Chapter 10
I overslept in the morning. My douche and hot shower had drained me of the last shred of tension and I'd gone to sleep confident there wouldn't be any "haunting". I suppose I'd sunk into my deepest sleep when the alarm rang; the fact is I let it run down without stirring.
And I awakened to look up into Rolf's broadly grinning countenance. A light breeze played over me and I discovered I was spread-eagled on my bed, my sheet no longer covering me. Rolf bent over and fondled my boobies.
"ROLF! FOR GOD'S SAKE!"
"Boy, do you sleep sound!"
"GET ME UNTIED! THIS INSTANT!"
"Aw, Mom! You said I could do this sometime!"
"I did not! Even if I had, this wouldn't be the time!"
"Aw, gee, Mom!"
"Honey, look at the time! I've got a job I've got to do! If I don't, we're not going to be here long."
A thrill of apprehension raced over me and goose bumps rose on my skin. Rolf had taken advantage of my exhaustion to do a first class job of tying me; if he refused to release me there wouldn't be any way to force him. I realized belatedly he'd even put one of the thick sofa pillows under my ass so my belly and my pussy thrusted upward for his easy access. The way his cock was quivering the sight must be exerting a powerful effect on him and I felt a jolt of excitement, myself, as I imagined him mounting me. But I did have to get downstairs, and I had to convince him without a show of crude authority.
"Look, honey, please? Let's postpone it until I can enjoy it, too. All right?"
"When?" He was plainly suspicious and reluctant.
"Well...." I sensed he wasn't going to buy anything vague. I was going to have to set a specific time. And it was probably going to have to be soon enough he could resign himself to the wait. "This afternoon? After work?"
"In our time, Mom?"
"Right."
"Like this?"
"Rolf...." Hell, what choice did I have? "If you want to. If you'd rather have it this way than any other."
"You're promising?"
"Promise."
He laid his hand on my pussy and squeezed gently, a regretful sigh escaping. "Okay, Mom. If you're sure."
"I'm sure. Now, let me up or we won't get any breakfast. And it's Maria's turn to cook again today."
Maria had done her usual superb job of preparing the meal. I ate hungrily, although I did manage to catch the girl's attention and fix her with a grim stare meant to convey the idea I wasn't going to overlook the degrading situation she'd subjected me to during the night. But her expression was as bland as if she had no knowledge of the crypt or the compound.
If her act had fooled me, her comment when she brushed past me while clearing the table would have reassured me I was right.
"See Lolita last night?" she asked.
"Not really. I couldn't see anything for quite a while."
"Oh. Anne, you ought to go to the snakes. Maybe they'd give you some kind of sign. Lolita loved them."
I choked with fury at her brazen insolence. But her next remark chilled me.
"Maybe you shouldn't, though. That's how she got her revenge on Jennifer."
And not with defanged rattlers, either, I reflected. I felt a sinister warning in her whispered asides and resolved to force her into the open while I was still alive to do it. But the others were already leaving the dining room; I'd have to wait for the right time.
Blaine was going out after another addition to his collection. Rolf begged permission to go with him and got it. Rose announced she was nearing completion on the poem she'd been composing for the past week and Kim lazily admitted she meant to sleep. But as I crossed the courtyard toward the library I noticed Blaine had paused to talk to John.
They turned to me as I approached.
"Understand you had a rough night," John said quietly.
"In the compound, you mean?" I asked. "Yeah. Somebody gave you a scare, Blaine says."
I nodded. The sympathy in his tone threatened to destroy my composure. "It scared me terribly," I told him in a low voice. "What happened was bad enough. But it didn't really hurt me. For a while I thought something a lot worse than that was going to happen."
He nodded. "I'm not going to stand still for that kind of thing around here." He was suddenly grim. "Maybe you've been seeing things that were real, instead of having trouble with nerves."
"I'm not a very nervous woman, John. I don't go around imagining things."
Blaine grinned faintly. "She's got a pretty strong grip on reality, all right."
John chuckled. "Takes things as they come?"
I know I blushed, because both men laughed. But it was a kind, affectionate laugh, and I knew I needn't worry about Blaine. I'd been terribly wrong about him.
"Let's see if our ghost messed around in the library," suggested John. He opened the door and led the way inside.
The window overlooking the garden was open and the little lantern was in its place. The two men exchanged significant glances.
"By God, there's no way that could happen except somebody hiding in here while we locked up. Or...." John paused.
"Or a secret door," added Blaine. "Like some of those old stories said."
John nodded. It was obvious he was growing angry. "There's only two possibilities. Somebody in this house is bugging you or we've got an outsider we don't know about."
"Nobody I know from outside cares enough to think of planning a thing like this," I said.
He nodded. "They wouldn't have any way to know about the construction of the house, either. So it's an insider. You figure it could be Blaine or Kim?"
