Crystal Vision

by Patricia Rice

  The horses beat him down, but not by much. While Walker directed his posse, Keegan continued his survey. He didn’t think Walker would catch whoever had shot at them yesterday, but he did think the shooter was here for a purpose. He wanted to know what it was.

  With an understanding of the geological shifts reflected by the rock formations in the canyon walls, Keegan had a good idea what part was mostly granite and might conceal quartz. But the limestone layers also offered opportunities for caves and subterranean structures where the ocean might once have swirled, creating the more valuable crystals.

  The tumble of boulders he had his eye on was on the southern wall, not too far into the canyon. It would be an excellent place for snipers as well. A good rifle could reach anyone on all three sides of the ridge. The police chief and his posse didn’t appear to be interested in the walls of the canyon so much as the exit to the east. They rode straight down the middle.

  Checking to see where Mariah was on the north ridge, Keegan ambled around to the south, trying to stay in her sight. It was always good to have someone know where he was in case of emergency. He could almost feel Mariah following him with those piercing eyes of hers. Hawk eyes, he decided.

  Working his way around to the boulders that interested him, Keegan sifted more pebbles through his fingers. The ground was mostly sandy gravel, with a slightly higher concentration of diorite. He added the stones to his collection for Teddy. The jeweler’s auburn hair stood out along the north ridge, some distance from Mariah. He suspected the jeweler was watching Kurt on his horse, so Keegan didn’t bother signaling her.

  He did lift Harvey’s walking stick so the sun caught the crystal before he entered the shadows of the boulders. Mariah lifted her stick to indicate that she’d noticed. Oddly satisfied, Keegan poked into the crevasse, scaring off any snakes. Finally finding what he sought, he stepped beneath the shadow of a ledge, into a sandy cavern behind the rocks.

  Before he could even rub his hand over the sandstone, he stumbled over a large—soft—obstacle.

  Splayed just inside the entrance was the pudgy frame of the bigot he’d encountered just a few days back—George Thompson.

  Twenty

  July 11: Wednesday, early morning

  Mariah had found a hollow to plant her stick in if Lucy energy was required, but the canyon seemed peaceful. She’d put inexperienced Teddy on her side of the canyon. She could see Sam settling the last of her team on the far side, not too far from where Keegan was exploring. Below, Walker had sent his men down the middle of the valley, but their search was pretty futile. It was obvious there were no cultivated beds of marijuana, no barrels of water, nothing that would indicate drug dealers might have taken up residence. She supposed they might look for wheel tracks.

  She was yawning when her staff vibrated with shock, catching her unprepared. Pulse jumping, she anxiously searched for Keegan. He’d disappeared into the shadows earlier, but he was emerging now, waving his stick and shouting. Her relief at seeing him whole and unhurt was superseded by his agitation.

  Damn, but she was too far to help. If she broke rank now, so would everyone else, and their protective circle would fall apart—just when they might need it. She bit her lip in anxiety, unaccustomed to caring what happened to anyone but herself—unaccustomed to working with others.

  She thought she’d shut down her ability to care after Adera’s death. But Daisy’s loss had left a hole in her heart that Keegan had apparently sneaked through. She bit her lip in unusual indecision, wanting to go to him, while wanting to stand guard over her friends.

  Feeling vulnerable, she gripped her stick, and held it high, indicating everyone remain where they were. Sam’s staff glinted in the sun across the canyon, returning the signal. All along both ridges, Mariah could see Lucy crystals lifted in unity. She breathed deeply and tried to relax in this display of strength.

  Below, the police chief motioned for his men to converge on Keegan. What the hell was happening down there?

  She needed a better outlet than computers and hawks, Mariah concluded. She needed a human mind to enter—and Cass wasn’t here.

  What’s wrong?

  Keegan felt Mariah’s demand inside his head. Was he so worried about her that he was imagining her fear?

  Walker rode up and Keegan gestured at the cave. “I’ve already disturbed the scene, sorry. It’s Thompson.”

  Thompson? the voice inside his head asked in shock.

