The Midnight Tour (51 page)

When the kiss ended, she whispered “Tuck” against his lips.

He kissed her harder, deeper. He pressed himself against her. His hands rubbed up and down her back.

But they wouldn’t come around to her front. They wouldn’t stray lower than the waist of her shorts. They wouldn’t slip under the back of her T-shirt.

So Dana put her hands under the hanging tail of Warren’s shirt and lightly caressed his buttocks and eased her hands higher until they found the smooth, bare skin of his back.

His mouth broke away from her.

“Tuck,” she whispered.

He stared into her eyes. His mouth was wet and shiny around the lips.

“Tuck,” Dana said again.

His head shook.

“Tuck?” she asked.

“Uhh...Maybe we oughta slow down.”

“That’s supposed to be
my
line,” Dana said.

“Sorry.”

“That’s okay. I wasn’t planning to use it, anyway.”

“Didn’t think so.” He smiled. Stepping back, he ran his hand across his mouth.

“Is everything all right?” Dana asked.

“Better than all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yeah. But...I didn’t really expect to...you know...have things happen so fast.”

“I didn’t expect to like you so much,” Dana said.

“I’ve got an idea. Why don’t I go ahead and make the margaritas? Then we can sit around and have a few drinks and get to know each other a little better. How does that sound?”

“Sounds fine.”
Maybe he
’
ll tell me what
’
s wrong. Something has to be wrong.

Maybe it’s my breath.

Maybe he
’
s secretly married.

Has a terminal illness.

Oh, God, don’t let it be anything terrible. Please. I really, really like this guy
.

When Warren was done blending the margaritas, he filled two glasses and asked Dana to carry them.

“Where to?” she asked.

“How about the porch
^?
I’ve got a table out there.”

“Sounds good.”

“I’ll be along in a minute,” he said.

Dana carried the drinks to the porch. She found a small, wooden table at the far end. It looked clean, and had a red candle in the center. She set down the drinks.

Warren came in with a bowl of corn tortilla chips and a bowl of salsa.

They sat down on wicker chairs.

A mild breeze drifted in through the screens. Looking to her right, Dana could see through the trees to the ocean. The fog was still far out. She turned to Warren as he lifted his glass.

“To the prettiest girl I know,” he said.

“Thanks. To my favorite guy.”

They clinked the rims of their glasses together, then drank.

“Oh, this is really good,” Dana said.

“I made ’em Mexican style.”

“As opposed to?”

“U.S. restaurant-style. Be careful, though. They’re very strong.”

“I’ll drink slowly.”

Warren set down his glass. Smile fading, he looked Dana in the eyes. “You
will
stay for dinner, won’t you?”

“I’m invited, aren’t I?”

“I not only invited you, I ran home right afterwards to thaw out a steak and put it in marinate.”

“Can’t miss that. Unless you
throw
me out.”

“What about Lynn and the prowler?”

“Tuck?”

His smile returned. “Let’s not start that again.”

Dana smiled innocently and shrugged her shoulders. Then she said, “I think as long as I get back before very late.”

“Before dark?”

“Maybe not
that
early.”

“I tell you what. Just let me know.”

“When it is time to go, will you drive me?”

“That can probably be arranged.”

After pouring refills and adding a handful of chips to the bowl, Warren said, “I’d better get the fire started.”

“Can I come?”

“Sure. You want to bring my drink with you?”

“I’ll bring ’em both.” Dana stuffed a crisp, salty chip into her mouth, then got to her feet and picked up her glass and Warren’s.

Ever so slightly, the porch seemed to tilt.

“These babies
are
strong,” she said. “But deee-licious.”

Warren smiled back at her. At the far corner of the porch, he picked up a bag of charcoal briquettes and a tin of lighter fluid. He carried them to the screen door, bumped it open with his shoulder, and trotted down the stairs.

Dana followed him, moving slowly, being careful not to spill the drinks.

Just past the end of the porch, they stopped at a red brick fireplace. Warren removed the grill. Then he up-ended the sack of briquettes, sending black chunks tumbling out.

“This is like what they call a
bus
man’s holiday,” Dana said.

“I guess so.”

“Here you’ve been slaving over a hot grill all day, and now you’re at it again.”

“Oh, I don’t mind. I enjoy it.” He set down the bag, arranged some of the briquettes by hand, then set the black iron grill into place.

“I hear you
own
the snack stand,” Dana said.

“That’s right.” He started squirting fluid onto the pile of briquettes.

“How did you go from Beast House guide to snack stand owner?”

He squirted out more and more fluid. It made the briquettes look wet and shiny, but only for a moment. No sooner did they get soaked than they appeared to be dry again. Dry, but a slightly darker shade of black.

“Well,” Warren said, “I had to get out of the guide business.”

“How come?”

Shaking his head, he set down the can. “The house. It finally got to me.” He reached into a pocket of his white trousers and pulled out a book of matches. “I just couldn’t go in anymore.” Crouching, he struck a match. Its head flared. He touched the flame to a briquette. Blue and yellow fire began to spread over the surface. He moved his match to another lump. Then another. Soon, the entire pile was bathed in a low, fluttering fire. “That should do it,” he said.

He stepped over to Dana and accepted his glass.

Standing side by side, they sipped their margaritas.

Dana took deep breaths. She smelled the ocean, the pine trees, and the warm scents of the barbeque. The odor from the barbeque was mostly burning fuel, she supposed. But it was a good, familiar aroma. It reminded her of fine times when she was a kid and her father cooked steaks on their backyard grill.

“If it doesn’t go out,” Warren said, “I should be able to throw on the meat in about half an hour.”

