The Midnight Tour

Afterward, Sandy took Eric into the shower with her. Standing under the hot spray, she held him to her chest.

Eric had a lump on his head. It must’ve been sore, because he winced when Sandy touched it—even when she kissed it.

Otherwise, he seemed fine. Maybe a little more subdued than usual.

“My little guy,” she said, caressing him. “You’re such a brave little guy. You knew mommy was in trouble and you dashed to the rescue. My hero. Of course, I oughta spank your little ass for breaking the crib.”

She patted his little ass gently.

Then she started to cry.

Eric made quiet whimpery sounds against her neck.

After a while, Sandy sniffed and sighed. She said, “How do you feel about blowing this town, honey? Cause I guess we can’t stay. Not after this.”

Chapter Two

THE BEAST HOUSE BUS—June, 1997

As the bus started across the Golden Gate Bridge, the young woman in front stood up with her microphone and turned to face the riders. “Good morning, everyone! Welcome aboard! I’ll be your guide for the trip out to Malcasa Point this morning. My name is Patty—and yes, I’m Irish. My grandfather hails from Cork. His name is Bob.”

A few of the riders chuckled.

“I know, I know,” Patty said. “Lame joke.”

“What a dip,” Monica muttered.

Owen nodded and gave her a slight smile. He thought it was a bit early in the game to be calling Patty a dip. Monica, obviously, had taken an instant dislike to her. Monica took instant dislikes to a great many things, but especially to other women...and most especially to attractive ones.

Patty was more attractive than most. Owen supposed she was about twenty-five years old. Her deeply tanned skin and short brown hair made her look athletic. Though you couldn’t call her slender, she wasn’t fat, either. Stout, maybe. Or built. Owen thought she looked very good in the tan shirt and shorts of her guide uniform.

“We’re now crossing San Francisco’s famous Golden Gate Bridge,” Patty said. “If you look out the windows, you’ll see that it is not golden, at all. It’s red. It used to be golden, but the Bridge Authority changed its color to blood red in 1981 in honor of its gory neighbor to the north, Beast House.”

Several riders chuckled and a few even clapped.

“That’s God’s-own-truth,” Patty said, raising her right hand.

Monica leaned over and whispered to Owen, “That isn’t true, is It?”

“Sure, I think so,” he said.

“Can’t be. They wouldn’t paint it red because of some stupid tourist trap. Besides, that place is like ninety miles away.”

“You’re probably right.”

“As you may already know,” Patty continued, “the Golden Gate Bridge was given its name in honor of the famed beavenly Golden Gates belonging to Saint Peter. That’s because so many people have entered Saint Peter’s Golden Gates by jumping off this one.”

With that, Patty received general laughter and applause.

“Thank you, thank you. None of what I’ve just told you is true, of course. My grandfather Bob from Cork did kiss the Blarney Stone, and passed its gift of gab down to me. It’s in my genes, but we won’t get into that. Anyhow, this is the Beast House Bus. If you want the facts about Golden Gate Bridge, take a Gray Line Tour—though I don’t recommend it. I took the Gray Line city tour recently and found myself sitting in a rear seat, which was uncomfortably close to the bus’s toilet. But you don’t want to hear about that. I don’t want to think about it. Let’s get to the serious stuff. You must all be wondering what you’re doing here...”

“She’s sure got that right,” Monica whispered.

“...overview of what’s ahead. We have a fairly long ride, to begin with. It’s something more than a two hour drive up the coast to Malcasa Point. And—guess what?—two or so hours back to San Francisco.”

“Two hours of this?” Monica whispered.

“We’re scheduled to reach our destination at about ten-thirty. At that point, you’ll be free to disembark and enjoy all the creepy delights of Beast House. Your price of admission will include a self-guided audio tour which usually takes people about an hour to complete. But feel free to spend as long as you wish in the house. Some people enjoy lingering around the murder sights and emersing themselves in the ambiance.”

Several riders chuckled about that. Monica rolled her eyes upward.

“In fact, you’ll have plenty of time not only to tour Beast House, but to visit the gift shop and enjoy a leisurely lunch on the grounds. Beast House has a very good snack shop with great chili cheese dogs. I love them chili dogs!”

“And it shows,” Monica whispered.

“You should definitely check out the snack shop’s menu. If nothing suits you, though, there are several good places to eat along the main street of town, easy to walk to. The bus doesn’t leave Malcasa Point until 1:30 p.m., so you’ll have three hours. That’s a pretty fair amount of time. Make sure you don’t miss Janice Crogan’s Beast House museum on Front Street. If you still have time left over, you might take a stroll down to the beach. The beach is only a few hundred yards from Beast House. You might order a take-out lunch from the snack shop, and have yourselves a picnic. Just make sure to keep an eye on your watches. You’ll be amazed at how fast those three hours fly by, and we don’t want you missing the bus back to town. We like to pull out at 1:30 on the nose. That gets you back to your hotels by about four, so you’ll have time to rest and clean up before you go out for your evening fun. I hope you all have big plans for tonight—maybe a nice dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf. Now, I have some matters to take care of. I’ll get back to you in a few minutes, and we’ll talk a little about the history of Beast House.”

With a smile, Patty lowered her microphone and turned away.

“My God,” Monica said, “it’s the whole day.”

“We knew that,” Owen told her. “The brochure...”

“I know we knew it. It’s just now sinking in, that’s all.”

“If you didn’t want to do this, I wish you would’ve spoken up. I mean, it’s a bit late to be changing our minds.

“It’s all right,” she said. “It just seems like sort of a waste, when we’ve only got a week in San Francisco, to spend one entire day doing something like this. And our first day, too. We haven’t even had a chance to see any of the city yet.”

Owen was tempted to remind her that, after checking into their hotel late yesterday afternoon, they’d spent several hours roaming Fisherman’s Wharf. They’d eaten a fine dinner at Fisherman’s Grotto, inspected souvenir shops, visited the Wax Museum, and hiked to Pier 39 where they’d gone on a couple of rides, watched a juggling show, and explored more souvenir shops. It seemed to him that they’d seen at least something of San Francisco. But pointing it out to Monica would be a big mistake.

So he said, “If I’d known you felt that way, we could’ve done something else. We didn’t have to do this.”

“Well, that’s all right.” She smiled gently and patted his leg. “We’ll get it over with today, and then we’ll have the whole rest of the week for other things.”

Get it over with.

Oh, man.

“We didn’t have to do it at all,” he told her. “If you’d only let me know that you didn’t