“And I thanked you for it,” said Maria.
“Actually,” said Beth, moving into another lane of traffic, “I don’t think you ever did. I sometimes wonder if you’re okay with what I did.”
“Oh.” Maria drew in a deep breath. “Yeah. I probably didn’t thank you. I … I have trouble expressing those sorts of things.”
“Like happiness?” asked Beth.
In the backseat, Grant did the opposite of what most men would do. Instead of pretending the conversations hadn’t gone from light and casual to touchy feely, he scooted forward on his seat, stretching his seatbelt to the maximum length.
“What do you mean by that?” asked Maria. Her neck muscles were seizing up. Too much adrenaline.
Beth answered, “I mean you can’t seem to talk about positive emotions like happiness.”
“No,” said Grant, “what Beth really means is you can’t talk about love. You pretty much suck at it.”
Maria’s heart sped up. Her forehead perspired and ears buzzed. For Maria, it was as if a terrorist with a bomb had hijacked the car. “And … how do you know that?”
Grant’s answer came quickly. “Because Rod told me so. He was hoping for advice on how to break down your barriers. He might be mad at me for telling you this, but he fell hard and fast for you. And that was in high school. When you moved back to Kanab, you couldn’t have found a happier man. He’s not a halfway sort of guy. When he loves, he loves completely. And there’s something else you need to know about my brother. He is as loyal as the day is long.”
Maria’s lungs begged for air. Why was the car so small? So confined? So … personal?
“He really is,” said Beth. “Grant is right. Which is one more reason that I absolutely know Rod didn’t hurt a hair on Dakota’s head. Let alone the rest of her.”
Maria wished she could relive the last month of her life. She wished she hadn’t built up her walls so high. She wished she’d opened up more to Rod. That she’d been more honest with herself about all the effort he was making in their relationship. Why had she resisted? What was wrong with her?
Dr. Robert’s faced popped into her mind along with his words about her fear of intimacy. Of course he had been right. But Maria knew she was ready to change. She was ready to take risks. She simply hoped it wasn’t too late.
Maria let her body sink back into the car seat. She focused on her breathing for the rest of the car ride, as tear after tear dripped silently onto her lap below.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A column of troops of the Fifth United States cavalry came upon the trail of a large band of Indians. The trail was followed into the wildest part of the range and then was lost on a granite ridge, amid a maze of canyons. Soon, however, a [cavalry] scout discovered an Apache brave and young boy hiding in a rocky crevice. The child was captured and forced to lead the way to the tribal camp.
“FOOL’S GOLD,” BY ROBERT SIKORSKY, GOLDEN WEST PUBLISHERS, 1983, PAGE 48.
By the time Maria was thirteen years old, she’d read all of the Agatha Christie crime novels that her hometown library offered. Tonight, in Rep. Lankin’s dining room, she had the eerie feeling her favorite of the detective stories was coming to life, And Then There Were None.
It was the tale of a group of seemingly innocent, but secretly guilty, people who gathered on an isolated island—making them all targets for a vigilante to bring justice to the world. One by one, they killed each other.
Was this Rep. Lankin’s plan? Get them all together and see who would kill whom? Maria chided herself. She’d now crossed the line between reality and fantasy.
And what’s so new about that?
Her own thoughts mocked her. In the last week she’d relapsed with her hallucinations, seen Dakota’s real ghost, and imagined seeing a dog’s paw turn into a human foot. What was fantasy and reality? Was there really a line?
Six people sat around the well-polished mahogany table: Maria, Beth, Grant, Tom, Brian, and Rep. Lankin. Derrick and Melissa were running late. While the group waited, Rep. Lankin’s kitchen staff had served a platter of exotic hors d’oeuvres that smelled delicious, especially since Maria hadn’t eaten for nearly twelve hours.
“I haven’t had good carpaccio since the last time I was here,” said Brian, who was on his second plate of finger food and his third glass of wine.
“That’s right. You do enjoy a good carpaccio,” said the representative.
