Usher's Passing (25 page)

The sound of the next blow made him wince. He reached toward the doorknob, intending to interrupt the beating—but suddenly that shining silver circle with the roaring lion's face was before him, and he couldn't bear to touch it. Within an instant, it had faded again.

Something in the Lodge? he thought.
What?
A doorknob? What door, and leading where?

All shadows, hidden in the past.

He pulled his hand back and went on.

SITTING IN A BOOTH AT THE BACK OF THE BROADLEAF CAFE, RAVEN
Dunstan checked her wristwatch. It was seven minutes after three. A couple of farmers sat at the counter, drinking coffee and eating stale doughnuts. The waitress, a skinny woman in a yellow uniform, with platinum-blond hair heaped up in a tight bun, sat on a stool behind the counter, reading an old copy of
People
magazine. Hazy afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows that faced the street.
A
pickup truck rattled past. Two kids on bikes, pedaling furiously, rocketed by the windows.

She'd decided to give him five more minutes, and then she would leave. She'd been here for over an hour, had consumed a piece
of blackberry pie with vanilla ice cream and three cups of the black sludge that passed as coffee. A copy of last week's
Democrat
lay on the seat beside her, covered with circles of red ink
where she'd marked typos, inconsistencies or headlines that she felt could've been better. After talking to Rix Usher, she'd called her father to find out more about him. Wheeler had said he was the middle child, about thirty-three or thirty-four years old. He was the black sheep of the family, Wheeler had told her, and had been arrested in 1970 for participating in an antiwar demonstration at the University of North Carolina. Wheeler said he understood Rix had been living in the deep South somewhere, but didn't know how he'd been making a living.

The door opened, clanging a small cowbell over it, and Raven looked up. A burly man in a plaid jacket and brown cap came in, took his seat at the counter, and ordered a ham sandwich and fries. Definitely not Rix Usher, she told herself.

Raven had been calling Usherland every day for the past two weeks, trying to find out more about Walen Usher's condition. Once she'd gotten a maid to admit that the man was very ill, but then someone had grabbed the phone and slammed it down. Usually she could tell when an Usher answered, because there was a moment of stony silence before the telephone crashed down. The Ushers had changed their number several times, but Raven had ferreted out the new numbers with the help of an old high school friend who worked for the phone company in Asheville. Her father had impressed upon her his belief that if a bull charged a barn door enough times, either he would knock the door off its hinges or somebody would open the door to stop the damned banging.

In this case, Raven thought, Rix Usher had opened that door.

The cowbell clanged.

A tall, lean blond man in khakis and a brown sweater had entered the Broadleaf. Raven saw he had the Usher appearance of haughty aristocracy: a displaced Welsh prince, perhaps, who dreamed of returning triumphantly to the ancestral castle. He was very pale and almost too thin, as if he'd been sick and hidden away from the sunlight. If this
was
Rix Usher, then her father had been wrong about his age. This man was in his late thirties or early forties. In spite of her feelings about the Usher clan, her heart was beating harder. She sat stiffly, watching him approach her table. He was a handsome man, though something about him seemed almost fragile. He looked at her through wary eyes the color of silver coins, and Raven felt herself shift uneasily.

"Miss Dunstan?" Rix asked.

"That's right." She motioned toward the other side of the booth, and Rix slid in.

The woman was certainly younger and more attractive than Rix had imagined. In fact, he was pleasantly surprised. There was strength in the set of her jaw, intelligence and curiosity in her light blue eyes. She wasn't a beautiful woman in the classic sense—her mouth was too wide, her nose too sharp and slightly crooked, as if it had been broken and poorly set—but the combination of her fair complexion, black hair, and piercing blue eyes was riveting. To mask his interest, Rix picked up a menu and looked over the items. "Anything good here?" he asked.

"The pie, if you like apple, persimmon, or blackberry. I won't recommend the coffee."

The waitress ambled on over. Rix said he'd just take a glass of water; she shrugged and went to the counter to get it.

"I understand you've been disturbing my family," Rix said.

"I suppose that's part of my job."

"Is it? A court of law might not see it that way. As a matter of fact, I don't understand why my family doesn't bring a harassment suit against you and that paper you work for."

"I've wondered that myself," she replied, her direct gaze challenging him. "But I think I know why. Your father's very ill. He doesn't want the least bit of publicity. Zero. Nil. He knows that if he starts something with the
Democrat,
other papers are going to take notice."

The waitress brought Rix's water, and he sipped at it thoughtfully. "You've got an inflated opinion of the
Democrat,
Miss Dunstan. It's only one of a dozen county newspapers in the state. What makes you think it's so important?"

"Because it is. The
Democrat
was being published in these hills thirty years before the first stone was laid at Usherland. My great-great-great-grandfather brought the hand press with him on his back from Dublin, and the paper started out as a bulletin for the tobacco farmers. My family has edited it, written in it, and published it for over a hundred and sixty years. Sure, there are plenty of county papers, but the
Democrat
is the oldest—and we've been monitoring you Ushers since old Hudson himself settled here."

