Breathless. Hopeless. Valery dragged herself up the steep cliff as the mountain lion stalked her. Each step through bramble bushes slashed at her bare legs.
Shoes gone. Skirt shredded. She repeated his name over and again in her mind. Because of him, in spite of him, she would live.
Valery focused on the light that was growing larger in the distance. It looked like some sort of shed. Was anyone there?
She shouted for help, voice raspy with thirst and raw from screaming.
A screeching howl came from behind as the cat toyed with her. Hunted her. Any time now, she’d be a feast for the taking.
Scrambling down a dry rill and up another, Valery grabbed at roots and rocky soil as she staggered toward the beacon of hope. Her last chance for life was a few hundred feet away. If she could just reach it!
When a stick loosed in her grip, she kept it. She used it as a brace to keep herself from falling with each stumbling step forward.
She had to make it. Had to tell them.
Her vision tunneled as the cat’s low growl stopped. Its form crouched in the bushes, eyes catching the light, reflecting like mirrors. With a yowl, its long teeth sparkled in the moonlight.
Breathing hard, heart pounding, all pain evaporated in a tornado of understanding. Her life was over.
You’re the key, Papa’s voice reminded in a haze of dizziness.
“Don’t move,” a man’s voice called from the shadows.
Against his orders, she dropped to the ground.
She heard the oily click of a gun hammer cock back. She imagined the shooter taking aim over her shoulder at the beast waiting to make her its meal.
A bright shotgun blast sounded, and the beast howled before loping off into the night.
Footsteps shuffled her way, gravel crunching with the approach.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.” Someone knelt at her side, turned her over, and then scooped her into his arms. His tender hands swept back her hair and checked her neck and wrists for signs of life. “Breathing. Thanks be.”
Valery tried to speak, but only a moan escaped.
“It’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re okay. Please be okay.”
He called the police, and as he gave their location, Valery sank into unconsciousness.
Chapter 27
He felt Natalie’s hand on his shoulder, her breath on his cheek. Even in sleep he knew her.
“Nick ...”
Nick woke and found himself seated in an empty row of the hospice ward’s small lobby. He smiled at Natalie’s concerned face.
He wiped sleep from gritty eyes and took the cardboard coffee cup she offered him. He took a gulp and the dark beverage warmed his insides. She’d remembered just how he liked it.
Natalie sank to the chair at his right, sipping morning coffee along with him. Somehow, sharing this simple ritual made things better.
“I guess I don’t need to ask how you slept.” Cupping the cardboard between her palms, she ventured to ask the question that was already in her eyes. “How’re you doing?”
His cooling breath made ripples across his cup. There weren’t words, so he just plucked the easiest one.
“Sucky.”
She squeezed his knee. “You weren’t at the castle when I woke up, so I hunted you down.”
“Not hard to find, huh?” He stretched, slurped his coffee down to the dregs, and tossed the cup into the garbage can.
She slow-sipped hers. Scents of vanilla surrounded her. Natalie’s loose, golden hair looked angelic in the shaft of sunlight in the brightening waiting room.
The hospital hummed around them, people visiting, nurses and doctors conferring. Someone walked out of Philip’s old room with a cart full of bedding, another reminder that his mentor, his buddy, wasn’t here anymore.
He scratched his scalp. “You go in and see her yet?”
Natalie nodded. “First thing. She’s not been wakeful for two days. Her oxygen’s low. Blood pressure lower. It won’t be long now, they said.”
“Strong lady.”
He swiped his mouth with the back of his hand, remembering the Mrs. Valence from his childhood. She’d always looked so sad when they’d ridden their bikes by her fields or played by the creek. It was as if she wanted them to enjoy themselves, but also hated their laughter and happiness; like she was angry with them for living and breathing and playing while she was surrounded by heartbreak. But he wouldn’t tell Natalie that.
The elevator bonged. They watched a delivery person, shielded by a huge white rose spray, step out.
The roses looked like the ones he’d seen at Bloomers a few days ago. Was it only three weeks since he’d first met Natalie? Since he’d fallen for her that first night on the balcony? Now, a world without Natalie promised to be a dark, lonely place.
The flowers reminded Nick of Annie and his high school failings. Specifically, he remembered the night of the meteor shower and his callous words that she’d never be able to own her own store. He touched his cheek with the echo of the memory of her slap that signaled the end of their relationship.
“What?” Natalie cocked her head, eyes locked on his.
How rare a thing it was to really look at someone, he thought. A poet once said that eyes were the windows to the soul, but people rarely held eye contact for more than a few seconds at a time. Are we all that afraid to show the world our true selves?
With no escape from her stare, he laughed and drank her in with his gaze. “Just thinking about the way things could have been.”
“What things?”
“Life.” He sighed and fiddled with his rumpled shirt. “Family. Yours, mine. Choices.”
