he could do something about Ryerson.
He sat there a while longer, letting the wind rip at him, letting his anger build to a high, hot flame that insulated him against the cold. Then he got up and walked back along the beach and went into Mike’s Cafe. There was a public telephone back by the johns; he made sure nobody was around and then got the number of the lighthouse, put a quarter in the slot, put his handkerchief around the mouthpiece as he dialed.
“hell?”
“Ryerson?”
“Yes? Who’s calling?”
“Get out of Hilliard, if you know what’s good for you. You got twenty-four hours.”
Silence for four or five seconds. Then, “Who is this?”
“You heard me, you prick. Twenty-four hours, or we’ll come and drag you out. You and your wife both.”
Mitch slammed down the receiver, hard, before Ryerson could say anything else.
Alix
She brought the station wagon to a stop in the parking area of Lang’s Gallery and Gifts and looked with dismay at the CLOSED sign in the window. Then she glanced past the squarish building to the shabby gray Victorian house that stood some twenty yards beyond it. Through the sheer-curtained front window she saw the glow of a chandelier. Cassie Lang was probably taking the day off at home.
Alix sat drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, wondering if she should bother the gallery owner. She herself hated unexpected visits at home, but not everyone was as jealous of her privacy. And on her prior visit to the gallery, Cassie had seemed glad, even eager for company. At length she nodded decisively, got out of the car, and made her way across the overgrown lawn toward the Victorian.
Her trip into Bandon had been disappointing. Dave Sanderson, she’d been told when she reached his office in Palo Alto, was unavailable: he was attending a medical convention in Atlanta and wasn’t scheduled to return until next week. His nurse had offered to put her in touch with the colleague who was covering for Dave, but Alix had declined and hung up without leaving a message.
Rather than give in to her disappointment, which would only have led to depression, she’d taken her crumpled grocery list to a nearby supermarket. There, among the familiar boxes and bottles and cans, selecting familiar merchandise with practiced motions, she was able to create a semblance of normalcy, concentrating on such mundane questions as what to have for dinner that night and whether the food in the cart was enough to hold them for a full week. She was able to make the sense of normalcy last all the way back to Hilliard, wrapping herself in a comfortable cocoon, and when she’d seen the sign for Cassie’s gallery, she’d decided on impulse to stop and prolong it. She just didn’t feel like returning yet to the bleak landscape of Cape Despair.
In the center of the house’s front door was an old-fashioned brass knocker, shaped like a gargoyle’s head. Using such things always made her feel foolish. She looked for a doorbell, found one, and pushed it. Chimes rang loudly within the confines of the house, but no one answered them-not the first time and not when she pushed the bell again a second time.
But she could clearly see that the chandelier was burning in the front parlor, and that had to mean Cassie was home. Why didn’t she answer the door? Because, Alix thought then, she saw me coming and doesn’t want to talk to me? Because she’s heard what the villagers are saying about Jan and she believes it too?
The possibility made her feel hunted and alone. If Cassie had turned against her, too, it meant that Hilliard was completely hostile territory-a place she didn’t dare set foot in again as long as she and Jan remained at the lighthouse.
The wind gusted in off the bay, seemed to blow away the illusion of normalcy that she’d carried with her from Bandon. Now she was depressed. How could she live this way for a full year, treated like an outcast? The answer was, she couldn’t. Something had to be done and done soon.
She started back toward the car. And as she approached it, she saw Mandy Barnett pedaling along the road toward her on a bicycle painted an electric blue, the same color as her Indian poncho and headband. The girl’s face was flushed with exertion and her red curls streamed out behind her. When she glanced up and saw Alix she braked abruptly, seemed about to swing her bike around in a U-turn, then changed her mind and got off and walked it forward.
“Hello, Mandy,” Alix said when the girl turned into the graveled parking lot.
Mandy nodded curtly, kept moving toward the gallery.
“It’s closed today.”
The girl stopped and turned, the beads on her headband clicking with the motion. “Where’s Mrs. Lang?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh. Well, I guess I’ll have to come back tomorrow, then.”
“Did you want to buy something?”
“Birthday present for my mom. Something nice on account of everything being so shitty this year.”
“The merchandise here is pretty expensive, you know.”
“Sure, I know. I’ve got the money.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“That’s none of your business. I’ve got it, that’s all.”
“From selling information to someone else?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what it means, Mandy.”
“Oh, come on, Mrs. Ryerson!” Mandy’s laugh was false, made shrill and then shredded by the wind. “You don’t think I was serious that day, do you?”
“Yes, I do. You said you had something to sell me. Well, now I might be in the market.” The words came out without conscious thought, and Alix surprised herself further by adding, “I can’t pay you five hundred dollars, but I’m willing to work something out.”
For a moment Mandy’s green eyes glittered calculatingly. Alix was about to reinforce her offer when the girl said, “What is this, anyway-some kind of trick?”
“No trick, Mandy.”
Mandy’s face twisted into a sneer that was incongruous with its baby-like plumpness. “Right. You probably got the state troopers hiding in the bushes. I say yes, and you have me arrested for-what’d you call it? — extortion.”
“You know that’s not possible. How could I have known I’d meet you here? I’m perfectly serious. I want to know what you’re selling.”
“I’m not selling anything. Not anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m not.”
“Look, Mandy-”
“No.” The girl made her characteristic foot-stamping gesture. Then the sneer returned, and Alix had an unpleasant vision of the woman Mandy would one day become. “All of that is past history, okay? I’ve got nothing to sell you, Mrs. Ryerson. Nothing at all.”
Alix said the girl’s name again, but Mandy turned away from her, mounted her bicycle, and pedaled off across the parking area to the road.
Staring after her, Alix thought: Damn her, what does she know? Or what does she think she knows?
She got into the car. She felt even more depressed now. A year of living here, among people like Mandy and Lillian Hilliard and Adam Reese, among circumstances of doubt and distrust, and she’d be a basket case. She couldn’t face eleven more days of it, much less eleven more months.
Why do you have to? she thought then.
Why don’t you leave now, you and Jan? Leave Cape Despair, Hilliard, the state of Oregon, and go home to Palo Alto?
But even as she thought it, she knew Jan would never agree. For years he had planned this lighthouse