  That was going one shade too far. Keegan smacked his temple with his good hand and debated the wisdom of pain pills.

  Descending from his horse as smoothly as if he were climbing out of his fancy BMW on a city street, Chief Walker removed a flashlight from the collection of tools on his utility belt. “George Thompson? The one who tried to break into Daisy’s bunker?” He eased toward the crack between the boulders.

  “The one and only. I didn’t have a light to see how he was injured, but I could smell him. He’s been here more than a few hours.” Keegan glanced up at Mariah. She was sitting down and leaning against a large rock. The sight made him uneasy.

  Crystals? The voice in his head demanded.

  Damn, it was bad enough having a woman get under his skin, but in his head? Still, he understood the urgency of her question.

  He ran his good hand over the boulders in his immediate vicinity. Nothing interesting. He followed Walker, blocking the entrance to the cavern with his breadth while the lawman examined the body and its surroundings. At the same time, Keegan surreptitiously tested any rock he could reach. Still nothing much.

  I’ll send Teddy.

  The voice faded, and Keegan felt a distinct absence. Retreating from the dark cavern, he drank more of his water, wondering if he was light-headed from lack of blood and over-exertion. But even making those excuses, he knew he hadn’t imagined Mariah’s presence in his head.

  And he knew it wasn’t coincidence that Teddy started making her way down from her position on the ridge while everyone else stayed in place.

  Keegan took a seat on a flat rock and guzzled his water. He was an engineer. He worked with minerals and formulas. The scene unfolding was better left to the professionals. He tried not to glance back at Mariah on the ridge for fear he’d see her slumped over while she raced around in a hawk’s brain. He glanced uneasily overhead but they’d scared off the birds.

  Monty Kennedy rode up with his posse. But Kurt Kennedy, the mayor’s brother, rode in the opposite direction to meet the woman he was apparently cohabiting with. Watching Teddy accept Kurt’s assist to the back of his horse, Keegan couldn’t resist one glance above. Mariah was standing again, although she seemed to be leaning on her stick now instead of holding it up.

  She’d gone limp like that after calling Cass. The fury that had been building rolled over him. He never got angry, and he didn’t fully understand the response now. He hated having his brain invaded, but of more concern—how much did the damned woman endanger herself with these impossible stunts?

  Looking as if he belonged on a beach and not a horse, the blond, long-haired mayor swung down to join his police chief.

  “The coroner will have a heart attack if I call him down here,” Walker complained from inside the cave. “Literally. The man likes his dinner too well.”

  “I’m not hirin’ a younger coroner just for Hillvale,” the mayor drawled, inching past Keegan to look inside. “Can you tell how the bastard died?”

  “Gunshot to the chest, not close range. Even if I call it a hunting accident, we’ll have to call the sheriff and have an autopsy. I can’t see any Lucy magic changing that.” Walker almost sounded aggrieved.

  Keegan seriously hoped Mariah wasn’t still in his head. She’d need her strength to keep the Lucys in check and get out of this canyon. “Is it safe for the Lucys to join us?”

  Walker and Monty glanced up at the ridges where the heat had to be building.

  “Can we just send them home?” the mayor asked. “We don’t need the women down here.�
��

  “Too late.” Keegan pointed at Kurt riding across the valley with Teddy.

  “One’s enough.” Walker detached a small walkie-talkie from his tech belt. “Sam, send them all home. We’re in no danger. Call the sheriff, tell him we have a body with a gunshot wound, and we’ll need search and rescue to haul him out.”

  Walkie-talkies, imagine that, Keegan mused, watching Mariah. Shouldn’t a tech geek have thought of that?

  Although he supposed if Mariah was living on cash as a waitress, she probably didn’t have money for gear. And it wasn’t as if he’d given her time to plan this expedition. Maybe he should provide a supply of walkie-talkies so she wasn’t walking around inside everyone’s damned brain.

  He’d build up another head of fury if he wasn’t so totally out of his element. He ambled over to help Teddy down from Kurt’s horse.

  He had to force himself to ignore the ridge where he’d last seen Mariah.

