Although Jilly had been exhausted on returning from the North Pole and had expected to nap away the remaining afternoon and early evening, she felt awake, alert, and energetic after the cake. She wondered if the changes that she was going through might ultimately leave her with less of a need to sleep.

Each bedroom featured a large and sumptuously appointed bath with marble floors and walls and counters, gold-plated fixtures, both a shower and a large tub designed for leisurely soaking, plus heated racks to ensure the small but welcome comfort of warm towels. She took a long, luxurious shower, and with the lazy self-absorption of a cat, she found bliss in grooming and prettifying herself.

Parish had tried to foresee her preferences in everything from shampoo and bar soap to makeup and eyeliner. Sometimes he'd made the right choice, sometimes not, but he'd hit the mark more often than he missed. His consideration charmed her.

Refreshed and remade, in clean clothes, she found her way from the guest wing to the living room. During this ramble, she was more than ever convinced that the warm style and the coziness of the house distracted most visitors from clearly perceiving its true immensity. Beneath its softened and romanticized Wrightian lines, in spite of its open embrace of nature with windows and courtyards, the structure was deeply mysterious, cloistered when it appeared not to be, keeping secrets precisely when it seemed most to expose itself.

This, too, was as it should be.

From the living room, she stepped out onto the cantilevered deck that the architect had magically suspended high among the fragrant pine trees to provide a breathtaking view of the fabled lake.

Within moments, Dylan joined her at the railing. They stood in silence together, enchanted by the panorama, which had the luminous vibrancy of a Maxfield Parrish painting in this late-afternoon light. The time for talking had both passed and not yet arrived.

Parish had apologized in advance for not being able to provide them with the usual level of service that he offered to his guests. When he'd first realized that the injection of nanomachines would change him profoundly, he had given four members of his household staff a week's vacation so that he could endure the metamorphosis in private.

Only Ling, the majordomo, remained. Dylan had been at the deck railing with Jilly no more than two minutes when this man arrived. He brought cocktails on a small black-lacquered serving tray featuring a lily-pad design formed by inlaid mother-of-pearl. A pair of perfect dry martinis – stirred, not shaken.

Slender but well conditioned, moving with the grace of a maitre de ballet and with the quiet self-assurance of one who most likely had earned a black belt in tae kwon do, Ling might have been thirty-five years old, but in his ebony-black eyes could be glimpsed the wisdom of the ancients well distilled. As Jilly took her martini from the lily-pad tray, and again as Dylan accepted his, Ling bowed his head slightly and with a kind smile spoke one word of Chinese to each of them, the same word twice, which Jilly somehow knew was both a welcome and a wish for their good fortune. Then Ling departed almost as discreetly as a ghost dematerializing; had this been winter and had the deck been dusted with snow, he might have left no footprints either coming or going.

This, too, was uncannily as it should be.

While Jilly and Dylan enjoyed the perfect martinis and the view, Shepherd remained in the living room behind them. He'd found a corner to his liking, where he might stand for an hour or two, sensory input limited to the contemplation of wall meeting wall.

The French have a saying – Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose – which means 'The more things change, the more they remain the same.' Shepherd, as he stood now in the corner, embodied the comedy and the tragedy of that truth. He represented both the frustration and the graceful acceptance that it suggested, but defined as well the melancholy beauty in those words.

Considering that Parish's nationally syndicated radio program was heard on over five hundred stations six nights a week, Monday through Saturday, he would ordinarily have been at work as twilight cast its purple veils across the lake. In a state-of-the-art studio in the basement of the house, he could take calls from some of his ten million listeners and from his interview subjects, and with the assistance of Ling and an engineer, he could conduct his show. The actual production facility remained in San Francisco, where call-ins were screened and patched through to him, and where the combined audio feeds were filtered and enhanced for all-but-instantaneous rebroadcast.

This Saturday night, however, as on the first night following injection with Proctor's stuff, Parish would forego the usual live broadcast and run instead a best-of program from his archives.

Shortly before they were expected to join their host for dinner, Jilly said to Dylan, 'I'm going to call my mom. I'll be right back.'

Leaving her empty martini glass on the deck railing, she folded to a shadowy corner of the gardens at the back of the Peninsula hotel in Beverly Hills. Her arrival went unnoticed.

She could have folded anywhere to make the call, but she liked the Peninsula. This hotel was the five-star quality she had hoped one day to be able to afford if her career as a comedian had taken off.

