Fiona smiled tightly and kept her head down. She was as capable of filling bowls with oatmeal or cereal as anyone, so she carried orders back to the kitchen. “You wouldn’t happen to have any of those cinnamon hearts that go on cakes, would you?” she asked as Dinah decorated waffles.
Dinah narrowed her eyes at her. “What you want those for? We ain’t got time for no cakes.”
“For Amber’s oatmeal.” Fee dished a bowl of creamy oatmeal from the pot on the stove and added honey. “If I add cinnamon and make it look interesting, I can persuade her not to add that nasty fake sugar.”
Dinah’s eyes widened again, and she nodded at a cabinet. “Help yourself. And I heard them out there. You want to go play on the mountain, go play. I can serve the coffee drinkers easy enough.”
Fee had a dozen things she should be doing besides hiking on the mountain. And she wasn’t at all certain she wanted to be classified as a nosy Lucy, even if she might be one. She had a few hours to think it over.
Back at the counter, Amber’s eyes widened at the oatmeal decorated with little red hearts. “Candy? In oatmeal? I’m trying to eat healthy.”
“Cinnamon is very good for you,” Fee assured her. “Leave out the chemical sweetener and try it.” Honey was good for her too, but she figured Amber would refuse the meal entirely if she knew there was real sugar in it.
Fee poured coffee in empty cups, removed dirty dishes, and asked the police chief next to Samantha if he needed anything else. He pointed at the empty pie rack. “Dinah have any pie hidden back there?”
“Pie? For breakfast?” Okay, she shouldn’t have said that. Keeping her head down, she filled his cup. “I’ll see.”
He did smell as if he needed fruit, though. Doing a mental inventory, she returned to the kitchen and sliced fresh apples into a small bowl. She slapped on some vanilla yogurt, sprinkled them with cinnamon and nutmeg, and tucked a graham cracker in the side. Dinah watched her without saying a word. She really liked Dinah. And she was going to get herself fired. Again. Damn, too late now.
She set the fruit in front of Walker. “Crust-less pie.” She hurried off to take a customer’s cash at the register.
She heard Sam laughing and teasing her new husband. Fee really wanted to tell them that good buttery crust was a decadence that should only be savored occasionally and in small portions. And regular doses of sugary filling could take years off your life. But that was the kind of thing that got her in trouble, so she bit her tongue.
And because Walker ate the whole bowl, and Sam thanked her for breaking her husband’s sweet tooth habit, Fee took off her apron at nine and trooped out with the Lucys after business slowed down. She’d left Sukey tied to a boardwalk post, snoozing in the sun for the past couple of hours. It wouldn’t hurt to walk the dog up the trail a bit.
A lanky, black-garbed man carrying a guitar on his back handed Fee a walking stick. Carved of a dark reddish wood, the handle appeared to be a gargoyle with a blue crystal in its mouth. “It’s one of my base models. I’ll make you a personal one if this works for you.”
Always suspicious of strangers bearing gifts, she tried to hand it back, but he walked off with a wave, his long legs striding faster than her short ones could follow. What the heck would she do with a stick when she was already carrying a leash?
“That’s Harvey.” Amber ambled up beside her. “He doesn’t give his sticks to just anyone. Use it to feel the earth’s energy. You’ll be walking in an area that has a lot of negativity. You might want to avoid the bad spots.”
Amber crossed the street to her shop instead of following the others. She limped slightly, so Fee assumed the hike would be too much for her. That was a shame. Amber was too young and pretty to be left out of any fun.
Although negative energy didn’t sound like fun. Fee pulled her cap brim down to shade her face from the March sun and caught up with the others.
“The question is,” Sam was saying. “Do we want the natural vegetation that was there before, or do we attempt more difficult landscaping requiring water?”
“What was there before burned, didn’t it?” the auburn-haired jeweler called Teddy asked.
“But water is expensive,” Kurt, her fiancé argued.
Fee had learned Kurt and Monty were part owners of the resort that owned this mountain. But the resort and town were dependent on each other, so it made sense for the whole community to discuss replanting. She thought. It wasn’t as if anyone had ever consulted her opinion before.