"I did. I thought Blaine might be mixed up in it." I put out my hand quickly and laid it on Blaine's arm. "I'm sorry, Blaine. I just didn't know you well enough. I trust you now. I know neither you nor Kim is involved, honey."
He patted my hand and grinned. "Don't feel bad. If I'd thought about it I might have put you in the compound, myself. That was one hell of a sight, baby."
John seemed to be only half-listening. He mused. "Rose was in bed with me. I'm afraid we didn't hear anything at all. And we missed out on all the fun afterward. So that leaves Rolf and Maria. What about Rolf, Anne?"
"I don't think it was Rolf. The night I saw the thing in the garden he came into my room right afterward; we'd both heard some kind of noise we couldn't explain. Besides, he didn't have that funny scent on him."
"Maria? Ever catch the scent on her?"
"No."
"Still, she could wash it off. Or it might not be on the person to start with. Look, we're going to declare a holiday. I'm going to find the secret door in this room if I have to knock holes in every wall to do it." The expression on John's face made it clear he was serious.
Blaine nodded. "I'm going out after that snake. I spotted it late yesterday afternoon and I'm determined to get it, but I'll get back as soon as I can to help."
John suggested I make an effort to keep track of what Maria did during the day. "She'll be in the kitchen for the next hour or so, but after that," he said.
Rolf changed his mind about going out with Blaine when he learned we weren't going to work on the manuscript. I knew he was hoping he'd have a chance to improve the schedule on our planned adventure. But I stayed with John while he began a methodical, unspectacular search for a secret entrance to the library. And Rolf hung around, restless and uncomfortable, swallowing frequently and watching me with a hungry light in his eyes.
When Maria came into the courtyard I explained to Rolf I had some work I had to do, regardless of the holiday. And I went to my rooms after Maria had reached hers. Poor Rolf wandered disconsolately after me and yielded reluctantly to my insistence on privacy.
It wasn't easy to maintain surveillance on Maria's door without being obvious. Her apartment was just beyond Rolf's room and we were all three in the same wing of the quadrangle. But I kept my sitting room door open and moved my armchair close to it where I could see most of the arcade. And as I could see the main stairway there wasn't much she could do without my being aware. Of course, I had to move a small end table beside the chair with papers so I'd have something to do-after all, I'd made that excuse to Rolf.
When I did see Maria, it was only for a moment and she didn't go to the main stairs. I heard her, first, walking quietly along the arcade toward me. I caught a glimpse of her and then she appeared to turn toward the wall. And I didn't hear her footsteps any more. I waited. It seemed to me she was spending an awful lot of time at a blank wall, and the thought struck me abruptly that that was the blank wall with the hidden stairs behind it!
I sprang to my feet and peeked around the doorjamb. As I expected, Maria was nowhere in sight. I tiptoed into the arcade and immediately saw the opening to the stairs, which ran down between my sitting room and Rolf's room. Removing my shoes and carrying them, I hurried down the stairs, knowing Maria had gone ahead of me. Even with the opening, they seemed dark and threatening and I slowed as I approached the narrow landing halfway down.
The ambush at the crypt the night before was clear in my mind as I stopped on the landing. Maria could be waiting for me to come around the wall, just as she'd somehow been waiting in the crypt. I nearly panicked, but bracing myself with the thought I'd be ready for her this time and raising the shoes to use as weapons if I needed to, I edged around the corner.
To my relief, the lower flight of stairs was empty. And it was open at the bottom. I ran down, catching myself at the bottom and peering into the ground floor arcade before stepping into the open. Maria was nowhere in sight. I'd lost her by sitting complacently in my sitting room while she slipped away.
But at least the stairway was open! The armor was gone and I could see no trace on the floor of bolts or concrete for holding it. I turned toward the library door excitedly.
"John!" I called to him as I ran. "John! Come quick! The stairs!"
I ran into him at the door.
"Hey! Whoa! What's all the excitement?" He laughed and caught me. "And why the shoes in the hand?"
"John! Honey! The stairs I used the other day! The ones behind the armor! They're there again! Come on!"
We were less than twenty feet from the opening.
He held my hand and walked to it with me. And all we saw was the niche with the conquistador in it.
"NO!" I couldn't believe my eyes. "NO, JOHN! For God's sake! Maria just came down those stairs and I came down after her! John!"
He laughed. "Easy, easy! Look, if you say they were there, then they still are! Don't ask me how; I'd bet the royalties on my last book there was no way to move that suit of armor. But there's no doubt in my mind we've got secret passages here in the Casa. So this is one of them."
"Maybe the upstairs end is open," I suggested.
