in silence. I don’t think either of us knew where to begin. I’d been ignoring his texts and emails for more than two weeks. After our last conversation, it was apparent we had no way to break our impasse. For now though, Gabriel seemed to have smoothed things over. I wondered why he cared if William and I were together; then again, it was hard to know what Gabriel’s motivations were when it came to me.
William opened the door to his car for me and I slid inside. He closed the door wordlessly and then walked to the driver’s side to get in. Once inside, he slowly fastened his seat belt and started the engine, all without saying a word. The silence was oppressive. Our anger and hurt feelings were rising up inside the car until it was difficult to breath.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought we would take a drive to a friend’s house,” he said, offering nothing more. I leaned back against the car’s leather seat and looked out the window. There was no use in forcing him to speak. He would say something when he was good and ready. I’m not sure if it was the intense silence, or the fact that I had been working long hours, but within minutes I fell into a deep sleep. Sometime later I awoke, propelling myself forward toward the dashboard as I came out of my stupor.
“Oh my God,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “I am sorry.”
William smiled, his normal happy demeanor back in place. “It’s OK,” he said. “It gave me time to calm down.”
I looked out my window but didn’t recognize the landscape. “Where are we?” I asked, rubbing my eyes again.
“We’re about to enter Hearst Castle,” he said calmly.
“This is an old friend’s house?” We were nearly a hundred miles from Carmel, heading in the opposite direction from home. “Now you’re going to tell me that you knew William Randolph Hearst?”
“We were acquainted,” he said. “But it’s his grounds keeper that I’m close with. Frank is a vampire and a former ambulance driver; he took this job after the war. Over the years, he’s taught me every inch of this place. I thought you might like to go for a swim.”
“You thought I might like to go for a swim? We haven’t spoken in two weeks, and the first idea out of the gate is to kidnap me and take me to another castle?”
“I told you…you belong in a castle,” William said, as he pulled the car into a darkened spot along an entrance road and turned off the ignition. “Besides, you needed a nap and I needed a private place to speak with you. You’ve been avoiding me, Olivia, and that won’t do at all. I was willing to wait only so long before I came for you.”
As I was about to give him my opinion of the situation, he took my hand and admonished me to stay silent until we were inside the castle.
Hearst Castle is not just any castle. Conceived and built during an almost 30-year period beginning in 1919, the sprawling complex was designed by architect Julia Morgan for newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst. The Hearst family donated the property to the state and it’s been run as a historic park since the late 1950’s. Hearst had an appetite for big things and he spared no expense for his so-called country house, which by my calculations was about 250 miles from San Francisco, give or take a mile.
William led me along a darkened path to a small cottage at the end of the service road we’d parked on. He fished in his pocket for a key and opened the door. It swung open into a hallway. The hallway became a long tunnel that led to the main complex of the castle. Once inside, we walked along the well-lit interior of a secret passageway that crisscrossed the property.
As we walked, I tried to stay calm, overcome by a series of emotions. I was angry with William for showing up at the party, but also happy that he came. I was nervous about trespassing in the middle of the night, but secretly pleased that this time he had found a way to keep me out of the darkness. Using the hidden system of tunnels beneath the castle that Hearst had built so his guests could swap lovers discreetly, William and I made our way slowly to a subterranean pool built at the east end of the