extended his hand. “Thank you.”
Fay hesitated, then grasped his hand. She had a strong, aggressive grip. Her skin was cool and dry.
It begins.
Again, the rose garden. Thousands of rose bushes all around him, packed tightly against each other. The blood-red blossoms were thick-petaled and heavy, but all the branches stood up stiff and straight, stretching high above his head. He was running on a narrow, twisting, dirt path. He was naked and barefoot. His bare arms brushed against the bushes on each side of him. Every bush he touched pierced his flesh with its thorns and then withered and blackened and died. His blood, thin and pink and watery, streamed down his arms and dripped off his fingertips. He looked behind him as he ran. He was leaving a clear trail: withered, dead rose bushes and, on the dirt path, two muddy streams of blood. He smiled. Whatever was hunting him could track him easily, no matter how long he ran, or how far he traveled. That was a comforting thought.
As Lucas opened his eyes in the darkness, the motel room came into focus around him. He was breathing heavily, sweating. He felt the throbbing of his heartbeat deep inside his head.
Yes, it had begun.
2
The Cascades
Six-thirty a.m. Sunday morning.
It was still cool, surprisingly cool for May. Lucas had been awake for almost an hour, lying in bed on his back, watching the shadows on the white ceiling, listening to the small sounds that floated through the silence.
If he was alone, early morning was his best time. He remembered, sometimes he planned.
If he wasn’t alone, early morning was when he tried to forget.
He sat up and looked around him at the apartment in Fay Geneen’s house. The furniture was functional and bland. There were two dark prints on the living room/dining room walls. A faded still-life painting hung over the bed. The living room carpet was a half-hearted imitation of an Oriental rug, and even less thought had been given to the dark braided rug that covered the bedroom floor. The bathroom was equipped with the chrome bars that ease the movements of elderly people.
A generic apartment.
He wondered if the rooms had been as barren when Fay’s mother had lived here. Or had Fay stripped it of its humanity when her mother died?
For Lucas, the apartment was ideal. It was temporary. It gave him nothing.
He got out of bed, smoothed out the blanket as he always did. He was naked. He went to the bathroom, showered, and brushed his hair with a few quick strokes of his fingers.
His breakfast was a glass of orange juice, a blueberry muffin and a multivitamin pill.
Lucas went into the backyard through the door that opened onto the concrete patio, furnished with a dark green wrought iron table and chairs.
He stretched his arms over his head, bent over and, keeping his knees locked, touched his toes ten times, then went around to the front of the house.
Fay Geneen was walking up the street, a few yards ahead of him. He ran to catch up to her.
She was wearing a gray sweat suit and sneakers. She walked quickly, fluidly.
At her side, he fell into the rhythm of her stride.
“Would you mind if I tag along?”
“It’s more than two miles.”
He acknowledged the challenge: “I’ll do my best.”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye.
“We don’t have to talk, do we?” she asked.
“No.”
She nodded.
They followed the street uphill, for almost ten minutes, passing a few other houses, until they came to a wider, winding street that formed a “T” in front of them. Lucas recognized the cross-street. To the left it led up to the mansion on the hill. She turned right.
“This is called Schuyler’s Trace,” she said. “It was the first street in town, before there was a town.”
He didn’t respond.
A cool, soft breeze stroked his face. The sky was a clear, brittle, early-morning blue.
“In the seventeen hundreds, before the Revolutionary War, Hans Schuyler cut the Trace—just a path through the woods—built a farmhouse on the hill and cleared the land around it. Then he plowed and planted his crops.”
“You’re talking.”
She looked at him, but he continued to look straight ahead, unsmiling, keeping pace with her.
“We’ll cross here and take that street to the Cascades.”
“The Cascades?”
“It’s a preserve that belongs to the town. There’s a stream running through it and a waterfall—the Cascades—at the eastern end. We can follow a path that winds around through the woods. Lots of hills. It’s a good workout.”
They continued to walk uphill for a few more minutes and then came to a second “T.” Beyond was a broad stretch of forest. Tucked into the western end of the woods, just across the street to the left, was “Smythe’s Garden Center.”
Fay led Lucas to the right of the center, onto a well-worn dirt path leading into the preserve.
Under the trees, it was almost cold. Lucas shivered.
She picked up the pace.
“If Schuyler started this town, why isn’t it named after him?” he asked.
“He was Dutch, and the English weren’t about to let him give the place a Dutch name. Schuyler didn’t care. The Dutch are very good businessmen. And very tight with their money.”
“Murdoch is a Scottish name. I understand perfectly.”
She smiled.
“Pennington was an English settler with a small farm, and he took great pride in his name. Hans Schuyler is supposed to have said, ‘Never mind about pride. I’d rather have property.’ He got what he wanted. Eventually, Schuyler bought the whole town. Even the Pennington farm. This was always his town. Most of it still belongs to his family.”
“Is that their house on the hill?”
“Yes. The Grange. But there’s not much left of the Schuylers. An old woman and her granddaughter.”
They walked silently through the shaded woods, into a clearing now and then, and back into the cool shadows.
At first, the sound of flowing water was distant and vague. Then it began to gain volume and clarity, until it became a steady rumble. Then, through a stand of trees, he saw a narrow, twenty-foot-high waterfall cascading
