Youngblood and Toby, with Jack close behind. Perhaps the inadequate
lighting--two widely spaced, bare bulbs in the ceiling--made her
uneasy. A mustiness and a vague underlying odor of decay didn't add
any charm. Neither did spiderwebs hung with dead moths and beetles.
Whatever the reason, her heart began to pound as if they were climbing
rather than descending. She was overcome by the bizarre fear-- similar
to the nameless dread in a nightmare--that something hostile and
infinitely strange was waiting for them below.
The last step brought them into a windowless vestibule, where Paul had
to use a key to unlock the first of two lower doors. 'Kitchen,' he
said. Nothing fearful waited beyond, merely the room he had
indicated.
'We'll go this way,' he said, turning to the second door, which didn't
require a key from the inside. When the thumb-turn on the dead-bolt
lock proved stiff from lack of use, the few seconds of delay were
almost more than Heather could tolerate. Now she was convinced that
something was coming down the steps behind them, the murderous phantom
of a bad dream. She wanted out of that narrow place immediately,
desperately.
The door creaked open. They followed Paul through the second exit onto
the back porch. They were twelve feet to the left of the house's main
rear entrance, which led into the kitchen. Heather took several deep
breaths, purging her lungs of the contaminated air from the
stairwell.
Her fear swiftly abated and her racing heart regained a normal pace.
She looked back into the vestibule where the steps curved upward out of
sight. Of course no denizen of a nightmare appeared, and her moment of
panic seemed more foolish and inexplicable by the second.
Jack, unaware of Heather's inner turmoil, put one hand on Toby's head
and said, 'Well, if that's going to be your room, I don't want to catch
you sneaking girls up the back steps.'
'Girls?' Toby was astonished. 'Yuck. Why would l want to have
anything to do with girls?'
'I suspect you figure that one out all on your own, given a little
time,' the attorney said, amused. 'And too fast,' Jack said.
'Five years from now, we'll have to fill those stairs with concrete,
seal them off forever.'
Heather found the will to turn her back on the door as the attorney
closed it.
She was baffled by the episode, and relieved that no one had been aware
of her odd reaction. Los Angeles jitters. She hadn't shed the city.
She was in rural Montana, where there probably hadn't been a murder in
a decade, where most people left doors unlocked day and night-- but
psychologically, she remained in the shadow of the Big Orange, living
conscious anticipation of sudden, senseless violence. Just a
delayed case of Los Angeles jitters. 'Better show you the rest of the
property,' Paul said.'
'We don't have much more than half an hour of day- light left.'
They followed him down the porch steps and up the sloping rear lawn
