The town should have prepared her for what she'd find when she reached the old Meredith place. Ethan Winslowe's designs should have prepared her. Meg had seen almost every one of the buildings he'd planned, those that had actually been built and those that were nothing more than prototypes, some so exotic, no one would ever live in them.

But the old Meredith place was beyond her wildest dreams—or nightmares. The facade was ordinary enough, a big Victorian mansion dating from just before the turn of the century, complete with gingerbread trim and wide porches. But spreading out on both sides was the strangest conglomeration of additions: wings, gables, gambrels and jutting peaks from every possible design period, from Greco-Rom an-to Country French to Bauhaus to modern. It looked like an architect gone totally mad, turning his own house into a crazy quilt of building styles, and for a moment, Meg panicked, looking for a place to turn the lumbering sedan around so she could get away from there.

The car was stuck, thoroughly and deeply embedded in the mud. The more she tried, the more the wheels spun. The house in front of her was still and silent; whatever gremlins lived there were paying no attention to a lady in distress.

She had no choice finally but to climb out into the mud, cursing herself for wearing high heels, cursing the rain that was now soaking down, cursing the puddles beneath her. It was just before noon on Saturday. Reese's ultimatum was by five o'clock that day, and yet, no one seemed to be expected.

She trudged through the rain, up the front staircase to the door. There were lace curtains in the front windows facing the wide porch, politely in keeping with that style of the house. They also shielded whatever occupants lurked inside, peering out at her.

Meg gave herself a sensible little shake. She'd let the old man in the village spook her. There was nothing sinister around her, just a brilliant recluse who had business with her father. Business she planned to take care of quickly and efficiently, and then head back to light and civilization.

She heard the echo of the old-fashioned doorbell inside the house. It was late April, but the rain was cold and bone chilling up there in the mountains, and Megan shivered. If she had any choice at all, she'd turn and leave, she thought. But even her momentary cowardice had been defeated by the ruts in the driveway. She glanced back at her mired-in car. She wasn't going anywhere until someone was willing to get her out.

She was just about to ring the bell again when the door was jerked open. "Who are you and what do you want?" a man demanded abruptly, glowering at her, his huge bulk filling the doorway and blocking any view of the hallway.

She had no choice but to look at him. This wasn't Ethan Winslowe, of that one fact she was certain. He was a huge hulking giant of a man, well over six feet, with massive shoulders and forearms, grizzled gray hair and eyebrows and a sullen, swarthy face. She guessed he was somewhere in his late fifties or early sixties and just as friendly as the old codger in town.

It took all her self-control not to take a nervous step backward. "I'm looking for Ethan Winslowe."

"So's everybody else. Mr. Winslowe doesn't see visitors. Go away."

"I believe he'll see me. I'm Meg Carey. Reese Carey's daughter."

The man hesitated in the act of slamming the door. "Where's the old man?" he demanded, and it took a moment for her to realize he meant her father.

"In Chicago."

"Go back and tell him his time's up."

"I'd like Mr. Winslowe to tell me that. I've come a long way to see him—"

"You weren't invited. Go away." Once more, he tried to slam the door, but she had the presence of mind to put her foot in the way.

"Ask Mr. Winslowe if he'll see me," she said again with pleasant firmness.

The man in the doorway cackled then, an unpleasant sound that increased the chill sweeping through her body. "I'll ask him," he said finally. "For your sake, you better hope he says no." And to her surprise, he opened the door wider.

She wasn't quite sure what she was expecting. Something out of The Addams Family, perhaps, but the front hallway and living room were neat, pristine, almost period pieces of Victoriana. The man nodded in the direction of a stiff-looking sofa. "Stash yourself there. I'll see what he says. Just don't get too comfortable."

Not likely, Megan thought, watching him disappear. The room was dark, gloomy on such a rainy day, and her unwilling host hadn't bothered to turn on any lights. She glanced around her, looking for a lamp or a switch, anything to chase away some of the eerie shadows. There was none.

Disbelieving, she got up and began stalking around the room, looking behind the draped Victorian furniture for something as mundane as an electrical outlet. There weren't any.

"Looking for something?" That same rough voice interrupted her.

She straightened up, knowing her pale cheeks were stained with color. "An electrical outlet."

