scary, yeah, dark and strange, but they also knew that it was silly,
that it was meant to be fun, that it was an adventurous journey down a
long road of time to an unknown destination in a far and wondrous place.
Holly Thorne, who suddenly liked her name, knew where she was going and
why.
She knew what she hoped to get from Jim Ironheart-and it was not a good
story, journalistic accolades, a Pulitzer. What she wanted from him was
better than that, more rewarding and enduring, and she was eager to
confront him with her request.
The funny thing was, if he agreed and gave her what she wanted, she
might be buying into more than excitement, joy, and a meaningful
existence. She knew there was danger in it, as well. If she got what
she asked from him, she might be dead a year from now, a month from now
or next week. But for the moment, at least, she focused on the prospect
of joy and was not deterred by the possibility of early death and
endless darkness.
Part TWo Nowhere can a secret keep always secret dark and deep, half so
well as in the past buried deep to last, to last.
Keep it in your own dark heart otherwise the rumors start.
After many years have buried secrets over which you worried no confidant
can then betray all the words you didn’t he say.
Only you can then exhume secrets safe within the tomb of memory, of
memory, within the tomb of memory.
-THE ROOK OF COUNTED SORROWS In the real world as in dreams, nothing is
quite what it seems.
-THE BOOK OF COUNTED SORROWS II ‘I AUGUST 27 THROUGH AUGUST 29 Holly
changed planes in Denver, gained two time zones traveling west, and
arrived at at Los Angeles International at eleven o’clock Monday
morning. Unencumbered by luggage, she retrieved her rental car from the
parking garage, drove south along the coast to Laguna Niguel, and
reached Jim Ironheart’s house by twelve-thirty.
She parked in front of his garage, followed the tile-trimmed walkway
directly to his front door, and rang the bell. He did not answer. She
rang it again. He still did not answer. She rang it repeatedly, until
a reddish impression of the button marked the pad of her right thumb.
Stepping back, she studied the first- and second-floor windows.
Plantation shutters were closed over all of them. She could see the
wide slats through the glass.
“I know you’re in there,” she said quietly.
She returned to her car, put the windows down, and sat behind the
steering wheel, waiting for him to come out. Sooner or later he would
need food, or laundry detergent, or medical attention, or toilet paper,
something, and then she would have him.
Unfortunately, the weather was not conducive to a long stakeout.
The past few days had been warm but mild. Now the August heat had
returned like a bad dragon in a storybook: scorching the land with its
fiery breath.
The palm trees drooped and the flowers began to wilt in the blistering
sun.
Behind all of the elaborate watering systems that maintained the lush
landscaping, the dispossessed desert waited to reassert itself Baking as
swiftly and evenly as a muffin in a convection oven, Holly finally put
up the windows, started the car, and switched on the air conditioner.
The cold draft was heavenly, but before long the car began to overheat;
the needle rose swiftly toward the red section of the arc on the
temperature gauge.
At one-fifteen, just three-quarters of an hour after she had arrived,
Holly threw the car in reverse, backed out of the driveway, and returned
to the Laguna Hills Motor Inn. She changed into tan shorts and a
canary-yellow calypso blouse that left her belly bare. She put on her
new running shoes, but without socks this time. At a nearby Sav-On
drugstore, she bought a vinyl-strap folding lounge chair, beach towel,
tube of tanning cream, picnic cooler, bag of ice, six-pack of diet soda,
and a Travis McGee paperback by John D. MacDonald. She already had
sunglasses.
She was back at Ironheart’s house on Bougainvillea Way before twoù