This Side of Death Ch. 06

Continuing to follow the home owner, she led me on into the main room. Again, I whistled out loud. Here the theme was hunters lodge. It had a high arching cathedral ceiling with whole logs criss crossing the room with dark granite stone walls. Motion sensing, a warm bank of over head track lights gave the dark wood and stone a warm golden glow. Sprawling out around the fire place, complete with massive stone mantle, was a semi-circle of tan and chocolate leather seats and couches. A wet bar sat in one corner while glass doored book shelves sat in another. It was a man's room where cigars were smoked while single malt was sipped from square cube crystal glasses.

"This way," my guide called to me as followed her into the next room where stone slabs led to a wood and stone staircase. Rapidly she led us up to the second floor. There Dawn moved quickly into the master bedroom.

Unlike all the rooms I had seen so far, there was no stone to be seen. Rather it had yellow pine flooring, mauve colored brushed plaster walls with two dark mauve armed sitting chairs on either side of a modest fire place. With its fluted spires rising to within inches of the low ceiling, Dawn's four poster bed had an old quilted comforter thrown back. Max had not made it before leaving.

While I stood dumb struck at all the opulence, Dawn scurried about the room taking care of her undisclosed business before pulling the comforter off on to the floor and tearing off the bed's sheets.

"These need to be burnt. And all the locks need to changed. I've made up my mind. I'm not running from this. I'll give him his stamps and jewels back but I will keep the cash and the house and my life. Screw him. What's he gonna do?"

I almost blurted out, 'Finish what he started!' but thought the better of it.

With sheets laying crumpled in a pile on the floor, a disheveled hell-hath-no-fury little raven haired woman pulled a 9mm auto out from a spring loaded hidden cove next to the bed.

"I never told Max about this!" Dawn confessed with some perceived victory. "He's got another thing coming if he thinks he can handle this woman without cost."

"Whoa there missy. Two wrongs won't make a right."

"Oh phfffffft. I'm not going to shoot him," she paused, "unless he forces me to defend myself."

"You're not thinking of meeting him alone are you?"

Lowering the gun and re-stashing back into its hiding place, lost in considering her options, I waited for the lady of the manor to return to me.

The dark cloud passed as Kendel Dawn turned and looked at me. "I'm not leaving my house. Would you like to spend the night? You're welcome to. And I think I'd like to make a fire tonight down by boat house, sort of like we did the other night."

I witnessed a totally different smile. She was home. It made feel safe and sane. Keeping her rescuer around seemed to ground her in the world of the real. Yes, she really was thrown off the bridge into the black lagoon. She was rescued by a scruffy looking stranger who had kindly nursed her back into the land of the living. Sometimes it's a fine line between the real world and the world just outside of it.