When Lily Kline takes possession of a Gothic estate with Ian Hawke, her co-heir and a stranger, she soon realizes there is more than meets the eye within the many corridors of the sequestered mansion.
Ian is aloof and even hostile at times, and thou...
Mike led Lily out the front entrance doors, having no time to show her some of the more direct exits just now. He decided he would simply lead her around the building to the backyard and let her be on her own from there. He didn't want to get involved.
And why had Hannah mentioned Ian's childhood anyway?
Ian wasn't going to be pleased about that. They'd never talked about it together but Mike knew a fair bit about it; at least what he'd put together as an explanation from the snatched bits and pieces of story he'd overhead Hannah and Christopher discussing from time to time over the years. What he knew for sure was that Ian refused to discuss it whenever he brought it up; and if Ian wanted his original arrival to this mansion kept a secret, then Mike wasn't about to be the one to blab the details to this Lily Kline.
She was on her own.
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When they reached the backyard, Lily thanked Mike again for his help with her luggage, and they parted ways.
An elderly man was crossing the far backyard with a pair of pruning sheers in his hand. She figured he must be Christopher, the gardener. He didn't look her way and she didn't bother to call out to him. There'd be plenty of time to get to know one another in the days ahead.
The backyard and its gardens were as meticulously kept as the ones in front, and like the front, the greensward back here was at least an acre in square footage.
In the center of the back lot was a courtyard surrounded by rosebushes and hosting a beautiful fountain statue—a life-size woman carved out of marble, hair flowing in waves around her body and her garments like liquid silk. She held a jug in her hand, pouring rivulets of water into the pond submerging her feet.
Lily approached the fountain and peered into the translucent water surrounding it. Koi fish glided beneath teacup lily pads. But though the statue was fascinating, Lily was eager to find Ian Hawke, and she left the courtyard to be inspected later on, heading across the remaining expanse of greensward toward the looming forest. Behind her, the Gothic mansion was open to full view. It was going to be so fascinating to explore all those inner rooms, corridors and turrets; to be able to look up at those vine-shrouded lancet windows and actually know what lay behind their leaded glass. For now she could only guess.
Lily turned her gaze back to the forest. There was no sight of any work shed though. Beyond the trees was nothing but darkness—the foliage so thick that sunlight failed to penetrate their depths. She scanned the tree line, squinting, and stopped short at the sight of a gloomy statue dappled by sun and nearly hidden from view where it sat between two elm trees. It was too short to be human but didn't appear to be a child or an animal either. Pulse quickening in anticipation, she set across the sunny half acre of grass ahead and soon reached it.
The statue was an ebony gargoyle, dull with age. The beast—a chimera—was in mid-roar, red jewels embedded in its eye sockets. An outstretched paw held a smooth white orb.
