Shut Your Eyes Tight

Hardwick grinned. “What do you think of that?”

“I think he’s-”

“Smooth as a greased pig?”

Gurney shrugged. “I’d say he’s good at managing the way people see things.”

Hardwick pointed at the screen.

Ashton was taking a cell phone from a clip on his belt. He looked at it, frowned, pressed a button on it, and put it to his ear. He said something, but the girls in the pews had resumed talking to one another, and his words were again lost in the background chatter.

“Are you catching any of that?” asked Gurney.

Hardwick watched Ashton’s lips, then shook his head. “Same as before, when he was talking to the blonde. He could have said anything.”

The call ended, and Ashton replaced the phone in his pocket. A girl far in the back was raising her hand. Unseen or ignored by Ashton, she stood and waved it side to side, and that seemed to get his attention.

“Yes? Ladies… I think someone has a question, or a comment?”

The girl-who happened to be the almond-eyed blonde to whom Hardwick had just referred-asked her question. “I heard a rumor that Hector Flores was seen here today, right here in the chapel. Is that true?”

Ashton appeared uncharacteristically flustered. “What… Who told you that?”

“I don’t know. People were talking in the stairwell in the main house. I’m not sure who it was. I couldn’t see them from where I was standing. But one of them said she saw him-that she saw Hector. If that’s true, that’s scary.”

“If it were true, it would be,” said Ashton. “Maybe the person who said she saw him can tell us more about it. We’re all here. Whoever said it must be here, too.” He looked out at the assembly in an expectant silence, letting a protracted five seconds pass before adding with an avuncular tolerance, “Maybe some people just like to spread scary rumors.” But he didn’t sound entirely at ease. “Are there any more questions?”

One of the younger-looking girls raised her hand and asked, “How much longer do we have to stay in here?”

Ashton smiled like a loving father. “As long as the process is helpful and not a minute longer. I would hope that in each of your groups you’re sharing your thoughts, concerns, feelings-especially the fears that have naturally been triggered by Savannah’s death. I want you to express everything that comes to mind, to take advantage of the help your group facilitators can provide, the help you each can offer one another. The process works. We all know it works. Trust it.”

Ashton stepped down from the raised platform and began circulating around the room, appearing to offer a word of encouragement here and there but mainly observing the group discussions in progress in the pews. Sometimes he would appear to be listening carefully, other times withdrawing into his own thoughts.

As Gurney watched, his attention was drawn again to the fundamental weirdness of the scene. Deconsecrated though it might be, the building still looked, sounded, smelled, and felt very much like a church. Combining that with the wild and twisted energies of Mapleshade’s current residents was disconcerting.

In the chapel scene on the screen, Ashton was continuing his leisurely stroll among the students and their “facilitators,” but Gurney had stopped paying attention.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against the velvet back cushion of his chair. He concentrated as best he could on the simple feeling of his breath passing in and out through his nostrils. He was trying to clear his mind of what felt like an incoherent tangle of debris. He almost succeeded, but one little item refused to be swept away.

One little item.

It was a comment by Hardwick that had been gnawing at the edge of his consciousness-the comment he’d made when Gurney had asked him if he could tell what Ashton was saying to the girl who’d walked over to him when he entered the chapel.

Hardwick had replied that Ashton’s voice, amid all the others in the chapel, was indistinct, the words indecipherable.

He could have said absolutely anything to her.

That notion had been bothering Gurney.

And now he knew why.

It had triggered a memory, at first below the level of consciousness.

But now it came vividly to mind.

Another time. Another place. Scott Ashton in earnest conversation with a young blonde on the broad sweep of a manicured lawn. A conversation that could not be overheard. A conversation whose words were lost in the undertone of two hundred other voices. A conversation in which Scott Ashton could have said anything to Jillian Perry.

He could have said anything. And that single fact could change everything.

Hardwick was watching him. “You all right?”

Gurney nodded slightly, as if any greater movement might jar apart the infinitely delicate chain of possibilities he was considering.

He could have said anything. There really was no way of knowing what he said, because the actual voices couldn’t be heard. So what might he have said?

Suppose what he said was, “No matter what happens, don’t say a word.”

Suppose what he said was, “No matter what happens, don’t open the door.”

Suppose what he said was, “I have a surprise for you. Shut your eyes tight.”

Good God, suppose that’s exactly what he said! “For the biggest surprise of your life, shut your eyes tight.”

Chapter 76

Another layer

“The hell’s the matter?” demanded Hardwick.

Gurney just shook his head, not ready to answer, as he followed the logical chain of possibilities in his mind with an animal excitement that brought him to his feet. He began to pace, slowly at first, across the antique carpet in front of Ashton’s desk. The large porcelain lamp on the near corner cast a soft circle of light, illuminating the intricate garden design in the carpet’s fine weave.

If he was right-and it was at least possible that he was right-what would follow from that?

On the screen, Ashton could be seen standing next to one of the dark red drapes that covered portions of the chapel walls, his gaze drifting benignly over the assembly.

“What is it?” demanded Hardwick. “The hell’s on your mind?”

Gurney stopped his pacing long enough to lower the sound slightly on the computer monitor in order to better focus on his own train of thought. “That comment you made a minute ago? That Ashton could have said anything?”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“You may have demolished one of the key assumptions we’ve been making about Jillian’s murder.”

“What assumption?”

“The biggest one of all. The assumption that we know why she went into the cottage.”

“Well, we know why she said she went in. On the video she told Ashton she wanted to persuade Flores to come out for the wedding toast. And Ashton argued with her. Told her not to bother with Flores. But she went right the fuck in, anyway.”

Gurney’s eyes gleamed. “Suppose that conversation never happened.”

“It was on the video.” Hardwick looked as annoyed by Gurney’s excitement as he was confused by what Gurney was saying.