Her faith had been rewarded. Bill Cook, the man’s name. Awful plain name, she thought, but he’d made a few billion dollars on it with a medical company up in Bloomington, and then he’d found his way down here and not only seen what had to be done but could afford to have it done.
So now they were back, both of them, the West Baden Springs Hotel and the French Lick Springs Resort, buildings that seemed as out of place in this valley as a pair of giraffes at a dog show, and though she had no use for the ugly fake riverboat casino that was built to draw people down, she understood its purpose. Most irksome part of that was that the thing wasn’t really a riverboat, was nothing but a building with a moat around it, but evidently that was enough to please the legislators, who wouldn’t allow anything but riverboat casinos in the state. You had to wonder what that said about the quality of brains in the statehouse, that they could fool themselves into thinking a building was a boat just because you filled a ditch around it with water, but Anne had been around for too many years to hold much hope for government anyhow. They could have declared the thing a spaceship for all she cared as long as it allowed the hotels to come back.
She’d lived to see it. That was a special thing, and one that returned her faith in the storm. It was coming, someday, a dark, furious cloud, and though she didn’t know what role she would play in that, she knew it was important that she be ready. Part of her wanted the storm; part of her dreaded it. As much as she loved them-those brilliant flashes of lightning, the terrible screaming winds-she feared them, too. They took all the powers of man and sneered at them.
A convention of some sort was in the hotel today, and the place was particularly active, echoing with voices and laughter and footfalls on the parquet. It soothed her like a hand on the shoulder. She asked Brian for one more, smiled to herself as she saw him fill the short glass with nothing but tonic and ice before adding the lime. He knew the rules. Anne was here for the sounds and the sights, not the sauce.
She took the tonic in slow, and by the time it was gone, that comforting noise and bustle and the soft velvet armchair were pulling her down to sleep, and she knew it was time to go. Start falling asleep down here and she’d begin to seem less charming to the staff. Right now, with her daily gin and her smiles and occasional barbed jokes, she was something of a local treasure. Valued, appreciated, even by the younger ones. She liked that role, and understood all too well that it could quickly be erased by one drooling nap.
She got to her feet, taking care to relish that tug of pain in her lower back, a tug that she wouldn’t have if she couldn’t still get to her feet. Left a few dollars for Brian-Thank you, Mrs. McKinney, have a good day and we’ll see you tomorrow-and walked away from the bar and back into the rotunda. Stood in the middle and looked up at the dome, with the sun shining down and the place glittering, took a deep breath, and thanked the good Lord for one more afternoon like this. Precious things. Precious.
Out the main doors and back onto the steps and what do you know-there was some wind to greet her. First she’d felt all day. Nothing of real notice, just a gentle, experimental puff, like the breeze wasn’t sure about it yet, but it was there all the same. She stood at the top of the steps and watched the bushes rustle and the leaves turn and flutter, saw that the wind was coming up out of the southwest now. Interesting. She hadn’t expected the shift today. The air was still hot, might’ve even pushed a few degrees past ninety by now, but she thought she could detect a chill to the wind, almost as if there was some cold trapped in it, surrounded by warmth but still there nevertheless.
She’d go home and take a few readings, see what sense she could make of it. All she knew now was that there was something in the air. Something on the way.
6
IT WAS A SIX-HOUR drive, the final third a hell of a lot more pleasant than the first two. Getting out of the city and into Indiana was a nightmare in itself, and then Eric was rewarded by only as bleak a drive as he could think of, Chicago to Indianapolis. South of Indy, though, things began to turn. The flatlands turned into hills, the endless fields filled with trees, the straight road began to curve. He stopped for lunch in Bloomington, left the highway and drove into town to see the campus, one he’d always heard was beautiful. It didn’t disappoint. He had a burger and a beer at a place called Nick’s, the beer something local, Upland Wheat. When in Rome, right? Turned out to be as good a warm-weather beer as he’d ever tasted, sort of thing made you want to stretch out in the sun and relax for a while. There was driving to be done, though, so he left it at just the one beer and got back into the Acura and pushed south.
Past Bloomington to Bedford, and then the highway hooked and lost a lane in a town called Mitchell and began to dip and rise as it carved through the hills. Everything was green, lush, and alive, and now and then flatbed trucks loaded with fresh-quarried limestone lumbered by. There weren’t many houses along this stretch of the highway, but if Eric had had a dollar for every one with a basketball hoop outside, he’d have been a rich man by the time he hit Paoli.
He knew from the map that Paoli meant he was close, and once he figured out what road to take away from the square-a mural covering the entire side of a building pointed the way to French Lick-he laid a little heavier on the gas, ready to have this drive done.
A dull, constant headache that had lodged in the back of his skull somewhere north of Indianapolis, then faded while he had his beer, now returned with a little stronger pulse to it, one that made him wince every now and then as it hit a particularly inspired chord. He had Excedrin in the suitcase, would have to take some as soon as he got to the hotel. He’d hoped things might turn a little more exotic as he neared West Baden and French Lick, but there was just more farm country. He ran past one white rail fence that seemed to stretch for a mile-would hate to paint that thing-and not much else that was worth notice. Then a few buildings began to show themselves, and a sign told him he’d reached West Baden, and he thought, You’ve got to be kidding me.
Because there was nothing here. A cluster of old buildings and a barbecue stand, and that was it. Then he felt his eyes drawn away from the road, up the hill to the right, and he let off the gas and felt his breath catch in his chest as the speed fell off.
There was the hotel. And Alyssa Bradford had used the correct word in describing it, because only one word came close-surreal. The place was that, and then some. Pale yellow towers flanked a mammoth crimson dome, and the rest of the structure fell away beneath, hundreds of windows visible in the stone. It looked more like a castle than a hotel, something that belonged in Europe, not on this stretch of farmland.
A horn blew behind him, and Eric realized he’d coasted almost to a stop in the middle of the road. He pushed on the gas again, found a set of twin stone arches that guarded a long, winding brick drive that led up to the hotel. West Baden Springs-Carlsbad of America, the arches said. He knew from his research that referred to a famed European mineral spa.
The place gave him an immediate desire to reach for the camera, get this recorded now, as if it might soon disappear.
He wasn’t certain the brick road was a legitimate entrance, so he drove past the stone arches in search of the parking lot and, within the space of a blink and a yawn, found himself in French Lick. Out of one town and into the other, all in what felt like six city blocks. They were separate towns, but the reality was, they felt like one place, and the only reason they hadn’t merged into one town over the years was those hotels. They’d been rivals at one time, French Lick and West Baden, and many locals just referred to the area as Springs Valley.