"Ain't any. Leastways, not in this part of the house. Which is where you'll be staying."

"Staying?" Megan echoed uncertainly.

"Yup. Ethan's said since your daddy's too big a coward to show up here, then you'll have to do. I'll show you to your room."

"I don't want to stay," she said, trying to push back the panic that was like a raven's wings beating behind her eyes. "I simply want to talk to Mr. Winslowe and then leave. Surely that can be arranged."

"Surely that can't," the older man mocked her. "For one thing, lady, your car is so far stuck that it'll take a backhoe to get it out, and there's no one here to drive one. Won't be till the workmen come back on Monday morning. For another, Ethan sees people on his own terms. After dark. So you just follow me and make yourself comfortable because you aren't going anywhere until he says you are."

A sense of utter disbelief washed over her. "I can't...."

"You will," the man said, his rough voice implacable. "And don't think you can try to find your way out of here without your car. There's no one within fifty miles who'd help you. And I'd make sure you wouldn't get even a tenth of that distance. Ethan says he'll see you, and see you he will. It's my job to take care of everything Ethan requires, and he's decided he requires you. So why don't you stop making such a fuss and I'll show you to your room? It's another five hours till dark, and even then, Ethan might not be ready. You look like you could do with a rest."

For a moment, she didn't say anything. Things were rapidly taking on a sense of unreality. Eighteen hours ago, she'd been enjoying her farewell party. Now she was trapped in a bizarre, unelectrified house in the middle of nowhere with a car mired in the mud and a bruiser determined to keep her there.

She considered running for it, but the man had already informed her it would be a waste of time. She believed him when he said no one in the town of Oak Grove would help her. She considered flinging herself on the turkey-red Oriental carpet and having a temper tantrum the likes of which she hadn't indulged in since she was five and a half years old. That wouldn't do her any good, either.

She took a deep breath, drawing herself up as tall as her five foot two inches plus high heels would let her. "That sounds like a good idea," she said. "I don't suppose this place comes equipped with running water so that I could wash up?"

"You'll have your own bathroom. Plumbing works fine, and there's more than enough hot water for the three of us. You got any bags in that car of yours?"

"No. I wasn't planning on staying," she said absently. "Three of us?"

"You. Ethan. And me, I'm Salvatore. I take care of things around here."

"That's all? What about a... nurse?"

Salvatore simply stared at her for a moment. "Who needs a nurse? I can do everything for Ethan that needs doing. For that matter, I'm a damned good cook. You got a problem with that?"

"Of course not."

"Then follow me. And watch your step. This place gets a little tricky in spots."

That was an understatement. As long as she followed his hulking form through the Victorian hallways, things were fine. It was when they started into the new sections that things got difficult. The gloomy day let little light into the twists and turns of the passageways. They went at right angles, left angles, up flights of stairs, down flights of stairs. Some of the hallways had electric light, most of them didn't, and within five minutes of this endless journey, Megan gave up trying to memorize her way. She didn't know whether Salvatore was deliberately leading her on a roundabout passageway to confuse her or whether the house was really such a maze. Remembering the strange patchwork exterior, she expected it was probably the latter.

Salvatore stopped suddenly in a narrow hallway that was made of stone. One narrow slit in the wall let in a mere thread of rainwashed light, and the heavy wooden door creaked as he opened it. "This was where your father was going to stay," he announced. "It's the only room in the house that's habitable."

That was a debatable point. While the design of that section of the rambling house resembled a medieval castle, the room he'd shown her to was closer to a dungeon. The mattress on the floor probably wasn't made of straw, but it wasn't a Posturepedic, either. There was a brown wool blanket folded up at one end, and judging by the icy temperature of the room, that wouldn't be enough. The one pillow was small and lumpy looking and covered with something that looked like burlap, there were no chairs, no tables, nothing but a bucket in the corner of the room.

She walked over to it, her high heels clacking noisily on the stone floor. "Is that my modern plumbing?" she asked in a deceptively calm voice.

Salvatore shrugged, then moved over to another door set deep in one of the walls. He withdrew a ring of keys worthy of a medieval chatelain, fitted one into the lock and opened the door. "Ethan said you could use the bathroom."

