“By the way,” she said after she’d parked herself in the passenger seat with her tote bag at her feet. “I made a call last night to someone I know in the area and he says they definitely haven’t done retreats here in years. I’m not sure we’re going to discover anything, especially if it’s all locked up.”
“Yeah, it’s a long shot. If we come up empty, can we take time to look around Sunset Bay? Maybe this place holds a different clue about Shannon.”
“Sure.”
As I fired up the Jeep, Alice glanced at me.
“Last chance to turn this over to the cops.”
“Let’s wait to see if we find anything. That way they can’t accuse us of sending them on a wild-goose chase.”
I drove past the hamlet’s cluster of blink-and-you’ll-miss-them clapboard buildings. Narrow roads shot off through the trees on the right, and before long, Alice directed me onto one named McAllister Road.
As we descended toward its banks, the lake disappeared briefly from sight, blocked by masses of firs, poplars, and maple trees, and then burst into bold, blue view again farther down the road. We reached a dead end a minute later, the water sparkling directly in front of us. To our left was a huge and impressive gray stone house, with five gables, four chimneys, and a wraparound porch.
“Yup, this is it,” Alice said.
“You’ve been here?” I said, killing the engine.
“I drove down here with a friend years ago, when it was still up and running. She’d gone on a retreat here when she was in high school and she wanted me to see the house, though I’d noticed it when I was fishing up this way. She said the kids thought it was haunted.”
Itdidlook haunted, with all those spooky gables and darkened windows. The house must have been a single-family home at one point, a summer retreat for one of the millionaires who had vacationed here in the early part of the twentieth century.
“How did the Catholic church afford to have a place like this?”
“It was gifted to them, apparently.... You wanna look around, right?”
“Yup.”
We climbed from the Jeep and took a moment to surveythe scene. There was absolutely no one in sight, and the only sound was from the water lapping against the rotting boat dock behind us. The air was as brisk today as it had been last night, and I was glad I’d layered a sweater under my jacket.
“I asked the diner owner if he’d heard reports of any activity around here lately,” Alice said. “He said no, for what it’s worth.”
In unison, we started toward the house, trudging through the thick, overgrown, and yellowed grass, and climbed onto the porch. The weather had done a number on it, splintering many of the planks and causing others to pop up at the ends. The double wooden doors were battered, too, and a metal chain had been wrapped around the two knobs and secured with a now-rusted padlock. It didn’t look like it had been touched in years.
“Let’s check the windows,” I said. They were shuttered on the inside, but there was about an inch or so gap in most pairs of shutters, enough to peek through. We split up the job, with Alice taking one section of the porch and me the other. Peering inside, I saw that the floors were coated with dust, and that the few furnishings that remained had been tarped with old white sheets.
“From what I can see, no one’s been here anytime lately,” Alice announced as she rejoined me a few minutes later.
“Same here.”
“So maybe your caller was talking about another place in Sunset Bay. Or simply pulling your leg altogether.”
“Wait, what’s that?” I’d strolled toward the very end of the porch, past the last window, and I could make out theedge of another building behind us. I leaned out over the railing. It was a simple one-story clapboard structure, not much fancier than a large shed, except that there was a stone fireplace chimney at the left end. The woods rose up behind it, like a long, dark curtain.
“I don’t even remember that from the time I was here,” Alice said, reaching my side. “Maybe it hadn’t been built yet.”
“Let’s check it out.”
We descended and made our way around to the other building. The light suddenly dimmed, and I looked up to see that a mass of dark clouds had gathered without warning and was now driving over the sun, transforming the lake from blue to pewter gray.
I glanced over my shoulder with a chill. There was a chance, I realized, that last night’s caller was watching us. He might have followed me from the Breezy Point, eager to see how I did deciphering his clue. I needed to keep my guard up.
We reached the building and pressed our faces against its grimy windows. It appeared to consist of one big room, a rectangular space now totally empty except for a few folding chairs leaning forlornly against the far wall.
“Must have been used for meetings or lectures,” Alice concluded.
I moved toward the front door, and as soon as I reached it my heart skipped. It was open, but no more than a sliver. I pressed my hand to the weathered wood and pushed. The door eased open several inches with a long, low creak. Hearing the sound, Alice spun in my direction.