At a pay phone inside, she fed change to the slot and keyed in the familiar number.

Her mother answered on the third ring. Recognizing Jilly's voice, she blurted: 'Are you all right, baby girl, are you hurt, what's happened to you, sugar – Sweet Jesus keep you safe – where are you?'

'Relax, Mom. I'm fine. I wanted to let you know that I'm not going to be able to see you for a week or two, but I'll figure out a way for us to get together soon.'

'Jilly girl, since the church, people been here from the TV, from the newspapers, all of them as rude as any welfare bureaucrat on a dry-cracker diet. Fact is, they're out in the street right now, with all their noise and satellite trucks, littering with their filthy cigarettes and their granola-bar wrappers. Rude, rude, rude.'

'Don't talk to any of them, Mom. As far as you know, I'm dead.'

'Don't you say such a terrible thing!'

'Just don't tell anyone you've heard from me. I'll explain all this later. Listen, Mom, some big, tough-looking dudes are going to come around soon. They'll say they're with the FBI or somesuch, but they'll be lying. You just play dumb. Be nice as pie with them, pretend to be worried sick about me, but don't give them a clue.'

'Well, I'm just a one-eyed, two-cane, poor-as-dirt, ignorant, big-assed simpleton, after all. Who could expect me to know anything about anything?'

'Love you to pieces, Mom. One more thing. I'm sure your phone isn't tapped already, but eventually they might find a way. So when I come to see you, I won't call first.'

'Baby girl, I'm scared like I haven't had to be scared since your hateful father was good enough to get himself shot dead.'

'Don't be scared, Mom. I'll be all right. And so will you. You're in for some surprises.'

'Father Francorelli is here with me. He wants to talk to you. He's all excited about what happened at the wedding. Jilly girl, what happened at the wedding? I mean, I know, sure, I been told, but none of it makes a lick of sense.'

'I don't want to talk to Father Francorelli, Mom. Just tell him I'm so sorry I ruined the ceremony.'

'Ruined? You saved them. You saved them all.'

'Well, I could have been more discreet about it. Hey, Mom, when we get together in a couple weeks, would you like to have dinner in Paris?'

'Paris, France? What in the world would I eat in Paris?'

'Or maybe Rome? Or Venice? Or Hong Kong?'

'Baby girl, I know you wouldn't do drugs in a million years, but you got me worried now.'

Jilly laughed. 'How about Venice? Some five-star restaurant. I know you like Italian food.'

'I do have a passion for lasagne. How are you going to afford five stars, let alone in Venice, Italy?'

'You just wait and see. And Mom...'

'What is it, child?'

'I wouldn't have been able to save my own ass, not to mention all those people, if I hadn't grown up with you to show me how not to let the fear eat me alive.'

'God bless you, baby girl. I love you so much.'

When Jilly hung up, she took a moment to recover her composure. Then she used a ransom of quarters to place a long-distance call to a number that Dylan had given her. A woman answered the first ring, and Jilly said, 'I'd like to speak to Vonetta Beesley, please.'

'You're speakin' to her. What can I do you for?'

'Dylan O'Conner asked me to call and make sure you're okay.'

'What could anyone do to me that Nature won't eventually do worse? You tell Dylan I'm fine. And it's good to know he's alive. He's not hurt?'

'Not a scratch.'

'And little Shep?'

'He's standing in a corner right now, but he had a nice piece of cake earlier, and he'll be fine by dinner.'

'He's a love.'

'That he is,' Jilly said. 'And Dylan wanted me to tell you they won't be needing a housekeeper anymore.'

'From what I hear happened up at their place, you couldn't clean it up with anything less than a bulldozer, anyway. Tell me something, doll. You think you can take good care of them?'

'I think so,' Jilly said.

'They deserve good care.'

'They do,' she agreed.

Finished with the second call, she would have liked to erupt from the phone booth in cape and tights, leaping into flight with great drama. She didn't have a cape and tights, of course, and she couldn't actually fly. Instead, she looked both ways to be sure the pay-phone hallway was deserted, and then without trumpets, without flourishes, she folded herself to the deck overlooking the lake, where Dylan waited in the last of the Tahoe twilight.

The moon had risen long before the late summer sunset. In the west, the night kissed the last rouge off the cheek of the day, and in the east the full moon hung high, the lamp of romance.