Meg didn't move. She could see beyond Salvatore's bulk to an impressive-looking bathroom—a huge marble tub and gleaming wall sconce set with unlit candles. "You were going to make my father use the bucket?"

"This wasn't a social visit, Miss Carey," Salvatore said. "You hungry? You need anything?"

I need to get out of here, she thought, but she kept it to herself, knowing it wouldn't do her any good. She wasn't leaving until Ethan Winslowe gave the word. "Nothing," she said, ignoring the emptiness in her stomach. She wasn't going to accept anything from this place; nothing but her freedom. "Unless you want to tell Mr. Winslowe I'd appreciate seeing him as soon as possible. I want to get away from here."

"I told you, you aren't getting out until Monday. That car is stuck fast."

"You must have other vehicles here. You could give me a ride to the nearest town with a car-rental agency."

Salvatore was shaking his head. "No cars, Miss Carey. Even if we did, I doubt Ethan would let me take you. No, you'll simply have to drop your big-city timetable and wait." He headed out the door.

She didn't want to be left alone in this dark, cold place. Already she was shivering, and even Salvatore's sullen presence might have been some comfort. A comfort she wasn't going to ask for. "I'll be fine. If I need anything, I'll come looking—"

"No, you won't. I'm afraid I'm going to have to lock you in. This place is too dangerous to let you wander around alone. I'll check back in a couple of hours."

She was stunned into silence, a silence that lasted as Salvatore closed the door behind him and turned the key in the lock. The darkness closed in around her, gloomy and suffocating. The windows were high set and barred, the casements letting in almost no light.

For a moment, she wanted to scream, to run to the heavy door and start beating against it. Only sheer willpower held her still, that and the knowledge that if she did give in to panic, it would only make things much, much worse.

She took a deep, calming breath, then another. She didn't cross the room to make certain the door was truly locked—Salvatore didn't make mistakes. And things weren't quite as bad as they could have been. He'd left her a box of matches and the wall-sconces had tall candles in them. Her shoulder purse had two slightly battered candy bars at the bottom and a half-finished science-fiction paperback she'd lost interest in. The situation  wasn't  nearly as dismal  as  she had  first thought, particularly if she ignored the fact that she was locked in.

The bathroom was positively sybaritic compared to her dungeon. The towels were thick and white, and there was even a terry robe, the kind she'd found at better hotels, hung on the back of the door. The hot water was just as abundant as Salvatore had promised her, and there were even some hyacinth-scented bath crystals.

At one forty-five on a rainy Saturday afternoon, when she should have been well on her way to New York and then to Europe, she found herself locked in a dungeon, having a perfumed, candlelit bath and even enjoying herself.

The terry robe dragged on the floor as she wrapped it around her body. That was another advantage to this place, she thought, pushing her sheaf of dark blond hair back. There were no mirrors around to force reality home when she stepped out of the bathtub and confronted her naked self. She found her body a constant vexation—it remained stubbornly rounded and ten pounds overweight no matter how little she ate and how much she exercised.

The mattress on the floor was a little more comfortable than she had imagined. The softness of the terry-cloth robe kept the wool blanket from being too itchy, and the pillow was made of feathers. She sat cross-legged and made a feast of her first candy bar, then stretched out with her novel.

Her taste in science fiction ran toward women-authored extraterrestrial romances. The hero in this particular one had been a little too bizarre, even for Meg's tastes. A tall, green lizard with tiny scales instead of skin, he'd metamorphosed into a jellylike glob halfway through the book, leaving the earthling heroine frustrated and untouched, and Meg had stopped reading. Now she would have read romances about amoe-bas—anything to take her mind off her current situation. The only problem was, the vast green blob reminded her a little of Ethan Winslowe. Somewhere in this huge place, he was lurking, possibly tied up to life-support systems, a huge, evil spider waiting to... to...

That didn't bear thinking about. Maybe he was simply an agoraphobic Howard Hughes-type. Maybe he was Salvatore himself. Whoever and whatever he was, she'd face him, calmly, bravely, and deal with him as he needed to be dealt with. And then she'd get the hell out of here.

With a resigned sigh, she turned her attention to the romantic tribulations of Medora and X'n*d, squinting in the candlelight. In no time at all, she was sound asleep.

