"Good dogs! Good dogs!" he said in a friendly tone as he proceeded toward the house with his hands in his pockets. Through the open windows and half-opened door he could hear a sound of muffled beating. With a certain amount of suspicion he mounted three sagging wood steps to a rickety porch and rapped on the door. The beating stopped, and a shrill voice shouted some kind of question.
"Hello there!" he replied in the same amiable tone he had used to address the watchdogs.
A moment later the door was flung wide and he was confronted by a hollow-cheeked, hollow-eyed young woman with long, straight hair cascading over her shoulders. She said nothing but gave him a hostile glare.
"Excuse me," he said in a manner intended to be disarming. "I've lost my way. I'm looking for Hawk's Nest Drive."
She regarded him with indecision, as if wondering whether to reach for a shotgun.
"You're on the wrong mountain!" she snapped.
CHAPTER 3
The mountain woman with hollow cheeks and sunken eyes stood with her hands on her hips and glared at Qwil-leran. Assuming—from his astonished expression—that he had not heard the first time, she screamed, "You're on the wrong mountain!" Then, half turning, she shouted something over her shoulder, after which she pushed past him, grumbling, "Follow me." She was wearing grubby jogging shoes and a long, full skirt, and with skirt and long hair flying she leaped off the porch, ignoring the steps. Before Qwilleran had sense enough to return to his own car, she had started the spluttering motor of the pickup.
The ordeal of the last two hours had been stupefying, but now he gathered his wits and followed the other vehicle gratefully as it led the way back down the narrow road to a fork, where it turned onto an upbound trail. The lead vehicle was a modified pickup with the chassis devated high above the wheels to cope with rough terrain like this, but Qwilleran's sedan bounced in and out of ruts, causing non-stop complaints from the backseat.
"Quiet!" he scolded.
"Yow!" Koko scolded in eloquent rebuttal.
The route meandered left and right and dipped in and out of gullies. There was one hopeful sign, however; Spudsboro was again visible in the valley, meaning they were back on the inside of the mountain. When they finally reached a paved road, the woman stopped her truck and leaned from the driver's seat, shouting something.
Jumping out of his car, Qwilleran hurried in her direction, saying, "How can I thank you, ma'am? May I—"
"Just get out of my way," she growled, revving the motor and making a reckless U-turn.
"Which way is up?" he called to her as she drove away. At least he was now on solid blacktop, and if "up" proved to be "down," he had only to turn around and drive in the opposite direction, assuming there was gas enough in the tank. This was the route he should have discovered two hours ago. There were hairpin turns, but the road's edge was marked by white lines and protected by guardrails, and double yellow lines separated the upbound and downbound lanes. The speed limit was posted, as well as warnings about dense fog, fallen rocks, and icy bridges. A creek, rushing alongside the road, occasionally disappeared and emerged somewhere else. At one point Qwilleran met a sheriffs car coming downhill, and he returned the stare of the officer behind the wheel.
Around the next bend he came upon a handsome house in a carefully landscaped clearing, its many levels ingeniously designed for a hillside. Large glass areas overlooked the valley. The russet stain on the board-and-batten exterior looked appropriately woodsy but failed to conceal that this was an architect-designed residence with a three-car garage and a swimming pool. In slowing down to observe the details, Qwilleran was able to read a rustic signboard: SEVEN LEVELS . . . THE LESSMORES.
Farther up the mountain another impressive house was designed with cedar boards applied diagonally to form a herringbone pattern. A satellite dish faced a wide swath cut in the forest. The rustic signboard read: THE RIGHT SLANT . . . DEL AND ARDIS WILBANK.
Hawk's Nest Drive climbed higher and higher, hugging roadside cliffs crowned with trees that were losing their footing and leaning precariously over the pavement. With every turn Koko yowled vociferously and Yum Yum made threatening intestinal noises as their bodies swerved left, right, left, right . . .
Suddenly Tiptop burst into view, brooding above them on a rocky knoll. The clamor in the backseat stopped abruptly, and Qwilleran stared through the windshield in disbelief. He had expected it to be more cheerful, more hospitable. Instead, Tiptop was a dark, glowering, uninviting building in a gray-green stain, the upper floor sided in gray-green fishscale clapboard. The main floor windows were shaded by a gray-green wrap-around veranda, while second floor windows and attic dormers were darkened by deeply overhanging roofs.
