Page 32 of Make Me Sin (Bad Habit 2)
I left Eric another apology message, asking him to call. I waited another full day to hear back. When the crickets got too loud, I decided I wasn’t going to wait any longer. Now here I stand, befuddled.
According to my GPS, this road is supposed to lead to the address Kat gave me where A.J. lives, but I can’t get around the darn locked gate. Which, by the looks of it, no one else has gotten around in a long time, either. Except . . .
Off to the left side of the road, where the dirt gives way to wild grasses and trees, there’s a man-height, oval break in the fence. It’s almost hidden behind a wall of shrubbery, but I see it, and go over for a look. The grass beneath it is flattened, and bald in some patches. There are slim tire tracks in the dust.
It’s a way in. A way in that someone on a two-wheeled vehicle is regularly using.
Oh, goodie. I found the entrance to the bat cave. I wonder if Bruce Wayne is at home.
I maneuver the car so it’s parked off the main part of the road, lock it, and continue on foot. It’s a pretty good incline, and soon I’m sweating. I don’t normally mind a good sweat—I love to run, and take regular hikes up Runyon Canyon—but I really don’t want to see A.J. when I’m looking like I just hopped off a treadmill.
After another ten minutes of walking, I realize I’ve left my phone, along with A.J.’s flower order form with the incorrect address, in the car.
I stop in the middle of the road, and look around. I see only gently rolling hills covered in trees and low shrubs on either side of me. Where perhaps, my mind inconveniently suggests, murderers and rapists are hiding. I chew my lip, undecided. Do I go back? Do I keep going?
Then a dog barks off in the distance, and I think I might be getting close after all.
I continue on. After another half mile or so, I crest the top of the low rise, and stop dead in my tracks.
“Oookay,” I say aloud, staring. “That’s not creepy.”
The road dead-ends in a broad, circular driveway perhaps three hundred yards ahead. In the center of the circle is a dry, cracked marble fountain choked with weeds. Beyond it is a sprawling, dilapidated, abandoned hotel. It looks right out of that horror movie where Jack Nicholson plays the writer who goes crazy and tries to murder his family.
Parked in front of the hotel, gleaming in the afternoon sun, is A.J.’s death mobile.
I stand gaping until the dog I heard earlier trots into sight around the rusted hulk of a dumpster on the side of the building. He’s a pale caramel color, thin and small. He has only three legs.
He spots me and freezes. His ears flatten. He seems to shrink closer to the ground.
“Hey, buddy. It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.” I kneel down, holding out my hand.
He starts trembling. He skips backward a step. Poor thing, he’s terrified of me. Then, somewhere inside the hotel, music begins to play. The dog turns its head, perks its ears, and tears off in the direction it came, faster than you’d think a dog missing a leg would be able to.
I stand, listening for a moment, trying to identify the music. There’s a lone, piercing flute or clarinet, accompanied by a soprano, who is singing in . . . Italian, I decide.
Inside the abandoned hotel, with a three-legged dog as company, someone is blasting an Italian opera. This is getting weirder and weirder.
I move toward the massive double doors at the front of the building. It’s obvious this place was once beautiful. Now it’s a ruin. The tall beveled-glass windows are streaked with dirt. The carved lintel about the door is sagging and warped from both moisture and age. The roof was probably last repaired in 1930. Paint peels off the façade in long, curling flakes. But an echo of its majesty remains. Up close, it’s a little less creepy.
A little.
I walk up three rotted wood steps, cross the porch that runs the length of the first floor, and try the knob on the front door. Just like I’ve seen happen in the movies, it breaks off in my hand. The door swings slowly open, revealing a tantalizing glimpse of the interior. I toss the knob and go inside, feeling like Nancy Drew.
If I hear a disembodied voice hiss, “Get ooouuuttt!” I am so out of here.
The room opens into a grand foyer flanked by twin staircases that sweep upward to a second level. There’s no furniture, or anything on the walls except faded floral wallpaper, dotted with slightly brighter squares where paintings once hung. An enormous crystal chandelier, dull with dust, dangles precariously from a frayed cord on the ceiling two stories above.
The soprano sings on.
I know more than I should about opera, as I grew up with a mother who believed children should be introduced to such things. Culture and whatnot. So I recognize this particular song. It’s “Il Dolce Suono,” or “The Sweet Sound,” from the opera Lucia di Lammermoor by Donizetti. It’s about a woman, Lucia, who’s in love with a man, Edgardo. But, for various reasons that only make sense in operas, she marries another man, Arturo. There’s lots of angst and threatening of duels, and Lucia finally goes crazy and stabs her new husband to death on their wedding night. Edgardo, desolate at the rejection by Lucia, then kills himself.
In short, it’s a tragedy about star-crossed lovers. It’s basically the Italian opera version of Romeo and Juliet.
Trying not to take it as a sign, I straighten my shoulders, reminding myself what I came here for. Which—allegedly—is to get a correct address for A.J.’s flower order.
Because I couldn’t have just asked Kat to pass along the message to Nico, right?
Following the music, I ascend the sweeping staircase. The second floor branches off in two main wings. I turn east. The song plays on. Now I hear another noise, a repetitive, low, thump, thump, thump. I have no idea what it could be, but it doesn’t stop.