John doubted it and I had to agree. But I did go up to find out. And when I discovered the wall blank and unmarked all the way from my sitting room door to Rolf's door I leaned over the rail and called down to John. He came out of the library again and listened to my report.
"Okay. It's closed and we don't know how to open it. When Maria shows up, I'm going to have a word with her. By God, I'm not going to have her wandering around here in secret passages I don't know about."
He went back into the library and I examined the wall again for some sign of a door. I couldn't feature how adobe construction could be made part of a hidden door, but as I explored the surface more carefully I realized it was marred by numerous natural cracks. Almost any one of them could be the edge of the closed portion. And it occurred to me Rolf might get a thrill out of helping me search.
I stuck my head inside his room and called to him. To my surprise, he wasn't there. The bathroom was open and I crossed the room to see if anything was wrong with him, but he wasn't there either. A chill of intuitive dread settled over me. He'd come upstairs with me. He'd gone into his room sulking when I'd insisted on privacy. I'd watched the arcade-and the main stairs-too closely for him to have slipped away without my knowing it. The only time I hadn't been watching had been while I was going down the secret stairs. And he couldn't possibly have gotten to the main stairs and down them and out of sight during that brief period.
I went to the window and leaned out. Nobody could have climbed up or down that outside wall. Nor was there any indication anything had hung over the sill as a makeshift ladder. If he'd gone out the window, he'd jumped. But I couldn't believe he'd have jumped into the cactus bed at the foot of the wall.
My son was missing, that was all. He'd been in his room and he couldn't have gotten out without my knowing it. But he was gone. I raced back to the arcade and shrieked for John. He appeared at once, alarm showing clearly in his face.
"What's wrong, Anne?"
"Rolf's gone! He can't be, but he is!"
"WHAT!" He leaped toward the main stairs. "I'm coming up!"
When he got upstairs he made me explain what convinced me Rolf hadn't simply left his room for something to amuse himself. When I finished, he stroked his jaw reflectively.
"Sounds right. Still, we ought to ring out the other possibilities. Couldn't he have gone from his room to another one on this floor maybe?"
"He could have gotten to Maria's apartment without my seeing him. Of course, he might have gotten anywhere on the second floor while I was on those stairs. But he'd have had to run."
John grinned. "What's to keep him from running?" He glanced toward Rose's studio across the courtyard.
I had to giggle. "I don't think he'd be that shy about it. But we'd better check."
But Rolf was nowhere on the second floor. John woke Rose, who was in their bedroom rather than her studio.
"Not here," she mumbled. Then, as she shook off her grogginess, "Sorry. That damn poem made me so sleepy I decided to follow Kim's example. No, I haven't seen him. If I had, I'd have him here in bed with me." And she grinned in a highly unpoetic way. "Hey! Maybe he's in bed with Kim! I told him I thought she might put out if he went right up and asked her."
Kim awoke more slowly than Rose had. She laughed when she finally realized what we were asking. "Sure I would! In a minute! But he hasn't asked yet." And she sighed.
I felt my shoulders sag. He wasn't anywhere on the second floor. Neither was Maria, of course. But the other two women were thoroughly aroused and searched the ground floor and the basement hastily. Rolf simply wasn't to be found. And neither was Maria.
John fumed. "Where the hell could he have gone! We know Maria came downstairs. She could have gone outside. But where can that kid be!" And then, decisively, "He's got to be in some passage. Leave it to a boy; if there's something like that around and anybody finds it, he will."
"But you didn't," Kim reminded him. "You grew up here and you didn't even believe the passages existed."
"Maybe that was the problem," he growled. "I didn't believe there were any."
"Nobody said anything to Rolf about passages," I remarked. "At least not in so many words. We did talk about where that thump we heard could have come from, but neither one of us said anything about secret passages."
"You wouldn't have to," John replied. "But what's this business about a thump?"
I told him.
"Why the hell didn't you tell me before?"
"The owl. I knew you'd think all the rest was as silly as that."
"Ouch! Okay, you were probably right. Anyhow, the thump came from the stairs. And Rolf got to thinking about it and decided there had to be a space in the wall. He found one and is exploring."
"No! Oh, no, John! His flashlight is on his dresser! I saw it!"
"Oh, shit! He's shut in somewhere without a light!" He ran toward the library.
By the time we'd caught up with him, he was leaning out the garden window with a rifle. He fired three evenly spaced shots into the air and turned to place the gun back in the rack.
"That's our signal for trouble," he explained to me. "Need something that'll get attention when you're as isolated as we are."
"So Blaine will hear that and come back?"
"Right. Now, let's get busy finding a way into those passages."
"Rolf found one in his own room," observed Rose. "Some of us had better start looking there."
John agreed. He was going to continue the search in the library, but we certainly ought to start on Rolf's room without any further waste of time. Through the window, I saw Blaine running from the direction of the compound. I drew John's attention to him.
