The Midnight Tour

baths in here?”

No answer came.

Dana felt a tremor of dread.

“Lynn? Answer up.”

Silence.

“Very funny,” she called.

Nothing.

“Damn it, Lynn!”

Still nothing.

“You just gonna stand out there and pretend you’ve disappeared?”

Lynn didn’t answer.

“Okay,” Dana said. “Great.”

As fast as she could, she finished at the toilet. Holding her shorts up with one hand, she hurried to the door and pulled it open.

Tuck wasn’t standing there, looking pleased by her prank.

Nor was she sprawled on the floor, bloody and dead.

Dana stepped out.

Tuck didn’t seem to be in the kitchen at all.

Heart thudding, Dana buttoned the waist of her shorts. She pulled up the zipper. She buckled her belt.

In the room behind her, the toilet went silent.

Dana heard only her own quick heartbeat and breathing.

“Tuck!” she shouted.

“I’m in the cellar!” Tuck called. Her voice, sounding far away, came through the open pantry door at the other side of the kitchen. “Be right up!”

Dana hurried to the pantry and looked in.

At the back of it, the cellar door stood wide open.

Dana walked slowly to the open door. Stopping, she peered down the steep wooden stairway. In the darkness near the bottom, the beam of a flashlight flitted this way and that. She couldn’t see Tuck, though.

“Are you all right?” she called down the stairs.

“Fine. Just thought I’d check down here and save you the trouble.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I thought the beast had gotten you.”

“Not this time,” Tuck said.

“Anyone down there?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Are you coming up?”

“In a second.”

“Come on up now, okay?”

“Do you wanta come down?”

“Not particularly,” Dana admitted.

“Didn’t think so.”

“But I will if you don’t come up.”

“Okay.Here I come, ready or not.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Tuck stepped into sight. She smiled up at Dana, then switched off her flashlight and started to climb.

“It’s beginning to look like we’ve lost a tourist,” she said.

“What do we do about it?”

“Not much. We’ll go ahead and lock the place up. And we’ll check the parking lot before we leave, see if a car’s been left behind.”

At the top of the stairs, she shut and locked the cellar door.

“Should we tell the police?” Dana asked.

“Tell them what? That one of our tape players is missing?”

That a person is.”

“Somebody might’ve just absconded with one of our machines. It happens.”

“Have you had people. disappear?”

“While taking the tours?”

“Yeah.”

“Not many,” Tuck said, and grinned.

Chapter Nineteen

IN HOT WATER

That night after supper, after reading, after watching some television, Tuck left the room and Dana flipped through channels.

She was feeling groggy. She wondered whether to go to bed now or try to stay up for the eleven o’clock news.

Nothing much of interest seemed to be on the TV.

If she tried to read some more, she would undoubtedly nod off.

Tuck came back into the room. She had changed into a white terry cloth robe.

'Going to bed?” Lynn asked.

'Going for a dip. Want to join me?”

“Are you kidding? It’s freezing out there.”

“It’s not freezing. Anyway,I’m going in the hot tub, not the pool.”

“The hot tub?”

“It’s great on chilly nights like this.”

“Sounds pretty nice,” Danaadmitted.

“Nothing like it. I’ll get us a bottle of wine and meet you out there. We’ll celebrate your first day on the job.”

“Celebrate that I survived it.”

“Exactly.”

Dana shut off the TV.

“I’ll grab a couple of towels, too,” Tuck said. “But make sure you bring something warm to wear for afterwards. A robe, or something. Otherwise, you’ll freeze your tail on the way back in.”

Tuck hurried away.

Dana trotted upstairs. In the guest bedroom, she turned on the light and pulled off her sweatshirt and shivered.

This is nuts, she thought.

Should be fun, though.

She took off the rest of her clothes, tossed her socks and underwear into the hamper, then opened a dresser drawer. She’d brought three swimsuits with her from home: a skimpy white bikini and two red tank suits left over from her days as a lifeguard.

The bikini was meant for a special occasion—maybe an outing on the beach with just the right guy.

As If that’s likely to happen.

Shivering, she pulled out one of the red suits, stepped into it, drew it up her body and slipped her arms through the shoulder straps. When she had it on, she looked at herself in the mirror. The suit was thin and tight. It showed everthing. On lifeguard duty, she used to hide it under an official T-shirt and shorts so that she would only be seen in it during emergencies.