  “Do I want to go in there?” Kurt asked, watching Teddy slip in around Walker.

  “Not unless you like rocks and dead bodies. I like rocks fine enough, but I’d rather not climb over a corpse to reach them. Think your girlfriend will?” Keegan watched with interest as Teddy disappeared from sight.

  “Only if she senses something, and don’t ask me what, because I have no understanding. And let’s just pretend we’re not having this conversation so I can sleep at night.” Kurt crossed his arms over his chest and waited.

  Keegan glanced overhead. Without need of walkie-talkies, the Lucys were leaving their various positions. Some were sensibly heading back to work. Others, like Sam and Mariah, were making their way down the valley on foot.

  “Ignorance is bliss?” Keegan asked, doubting ignorance around Mariah was wise.

  “In some cases, yes. I would like to spend my time building a better Hillvale, while forgetting dead bodies and corrupt politicians and that the woman I want to share my life with feels ghosts. Not sees them, but feels their emotions, like dead people can have emotions. Consulting with corpses might be useful, but feeling them, not so much.” Kurt sounded almost insulted that Teddy couldn’t be weirder than she was.

  Somewhat relieved that he wasn’t the only one aggrieved by the women and their inexplicable talents, Keegan chuckled. “Maybe she’s in there having an emotional battle with Thompson’s ghost. We probably ought to quit griping about the improbable and begin figuring out what in hell is happening.”

  “No sign of drug dealers,” Kurt admitted. “But Caldwell Edison didn’t want to come into this useless hole for a land deal. He knows something. We need to send a few people out the far end to see where the canyon goes. Walker said it looked as if there were old wheel tracks.” As if in pursuit of that idea, he strode off to speak to a few of the locals.

  With a sigh of resignation, Keegan strode across the rocky valley to meet Mariah. By the time he reached her and saw her pale cheeks, he couldn’t shake her like she deserved. Instead, he dropped his good arm around her shoulders, squeezed, then bellowed, “Don’t do that again!”

  “I’ve never tried that before,” she said, blithely limping across the rough terrain. “Cass invited me to try and we practiced. People are a lot more difficult than electrons. Do you think George’s ghost might still be here, and we might talk to him?”

  Since that’s what he’d just been discussing with Kurt, Keegan rolled his eyes and tried not to imagine what she could do with electrons. “Isn’t that Cass and Tullah’s job? Where is Tullah?”

  “I don’t have the same kind of physical connection with her as I do with you and Cass, so I can’t mentally communicate with her. It’s up to her to decide whether she wants to join us. She’s not much of a hiking sort, and it’s a bit of a climb down here.” Mariah glanced up at the walls. “Looks like she may be following Sam though.”

  “A man is dead, and we’re more interested in talking to his spirit and looking for crystals than in who he was and why he was here,” Keegan grumbled. “What is wrong with us?”

  That caused her to look at him in surprise. “I expect that response from Teddy or Sam, but you’re an engineer. You should be more interested in the whys and wherefores than in a bigot who tried to rob us. Don’t tell me you harbor a soft heart under that pile of muscle.”

  “Hearts are muscles,” he retorted. Since he’d been accused of softness in the past, he had built-in shields, but Mariah had the ability to pierce them. “And I’m only an engineer because I understand molecular structure. What else is there to do with that ability?”

  Her eyes brightened with interest. “I don’t know, but maybe you should find out. You only took geology because that’s your family’s business, but what if you’d studied medicine? Or become a veterinarian? Would you understand animal molecules?”

  “Touch people and see how they’re made? I don’t think so.” But she was right. Mining was what his family had done for generations, because of their peculiar abilities and because of the land they owned. What if he’d been born into a family of physicians?

  They reached the cave just as Sam and Tullah scrambled down a narrow path nearby. Keegan helped them over the last boulders while Mariah tried to bully her way past the guards at the entrance. She was in a shouting match with Walker by the time Keegan arrived with the other women.

  “If you don’t let us in there, Walker, we’ll hold a séance right now and raise the dead while you’re standing over him!”