His fingers wrapped through hers, and he held on tight. “All those choices made, wrong or right, led us to meet right here, over that temperamental ice machine.”
She glanced to where he pointed. The brown box rattled and hummed in the corner. She swallowed. “I thought you looked like Thor. In those superhero movies.”
Nick laughed.
“Ever think we could’ve—should’ve—known each other forever?” At his slow nod, Natalie stuttered a helpless breath. “Do you ever wish things were different?”
“Once, I would’ve said yes—I wished everything was different. I still wish we’d never lost Rebecca, of course. But as for this? Us?” He drank in the truth of her question as he clung to her hand. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
No. He wouldn’t have had her raised in that house, by those people. Wouldn’t have wanted her to know him, to have seen him as he was after Rebecca’s death: damaged, broken, lost, and lonely. He pressed a tender kiss to the back of her hand. “I think this is perfect just the way it is.”
He stared at the way their fingers meshed and rested in the perfection of the feeling, covering her slender hands with his. He thumbed over a Band-Aid-covered knuckle while she filled him in on progress at the castle.
He pointed to the bandage. “How’d you get that?”
“Changing a leaky faucet.”
“You should’ve waited. Plumber’s coming today.”
“You should’ve heard it dripping.” Natalie met his gaze with eyes that were honest and more than a little sassy. “You wouldn’t have waited either.”
He rolled his eyes and settled into the chair more comfortably as she told him about a property map she’d found last night.
“Did you bring it?”
She shook her head and began describing the map. By the lines and sparse layout, the drawing could be a survey spec. Property lines marked after a dispute, maybe? He said so and added, “I’ll ask Dad about it.”
All the while, they danced around the subject of their budding relationship. It shocked him to realize that’s what it was. A relationship. Two people, sharing not just bodies, but thoughts, words, and emotions. In many ways, he felt a deeper and stronger bond with Natalie than he had with Annie—the girl he would have married if he’d been man enough to see it through.
Annie was the perfect girl, but he was
n’t her fit. They dipped their toe into the pool of first love, stubbed it on first heartbreak, and both left with scars that refused to fade.
Still, Annie had found her happily ever after. She was loved by her husband, adored by her three kids, and successfully running a flower shop just as she’d planned.
Her little sister Gia’s words swirled around his brain. It was long past time for him to apologize.
Natalie sat beside him in silence, her hand still comfortably twined with his. She was trusting, kind, smart, confident, and brave. She loved him—he felt it—and he wanted to tell her he loved her too. But not here in the hospital, somewhere else ...
It struck him. The perfect way to tell her his feelings.
“I’ve got something I have to do.” He kissed Natalie’s palm. “Meet me at the fountain in an hour or so?”
She laughed, confused, but he had to go. It was time to apologize to the girl from his past so that he could focus on the girl who was his future.
The waiting room chair dug at Natalie’s back, and though the cleaning staff tried, the odors of antiseptic and illness were impossible to cover up.
Her grandmother’s condition was a slow, downward spiral. Natalie passed the chaplain on his way to pray for the hospice patients. Father Lon knew her by name now. Natalie decided it was time to go to church again—to plant some roots and watch them grow. Whether Nick decided to stay or go, Long Valley was starting to look like home.
She lowered her head to her knit fingers. Lord, please let him stay.
She had just a little longer to wait before meeting Nick.
A text from Clinton Fife drew her from her waiting game.
Meet to discuss sale. ASAP.
Natalie ignored his message and returned to surfing her mobile for deals on bulk pillow and sheet sets for the hotel. It was easier to think about moving forward with the B&B than the mounting debt, the balloon of payments that was due, and Fife’s proposed solution of selling the place.
Shuffling feet and a call on the hospital speakers drew her attention.
“Dr. Davis, room 103,” the speakers chimed in a calm, measured tone.
103 was Marie’s room.
She walked past the nurses’ station. No one sat behind the large desk, and the break room was also empty of hospital staff.
Inside Marie’s room, three nurses stood at her grandmother’s bedside. Their faces each wore the same mask of concern dusted with sorrow.
“Call it.” A young doctor released Marie’s wrist, settling the old woman’s hands on her motionless chest.
“Time of death, 9:16 a.m.”
All eyes turned to where Natalie stood staring in silent shock.
A tear coursed down her cheek, followed by another. The realization that they were not tears of grief, but tears of relief that the wait was finally over, was chased by guilt’s heavy hand.
Father Lon stood by her side. “She’s at peace now.”
Natalie stared at him, blinking slowly, feeling alien and alone. “Is she? Do you know that?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow. A sympathetic smile followed.
No one knows.
“I prayed with her. She seemed at peace at the end.”
In that split second between this world and the next, it’s just you and Jesus, hand outstretched, waiting.