The room was very dark, the only light the flickering image of the television monitors. Salvatore opened the door, shutting it behind him silently. He had good eyes in the dark, cat's eyes. He didn't need bright sunlight to see. A good thing. There was very little light in Ethan Winslowe's house, even on the brightest day.

"What do you think of her?" he asked, leaning against the door.

The man in the chair didn't move, didn't blink his eyes. One might think he was made of stone, so still did he sit. Salvatore knew better.

"What color is her hair?" Ethan's voice was slow, deep, issuing from the depths of the chair.

Salvatore glanced at the black-and-white monitor. Meg Carey was lying on the mattress, a paperback novel had fallen from her hand, and the white bathrobe was wrapped around her. "Blond," he said. "Dark blond, with streaks in it, like sunlight."

"Sunlight," Ethan echoed.

"Nice blue eyes. Friendly, big. Nice body, too, not too thin. But you can see that, can't you?"

The girl had shifted in her sleep, rolling over onto her back, and the bathrobe shifted with her, exposing the warm curve of her breast. In another second, the screen went blank, turned off by an imperceptible move on Ethan's part. The other screens remained lit, illuminating empty rooms, empty hallways. "Remind me, Salvatore. What do we know about Megan Carey?"

Salvatore breathed a tiny sigh of relief. "Twenty-seven years old. An only child, devoted to her father. Graduate of the University of Chicago, master's degree from Northwestern. Up until yesterday, she worked for Carey Enterprises. She'd quit to go traveling, or so word has it. I don't know whether she caught wind of what her father had been doing and wanted to get out before she got brought down, too—"

"Unlikely. If she was trying to escape, she wouldn't have come here. What about her personal history?"

"Two love affairs, one with a college student that lasted most of her junior year. Apparently they broke up over his drug use. The other was with an executive in the company. That ended a while ago when he got involved with someone else. She sees men on a casual basis but doesn't seem too serious. She reads science fiction and murder mysteries, likes Italian food and works out at a health club three times a week."

"Efficient as always," Ethan said. "You never cease to amaze me."

"I like a challenge," Salvatore said modestly. "She's had chicken pox, measles, a broken arm in a cycling accident and a benign heart murmur. No abortions, no pregnancies. Her doctor's computer is a piece of cake to break into."

"Do you think she knows about her father?"

"From what I can gather, no. She's known for her sense of honor. If she'd even suspected what he was doing, she would have stopped him. Maybe not blown the whistle on him, but she would have stopped him."

"Maybe," said Ethan. "Then again, maybe not. We'll have to see. She likes to read, does she?"

"Anything but horror novels. I guess she's gullible."

Ethan's laugh was enough to send cold chills down anyone's spine but Salvatore's. "Make arrangements to move her to the tower room, Sally. Leave her a few more amenities, including a decent bed. Maybe you'd better see about finding her some more clothes. You must know what size she wears."

"Size eight. Bra size, thirty-four C, shoe size, seven. I'll see what I can do. Anything special for the tower room?"

"Yes," Ethan said. "No books but Stephen King novels."

Salvatore chuckled. "Anyone tell you you were evil, Ethan?"

"You have, many times. See to it, old friend."

"It is done, O master," Salvatore said with a mocking flourish, closing the door behind him and plunging the room into darkness once more.

The man in the chair didn't move, his eyes surveying the empty screens. And then, with a minuscule movement, he turned the middle one on.

Meg Carey lay in the center of the pallet. The bathrobe had come undone enough to expose her shapely legs. Her hair was thick and slightly curly around her shoulders. The color of sunlight, Salvatore had said. An interesting recommendation to a man who avoided sunlight.

A stubborn chin, even in sleep, he thought, cataloging her. A soft mouth, slightly parted, a nose that was totally without character. He half wished she'd open her eyes.

He'd been enraged when Salvatore had first told him Reese Carey had sent his daughter in his place. But the moment Ethan had set eyes on her, he'd realized this made things a great deal more interesting. Justice or revenge, he wasn't quite sure which it was, was going to be far sweeter, and Reese Carey, in his blind cowardice, had sent the means directly into Ethan's hands.

Ethan Winslowe couldn't wait for night to fall—and the games to begin.