"Robby's right," Harper declared as she perfunctorily opened the door on her side and stepped out into the driveway.
I got out, took Harper's arm, and together we started up the flight of granite stairs. I looked down to check to make certain there were no bloodstains on my clothes. I had not been wearing my jacket during my joust with Insolers, and that covered my bloody shirt. A bandage and ascot fashioned from Insolers' shirt covered the wound on my neck. I decided I looked quite presentable for a man who'd come close to having his head lopped off a short time before.
"Can I help you?"
We halted on the third step, turned to our right, the direction the voice had come from. There was a large rose garden fifteen yards from the driveway, and now a woman stepped from it through a trellis. She was quite tall and slender, stunningly beautiful, with long brown hair and large, soulful brown eyes. She wore a heavy denim gardener's apron and held a large pair of pruning shears.
"We're here to see Countess Rawlings," Harper said brightly, smiling. She made it sound as if we were no more than neighbors from down the road popping in for a spot of tea. "My name is Harper Rhys-Whitney, and this is Dr. Robert Frederickson, the noted criminologist. We have a matter of some urgency to discuss with Countess Rawlings. Would you be kind enough to inform her that we're here, and ask if she could give us a few minutes of her time?"
The brown-eyed woman set down the pruning shears she had been holding, wiped the palms of her hands on her apron, then brushed back a strand of hair from her face. She glanced uneasily in the direction of the green Saab, where Garth and Veil were watching us intently, then looked back at us. "I'm Jan Rawlings," she said tentatively, her mouth forming a nervous smile. "How can I help you?"
Now, I thought, there was an excellent question, equaled in profundity only by the question of what was going to be the first question I was going to ask. Harper solved the dilemma for me. "We'd like to talk to you about a man named John Sinclair," she said sweetly. "Do you know him, Lady Rawlings?"
The woman's mouth dropped open, and she took a small step backward. She certainly did know him, I thought, and felt my heartbeat accelerate. There was no artifice in the woman; shock- and fear-were clearly evident in her large, expressive eyes. She immediately tried to recover and disguise her initial reaction, but it was an impossible task. She put both her hands to her mouth and turned her head away for a moment, obviously trying to collect her thoughts. Finally, she shoved her hands into the pockets of her gardener's apron, turned her attention back to us. "No," she said in a trembling voice. "I'm afraid the name isn't familiar to me. I'm sorry. Has something. . happened to this man?"
If her first reaction hadn't given her away, her question surely would have. The fear I had seen in her eyes had not been for herself. I strongly suspected that Countess Jan Rawlings and John Sinclair were something more than just good friends. "Lady Rawlings," I said quickly, suddenly feeling sorry for this woman we had so thoroughly shocked by showing up on her doorstep, "nothing has happened to him that we know of, but a great number of things have been happening to us. It's why we have to talk to him. People have been trying to kill my friends and me. I think John Sinclair knows who these people are, and he may know how to stop them. I promise you we can be trusted. If you want, I'll give you the names of some important people you can call to check up on me."
The woman lifted her chin slightly, sniffed. "I'm sorry, sir, but no purpose would be served by checking up on you. I'm sure you can be trusted, but I have nothing to entrust you with. I can't help you. Please leave."
"Duane Insolers told us to come here," I said, watching her carefully.
Her startled reaction was, if anything, even more pronounced than when Harper had mentioned the name of John Sinclair. "No," she said in a strangled voice. "Oh, no."
"No, Duane Insolers wouldn't tell us that, Lady Rawlings?"
"No, I don't know any such person!" she snapped, clearly angry now. "You all have to leave this minute! If you don't, I'll call the police!"
I looked toward the car, motioned for Garth and Veil to present our calling card. The woman seemed numb. She had placed her hands back on her face, pressed against her cheeks, and she didn't protest when Garth and Veil got out of the car. They went to the rear of the Saab, opened the trunk, and pulled out a thoroughly dispirited Duane Insolers. They removed their belts from his wrists and ankles, and each firmly took hold of one of his arms as they marched him across the driveway to where we stood. Insolers seemed very different now from the man who had defied death in an attempt to get us to turn back; he looked defeated, and he averted his gaze as the woman shot him a fiery, accusing look.
"Duane," Jan Rawlings said softly, "what have you done?"
"Jan," Insolers murmured, "I can't tell you how sorry I am. I tried to stop them from coming here."
The woman's initial shock had turned to outrage and seething anger, which now shimmered in her voice. "Duane, what have you told these people?"
"Nothing. Be careful what you say, Jan."
"Four strangers show up at my home to ask about Chant, they pull you out of the trunk of their car, and you tell me to be careful what I say? You've done something terrible, Duane. How could you? He trusted you completely."
I looked at Insolers, who had begun nervously glancing around us, and up at the sky. He, too, had seen the helicopters. "Damn," I said quietly. "So you're a friend of his too, part of the inner circle, just like Bo Wahlstrom, Gerard Patreaux, the Nicaraguan woman, and God knows how many other people in important places. If you'd told me that in the beginning, it would have saved us all a lot of trouble. What the hell are you up to?" When he didn't answer, I turned to the woman. "Is he here, Lady Rawlings? We're not hunting him like the others. We know he's not what most people think he is. We won't betray him, or you, but I have to talk to him. Maybe we can help each other."
"No, he's not here," the woman said coldly.
"Jan-!"
"Shut up, Duane. You've already done enough damage with your mouth, and we're not going to be able to lie our way out of it. I'm not as good a liar as you are."
"Will he be coming here eventually, Lady Rawlings?" I asked quietly, glancing at Insolers, who was continuing to scan the sky.
"I don't know," the woman sighed. "Who are you people? What do you want?"
"It's a long story which I'd love to tell you, Lady Rawlings. I'd very much like to hear your story too."
"They're here, Jan," Insolers said, his voice firmer now, unapologetic, "and they're not going away until they hear what we have to say. It's true that they can be trusted. We all have to talk, and I suggest we go inside. Also, the car should be moved out of sight."
Jan Rawlings sighed resignedly. "I'll have someone put the car around in the back," she said, heading up the stairs and motioning for us to follow her. "Welcome to my home."
"I met Chant in New York," the beautiful, brown-eyed woman said as she poured Earl Grey tea into fine blue china cups. After hearing our story, she no longer seemed angry or shocked, but had become warm and courteous toward us. I suspected that Harper, with her decidedly warm and reassuring presence, had more than a little to do with Jan Rawlings' change of attitude. I was glad my snake-charming love was with us. Also, although it could well turn out to be an illusion, I felt safer within the thick stone walls of the castle.
She finished pouring, sat down next to Harper, across from Veil and me, on the semicircular sofa in the center of the castle's massive, two-story-high library that came complete with two walk-in fireplaces. "Of course, he wasn't using his real name. He told me his name was Neil Alter. Even if he had said who he really was, it wouldn't have meant anything to me. I'd never heard of John Sinclair. I'd been working for the city's Human Services Department, and he'd been referred to me for job counseling."