cage. Beyond that, someone had taken half a dozen shots at them, and that seemed like something that could use some investigating.
Unfortunately, by the time he’d come to this realization, Shawn was already halfway to Shepler’s car and Henry was yelling after him, “This mess is going to be here when you get back!”
Gus gave Henry an apologetic smile along with the half-filled box of charred photos and ran after Shawn.
As soon as Henry’s house had disappeared from the Bentley’s rear window, Gus tried to make Shawn share his urgency. “We have got to make this meeting short,” he said. “We’ve got to find Tara.”
“What’s the hurry?” Shawn said. “Odds are she’ll find us sooner or later.”
“The hurry is what she might do in that time between sooner and later.”
“She’s only doing what she thinks I want, right?” Shawn said. “It’s not like she’s going to kill anybody.”
“Are you sure?”
Shawn thought about that. “I think I’d remember if I sent her psychic orders to commit murder.”
“You mean you did order her to tase your dad?”
“Not exactly,” Shawn said. “But I’m pretty sure I was complaining about his ridiculous scrapbook hobby at least one time she was driving us around.”
“And who else were you complaining about?” Gus said. “What are we going to do to protect all those people?”
Shawn glanced out the rear window as the car began the long slow ascent up the mountains. “For the moment, nothing.”
Gus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “She’s already beaten one guy into the hospital.”
“If you can call him a guy,” Shawn said. “What kind of man is going to be taken out by a girl?”
“And she set your father’s house on fire.”
“For which the neighborhood-improvement committee will probably give her a medal.”
“Do you think this is funny?”
“Not Monty Python funny, but maybe Brady Bunch funny. You know, no big laughs, but a wry smile, a warm chuckle, and that nod of recognition that we’re all riders in the same cockeyed caravan of life.”
Shawn glanced out the back window again. Gus wanted to grab his face and force Shawn to look at him. Pretending it was all a joke wasn’t going to make this any less serious.
“Then let’s not think about her innocent victims for a minute,” Gus said, forcing his voice to stay calm. “Let’s think about us. The police know she beat up that BurgerZone kid, and if they don’t know what she did to your father, they will soon. If she acts again now that we know what she’s doing, they will come after us.”
Shawn glanced out the rear window again. “So that’s what you’re so worried about? That Tara’s going to do something awful before we can stop her?”
Gus wanted to scream. “Yes!”
“Then I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.”
“Why not?”
“Look.”
Shawn pointed out the rear window. The road stretched out for a hundred yards behind them, then disappeared around a hairpin curve.
“I don’t see anything,” Gus said.
“Keep looking.”
Gus did. All he saw was the roadway, the sheer drop next to it, and a pair of hawks circling slowly over a road sign. “I still don’t see-”
Just before the car twisted around another switch-back, there was a flash of metallic red emerging from around the last twist.
“That’s why,” Shawn said.
For the rest of the ride up, Gus kept his eyes on the rear window, just to make sure Tara was still following them. There were long stretches when there wasn’t a hint of red, and he feared that she’d come just far enough to make sure where they were going, then turned back to Santa Barbara. But every time he came close to panic, he’d catch a glimpse of her creeping around a turn.
When they crested the last rise before the descent into the cereal bowl, Gus couldn’t help craning his head for another long look at the famous house. The last time they were here, the sun was shining and the sky was brilliant blue. Now there were storm clouds hiding the sun and painting the entire valley a dismal gray. To Gus’ delight, Eagle’s View was even more magnificently ugly in the gloom.
A thick wet drop splashed on the windshield. Shepler flicked on the windshield wipers before it could even start to trail away toward the roof.
“So what happens if it rains a long time up here, Shepler?” Shawn said, peering out at the clouds. “Does the whole bowl fill up? Or is there a drain somewhere you just have to pull the plug on?”
Shepler ignored Shawn, focusing all his attention on the spiraling road ahead.
“That was actually a major concern of the original landscape architects who designed the property.” Gus was happy to have history take his mind off the present. “There was much debate about how quickly natural runoff would occur, and what the risks of flooding were. They ended up carving out a series of drain tunnels that would channel…”
Gus spent the rest of the ride explaining the landscape architecture of the Eagle’s View grounds. Shawn spent the rest of the ride pretending to listen. Every so often Gus glanced out the rear window to see if there was a red Mercedes behind them. But Tara must have decided the concentric rings into the cereal bowl would be too exposed for her to follow surreptitiously. Gus hoped that she was waiting at the top of the pass.
When the car finally pulled into the driveway, Steele was there to meet it. He marched up before Shepler put on the parking brake and flung open Shawn’s door, a champagne bottle in one hand and three flutes in the other.
“Welcome back to Eagle’s View,” Steele said. Gus was practically blinded by the brilliant white of his teeth against the gray sky. “I guess you don’t need to be psychic to know why I brought you here.”
Shawn and Gus scrambled out of the car as the cork exploded out of the champagne bottle.
“I’m getting a celebratory vibe,” Shawn said. “It seems like someone’s happy about something.”
“Try ecstatic.” Steele threw his arms around Shawn and Gus, and led them into the house. Shepler started the car and steered it toward the entrance to the underground garage.
“So I guess we’re doing okay on the investments?” Gus said as Steele led them through the atrium. This time they passed both Steele’s massive office and the game room.
“Let’s just say that it seems particularly appropriate that we meet in the celebration room,” Steele said.
Gus gasped with excitement.
“Why do I get the feeling I’m about to get another history lesson?” Shawn said.
“The celebration room was famous in its day,” Gus said. “They had huge parties where the rich and famous could do whatever they wanted, because there was no chance anyone would ever find out. There were rumors of drugs, orgies, you name it.”
“That’s really exciting,” Shawn said. “But we could also meet in the ‘pay your consultants a ton of money room’ if that’s convenient.”
Steele let out a booming laugh and turned them down a wide, dark corridor that dead-ended at an enormous bronze door. As Gus got closer, he could see it was covered in a frieze of couples engaged in various sexual activities. Sometimes trios.
“Are they doing what it looks like they’re doing?” Shawn said.
“Oh, yeah,” Gus said.
“Wow,” Shawn said, studying the images. “Try to bring this into the bathroom with you. No wonder they invented magazines.”
After giving Shawn and Gus a few moments to study the images on the door, Steele reached past them and pushed on it. Despite the door’s massive size and weight, it glided open silently at a touch of Steele’s finger.
Gus squeezed his eyes shut as the door swung open, wanting to get the full impact of the reveal. When he opened them, he found himself staring into a small black box of a room, barely more than a closet. A rough wooden floor ran for no more than six feet before hitting a plain stone wall. A couple of folding chairs leaned in
