was striking rather than pretty, with the coppery hair and very fair skin of a true redhead, paired with those unusual green eyes. Her features otherwise were ordinary, though her face held the sharpened look of someone under stress of some kind. And though the fashion magazines would have called her slender, Quentin thought she was too thin by a good ten or fifteen pounds.

She wasn't his type at all, yet from the instant he had heard her voice and turned his head to see her come into the tower, he had been conscious of the strangest feeling. It was why he had offered to shake hands with her, though that was far more a business or professional gesture than one between strangers meeting casually at a resort.

He had needed to touch her, almost as if something inside him sought reassurance that she was real, that she was here. Finally, she was here.

Peculiar, to say the least.

And now, standing no more than a couple of feet away from her, he was highly conscious of the warm scents of soap and some kind of herbal shampoo. Aware of the gold flecks in her green eyes, and even of her quiet breathing. Hell, he could almost hear her heart beating.

He told himself to turn off the spider sense, but of course that was impossible: whenever he was focused or concentrating, that "extra" sense kicked in, and all his other senses became almost painfully heightened. That was, of course, all it was. He just didn't know why he was so focused on her, so intent.

"I guess it's none of my business," she murmured.

The silence had definitely gone on too long.

"I don't know that it's my business," he told her ruefully. "But I tend to visit The Lodge once every year or so, and over time I've... become interested in its history. It's an old place, so there's plenty of history and quite a few tragedies, some of them involving children."

Diana glanced back out and down toward where the little girl had disappeared, then returned her gaze to Quentin. "I see. I didn't know that. But then, this is my first visit here. I haven't had a chance to look into the history of the place."

"I'm here on vacation," he said, not even completely sure why he wanted to steer the conversation away from The Lodge's potential danger to children when he had, after all, brought up the subject himself. "How about you?"