Writ on Water (12 page)

Isaac finally took a stab at conversation, telling them about a new vodka and cranberry drink he had heard about in a Tijuana bar, called a Bladder Infection. Then he talked about a freakishly endowed woman he had met in the same bar. Chloe wanted to change the subject but couldn't think of single graceful segue.

As though sensing her conversational quandary and guessing that she was the weakest link in the chain, Claude looked Chloe's way, and with a nasty glint in his gimlet eyes asked the question she had been dreading.

“So, what brings you to Riverview?” He looked over at Rory and added offensively, “Or should I ask?”

“She's a nature photographer,” Rory answered shortly, sparing her the invention of some lie. “She's come to do some work for the fall catalog.”

“Oh.” Claude appeared to lose interest, and Isaac—who had never had any beyond Chloe's breasts, which he watched as though she had in fact tucked some bills into her bra—was also willing to let a heavy silence fall.

Unable to stand the strained quietude and Isaac's fixed stare, Chloe rose to her feet and walked to the sideboard to fetch another slice of chocolate torte, which she didn't really want but would help her choke back the brandy and give her a moment's respite from the smoke. “I am so looking forward to this project,” she said cheerily, pausing an instant to study the skull tattooed at the base of Isaac's thick neck. It smiled every time he looked up and creased his neckline. “Sure, I've done lots of catalogs before, but never irises. I had no idea that there were so many kinds! Bearded iris, Japanese iris . . .” Chloe paused, her mind going blank as Isaac turned to face her.

“The entire family of
iridaceae
,” Rory supplied
helpfully, the faintest trace of amusement warming his face. “That includes crocuses and gladiolas.”

“I have irises in my cameras, did you know that?” she asked Rory with a vacuous smile. MacGregor raised his napkin and coughed suddenly. She went on, “It's called an iris diaphragm. It's the metal plates that form the aperture of the lens.”

“Iris was also the goddess of the rainbow,” MacGregor added, finally willing to be helpful conversationally.

Chloe again glanced at the less than dynamic duo of Claude and Isaac to see how they were reacting. Claude's delicate brows had drawn together in a suspicious frown, as though he was guessing that he was being mocked, and even Isaac was showing signs of rousing from his trancelike fixation with her chest, as she remained determinedly turned from his gaze.

“And, of course, there is the pigmented portion of the eye,” Chloe finished, turning up her smile another notch. “A very interesting word, iris. So close to
Irish
, which is also a popular hyphenated word.”

“Irish coffee,” MacGregor suggested.

“Irish stew, Irish setter, Irish wolfhound, Irish terrier . . . ,” she continued, ticking a list off on her fingers as she continued to smile blandly. Her cheeks were beginning to ache, and she was feeling rather like she was in a sketch parodying
Sesame Street
. She had never attended a stranger
dinner party, and prayed that she never would again. If she had just a bit more courage, she would walk out.

“Irish moss, Irish potatoes, Irish roses,” Rory added, still being helpful with the botanicals.

“Don't forget the Irish Republican Army and the Irish Free State,” MacGregor chimed in gleefully, enjoying the game.

“There's Irish Bull, Irishmen,” she went on. “Getting up your Irish, the luck of the Irish—”

“Irish eyes! Now there's a tune!” MacGregor broke into lusty, off-key song. “ ‘
When Irish eyes are smilin', it is like a morn in spring—
' ”

Claude winced, Isaac glowered and Chloe promptly joined in singing, also deliberately offkey, and after a one beat pause so did Rory, though he managed to competently carry the tune.

“‘
When Irish hearts are happy, all the world seems bright and gay . . .
' ”

Claude and Isaac were looking at each other in disbelief and growing annoyance. The bulls were just bright enough to know when they were being baited. The thought made Chloe grin. Maybe they'd take the hint and go away.

“‘
When Irish eyes are smilin', they will steal your heart away!
' ”

Chloe was still smiling when she looked over and found Isaac had risen from his chair and was looking directly into her face. Instantly her humor died away, and her attention narrowed its focus to
the man in front of her. She felt her hand tighten around her fork, gripping it like a weapon.

Danger.