“We know there are underground springs around here. What if we could find one?” Sam suggested. “My grant is all about using our limited resources, so we’d need to take into consideration normal rainfall and gray water. But if we had the back-up of a spring, we could plant less flammable material.”
Fiona knew nothing about plants except how to water when told. She simply enjoyed the fresh air, the sunshine, and the lack of tension as she wandered along with these people she didn’t know. She felt as if she’d been living in a dirty fog all her life. Maybe, this time, she’d found a place that might. . . well, probably not welcome her. It wasn’t as if she had the sort of charisma Monty exuded. She’d settle for acceptance.
As Samantha pointed out signs of green life returning among the boulders and burned out trees, Fee let Sukey tug her off to one side. From this barren spot, she could easily see her fellow hikers as well as the town below, so there was no chance of getting lost. She let Sukey off her leash to sniff and hiked toward an outcropping of boulders.
Her weird walking stick jerked erratically, not exactly useful as a support. Sukey ran toward the fire line that divided the burn from the woods surrounding the resort. Fee had just seated herself on a warm rock when she saw the mayor walking up after her. Damn, but the jock in his sexy shades was too super-licious for her own good. Tawny mane tossed back, he sauntered with the lazy grace of a man who had nowhere to be, nothing to do. He wore tight jeans on his narrow hips today, less informal than his usual office attire. He must have known about the hike.
“Not interested in negative energy or greenery?” he asked as he approached.
Sukey ran back to sniff his boots. The man even wore boots instead of athletic shoes like every other male in the kingdom. Fee did so love a man in pointy cowboy boots. Apparently, so did Sukey.
Her stick jerked up and down, so she shoved it into a crack and released it. “Just absorbing sunshine,” she told him. She didn’t intend to encourage him to linger, no matter how much her hormones whimpered in need.
“Sam claims to make things grow,” he said, taking a rock beside her, uninvited. “Or she doesn’t claim anything. The other Lucys say it for her.”
“Why are they called Lucys?” she asked, because she wasn’t about to get involved in gossip.
“After the Lucent Ladies, some old spiritualists who kind of took over the town back in the 1800s. That’s the sort of thing the new museum will tell visitors.” He pointed across the hill to a lower valley closer to town. “That’s the new development where the museum will go. We need more tourist attractions while the mountain recovers.”
The fire obviously hadn’t damaged the valley too much. Tall redwoods still lined the bluff—she thought they were redwoods. She was a city girl but had gone on school nature trips occasionally. Mostly, the land looked like rocks and chaparral. “That’s what this side looked like before the fire?”
“Not the redwoods. The commune planted those as a windbreak. This side was mostly hiking. We had dreams of a ski run, but our altitude really isn’t high enough.” He picked up a pebble and skipped it through the dust and ashes.
Following the pebble’s path, Fee yelled “Sukey!” at the Yorkie scampering down the hill toward the fire line.
The dog stopped and yipped, then ran toward a lone stand of shrubs behind some boulders. Muttering a curse, Fiona stood to go after her. “Sukey!”
“If she’s not trained, you should keep her on a leash. There are snakes out here.” Monty loped
after the dog as if it were his.
She should resent his interference, but snakes didn’t sound good. No wonder he was wearing boots. She checked her old Nikes and hoped they were fang proof.
The dog barked and disappeared into the shrubbery. Carrying the walking stick—understanding its purpose now—Fee ran down the hill after man and dog. She’d only just adopted Sukey. She shouldn’t be so irrationally attached to the creature. But if anything happened to the animal on her watch. . .
Sukey’s barking changed to a frightened yip. Fee’s pulse escalated. She ran with stick raised, prepared to do battle with snakes for her dog. The mutt burst from behind the rocks with a terrified bark, running straight to Monty. He scooped her up and passed her on to Fee, while keeping his gaze on the shrubbery.
“Let me check what’s back there. Go on back with the others,” he ordered.
