“I hope you also understand that I would never talk against him just to ruin his character or for spite. I would not behave the way he does.”
“I know you well enough to understand that,” she said.
“Then understand that I fully believe what I'm about to tell you is the truth.”
“Tell me, then, for heaven's sake!”
Michael took a deep breath as if to fortify himself for the explanation, or as if he still was afraid she might not believe him. “I have some fairly convincing evidence that Alex Boland is a member of that Satanic cult which has been causing so much trouble lately.”
“Alex?” she asked, stunned at the possibility. She had been willing to consider his friends — but not the son of her employer himself. Those who did awful things were always strangers, not people you knew. People you knew were better than that, unable to commit crimes. Or was that nothing more than her optimism working against her again?
“Alex,” he confirmed. “And not only does it seem that he's a member of the cult, but that he's the head of it, the chief priest.”
“I can hardly see why—”
“These people don't need reasons that normal people would understand,” Michael said. “They operate in another dimension altogether, on a plane of lesser sanity.”
“Still—”
“Think, Katherine!” he demanded. He sounded desperately concerned for her. She remembered the kiss, the way he had been so protective about her in the cafe… “Think of all that's happened in Owlsden since you've come there — including Yuri's murder. Doesn't it seem likely that someone in the house is a cultist?”
“You mean — Alex might have—”
“Killed Yuri.”
She did not reply.
She could not reply.
All that she could think of was Alex Boland's unpleasantly negative outlook on life and the strange, pessimistic conversation of his closest friends…
“Are you there, Katherine?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be ready by eleven?”
“It won't be easy. Couldn't we wait until morning… ” Even though she was frightened badly, she did not want to admit that what Michael had told her might be true.
“Then leave your bags,” he said. “Just come along with me and look at the evidence. If you don't think it incriminates Alex, I'll take you right back to Owlsden. But I don't believe you'll want to go back, not after you see what I've seen.”
“Can't you tell me on the phone?” she asked.
“It loses its dramatic impact that way. I'm not taking any chances on under-selling this to you. I want you to see it, to be as frightened as I was — as I am.”
“I'll be outside at eleven,” she said.
“Not in front of the house.”
“Where, then?”
“At the top of the ski slope,” he said.
“You can bring the Rover up that way?”
“As easy as the road,” he said. “Maybe easier.”
“I'll be there.”
“Take care.”
“I will.”
“Eleven.”
“Sharp,” she said.
She hung up and turned around to go upstairs, the book in her hand forgotten now, and she confronted Alex who stood only a dozen feet away, as if he had been listening.
“Going out?” he asked.
His eyes seemed darker and more intense than ever.
“In the morning,” she said, thinking fast. She tried desperately to remember how much she had said, what details he might have learned from hearing one side of the conversation. “If Lydia doesn't have anything for me to do.”
“Going with Michael Harrison?” he asked.
“Yes, as a matter of fact.”
How long had he been standing there? How much did he know, and how much was he guessing at? Had he heard her mention his name…?
“I wish you wouldn't, Katherine.”
“You've got an obsession about him, haven't you?”
“No. I just know him better than you do.”
“Your mother thinks he is—”
“I know him better than she does.”
“Well, I like him.”
“Katherine, I honestly believe that he is capable of almost anything.” He stepped into the center of the hall, his arms spread slightly at his sides, as if he were pleading with her. Or as if he were blocking the way so that she could not get past him unless he permitted it.
“Must you always think the worst of everyone and everything?” she asked, a bit too harshly. She was goaded on by fear as well as by anger. “You never look at the positive side, the bright side of anything, Alex. Sometimes, you're absolutely morbid.”
He seemed shocked by the evaluation, but he recovered quickly as she took a step toward him, his hands still slightly open at his sides. “Are you going skiing with him?”
She hesitated, realized that he must have overheard something to do with the rendezvous point. It would be better to admit to this much so as not to make him doubt her word that the meeting was not until the following morning. “Yes, skiing,” she said.
“Maybe I could go along, make it a threesome,” he said, though it was surely the last thing in the world he would enjoy.
“Maybe you could,” she said, rather than antagonize him. Since she wouldn't be going skiing with Michael in the morning, what harm did it do to agree with Alex now?
“What time?” he asked.
“Eleven.”
“At the slope?”
“Yes.”
He stepped out of her way and smiled at her. “I'll be there just to prove that I don't always look on the gloomy side of things — and to show you I can get along with anyone, even Michael Harrison.”
“Good!” Katherine said, smiling cheerily. The smile was utterly false. She wondered if he could see that, and she looked at him as she passed him on her way to the stairs. His eyes were black, hard and very intense, but it was impossible to tell what he was thinking.
Upstairs, she locked her door.
It was twenty minutes of eight. More than three hours to wait until she could get out of Owlsden. She knew, now, that she would be greatly relieved to get out, even if Michael's “proof against Alex did not convince her. She had a premonition, however, that she would be thoroughly convinced…
CHAPTER 13
When Katherine had first entered the orphanage at the age of eight, she had had a run-in with Mrs. Coleridge on her third day there.
Mrs. Coleridge was a heavy set, severe woman who wore her hair drawn away from her face pinned in a bun on top of her head. Her eyebrows were thick, her lips thin and set. She never smiled at anyone, and she had a long list of dos and don'ts by which every child in the institution had to abide or suffer punishment. One of her rules was that every child should go through a period of mourning after they arrived, before actually entering into any of the activities of their new life. While Katherine had looked forward eagerly to a picnic scheduled for the third day of her stay, Mrs. Coleridge was shocked to find that she had any notion of enjoying herself so soon.
In her large, dimly lighted office on the ground floor of the main residence hall, Mrs. Coleridge took the young Katherine to task. “Your mother and father have only been gone a little more than a week,” she said, looking meaningfully at the child.
Katherine said nothing.
“You know our rules here?”
“Some of them,” Katherine said quietly.
“Maybe you know that we feel that two weeks of mourning are required before you can join right in with the other children.”
Katherine had nothing to say.
“You'll go to chapel, of course, and to Sunday evening prayer, but as for a picnic…”
“I want to go too,” Katherine said.
The woman looked at her, scowled. “I don't think that I have made myself perfectly clear, child.”