Suddenly she was sweating. Those flat gray eyes with bloodshot whites were as still as a photograph. They were terrifying, soulless, utterly inhuman. If eyes truly were the windows to the soul, then Isaac Runyon had nothing in him except the cold winds of a frozen hell. These were a dead man's eyes.

Nothing had ever frightened her more, and she found herself wishing that she had paid more attention to Granny Claire's lectures about warding off evil.

“That was grand!” MacGregor said happily as he jumped to his feet and headed for the door. His cigar was left to smolder on his dessert plate. “Let's go to the music room. Chloe, I will sing you ‘Danny Boy' in Gaelic. I promise, you'll have tears in your eyes by the time I'm done.”

“I can't wait,” she whispered, backing away from the table and Isaac. It took real effort, but Chloe pulled herself away from the horrible visual communion with Claude's companion. Once the spell was broken, she practically raced after her host, clinging to her fork though torte and brandy were gladly left behind in the smoky dining room.

She slowed to a walk once she reached the hall and put a hand on the door frame to steady herself.
She listened intently and was relieved to hear only one set of footsteps following her down the corridor to the music room. There was a murmur of voices from the dining room, and then two other sets of footsteps headed for the front door. It didn't take an Einstein to figure out the group division.

Her relief at the separation was immense and physical. Slowly her heart calmed and the perspiration on her skin began to dry. She wondered sickly if Claude had any idea of the spiritual evil of his friend. Isaac Runyon looked like a man, but every instinct within her said that she had just looked into the mind of a conscienceless demon, a killer. Shivering, Chloe hurried after MacGregor.

Rory shut the door to the music room a moment later, and he looked over at Chloe and his father. MacGregor was bent double with not quite silent laughter. Rory was holding a struggling Roger in his arms and smiling reluctantly.

Chloe could only gape at them. Apparently they hadn't sensed the evil rage inside of Isaac. Hadn't realized that danger was stalking them.

“Claude and Isaac have decided to go into town for the evening,” Rory told them, turning on a lamp. “They don't want to hear you sing ‘Danny Boy' in Gaelic.” His words provoked a fresh burst of laughter from his father.

“If only I had known! I could have gotten rid of Claude hours ago.”

“You are impossible,” Rory told him. “That ghastly caterwauling was a masterpiece of musical
horror. Neither one of you came anywhere near the tune.”

They don't know, Chloe thought, looking from one Patrick to the other. They really hadn't perceived that they sat at the same table with a devil and broken bread with him.

“I should have thought of driving them away with music before,” MacGregor said gleefully. “Claude always did hate my singing. He used to cry when he was a baby whenever I sang him a lullaby. Why, I bet the two of them pack up and leave in the morning.”

“I wouldn't count on it,” Rory said. “Claude never shows up without a purpose, and he hasn't gotten around to asking for anything yet.”

“I know what he wants and I'll give him some money if it'll get rid of him,” MacGregor promised, his good mood restored by the thought of Claude's ouster. “Chloe can't do her job with those two spying around.”

“No, she can't,” Rory agreed slowly. “In fact, I think that she had better come to Botanics with me in the morning, just to add some cover to the story that she's here to work on the catalog.” He looked at her and added with a slight smile, “You may just as well make yourself useful there as here.”

“You're just trying to pick a fight,” she answered mechanically, relieved that she wouldn't be laboring alone in the cemetery while Isaac Runyon was still around. That would have been
asking a lot of her nerves. “But it won't work. I actually am curious to see your gardens. You don't know it, but I am a longtime customer of yours. And I would love to photograph the gardens too.”

“Too bad that I'm not working on the gardens tomorrow.”

“You aren't?” she asked, not really caring.

Rory stared at her, finally sensing her distraction and beginning to question its source.

“No. I'm antiquing pots.”

“Oh. Well, I'm sure that's interesting too.”

“That sounds downright fascinating,” MacGregor stuck in, as he seated himself at the harpsichord. His white fingers played a little trill. Either the instrument needed tuning, or MacGregor's finger placement was slightly off. “In fact, I think I'll join you. It's been a while since I came down to see your operation. You could probably benefit from a little experienced business advice before you get on with the expansion.”

