Houses of Stone by KATHY (booksvooks .TXT) 📕

a helpless, hapless idiot of a Gothic heroine. Why the hell did Cameron have to turn up at that particular moment? He had known she was lying about the bat. Now he'd think she was a silly, hysterical idiot, especially after that joke about the house being haunted.

Karen didn't believe in ghosts either. She had never had an experience like that one, though. Was it possible that some places retained memories of past tragedy or desperate grief? Not the spirits of the dead themselves but emotions felt so strongly by the living that they had permeated the very fabric of the walls and the surrounding air?

It was just as likely that such experiences happened only to people with overactive imaginations and strained nerves. Especially people who had fattened their imaginations on horror stories like the one Simon had read to her. It had haunted her ever since. Darkness, cold and despair . . . Damn Simon anyway. That nasty story was probably the genesis of her dreams, too.

Time was getting on. She ought to start back soon, it was a long drive. For purely rational reasons she decided to go out the back door and around the house. She would then have explored every part of it. No need to pass through the main block again.

The enclosed porch she had seen only from the outside was cluttered with Cameron's equipment—rags, paint cans, tools. The door was unlocked; she opened it and cautiously descended the sagging steps. The scent of the lilacs was so strong it overcame the smell of paint and turpentine. Reaching across, she broke off a single spray of clustered bloom and sniffed it appreciatively as she followed the path toward the front of the house.

Someone else must have arrived; she could hear voices. One voice, rather. It was loud and aggressive and unfamiliar. Cameron's responses were inaudible until she turned the comer of the house in time to hear him say, "I said no, and I mean no. If you think you can—"

Seeing her, he broke off. The other man turned.

He was a few inches shorter than Cameron and a good many years younger. The unlined skin of his face was spotted with acne which he had tried to conceal with makeup and with artfully arranged locks of flaxen hair. He had dimples. He produced them when he caught sight of Karen and assumed a pose that showed an impressive display of muscles to best advantage.

"Morning, ma'am," he cooed. "I didn't know you was here. Hope I'm not interrupting."

Both statements were untrue. He must have known someone was there, he had seen the car. She was only too familiar with the look that had accompanied the second lie, she had seen it on other masculine faces.

With a brusque nod of acknowledgment she turned to Cameron. "You should have told me you had another appointment, Mr. Hayes. I wouldn't have detained you so long."

"My only appointment was with you," Cameron said in the same impersonal tone. "He's just leaving."

"Oh, is this lady a client? Well, I sure don't want to interfere with your business, Cam. Sorry, ma'am. Hope I'll see you again."

Karen did not echo the sentiment. Smirking and strutting, the young man returned to his pickup—a newer, brighter, fancier model than Cameron's—and drove off.

"Thank you," Cameron said, tight-lipped and red-faced.

"What for?"

"Preventing Bobby from beating the . . . from beating me up. That's how he'll tell it. And that's what you thought was going to happen— right? You assumed I couldn't handle him and you figured he wouldn't start anything while you were present."

"Was he about to start something?" Karen asked innocently.

Cameron let out a long breath. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. Have you finished for today?"

"Yes. But I'll be back."

His color had returned to normal. When he spoke, his voice was colorless and flat. "Any time, Dr. Holloway. Just let me know."

Glancing into the rearview mirror as she drove off, she saw him ascending the ladder. He did not look in her direction.

"Fifty-one five," Peggy repeated gleefully. "Hot damn!"

She didn't mean "fifty-one dollars and five cents." She meant "fifty-one thousand five hundred dollars." Peggy's reaction to the price Simon had finally set assured Karen that Peggy was ready and willing to accept it, but the number sounded terrifying.

"It's a lot of money," she murmured.

"Cheap as dirt. You can thank the good old boy literary establishment for that," Peggy said cynically. "Men dominate the committees that determine how university money is spent. I could almost feel sorry for what's-er-name—Angelo—trying to convince a bunch of middle-aged male chauvinists that a Gothic novel by an unknown woman writer is worth that much. I'm surprised she got them up to fifty thou."

"I'm surprised she didn't use her own money."

"Probably doesn't have it."

"How did you—" Karen stopped herself, but not quite in time.

"I write best-selling sex manuals under a pseudonym," Peggy said, in a tone which, though amiable, indicated she had said all she intended to say on that subject.

Simon's message had been waiting for Karen when she arrived home Sunday evening. There had been a number of other messages on her machine, including several from Peggy, increasingly irate in tone; Karen had called at once to tell her the good news and suggest they meet at the campus coffee shop next morning to discuss future plans.

The news had taken Peggy's mind off her grievance for a time. Now she turned a critical stare on Karen. "I hope you aren't planning to rush off to Baltimore today."

"No, I'm not."

"You hadn't planned to go to Virginia, either. You didn't tell me you were going. In fact, you deliberately misled me. Don't think you can sneak off without me today the way you did last weekend."

"I can't, can I?" Karen said quietly. "Not without the money."

Peggy's eyes shifted. "I didn't mean it that way."

"Yes, you did. I don't blame you." That was a lie too, but she made it sound convincing. "Let's get this out into the open, Peggy. I'm willing