Haunted Read Free Page B

the access road to Pacific Coast Highway, farther inland, on the other. Red Cay proper began at the coast and spread inland for several blocks. Simple to navigate with its straight streets heading in normal directions like north, south, east, and west, it contained businesses, fishing-related and otherwise, as well as older homes which ranged in style from bungalow and sea shanty to elegant Victorian.
    As dusk deepened, David switched on the Bronco's headlights. The squirrely area they navigated now was not actually part of the town. Art galleries, expensive private homes, small farms, and ranches were all scattered along the twisting ovoids and switchbacks between the coast and Highway 101. This area consisted of picturesque rolling hills and pastoral meadows, and from time to time, longhorn cattle, horses, wildflowers, monarch butterflies, and any number of other scenic items which helped attract the artists and their patrons to the area. A number of colony-types who thought that Cambria, fifty miles north, had become too commercial, had relocated here and David suspected that, while the merchants in town were happy to take the artists' money, they secretly held them in contempt. Red Cay itself was a fishing town, full of real men and tired-looking women. To the townsfolk, he'd qualify as an artist too, and equally worthy of their contempt, if he wasn't careful.
    He knew he'd made the correct tum when he saw The Beings of Light Church. He'd noticed it the first time he was up.
    "Look, that must be the High Hooey Center," he said.
    "Huh?"
    He explained about Ferd Cox's term for the New Age center.
    "High Hooey," Amber said. "I like it."
    "Me too," he replied. "It's direct and to the point." The New Agers' buildings were beautiful constructs of redwood and glass, the central building traditionally churchlike, the rest low and nearly hidden in a plethora of pines and ferns. A moment later, they rounded a bend, and came upon the modem split-level ranch house that Theodora Pelinore owned. Sprawling didn't begin to describe the place. He turned the truck into the circular drive, pulled up and parked.
     

Chapter Two
     
    Pelinore Realty: 7:29 P.M.
     
    "This is an office?" Amber asked as she got out of the car and stretched her stiff muscles. What was supposed to be a fifteen-minute trip had taken almost an hour; no one could get lost like her dad. Their cross-country trip, for instance, had taken twelve days instead of the planned eight, mostly because of his creative shortcuts. When he did give in and read a map, he usually read it wrong.
    Not that she really minded, at least not when she wasn't in a hurry to get somewhere, because they always discovered weird places where she could acquire truly unique souvenir T-shirts. On this trip, her father's creative driving had uncovered tacky wonders (and T-shirts) like Marjoe's Alligator Farm in Ohio, The Amazing Petrified Caveman in Colorado and The Whistling Caverns of Jesus in Utah. There, the guide had told them that if they listened closely they'd hear the caverns doing "Onward Christian Soldiers." Of course, she'd never admit to her friends that she enjoyed these side trips, or that she did any more than endure her father's quirks. She wouldn't even admit it to her father, who probably knew, but had the good sense not to say so.
    "Yes, this is it. It's a private home, too."
    "I knew that," she said quickly.
    "The office is at the far end of the house. Wait'll you meet Theo, you'll like her."
    He’d said that several time during their trip here, which wasn't good . Any time her dad told her she'd like some female, it was a bad sign. He couldn't read women any better than he could read a road map. She didn't know about her mother--she'd died when Amber was only three--but ever since she could remember, he'd dated bimbo after bimbo, until he'd met Melanie. After a while, Mel had moved in with them and, for a couple of years, things were pretty great. Then they broke up, just six