  “That won’t work on Walker,” Sam whispered, covering Mariah’s mouth with one finger. “Allow me.” She peered around Monty and called into the cave, “Do you want to let Tullah see if there’s any spirit lingering, or shall I wait for Cass to come and cleanse the canyon?”

  Winking at Keegan, Monty stepped aside so Sam could see in. In practical khakis, Tullah took a position on a flat rock at the entrance, closed her eyes, and mentally departed the way Keegan had seen Mariah do. He wasn’t certain how he knew the thrift shop owner was no longer mentally—or maybe spiritually—present. He just sensed it. Was that a Hillvale thing?

  He wrapped his arm around Mariah’s shoulders to make certain she didn’t disappear on him too. “Walker has a job to do,” he warned her. “There have to be parameters drawn between science and the paranormal. In the meantime, the law is on his side.”

  “Because men and the law are ignorant,” she muttered. “Walker knows what we can do. He can bend the rules when he wants.”

  “But he’s chief of police for a reason. If that man in there was killed by someone with money or power, Walker needs to prove in a court of law that he did everything by the book. Talking to Thompson’s ghost will not convince a jury.”

  “Caldwell Edison,” she said, understanding. “Damn. If he’d come down here with us like he wanted, what could he have done to cover this up?”

  “Chosen this area to search and convinced the others there was nothing here?” Keegan thought about it. “Or maybe just verified that his minions had done their job. He didn’t seem the type to climb down here and do it himself.”

  “Or maybe he was just concerned about a missing colleague,” Sam added, gesturing at the cave. “We have no reason to believe he even knows of Thompson’s existence. Walker says Tullah can enter if Teddy leaves. It’s not a large area.”

  Tullah didn’t respond. Dark face lifted to the sun, she communed with her own thoughts—or the spirit world.

  Teddy trotted out, holding a handful of pebbles. “Not finding anything valuable, but I’m sensing. . .” She wrinkled her small nose in thought. “Discord? Warring factors? The crystal power is stronger than any spirit.”

  The women turned to Keegan expectantly. He really didn’t want to slot his bulk into that narrow space with a decomposing body, but intellectually, he needed to. Glaring at them to express his disapproval, he inched around Monty. “Walker? Tullah is otherwise occupied. Might I take a look at the rock structure?”

  “There’s a ledge outside the roping. Stick to that. I didn’t k
now I’d need to bring crime scene tape with me,” Walker said in disgust.

  Keegan found the rope laid in the dust and, with his back to the rock wall and his head bent, edged toward the rear of the narrow aperture. Unlike Teddy, he couldn’t sense the power of crystals. He felt no discord, only unease at the sight of the decaying body. When he reached the far side of the roping, he stepped off the low ridge and straightened. Unfastening his sling, he stretched his arms out to either side, placing one hand on each wall.

  The combination of geological layers was fascinating, far more complex than any other he’d ever encountered. He could lose himself in following the kaleidoscopic mix of molecules. . .

  The orderly series of particles shifted into a new configuration at his touch.

  Keegan yelped and yanked his hand back before the whole wall gave way.

  Twenty-one

  July 11: Wednesday, afternoon

  “That’s a whole mountain—it can’t crash down,” Teddy argued as they returned to the café to cool down and fuel up.

  “And molecules can’t shift either,” Keegan retorted. “You want to see what happens if I put my hand through the wall?”

  Mariah would have been amused by the Scot’s acceptance of weirdness except his fear and anger were so unusual, she knew what he’d experienced was no laughing matter. She didn’t need Teddy’s empathy to know he’d been furious with her earlier. But she admired the restraint that had prevented him from strangling her for what she knew had been an unconscionable invasion of privacy.

  At the time, she hadn’t believed she could do it. That she’d been able to connect so easily. . . she didn’t dare examine.

  And now Keegan was seriously shaken by. . . What?

  The potential for the gentle giant to turn into a raging berserker was a little scary in itself. The man had muscles on top of muscles. His abdomen could be used as a washboard and his pectorals. . .