As if she took orders from anyone. But the dog was shivering in her arms—and so was the weird walking stick. The dog smelled of fish. She should warn Monty, make him take someone with him. . . And get laughed at.
“It’s your neck,” she told him with an insouciance she didn’t feel. She’d vowed to stay out of everyone else’s business when she’d come up here. She had to take herself seriously.
She wanted to watch as the mayor continued down the hill, but she kept telling herself it wasn’t her concern. He was a strong man who’d grown up on this mountain. He was better prepared than she was. She just wanted back in her safe little room where she could rest her feet and decide how she could bring her stuff up here.
“It’s all about me and you, isn’t it, Sukey?” she asked the dog as they climbed the hill back to the others.
Sukey yipped agreement, but then, she was a dog. Dogs didn’t know better. Fiona did. So when she reached the other Lucys, she turned to see what the mayor was doing. Everyone else did the same, because he was shouting. Damn. She’d known it.
“Everyone stay here. I’ll see what he wants,” Kurt commanded.
The Kennedys really liked giving orders. But Fee knew she would only be a hindrance since she had no size and was carrying a dog. When the big geologist called Keegan loped after Kurt, she sighed in relief.
“No bodies,” Samantha whispered. “No more bodies, please.”
Fee chilled. Now she watched the men in horror.
“We need someone who reads animal minds,” Mariah, the black-braided woman said, scratching Sukey’s head. She glanced at Fee’s walking stick. “Did you feel negativity?”
Fee bit back a sharp retort. No smart mouth, no offering suggestions, head down, mouth shut. . . She shook her head and clutched Sukey closer.
Monty and Keegan emerged carrying a body between them. Kurt was on what appeared to be a walkie-talkie. Smart move. Fee wished she’d thought of that, although she had no idea how to operate techie equipment.
As one, the group of Lucys headed down the hill. Fee reluctantly followed. Not as long-legged as Mariah and Sam, the red-haired jeweler fell back to keep Fee company. She waved her crystal-headed walking stick. “Bad things happen on this mountain. Cass says there’s evil in the ground. If your stick feels like it’s shaking its head, you’ll know what we sense. It’s pretty intense.”
Her stick had been shaking as much as the Yorkie. Fee didn’t know if she wanted to respond though. Evil? She kept to a safe, sane subject. “Is the man dead?” She tried to see if the victim moved, but the men carrying him were practically running down the hill, toward the road.
“I’m going to guess they wouldn’t run if he was dead. They’d have left him for Walker to check for foul play. Overdose, maybe?” Teddy was straining to see ahead as well. “I’m not picking up any emotion from this distance. The Kennedys have learned to lock down pretty tight. Their mother would drain them otherwise. And Keegan doesn’t know anyone, so he has no reason to react.”
The jeweler was sensing emotions—from a distance? Fee bit her tongue on that one, too, although curiosity ate at her.
An SUV with an official seal on the doors roared up the mountain road, stopping just as the men reached the blacktopped surface. Chief Walker climbed out of the driver’s seat and a wiry older woman climbed from the passenger side.
“He brought Brenda, good. That means the guy is alive. We really don’t need any more dead bodies,” Teddy said with relief. “She’s a nurse practitioner,” she explained.
“It’s a good thing you brought your dog,” Samantha called back to them as they approached. “The poor guy would have been out there forever otherwise.”
“It’s a good thing you picked today to go hiking,” Teddy added. “Can you tell if he’s anyone we know?”
Samantha shook her head of dandelion hair. “Tourist.”
They watched as the men loaded the patient into the back of the SUV and the nurse climbed in with him. The official car performed a neat three-point turn on the narrow road, and took off, sirens screaming.
Fee guessed a small town didn’t have ambulances. Feeling like an unnecessary appendage, she hung behind as the hiking group caught up with the men. All the tall, confident people chattered at once, finishing each other’s sentences. Fee didn’t even know all their names yet.
That was okay. She had Sukey. She had a job and a roof over her head. That’s all she’d ever asked. Well, she was hoping someday to have her own roof and her own café, but she’d get there.