“Sounds good.”

“Want to go back into the porch?”

“I’d rather stay here. This is nice.”

“It
is
nice.”

“So,” Dana said. She sipped her drink. “Let’s see. Yesterday, you were telling me how you had this huge
attraction
to Beast House. Like you
belonged
there.”

“I did.”

“So what happened? All of a sudden, you just muldn’t
go in
?”

He nodded.

“How come?”

He shrugged, then took a drink. “The place suddenly
got
to me.”

“Got to you how?”

“Just... realizing that all those people had
really
died in there. That it wasn’t make-believe. I’d always thought of the place as...like a carnival funhouse. But then it all turned real in my head and I couldn’t stand to be inside it anymore.”

“What made that happen?”

He shrugged again. “Just happened,” he muttered. After another sip of margarita, he said, “Anyway, Janice didn’t want to lose me, so she offered me the snack stand.”

“She
gave
it to you?”

“It pretty much amounts to that. She gets a small percentage of the profits.”

“But you actually
own
it?”

“Right.”

“That’s pretty cool.” Dana sipped her margarita. Then she reached over and put a hand on his back. She moved it lightly, sliding the silk fabric against his skin. “So,” she said. “Now that I know you’re a big, successful business man, tell me your deepest, darkest secret.”

She couldn’t believe she’d asked.

“Do I
have
a deep, dark secret?” he asked.

“Oh, I bet you do.”

And maybe it
’
ll tell me why you stopped things in the kitchen. Any normal guy...

“What makes you think so?”

“Everybody has at least one deep, dark secret,” she said. “I want to know yours.” Her hand continued to roam his back.

“What’s yours?” he asked.

“I asked you first.”

“I wonder if the fire’s still going.”

Dana saw no flames, but that was normal. Warren stepped away from her and lowered an open hand close to the grill. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

“I’ll tell you mine,” she said.

He turned to face her, but stayed near the fireplace. “You don’t have to.”

“I want to. I want you to know me. Do you want to know me?”

“Yes.”

“Then I have to tell you my deepest, darkest secret.” Her heart was pounding fast. Her voice sounded as if it were coming from someone else.

“You don’t have to. You’re not completely sober.”

“I know what I’m doing.”

“Tomorrow, you might wish you hadn’t said anything.”

“No. I’ll tell you mine and you tell me yours.”

“I’m not sure this is such a great idea, Dana.”

“Hey,” she said. “After I tell you the worst, it’ll all be uphill. Everything about me’ll be
better
. Know what I mean?”

“I think you should wait till some other time.”

“No. Now’s...”

“I don’t even know your favorite color yet, and you wanta tell me...”

“Blue. Royal blue.”

“What’s your favorite song?”

“When I was fifteen, I had this terrible crush on my English teacher. Mr. Johnson. I I guess he was about thirty, and...”

“Don’t tell me this now. You’re half drunk, and...”

“Mr. Johnson had a wife.”

“I got attacked in Beast House,” Warren said.

“
What?
”

“About two years ago.”

“Oh, my God!”

She hadn’t expected
this.

“How?” she asked. “What happened?”

He drank his glass empty and set it down on the fireplace.

“If I tell you, you’ve got to keep it a secret. You can’t tell anyone. Not even Lynn. Do you promise?”

This is serious.

“I promise,” Dana said. “But you don’t have to tell me.”

“Now
you tell me.”

She smiled and almost sobbed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to force you into...”

“It’s all right. I’d have to tell you sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.”

“Are you sure?”

Nodding, he said, “What happened, we came up a couple of tape players short at closing time. Janice and I did a search of the house, but we couldn’t find anyone. She was pretty upset about it. We’d been having a lot of trouble with that sort of thing. Players missing. People staying overnight. Vandalism. I figured, this time, they wouldn’t get away with it. So I went in by myself at around midnight. Didn’t tell anyone. I just snuck in, figuring I’d probably catch a couple of teenagers, scare the hell out of them, then make them clean up whatever mess they’d made and throw them out.

“But I couldn’t find anyone. What I
did
find ... You know the iron door down in the cellar?”

“Yeah.” Dana lifted her glass and noticed it was empty.

“Can I get you a refill?”

“No. Thanks. What about the door?”

“You know how it’s always padlocked from the Kutch side?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, the padlock was off. It was down on the tunnel floor, and the door was ajar.”

“Jeez.”

“What I thought was, maybe these jokers had reached through the bars and picked the lock so they could go through the tunnel.”

“Pay a visit to old lady Kutch?”

“You bet.
Everybody
wants to see what it’s like inside her house.”

“Including you.”

“I
used
to,” Warren said. “And that night was my big chance. It was perfect. The lock was already off. I had a responsibility to find the intruders. They’d given me a great excuse in case I ran into Agnes at the other end.”

“And you
did
it? You went through the tunnel?”

“I never got the chance. I opened the door a little wider and bent down to pick up the lock, and...I guess I hadn’t been exactly
alone
down there. I got jumped.”

He unbuttoned his bright silk shirt and took it off.

Dana stared at the scars on his shoulders.

He turned around.

“My God,” Dana murmured.

The nape of his neck, his shoulders, his upper back...a tangle of scars as if he’d been mauled by a pack of raging cats.

He turned to face her again. Looking miserable, he said, “That’s why I...stopped things in the kitchen. You don’t want to just stumble onto a mess like this.”

Dana felt tears stinging her eyes, running down her face.

She went to Warren and set her glass on the fireplace beside his glass. She put her arms around him. “Tuck,” she said.