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having hysterics, I’ve got another letter to dictate.”
Hysterics! She raised a trembling hand to her face, brushing away the tears. Her heart felt like a
dead weight in her chest. She wanted to lie down someplace quiet and just die.
He was behind her suddenly, his big hand outstretched with a soft white handkerchief. “Dry your
eyes, little girl,” he said, and his voice was almost kind.
She took it wordlessly and dabbed at her eyes, blowing her nose. She clutched it in her hand like
a lifeline.
“I’ll get my pad,” she said, raising her face proudly, her red-rimmed eyes meeting his levelly.
He watched her walk into the house, her spine as straight as a slide rule, her carriage faultless.
With her back to him, she didn’t see the look that was carved on his dark face.
Four
T he drive up to Devereaux’s cabin on Lake Lanier took barely an hour, even in the weekend traffic,
but to Dana and Lillian it seemed much longer.
“I hate riding,” Lillian confided as Frank helped them unload their preparations from the sleek
Lincoln. “I like being there and being back, but I hate the in-between.”
Dana only laughed, her eyes on the redwood cabin, so spacious and majestic in its woodsy
setting on the lakefront. It boasted huge picture windows and sliding glass doors and a fireplace that
must have been heaven to sit by in winter.
It was the perfect setting for a party, with the wide pier on the lake and the boat dock next to it,
and the beautiful clean silence of bark and grass and brown earth.
Dana paused on the wide front porch overlooking the lake and let the cool wind tear at her
loosened hair. She’d stood here with him once, at night, and listened to the sound of dogs baying in
the distance. And listened to his deep voice as he told her about the old days when he hunted the
Georgia mountains with his father in the fall, while he was growing up in Chicago.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Lillian sighed, pausing beside her. “Peace and quiet and birds and wind
rustling the trees. This place keeps the Mister sane, I’ll tell you. It’s his refuge.”
“Why does he want to ruin it with a houseful of drunk people?” Dana wanted to know.
“Still a teetotaler, are you?” Lillian teased. “Baby, you just can’t understand why people drink,
can you?”
Remembering last night, Dana felt a shudder run through her. “Oh, I’ve got a good idea. Lillian,
do you think that band’s reliable?”
“Sure they are. Don’t worry, now, everything’s going to be just fine. Trust me. Nothing’s going
to go wrong.”
Sure, Dana thought to herself when the band leader called fifteen minutes before he was due to
arrive with his group and told her there’d been a car wreck. Fortunately, no one was hurt badly, but
they wouldn’t be able to perform.
That was just the tip of the iceberg. She’d forgotten to get a bag of ice, and there was none in the
refrigerator. The ham she’d wrapped so lovingly flew out of her hands as she tripped on the steps and
went rolling down into the lake.
She sat down on the front stoop, her face in her hands, with ten minutes to get everything ready
before Devereaux and his party arrived.
“Dana, what are you doing?” Lillian called, her apron waving in the wind.
“I’m having a nervous breakdown?!” she replied.
“Where’s the ham?”
Dana pointed toward the shore, where the lake was lapping gently around the lovely huge party
ham.
“And the band?”
“They were in a wreck and they can’t come. They’re very sorry,” she added.
“My God!”
“It’s all right,” Dana told her reassuringly. “He’ll only drown me once, you know.”
“What will we do?” Lillian was muttering to herself, as if she could hear the funeral dirge being
played slowly in the distance.
Dana got up. “I’ll fix it. Reporters,” she told the older woman, “are resourceful. Or they get
barbecued by city editors.”
She got on the phone and called an old friend at the local daily paper. From her, she got the name
of a good local band, which could be had, fortunately, on the spur of the moment, and the address of a
good local deli. She sent Frank for cold cuts, called the band and in five minutes had everything
wrapped up.
“Magic,” Lillian murmured, shaking her head in awe.
“Unicorns,” Dana laughed. “I believe in them, you know.”
She stayed in the kitchen with Lillian when the guests began to arrive, every one of them late,
and the band was already winding up its first number by the time Adrian Devereaux arrived—with
the dragon.
Fayre Braunns was the perfect foil for Adrian’s satanic darkness. She was blond, petite, with
eyes so big and green that they seemed to dominate her sharp face. She was wearing a white lace
pantsuit that clung like skin to her slender figure, contrasting violently with the dark brown silk of
Adrian’s open shirt and white slacks. They made the perfect couple, Dana had to admit, feeling an
emptiness in the region of her heart as she watched the blonde cling to him.
She hadn’t dressed for the occasion, wearing faded denims and a blue and white checked knit
top, but the sweep of her blond hair gave the old clothes an elegance she wasn’t aware of.
She was finishing another tray of bacon-rolled dates for canapes when she heard the door open
behind her.
“I’ll have this batch ready in a jiffy, Lillian,” she said cheerfully, arranging parsley around the
edges of the tray.
“Hiding, Meredith?”
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