The mayor dropped behind to walk with her. A sideways glance told her he looked grim, which made her swallow hard. Still, she said nothing.
“I recognize him,” he finally said. “He was one of the rough-looking guys poking around in the alley last night. The other one is probably still out there somewhere.”
“Drugs?” Fee asked cautiously, because that was the evil she was most familiar with.
“Maybe, but it’s snakebite that’s going to kill him. His leg is swollen to three times its size. I don’t think they’ll make the hospital in time to save him.”
Fee didn’t need to be empathic to know Monty worried about more than a snake-bit stranger. She just didn’t know why.
Seven
Wednesday, morning
Monty appreciated Fiona’s silence as they traversed the hill. If she worried over the snakebite guy, he couldn’t tell. He needed silence to focus his whirling thoughts.
Ahead, the others had talked past what they couldn’t fix and were now into discussing the final preparations for Kurt and Teddy’s wedding. He was Kurt’s best man. He’d had months to prepare a toast and had it ready. Due to Hillvale’s lack of entertainment venues, the only bachelor party he had to arrange would be at the resort’s bar. His main task was to hand over the ring. Even his concussed brain could manage that.
Which left him as the only one fretting over the snake-bit stranger. The man had been muttering in Spanish when Monty found him, something about dogs and bikes, if he’d translated correctly. And the victim was carrying a gun and a knife—not exactly typical tourist attire. Monty wasn’t a man who worried overmuch, but even his simple mind could still make connections.
He preferred not to give the Lucys any bone to gnaw on, but he couldn’t help glancing down at the dog panting in Fiona’s arms. “How long have you had Sukey?”
She sent him one of her sidelong looks and shrugged. “She’s a rescue. Not long.”
He didn’t even know her last name. She’d made a point of not giving it to him. He wanted this wide-eyed waif to be as innocent and normal as she looked. She wasn’t his type at all, he told himself. He liked leggy models with long blond hair, empty-headed women who simply wanted the kind of fun evening he could provide. But Fiona’s enigmatic silences and prickly responses roused his interest in ways they shouldn’t.
“I should probably give Sukey an award for finding the guy,” he said, off the cuff. “He’d have died for certain if we hadn’t found him.”
Which would have given the Lucys one more spook to chase off. He shivered. No more dead bodies on his watch, p
lease. Peggy’s death could have happened anywhere, but snake bites. . . They were bad for business. And he was a crass ass to think that way, except he had a bad gut feeling about a guy with a knife and gun on resort property.
“Sukey likes steak bones,” Fee said with a hint of a smile and not an ounce of his worry. “And if I’d known there were rattlesnakes up there, I wouldn’t have gone. I don’t own hiking boots.”
“If you watch where you’re going, the snakes aren’t a problem.” Relieved that she replied sensibly, he continued, “But boots are probably a good idea for hiking. Talk with Tullah at the thrift store. She has everything. Is Aaron’s studio apartment okay?”
He was talking to keep from fretting. It’s what he did best—talk. Which seemed to be what Fee did least, he noticed.
“The room is perfect, thank you. I’ll try to work out a deal with Aaron. I’m a pretty good bookkeeper and housekeeper.”
That was probably more than he’d ever heard her say. She sounded happy, so maybe that was the key to pulling information out of her. It didn’t quite make up for having to sleep in his office last night, but that was his problem, not hers. Maybe he’d have a shower installed in the City Hall bathroom and just call that home.
But he couldn’t ignore the association playing in his head just to please her. Dogs—bikes—guns—equaled bad.
“Did you find Sukey at a shelter?” If so, Hillvale was probably just making him paranoid, and he could relax. Shelters checked dogs over pretty thoroughly.
She was silent a beat too long. He waited for her to lie and wondered what he’d do if she did.
“I found her,” she said defensively.
Monty reckoned that was only a half lie, but it gave him what he needed. “Did you have her checked for a chip? She’s a pretty cute dog. Some kid may be missing her.”
She pondered that as they reached town. “She wasn’t where kids ought to be,” she said carefully. “And I can’t afford vets.”
Azure Secrets Page 5