"Watching us, you mean."

She smiled faintly. Rix looked at the scar that cut through her left eyebrow and wondered how she'd gotten it. "Someone has to. Your family owns controlling interest in at least seven Southern newspapers. God only knows how many television and radio stations you own. If you want to go to court, Mr. Usher, a nice case might be made out of monopoly and conflict of interest, don't you think?"

"No one wants to go to court," he said. "Especially not over a tabloid like the
Democrat."

"You don't have a very high regard for the paper, do you? Well, it might interest you to know that your father offered mine over two hundred thousand dollars for the
Democrat,
four years ago. He refused, of course. The
Democrat
is distributed statewide and has a paid subscription of forty-five thousand."

"And I'd say that most of those people read it because they're looking for news about the Ushers—or, I should say, hints of scandal. I've never met your father, but I'm sure he'd agree that the Ushers have helped sell his newspaper."

"It's not his newspaper anymore," Raven said. She folded her hands before her on the table. "It's mine. I've owned it and published it since the first of August, when I took it over from my father."

"Oh. I see. Then I guess Wheeler's spending his retirement working on that book of his? The one about the Usher family?"

"He works on it every day, yes."

Jesus Christ! Rix thought. He willed himself not to show emotion. "My family's not too happy about it. They'd like to know where he's getting his research materials."

"From sources," she said enigmatically.

"When's he going to be finished with it?"

"Maybe next year. He wants to make sure all the facts are correct."

"I hope they are, for both your sakes. My family won't go to court over the
Democrat,
but they'll come down on you like a brick snowstorm over this book."

Raven's eyes searched his face. "How much longer does Walen have to live? And who's the estate going to pass to after he dies?"

Rix swirled the ice cubes around his glass. He should get up and leave, he told himself. He should never have agreed to meet her! But then the instant of inner turmoil passed, and he was in control again. "Why are you so sure my father's dying?"

"The presence of a cell specialist seems pretty serious. Dr. Francis won't talk to us, either. But the real clincher is that you've come back to Usherland. I think the clan's gathered to see a successor named."

"And you want the story before the big-league papers and TV people get it, right?"

"Breaking a story like this would be a major coup for the
Democrat.
We'd go with a special edition and make it available statewide. It would probably triple our circulation, and give us real respectability."

"You must have big plans for your paper's future."

"It's not going away, if that's what you mean."

Rix nodded and smiled faintly. He waited a moment, then said, "Okay. Let's say, for the sake of speculation, that I do know who's going to take over the estate and business. I realize how much that would be worth to you." He looked directly at her. "But I want something, too."

"What?"

"A look at your father's manuscript. And I want to know where he's getting his research materials."

Raven frowned. She hadn't expected to have to trade information, like a couple of secret agents. Rix Usher was waiting for her reply. "It's my father's book, not mine. I can't—"

"If you can't help me," he interrupted, "then I won't help you."

"Maybe I'm stupid for asking," Raven said, "but why
should
you help me? Your family and mine haven't exactly been on the best of terms for the last hundred years or so. Why should you suddenly want to help me out?"

"I'm curious. I want to see what your father's written."

"So you can report back?"

"No one knows I'm here," Rix said firmly. "I said I was going out for a drive and took one of the cars. Whatever your father shows me, it won't get back to Usherland."

Raven paused uncertainly. In her estimation, the Ushers were as slippery as snake oil. But now here was the black sheep of the Usher family, offering her vital information. Why? What did he have to gain by seeing her father's work? "I don't know," she said finally. "I don't think I can agree to anything like that."

"Why not?"

"Because my father guards his work
very
strictly. I don't even get to see it." Again she searched his eyes, trying to decide whether this was one of Walen's tricks. "I'll have to talk to him about it. Can we meet again?"

"Where and when?"

"How about right here? At three o'clock tomorrow afternoon?"

"I have to be careful. If anybody from Usherland saw me with you, word might get back to Walen."

"What would he do?" She lifted her eyebrows. "Disown you for collaborating with the enemy?"

"Something like that." He thought of the documents in the library; at the merest hint of collusion, Walen would send them back to the Lodge, and his hopes would be finished. "Okay. Three tomorrow." He stood up from the booth, relieved that his first meeting with Raven Dunstan was almost over.

Raven wasn't satisfied. There was something too simple about this. "Mr. Usher," she said, before he could get away, "why does seeing my father's book mean so much to you?"

"As I said, curiosity. I'm a writer myself." Careful, he cautioned himself.

"Oh? What sort of things do you write?"

"Horror novels," he explained, figuring it would do no harm to tell her. "Not under my real name, though. My pseudonym is Jonathan Strange."

Raven had never heard the name before and wasn't familiar with the books, but she didn't say it. "Interesting choice of a profession," she commented. The cowbell clanged again, and Raven glanced toward the door.