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Pandy climbed up and looked around. Old Jay’s lookout, as they used to call it, was built inside the enormous eight-sided cupola. Posted in front of each large round window was a telescope.
The views were amazing. Through one telescope, you could see two states away, to the still-snowy tip of a mountain. You could also see down to the gas station, which was handy, because then you knew if anyone was coming up Wallis Road.
Pandy lowered her eye to one of the telescopes.
She froze.
Coming from between two pine-covered hilltops were what appeared to be helicopters.
She lifted her head and took a step back. That was strange. No helicopters ever came to Wallis. There was no place for them to land.
Perhaps there had been some kind of terrorist attack?
She bent down to look through another telescope. Several cars and what looked like two white news vans were pulling into the parking lot of the gas station.
And then she saw SondraBeth’s custom navy-blue Porsche coming up the drive.
* * *
Monica.
In the frenzy of trying to deal with her own problems, Pandy had forgotten about Monica. She’d forgotten about SondraBeth Schnowzer. But apparently they hadn’t forgotten about her. And just like Frankenstein’s monster, here came disaster.
Apparently word of Pandy’s death had spread after all. SondraBeth—Monica—in mourning, paying her respects to the family of the deceased, would make for a dramatic photograph and, without having to speak a word, would send the proper message: She was grief-stricken over the death of her creator, PJ Wallis. Which would have been enormously flattering—if PJ Wallis actually were dead.
Pandy hurried down the staircase, and reaching the second floor, peeked out the front window. A cameraman and a woman with a device in her hand were standing in the middle of the rose garden. Now, this was just too much. Henry would be furious. Incensed, Pandy went through the French doors that opened onto a deck shaped like the prow of a ship. She walked to the edge and shouted down angrily. “Excuse me!”
“Yes?” The woman looked up.
“You’re standing in my rose garden.”
“So?” the cameraman asked, resting his camera on his shoulder.
“So you’re standing on at least two hundred years of history. Now will you please move.”
The woman gave Pandy a dismissive look and rolled her eyes.
“Hello?” Pandy repeated sharply. “I asked you to get out of my rose garden.”
The cameraman swung around, and out of habit or aggressiveness, took several shots of her in rapid succession, as if Pandy were the target in a video game.
“We’re trying to get a photograph of Monica,” he said pointedly, lowering his camera.
The woman looked up at Pandy curiously. “Are you PJ Wallis’s sister? Hellenor Wallis?”
Hellenor? For a second, Pandy could only gape at the woman. Then she felt the breeze on the back of her neck. She’d forgotten she was bald. No wonder they hadn’t recognized her. “No,” she snapped. “I most certainly am not Hellenor—”
She broke off and frowned past the intruders to the hill beyond. A squad of cameramen and reporters were now pounding up the rise like soldiers about to plant a flag on enemy territory.
And then the Porsche swung back into view. The mob suddenly organized, pointing their lenses at SondraBeth’s car and snapping away until the car disappeared around another hillock. Then they lowered their cameras and relaxed.
Pandy, on the other hand, didn’t.
She was going to have to greet the world looking like this?
She ran into the bathroom and peered again in the mirror. Was this fate’s ultimate insult?
And suddenly, she was furious. She pulled the fedora over her ears and strode out into the corridor. Now, thanks to SondraBeth Schnowzer and Monica, the whole world, including Jonny, was going to see her looking like this. The photos would be everywhere—and Jonny would laugh his head off.
