Santa Barbara |
||||
|
It is on the eve of his wedding with Kelly Capwell that Robert Barr, or rather his twin brother Quinn Armitage, makes discover to his mistress Flame Beaufort the house he has just rented. Big and dark, the inside looks like an old manor house, one of these haunted houses of another century. It is because it indeed holds many secrets, hidden doors and rooms.
The walls of the ground floor are all covered till the middle-height with wooden mouldings which darken the big lounge which we reach by entering. Some wooden plates turn out to be removable and hide an access to the inside of the partition. It is the case to start on the left wall of the lounge, behind the fainting couch. So, we do not count the secret locations the house holds, the possible locations of hiding places, and the secret passages allowing to pass from a room to another without being seen. It is Flame who discovers the first one these passages. She uses them to hide from visitors and to set up a whole series of stratagems to drive Kelly crazy.
On the left of the lounge, behind the desk, an impressive wooden staircase allows to reach on the first floor. Covered with a carpet in the brightly coloured motives, it leads up to a landing concealing a new secret access. Indeed, one of the wooden plates opens here too, and allows to hide to spy on the visitors down below. It is there that Flame hides when she pushes down Kelly in the staircases thanks to a thread stretched out between the first steps.
After the landing, a long corridor serves several rooms. Always very dark, it consists of walls of blue-grey color and on the ground of the same carpet as in the staircase.
One of the doors allows to enter Kelly and Quinn's bedroom. Always enlightened artificially, it gives the feeling that the sun never succeeds in entering in spite of the window. One of the pieces of the wall of the room is in fact a hidden door, which allows, by a ladder, to reach the attic.
The other access to the attic is situated at the end of the corridor, by a wooden staircase. It is at the foot of this staircase that Robert will die, under the combined shootings of Eden Capwell and Flame.
The attic, almost so dark as the rest of the house, seems to cover all its surface. It is constituted by series of wooden beams and so allows many hiding places without being seen. It is this location which Flame will choose as den during all the period when Kelly will live in the house. She will be besides stuck with district attorney Keith Timmons there, before Gina Capwell comes to release them.
Robert's death will lead Kelly to go back to live at the Capwell villa, and so the house will end uninhabited. It will however continue to be the place of the investigations of Cruz Castillo, but also of Eden Capwell's dreams during her coma, in order to discover the identity of Robert's real murderer. But even after its disappearance of the screen, it will stay remembered for its atypical and very disturbing architecture...