“Yep,” said Brian, more relaxed now than when he’d first arrived. “You know me. I love the salty with the sweet.” He lifted his glass.
“Well,” Rep. Lankin laughed, “pace yourself. We don’t want a repeat of last time.”
A belly laugh erupted from Brian.
“What are you two talking about” asked Tom. He’d been working on a full plate of hors d’oeuvres himself. “Let the rest of us in on it.”
“Oh nothing. Just one of my less stellar moments and Representative Lankin’s first scandal.” Brian finished his glass of wine, and his eyes immediately searched for the bottle.
Rep. Lankin explained further. “It wasn’t a big deal. I was throwing a ‘who’s who’ sort of shindig last year and invited Brian for some of his connections. He got a little tipsy—”
“A little.” Brian smirked.
“—and he knocked out the assistant to the state attorney general, who thankfully was also as drunk as a ...” Rep. Lankin paused as Melissa entered the room. He stood up and waved her to the dining table. “Melissa, my dear!” said the representative.
“Continue on. I don’t mean to interrupt,” she said as she hurried into the room.
“You’re no interruption at all.” Rep. Lankin smiled widely. “I was telling a stupid story. Come sit by me. We’re waiting on Derrick to arrive. It’s good to have you here.”
Melissa sat in the chair by the representative and immediately started rifling through a leather satchel. Beth looked at Maria with questioning eyes, and Maria stared back blankly. What was she getting at?
“We could get started without Derrick, I suppose,” said the representative.
“I think we should,” said Melissa curtly. “I don’t have much time.” She glared at Maria, showing her disdain for the woman following their conversation earlier that day. “I still have a ton of paperwork to do tonight.”
“Fair enough. I’ll tell the staff to get dinner.”
A few more minutes of small talk ensued while Rep. Lankin’s staff served a main course of chicken cordon bleu with roasted root vegetables and a decorative wedge of iceberg drizzled with a tangy vinaigrette.
After everyone had been served, Rep. Lankin stood up, as if about to give a nuptial toast. “I appreciate you coming on such short—”
Derrick barreled through the door, out of breath and red faced. “Sorry I’m late. I was having a discussion with the Keepers.”
“Welcome, Derrick. Come in, come in. We were getting started. How is Sierra?”
Derrick unsuccessfully tried to catch his breath. “She’s fine but quite interested in what goes on here tonight. Apparently she’s missing some items of significant worth. She’s hoping I might be able to clear up the … ah … misunderstanding.” For the second time in five minutes, Maria received another glare. This time from Derrick.
She was not endearing herself to Rod’s old friends any too quickly.
“Excellent. That’s what tonight is all about. Getting everything out in the open.” Rep. Lankin indicated Derrick should sit in the last empty seat around the table. “Let’s get started.”
The representative’s position at the head of the table felt paternal, almost grandfatherly. “Rod is our friend,” he began. “And, to be perfectly honest, he’s not doing well.” The representative looked at each member of the dinner party individually. The special attention he gave each person blanketed the room in reassurance. “Rod’s not only accused of murder, but now he’s in the throes of a major neurotic episode. I think we can all agree he is having a pretty bad we
ek.”
Everyone listened to the man who most in the room used to call professor. Maria could see his influence on them and why others found him so endearing. When he spoke, he sounded genuine. Much less like a politician and more like a confidante.
“Call it fate or subtly engineered, but we’ve all been reconnected to witness this tragic event. Maria here,” he gestured toward her, “feels some of us have information about Rod or Dakota that we’re not being completely forthright about. And, at least in my case, she’s correct.”
His former students sat up straighter in their chairs, the cordon bleu on their plates growing cold.
“I have a connection to the Superstition Mountains that most don’t know about. My step son, Christopher Mayfield, was lost in the Superstition Mountains. We found his body two weeks after he passed. It’s been almost ten years.”
Besides Derrick’s heavy breathing, the room was silent.