Rory didn't look overjoyed at his father's plans, but MacGregor was busy playing the opening chords to “Danny Boy” and didn't see his son's lack of filial gratitude.

True to his promise, MacGregor sang the ballad in Gaelic. It was more an enthusiastic performance than a precise one, and his audience was largely unappreciative of his efforts. Half of the spectators lounged in a wingback chair and feigned sleep. The other half stood beside the piano and smiled politely as she turned pages in the
music book, but Chloe's disturbed mind was about twenty-seven miles away, at her grandmother's cabin.

For some reason she was thinking of Isaac as the nightmare monster she had dreamed about the night before coming to Riverview. But obviously they weren't connected. They couldn't be. The monster was just something her mind had coughed up—a stress hairball. But when intuition opened its mouth, she knew to listen. Maybe she had overreacted a little back there in the dining room, but her psyche was insisting that this guy was bad news. She would take steps to make sure that she avoided Isaac in the future. She did not want to get any closer to the beast at the back of his eyes. She didn't believe in psychic premonitions—not really. And she would probably benefit from some of the modern pharmaceuticals that helped people with paranoid delusions. But there was such a thing as feminine intuition, wasn't there? And why subject herself to his obnoxious company when she didn't have to?

Chloe tuned back in to hear MacGregor singing about the Bluesman, Robert Johnson, selling his soul at the crossroads. She shivered. The tune was a bit too apropos, given what she'd been thinking.

While I thought I was learning to live,
I have been learning how to die.
—Leonardo da Vinci 98

Rory waited until a civilized hour to leave for Botanics headquarters. Chloe suspected that this was due to an intimate acquaintance with MacGregor's lollygagging tendencies rather than to spare her an early rising or an inability on his own part to face the day until the sun was well up in the sky. Chloe hadn't consulted the family Bible but she suspected that Rory's full name was Rory Stubborn Fortitude Patrick. He could do dawn risings with a hangover and one arm tied behind his back.

She didn't complain about the delay. Her sleep the night before had been uneasy, filled with dreams of being hunted by demons where she was trying to save two people, knowing all along that she would have to let one of them fall behind or
they would all perish. Perhaps her thoughts had turned to sulfurous flames because of the temperature: the day's heat had lingered into the night. Whatever the cause, she was glad for the chance to eat a decent breakfast and pour a little caffeine jump-start into her sluggish system. Though not usually a large breakfast consumer, she nevertheless ate and drank with the steadfast devotion of one who was aware that her host was likely to get interested in something and decide that lunch was an unnecessary luxury.

The only danger to lingering at the table was a possible encounter with Claude and Isaac over the English muffins. But apparently neither of the men was a child of the morning, either, particularly when they had tied several on the night before, a likelihood which was safely gleaned from past behavior if not actually seen in this instance, or so she gathered from MacGregor's acerbic stray comments. To Chloe, this seemed to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black—or sometimes worse things, if she understood MacGregor's mumblings—but as she was growing fond of her employer, and he did pay the bills, she refrained from saying anything about his own bloodshot eyes and lack of appetite.

Patrick's Botanics was only a ten-minute ride from the main house. It was an impressive operation whose hothouses spanned five acres. It was large, modern and efficient, yet it managed to retain
the same air of sumptuous comfort that pervaded the rest of Riverview. Perhaps it was the strains of Puccini's
La Boheme
throbbing on the gentle breezes produced by silent fans inside the immense hothouses—constructed, of course, in the overwrought Victorian manner that made their architecture more ornate than a wedding cake—that gave this impression of pampered wealth.

“
Ah!
Those Italians!” MacGregor beamed approvingly, beginning to look more chipper. “They have the best marbles, the best footwear and the best operas.”

Chloe shook her head as she looked around, but it wasn't in disagreement. The outsides of the buildings might have been frivolous, but the interiors were not. There were massive tracks of grow-lights, clinically clean, stainless steel tables, and high-tech office chairs. Medical labs would envy this setup. Financial security was an amazing thing. There wasn't a shoestring
anything
in sight. These had to be the most pampered plants and employees on the planet, and she wished that Roland Lachaise could be there to see it. This was a level of work comfort to which she would like to become accustomed.