Blue Clouds by Patricia Rice

spends so much time on his writing career that he neglects his father’s business.”
    Writing career? She didn’t have a lot of time for reading, but she belonged to the Book of the Month Club and knew the current best-sellers. She couldn’t remember ever hearing the name of Seth Wyatt in that context.
    â€œDoes he write under his own name?” she asked tentatively.
    This time, Miss MacGregor’s look contained scorn and a certain amount of pity. “Of course not. He likes his privacy. He writes as Tarant Mott, Miss Cochran. His horror novels make the New York Times list regularly.”
    Tarant Mott. Pippa couldn’t believe it. Mitchell had collected all Tarant Mott’s books for years. She saw them everywhere: on the library’s new release shelf, in the front of bookstores, in the Book-of-the-Month Club catalog. She’d never read one. She saw enough horror and gore at the hospital. But Tarant Mott... !
    Miss MacGregor may as well have said she worked for God. No one knew anything about Tarant Mott. He didn’t make personal appearances. He didn’t include his bio or photo in his books. He just sold humongous numbers of novels to impatient buyers waiting in line for his latest release.
    Rumors abounded, of course. Rumors always did, especially around Seth Wyatt, Pippa decided wryly. She’d seen a magazine article calling Tarant Mott a hermit after a tragic accident that had left him half blind and disfigured and had cost him his wife. Another squib had speculated that his son was dying of an undiagnosed wasting disease. If she thought hard enough, she supposed she could remember more, but she could see the basis of the rumors had very little relation to fact.
    Miss MacGregor pulled up to the mansion and handed Pippa over to the housekeeper. As Mrs. Jones threw open the door to her new bedroom, Pippa decided the public could have all the rumors it wanted. She’d come home.
    Apparently every room in the house had a spectacular view. Whoever had designed the gothic exterior hadn’t had a hand in the interior beyond the strange public entrance with wood where stone should be and vice versa. The door opened into an entire suite of rooms, she realized as Mrs. Jones walked through, opening doors. Sparsely decorated in simple Mission style, the suite contained all the basic necessities and nothing more, which suited Pippa just fine. She smoothed her hand over the fine old wood of the long dresser, admired the crocheted duvet cover on the bed, and stared in awe at the climactic landscape of tumbling rock and cliff outside the patio window. Patio window. She had her own deck overlooking the canyon.
    She must have died and gone to heaven. Not noticing when the housekeeper left, Pippa strolled through a closet large enough to hold an entire bedroom, admired the Jacuzzi in the bath, and breathed a sigh of pleasure over the spacious sitting room. A simple wooden sofa held cushions of natural woven linen. A hemp rug served as carpet. Spare bookshelves lined either side of a small hearth. The shelves held an assortment of natural ornaments: seashells, dried grasses, items seemingly plucked from the land and left here to be admired. The few books had titles like Moby Dick or Scarlet Letter , but she could excuse the designer that faux pas in a house owned by a horror writer. A classic would put her asleep faster than a nightmare story.
    Just in case she developed any strange ideas that she had walked into a free California vacation, the phone on the streamlined desk in the corner rang.
    Well, no one could live on fantasy forever.
    Picking up the receiver, she listened to the voice on the other end.
    â€œDinner is at seven. Don’t wear perfume. Chad has a cold. Check his temperature and see if he needs a doctor.”
    The click on the other end didn’t allow any reply.

Chapter 6
    Wondering if she should drop bread crumbs so she could find her way back, Pippa wandered