“Maybe I could take a look at your guest book,” Evan said. “Just to make sure.”
“Of course. Come through to registration.” She led him to the other side of the building, where there was a hotel-style foyer, complete with front desk. “Show this gentleman the list of guests for the year, would you, Eirlys?” she said to the young girl sitting at the computer. “You don’t need to go back to last year, do you?”
Evan shook his head. The girl handed him a Rolodex file. “What name was it? They’re in alphabetical order.”
“Riesen. Rebecca Riesen,” he said. “And she probably would have come here in February or later.”
“We weren’t exactly overflowing with guests in February,” the girl said and got a frown from Annabel. She helped Evan flip through the cards. “There’s no Riesen here. Sorry.”
“I can’t imagine that she would have checked in under another name,” Evan said. “Of course, if she had come here with somebody—a bloke—maybe they’d have checked in under his name.”
“I don’t recall any young couples … .” Annabel began.
“But you don’t know his name?” the girl asked Evan. She gave him a shy but encouraging smile.
“Do you always work at the front desk?” Evan asked. She nodded. “So you’d be the one who checked guests in?”
“Usually.”
Evan got out the flyer. “This is the girl we’re looking for.”
She studied it. “I didn’t check her in. I’d have remembered.”
“Sorry to have troubled you,” Evan said. “I thought it was probably a long shot. We don’t even know what part of Wales she went to. It’s just that she said something about Druids in the last postcard she wrote to her parents.”
“Druids?” Annabel’s voice sounded sharp.
“I noticed this place mentions Celtic spirituality so I thought that maybe …” He looked hopefully at Eirlys.
“We have a resident priestess,” Annabel said before Eirlys could answer. “She leads meditation sessions and guided imagery for our guests.”
“And what about Druid ceremonies? Any of those?”
“At certain times of year she leads celebrations, yes.”
“And are outsiders allowed into any of these—celebrations?”
“On certain occasions. She’s hoping for a large gathering on Midsummer Night, and May Day is one too, I think. And she holds ceremonies outside of our community as well.”
“May I please speak to her then?”
“Of course. I’ll take you down to her myself.”
“It’s all right. I don’t want to hold you up from what you were doing. Just give me directions. I’m sure I can find the way.”
“I was planning to go down that way. I’m trying to locate my husband. He won’t carry a beeper because he claims it disturbs the psychic vibrations he gets, but that’s little use to the rest of us, who possess no psychic ability whatsoever.”
She swept out through the revolving door, leaving Evan to follow in her wake. This time they took a paved back route, past a very modern-looking glass-fronted building. “The spa,” Annabel said. “We run a full-service spa here. A massage therapist on duty twenty-four hours a day and experts in any kind of hands-on healing. Our aim is to soothe the body as well as the spirit.”
Again a brief frown of annoyance. “We only opened last year. It takes a while to build up a reputation and of course we are only catering to the most exclusive kind of guest. But things are beginning to pick up. Now that it’s stopped bloody raining, that is.” They were descending a graceful flight of curved steps with a carved stone railing beside them—another part of the old estate, he guessed. A clear view of a sparkling estuary opened up in front of them. On the other side were sloping green hills. Down below them, at the bottom of the steps, was another cluster of outlandish buildings, built around a little beach of yellow sand. A large swimming pool was built out over part of the beach.
“It’s certainly a lovely spot,” he said.
She nodded appreciatively. “I’m very fond of it. I’d do anything to keep it.”
“It certainly keeps you fit, going up and down all these steps.” As he said it, he realized this was rather a tactless remark, given Lady Annabel’s generous curves, but she smiled and didn’t seem to take offence.
“Actually I don’t come down here too much. This is the area of spiritual healing and meditation. Spiritual healers are very touchy about being disturbed.”
Evan blinked as he noticed a strange object among the buildings, dazzlingly bright with reflected sunlight.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“That is our pyramid. A center of great healing energy.”
Now Evan could see that it was, indeed, a pyramid, about the size of a small room, and made completely from beaten copper, decorated with Celtic knots.
“Copper is a wonderful conductor,” Annabel said.