“Chris was a … unique … young man. He kept to himself a lot, most of his friends he knew by only their gaming avatar names. He became obsessed by the idea of finding the Dutchman’s goldmine. It worried my wife at the time. She felt it was a sign of some mental condition. It should have worried me too, but I didn’t know what to think. I told her to calm down and that when I was his age I was totally obsessed with building models. However, on the day before his nineteenth birthday he got high on drugs and left us a note, telling us the mountains were calling to him.”
The pained look on the representative’s face grew as he approached the crux of the story. “We immediately knew he’d gone into the Superstitions. For a person who had some idea how to survive in the wild, that wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But Chris could hardly even open his own yogurt container. He was immature, naïve, and hyped up on speed. He had no idea how to stay alive in the desert. We called the police. We called search and rescue. Troy Ferlund at the Superstitions’ ranger’s station sent out search parties. They found nothing. Anyhow—” A deep breath. “As these sorts of stories go, Chris never made it out. We found his body with some help, and, about ten months after the funeral, his mom and I split. All of us are victims of the Superstitions in a way.” He reached out and put his hand on Melissa’s shoulder to steady himself. The silence in the room reflected the ache and agony Rep. Lankin felt.
Derrick was the first to speak. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Not many do.” Rep. Lankin shook his head. “Chris had a different last name than I. There was no foul play suspected. The whole thing happened before I got into politics. It all sort of melted into a black hole that I sometimes pretend never happened. Except that it did. A scared young man died out there all alone, frightened and confused, with no one to help him.” A hitch in his voice. “That is why I go hiking whenever I can in the Superstitions, in case I come across someone in his condition who I can help get home.”
Melissa reached over and patted Rep. Lankin’s forearm.
“Now,” the politician continued, “as Derrick knows, I’m a big supporter of a group called the Keepers. They’re a … well, I don’t even know what to call them. They’re people who have a special interest in the Superstitions. They helped me find Chris’s body. Derrick can tell us more about the Keepers a little later?”
The large lumberjack-looking man nodded as he chewed. He was the first to have begun eating his dinner, though Brian, Grant, Beth, and Tom had followed suit.
“Needless to say,” continued Rep. Lankin, “when we found Dakota’s skeleton I had a hard time keeping it together. I’m sorry I left early. I didn’t mean to abandon the group. I kept thinking … that could have been Chris.”
“It was completely understandable,” said Melissa, looking up from the table. “No one could fault you for that. It must have been horrible.”
Beth hit Maria’s leg underneath the table. She looked at her friend who had the same look on her face from earlier. With only the tip of her index finger, Maria traced the word “What?” onto the tablecloth between her plate and Beth’s.
Beth responded by drawing, left handed no less, a heart with the initials L and M in it.
Lankin and Melissa? Maria’s eyes opened wider at the realization.
Beth nodded confidently and sat back in her chair, stabbing a roasted sweet potato on her plate with the silver fork.
It took a moment for Maria to digest the information and contemplate how it affected the case. If he and Melissa had something going on, did this make him more or less likely to lie? Clearly, he would want Melissa’s name cleared—especially in light of the Keepers’ photograph of Dakota and the mystery woman.
As if Dakota had somehow read Maria’s thoughts, she appeared in the room. She was so lifelike she could have passed for a real human except for the fuzzy haze that surrounded her. Her presence didn’t bother Maria. As with Acalan, the fact that it wasn’t Maria’s mind conjuring up hallucinations put her at ease with the supernatural beings.
With a tone in his voice that made it clear he was winding down his remarks, Rep. Lankin said, “I don’t know how any of this affects the case—in fact I’m sure it doesn’t—but I felt it needed to be said. So now it’s time for the rest of you to let us know anything that could help Rod. Derrick, do you have information from the Keepers?”
“The Keepers,” blurted Brian, “are literally a bunch of crazies.”
Derrick shot an if-looks-could-kill glance Brian’s direction. “The Keepers have kept more people alive than any of you could possibly imagine. They are not crazies, and if you’re going to be derogatory about them, then I’m done here.”