Precisely at nightfall, Ling reappeared to lead them, and Shep, down through previously unseen passages and chambers, and finally out of the house to the dock. The ordinary dock lights had been turned off. The path was charmingly illuminated by a series of tapered candles floating in midair, eight feet above the planking.

Apparently, Parish enjoyed finding other uses for the power with which he had deflected and then redirected speeding bullets.

The great house stood on ten wooded acres, fenced against the uninvited, and the trees guaranteed seclusion. Even from far across the lake, with binoculars trained on the candles, no curious soul would quite know what he was seeing. The lark seemed worth the risk.

As though he himself were drifting a fraction of an inch off the dock planks, Ling led them through the lambent candlelight, under the levitated tapers, along the dock and down the gangway. The sound made by water lapping at the pilings might almost have been music.

Ling gave no indication that he found the levitating candles to be remarkable. By all appearances, nothing could disturb either his mental calm or his balletic equilibrium. Evidently, his discretion and his loyalty to his employer were beyond question, to a degree that seemed almost supernatural.

This, too, was as it should be.

At the bottom of the gangway, in the slip, rested a forty-five-foot cabin cruiser from an age when pleasure boats were not made from plastic, aluminum, and fiberglass. White painted wood, decks and trim of polished mahogany, and bracelets and necklaces of sparkling brass brightwork made this not merely a cabin cruiser, but a vessel that had sailed out of a dream.

When all were aboard, the candles on the dock were extinguished one by one and allowed to drop to the planking.

Parish piloted the boat out of the slip and into the lake. The waters would have been everywhere as black as aniline if the generous moon had not scattered silver coins across the wavelets. He dropped anchor far from shore, relying on the amber-paned ship's lanterns to warn other night travelers of their presence.

The spacious afterdeck of the cruiser allowed a table for four and sufficient room for Ling to serve a candlelight dinner. The wild-mushroom ravioli, as an appetizer, were nicely square. On the entree plate, the zucchini had been cubed before it had been sauteed; the serving of potato-onion casserole was presented in a neat block; and the medallions of veal had been thoughtfully trimmed into squares not merely for Shepherd, but for everyone, so as to ensure that the young Mr. O'Conner would not feel that he had in any way been set apart from his companions.

Nevertheless, Ling stood ready in the galley to make a grilled-cheese sandwich if necessary.

Every course proved to be delicious. The accompanying Cabernet Sauvignon rated exceptional by any standard. The cold glass of Coke without ice cubes satisfied as fully as could any cold glass of Coke in the world. And the conversation, of course, was fascinating, even though Shepherd limited most of his contributions to one or two words and made excessive use of the adjective tasty.

'You will have a wing of the house for your own,' Parish said. 'And in time, if you'd like, a second house can be constructed on the property.'

'You're very generous,' Jilly said.

'Nonsense. My radio program is a money cow. I've never married, have no children. Of course, you'll have to live here secretly. Your whereabouts must never be known. The media, authorities, the whole of humanity would hound you ceaselessly, more and more as the years go by. I may have to make a couple staff changes to ensure our secret will be kept, but Ling has brothers, sisters.'

'Funny,' Dylan said, 'how we sit here planning, on the same page from the start. We all know what must be done and how.'

'We're of different generations,' Jilly said, 'but we're all children of the same culture. We're marinated in the same mythology.'

'Exactly,' said Parish. 'Now, next week I'll change my will to make all of you my heirs, though this will have to be done through Swiss attorneys and a chain of offshore accounts, with ID numbers rather than names. Your names are already too well known nationally, and in the years ahead, you'll be ever more famous. Should anything happen to me, or to any of us, the others can go on without tax or financial problems.'

Putting down his knife and fork, clearly moved by their host's easy generosity, Dylan said, 'There aren't words to properly thank you for all this. You are... an exceptional man.'

'No more gratitude,' Parish said firmly. 'I don't need to hear it. You are exceptional, as well, Dylan. And you, Jilly. And you, Shepherd.'

'Tasty.'

'We are all different from other men and women, and we'll never be like them again. Not better, but very different. There is nowhere in the world where any of us truly belongs anymore except here, with one another. Our task from this day forward – a task at which we must not fail – is to make absolutely certain that we use our difference to make a difference.'

Tags: Dean Koontz Horror
Source: readsnovelonline.net