Cherry Two

Part 14

Chapter 12

After four hours of easy driving, with San Simeon, Big Sur and Garapata beaches now behind them, Calley and Alain approached 17 Mile Drive from the south gate at Carmel. Alain fished inside his windbreaker for a document as the security guard stepped from the gatehouse booth.

"They won't let us through without credentials," he said to Calley while wafting the special pass at the uniformed man. "Mom uses it most of the time. The security up here is very tight these days."

Calley seemed fascinated by all this. "Reminds me of Balmoral. Dad drove up to Scotland for a special car show a couple of years ago. A really long drive—Peter was a total pain. Longest run we ever took in the old convertible. I thought they were going to search us."

From the open car Alain handed over the folded document with a nod. "Pebble Beach hosts a special car show too, but not this day. The area has become a private coastal development and the cemetery is very small—exclusive—not marked on any map. Calley's among select company. Only people who lived here permanently are buried here. Property development has been at a standstill for decades." He smiled wryly. "The rest of the community already have one foot on a golf course and the other in a grave."

The guard handed back the paperwork and raised the barrier. Minutes later they were traversing 17 Mile Drive near Holman Highway. Alain pointed to the right at an entrance through the trees flanked by two Highway Patrol cars.

"Monterey Peninsula Community Hospital. You can't see it from the road."

"Is that where she...?"

Alain nodded, solemn. "More than Aunt Calley died that day. A family died too."

Calley rubbed her arms and shivered, but not from cold. "It's so strange; like going back in time. I always tried to imagine these places, and now I'm here it looks the same. I know I've never been here... yet somehow it feels as if I have."

Eventually they picked up Sunridge Road and cut across Poppy Hills golf course, driving deeper into the ever sparsely populated Del Monte Forest. The afternoon sun had dipped well below the ridge of tall Monterey pines. Alain used his memory as the unpaved road began twisting up an incline, threading umbilical-like between the towering stands of trees. Each streaming shaft of sunlight refracted off the moisture-laden air and took on shapes of their own.

"I know the cemetery cutoff is along here somewhere, near a small lake. Jesus, look at the mist. It's trapped low in the trees where the wind can't reach. I've never seen the forest quite so misty."

"When was the last time you were here?" Calley asked, feeling the eeriness closing in. Wondering if Alain felt it too.

"I came up with Mom. Dad couldn't make it. Must be five years ago."

"Was Calley's house near here?"

He glanced at the inquisitive girl. Their speed had been reduced to a virtual crawl on the winding gradient. "Very near. Just the other side of that golf course we crossed. Some retired Wall Street investor bought it and built a much larger property on the same land. It's fenced and gated now—security cameras—the works. All the things Robert should have had."

"Why didn't he?" she probed. "Robert was rich."

"Mom never talks about him much. You know the situation. Granddad thought he could control everything and everyone around him. I guess when you're hugely successful at every business venture you touch it's not hard to see why. But when it came to relationships and family matters he didn't have a clue. When Colleen left him and they divorced he worked all the time. Mom and Aunt Calley hardly saw the man from one week to the next."