“Okay dude,” said Brian, more subdued. “You gotta admit they’re a little strange. I mean, you’re fine and all, but a lot of them look as if they haven’t lived with a flushing toilet for the last decade.”
“Brian.” Rep. Lankin sent him a disapproving scowl. “Let Derrick talk.” Then to Derrick he said, “Brian’s had a few to drink. I don’t think he means to be abrasive. Just curious, like the rest of us.”
The politician’s attempt at peacekeeping seemed to work. Derrick turned toward Melissa, shunning Brian at his right. “I don’t have the evidence with me. It’s been … misplaced.” He shot a look in Maria’s direction. “But, yes, the Keepers have proof Dakota was in the mountains on October 22, 2010 with an unidentified woman. Not with Rod.”
The tension in the air grew. Was it from Melissa’s side of the table? Maria looked past Rod’s old friends eating their food and kept her vision on the ghost of Dakota. Maybe she was here to reveal something. But, as usual, she showed no response.
Yet even with her emotionless face, she was a beautiful woman. Toned with contours in just the right places. Hair falling in dark waves around her shoulders. Black eyes with a band of plum around the outside of the pupil, reflecting light from the dining room’s chandelier. Feminine lips tugged downward, not in anger but in—
Confusion?
Did Dakota not know who her killer was? Was she here to learn more about it like the rest of them were?
Distracted by Dakota’s presence, Maria lost track of what Derrick was saying. She came back to the conversation to hear Tom drilling the lumberjack man with questions.
“What kind of proof do you have? You need to give us more to go on than your word. To show up here and claim Dakota was with a woman in the Superstitions with absolutely no substantiation is the dumbest—”
“Here’s the proof.” Maria stood, holding up the photograph she’d stolen from the Keepers, which she’d brought with her in her backpack. “This …ahhh … fell into my possession a few days ago.” No need to rub it in Derrick’s face that his precious lodge was hardly break-in proof. “It’s a photograph taken on October 22, 2010 in the Superstitions. You’ll notice there are two women in the photo, one is Dakota the other is not identifiable. Tell me what you think of it.” She handed the picture to Grant who passed it to Melissa.
Melissa greedily took the evidence and began studying the ph
oto.
Dakota’s ghost moved behind the defense attorney, looking at the picture as well. For the first time since Maria had seen her, she showed some expression. A look of recognition. Not that that told Maria anything. Of course Dakota would recognize a picture of herself.
“That is definitely Dakota,” said Melissa, turning the printed photograph over in her hand, looking at the back. “How long have the Keepers had this? And why didn’t they come forward with it when Rod was under investigation six years ago?”
Derrick folded his arms, on the defensive again.
“Derrick,” said Rep. Lankin, “we deserve to know. I’ve done a lot for the Keepers. I’d hate to start withdrawing my support now.”
Derrick thought a moment then conceded. “The Keepers maintain a close watch on certain areas of the mountains. Always. But they keep the information to themselves. I might remind you all, no one knew Dakota had even gone to the Superstitions, let alone died there, until we found her skeleton a few days ago.”
“True,” said Brian, “but if they had come forward with the photo six years ago, when Dakota’s picture was splashed on every TV screen for a week, we would have known at least where to have begun looking.”
“Which would have meant more people in the mountains, attracting more attention to the area. The more people stay out of the mountains, the safer they are.”
Maria quickly chewed and swallowed a bite of chicken. “Are people safer staying away from the mountains because if they go in the Keepers shoot arrows at them? Like they did to me, Beth, and Tom the other day?”
“That was not the Keepers, exactly.” Derrick’s expression turned sour. “Some in our group have gone rogue. They don’t abide by our laws, and they take things into their own hands. Though I’m sure they were only sending a warning. They wouldn’t have missed if they really wanted you dead.”
Tom was on his feet. “Are you kidding me?” he yelled. “That was your looney tunes group who almost shot me with an arrow? I seriously could wring your neck. Do you know I almost died?”
Paranormal Mystery Boxset Books 1-3: Legends of Treasure Page 44