“You want a deputy to meet them at the cabin?”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
“I think my wife’s in danger.”
“What kind of danger?”
“I think the girl, Jane Doe, might be violent. Maybe even homicidal.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because under hypnosis she claimed to be Millie Parker.”
“Who’s that?”
“Millie Parker once tried to kill her mother.”
“She did? When was that?”
“Back in 1905.”
“Then she’d be a little old lady today, for Christ’s sake. The kid’s only fourteen or fifteen.”
“You don’t understand. Millie Parker’s been dead for about seventy-six years and—”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute! What the hell are you saying? That your wife might be murdered by some kid who’s been dead for most of the century?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Then what do you mean?”
“I… don’t know.”
Werth would think that he had been out boozing all night, or that he had started the morning with a couple of joints of good grass.
Besides, it wasn’t fair to Jane to accuse her publicly of being a potential killer. Perhaps Carol was right. Maybe the kid was just a victim. Except for what she said under hypnosis, she certainly seemed to be incapable of violence.
On the other hand, of all the people she could have claimed to be, why had she said that she was Millicent Parker, the would-be murderess? Where had she heard that name before. Didn’t the use of it indicate latent hostility?
Paul swiveled his typing chair away from the desk and stared out the window at the gray sky. The wind was picking up by the minute. The clouds were racing westward across the sky, as if they were enormous, swift, dark ships with billowing sails the color of thunderstorms.
BLADE, BLOOD, DEATH, TOMB, KILL, CAROL.
I’ve got to go to the cabin, he thought with sudden decisiveness, and he got to his feet.
Maybe he was overreacting to this Millicent Parker business, but he couldn’t just sit here, wondering….
He went into the master bedroom to throw some things into a suitcase. After only a brief hesitation, he decided to pack his .38 revolver.
The girl said, “How much farther to the cabin?”
“Another twenty minutes,” Carol said. “The whole drive usually takes just about two hours and fifteen minutes, and we’re pretty much on schedule.”
The mountains were cool and green. Some trees had already been touched by the artful hand of autumn, and most—all but the evergreens—would change the color of their leaves during the next few weeks. Today, however, the predominant shade was still green, with a smattering of gold here and there, an occasional touch of red. The edge of the forest—wherever the meadow or the roadway met the trees—was decorated with a few end-of-the-season wildflowers, blue and white and purple.
“It’s beautiful up here,” Jane said as they followed the two-lane county road around a curve. The right-hand bank, which sloped down to the macadam, was covered with vividly green clusters of rhododendron shrubs.
“I love the Pennsylvania mountains,” Carol said. She felt more relaxed now than she had in weeks. “It’s so peaceful here. Wait till you’ve been at the cabin a day or two. You’ll forget the rest of the world exists.”
They came out of the curve onto an ascending straightaway, where the interlocking branches of the trees formed a tunnel over portions of the lane. At those points where the trees parted sufficiently to provide a glimpse of the sky, there was nothing to be seen but massive, gray-black clouds clotted together in surging, ugly, threatening formations.
“I sure hope it doesn’t rain and spoil our first day here,” Jane said.
“Rain won’t spoil anything,” Carol assured her. “If we’re forced to stay inside, we’ll just throw a whole bunch of logs in the big stone fireplace and roast some hot dogs indoors. And we have a closetful of games to help us pass rainy days. Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Risk, Battleship, and at least a dozen others. I think we’ll be able to avoid cabin fever.”
“It’s going to be fun,” Jane said enthusiastically.
The canopy of trees parted overhead, and the September sky churned darkly.
11