He leaned through the window again and shouted. "Hey, Blaine! Rolf out there?"
"No. He decided not to go!"
"Okay. Thought he might have changed his mind."
"What's the matter? I heard the shots while I was in the compound with that new rattler."
"Looks like Rolf's found the way into some secret passage and got himself shut in. No lights with him. We've got to get to him!"
Blaine started sprinting and in a moment was hauling himself through the window. John went into more detail about the events of the past hour.
"Maria's gone, too?" asked Blaine with a suggestive grin.
John grinned, too, and shook his head. "Yeah. But she came downstairs. And Rolf didn't."
"Too bad. Thought maybe Rolf had found the key for her chain and they'd sneaked off for some privacy."
John shrugged. "They wouldn't. All the privacy they'd need right in her apartment-or his room. Anyhow, you didn't see her either?"
"No, come to think of it. If she went outside, she didn't go toward the compound."
Or the crypt, I thought. He'd have seen her if she had.
I went upstairs with Kim and Rose to search Rolf's room for a secret door. The two men stayed in the library. Every minute that passed made the lump in my belly hurt more. I could picture my son, huddled in absolute darkness, surrounded by the earthy scent of hollow, adobe walls and the dust of years, fighting the terror of being trapped and helpless. He'd have tried to find a way out, I supposed. He'd have crept along blindly, feeling his way and hoping there would be an opening at the other end.
But how extensive would the passage be? Where-in this old fortress-would such passages lead? What deadly hazards would the darkness conceal until it was too late to avoid them? What if he were lying at the bottom of a shaft right now, broken and dying while we hunted vainly for a way to get to him?
Kim muttered. "If I ever get my hands on that kid sister of mine I'll kick the shit out of her!"
For an instant I felt a surge of anger. She'd have to get to Maria fast if she wanted to do that before I got to her. But I realized that might not be fair. "She didn't kidnap him," I said dully. "She's not big enough, for one thing. And she was downstairs. It wasn't Maria."
"Maybe not." Kim's tone was grim and unforgiving. "But she knew about the passages and didn't tell any of the rest of us. If we knew about them, we'd have Rolf out by now."
I couldn't deny that. "We wouldn't be looking for him if I'd let him in my sitting room," I mumbled half to myself. "It wouldn't have hurt anything."
Kim sighed. "You could at least have sent him over to our rooms. I'd have kept him out of mischief."
"Out of secret passages, anyhow," remarked Rose dryly. "Unless you call that thing of yours secret."
"Not me! Nothing secret about my pooky! At least he'd be where he could hear you yelling for him!"
Maybe he'd never hear us now, I caught myself thinking. After all, if he'd found an entrance here in his room he might have gotten into passages even Maria didn't know about.
There was a sound from the arcade. In a moment we heard Rolf's voice.
"Mom! Where are you, Mom?"
I couldn't say anything. I stumbled out of his room with Kim and Rose pushing behind me. Rolf was leaning over the rail shouting. I called out to him finally in strangled tones, just as the other two women shrieked his name. He whirled and leaped at us, letting us grab and hug him wildly. For a few minutes it was a sobbing, confused tangle, but Rolf quieted us and stood back, flustered and pleased-looking.
"Golly! Jeez, it was worth it! I'll take an hour or two in the dark any time for something like that!" Then, remembering, "Hey! Come on! Those stairs!" He turned toward the wall and an expression of disbelief spread over his face. "Mom! They're gone again!"
"Stairs! What about the stairs?" I demanded.
He grinned apologetically. "Well-well, Mom, I thought it would be all right. Maria came past my room and I thought she was coming to talk to you. Only when I peeked out she wasn't in sight and you were walking right into the wall. So I waited a minute and then followed you. I mean, if you were going down those secret stairs with your shoes in your hand something was up!"
"You followed me?"
"Yeah. You were already out of sight when I got to the opening, but I figured you weren't very far ahead. Just when I got on the landing, everything started closing up. Jeez! I went the rest of the way down as fast as I could, but it was too late! And there I was, and it was dark, and-and...." Remembered horror silenced him. His eyes widened and looked haunted. He whispered. "Oh, boy, that was awful! Black! And that funny, perfumy smell! And then that other smell-sort of dusty and dead and old. I thought-I thought...." He shuddered and looked nauseated. "I thought maybe it would be months before those stairs opened up again!"
All of us caught at him. We sobbed against him and mothered him, and I don't know how much was mothering and how much was something else.
John and Blaine had heard his first shouts and they reached us at about that time. They helped quiet the hysteria and listened while Rolf repeated his story.
"I'd made up my mind I was going to starve to death in there," he told them then. "I knew I'd been in there at least a whole day! And then all of a sudden the doors opened up! Boy, I got out fast!"