Did her grandmother go with Him?
Tears continued to roll down her cheeks as the staff left the room, giving her a few moments to mourn the empty shell of the woman she’d grown used to checking on, that she had come to care about.
Her heart wrenched everywhere at once. This morning, her grandmother seemed peaceful. More wakeful, even. She’d spoken a few words.
“Did she say anything to you?” Natalie backhanded the rush of emotion dampening her cheeks.
“She whispered about her home. I think she’s pleased you’re keeping it.” Father Lon looked at the large spray of white roses on the back table. “She said castle.”
Her gaze focused on the flowers. The delivery guy walked right past me. Who sent flowers? Why didn’t I ever bring her flowers …
The orderly came to clear the room. Knowing she had no reason left to be there, Natalie gathered the information she needed from the nurse: numbers to call, things to settle another day.
With a last look to the empty room, she gathered the display of thorny white flowers, her heart filling with purpose. With a moment’s hesitation, she plunked the huge arrangement at the nurses’ station.
“Thanks for everything you did for her.”
“Aw, thank you. These are lovely.” The nurse stood and called after Natalie. “Don’t you want the card?”
Natalie pocketed the card and stepped to the elevator with renewed purpose. It was finished. Through the broad picture windows, the scene of Long Valley played out below.
Philip was gone. Her grandmother had followed. There would be no returning to the hospital, for her or Nick. They could start their lives fresh, without death, without sadness. And if her grandmother did know her Savior at the end, as Father Lon believed, now was a time for joy.
There was no way she would let Clinton Fife put the building up for auction.
She’d made the right decision. Saving the estate was all that mattered now. Even if profit from the newly refurbished bed and breakfast was years away, the least she could do was keep the wolf from the door.
For her family.
Dalton hoofed it past a team of paramedics through the hospital’s emergency entrance. He waited at the nurses’ station and flashed his badge even though he knew the heavily made-up nurse by name.
“Need to see your Jane Doe.”
She pressed her lips into a narrow line. “Sorry. She’s in surgery.”
“I just need to see her.” Scrubbing his scalp, Dalton scratched blood into his brain. “I just need five seconds to get an ID on my missing receptionist.”
“I’m sorry, Detective. You’ll have to wait until she’s out of surgery.” Then, tucking auburn hair behind her ear, she shot a glance in either direction and leaned toward him, elbows on the counter. “Guy that brought her in’s still waiting, if you want to talk to him,” she whispered.
He followed her discreet point to the waiting room. There, a uniformed Long Valley Water District worker sat clutching an upside-down magazine. His brown hair was pulled every which way, his face a blend of worry and wonder.
“That guy?”
At her nod, Dalton set off to interview the only man who’d ever found a Lakeview Slayer victim alive.
Chapter 28
Corie dropped the curtains, fished in the cooler for the milk, and doctored her fresh mocha.
Even though Natalie had booked it to the hospital at dawn, she’d still managed to leave a list of instructions. Corie unclipped the long list from the fridge and took it with her outside. She dusted off the iron chaise under the sunlit arbor and sat, sipping her drink—more cocoa than coffee—in the cool morning air.
A humid breeze gusted from the east, pushing gray clouds across the bright-blue August morning. Her weather junkie senses told her rain was coming. A good old-fashioned monsoon.
Turning from the huge anvil-shaped thunderhead in the distance, she reviewed her chores for the day.
Natalie sure was thorough. Plumber at ten. Fridge tech by eleven. No other workers were scheduled for today, and that was fine with Corie. Yesterday’s whirlwind didn’t leave much time for baking, and that’s what this kind of weather called for.
There wasn’t any more work to do in the guest rooms until the plumber arrived to inspect pipes and get the washer and dryer working again. The fridge tech was due to wrangle the Sub-Zero back into submission. If it was salvageable, it would save them a big bill on a new unit.
Lord! That tingle. Corie rubbed her arms, fighting the laugh that bubbled inside.
Everything she’d ever dreamed of with Nat was coming to fruition. Who would have guessed that their childhood prayers—owning a
business and working together—would be answered? She never imagined Natalie’s birth story would actually fit the bill of some of Aaron’s whoppers. But here they were. Natalie was an heiress, and Corie was riding shotgun in the next B&B venture in SoCal wine country.
Besides baking, she was itching to check out those antique cooking apparatuses in the barn. Natalie was always making snap decisions and then agonizing over them later. If Corie got her hands on them first, she could probably shield Natalie from kicking herself for throwing out a useful—or valuable—kitchen tool.
Decided, Corie stood, stretched, and marched through the orchard toward the faded red barn.
Maybe she could pitch an early 1900s kitchen display to the local museum. That might bring some curious guests through careful marketing. If the museum wasn’t interested, Old Town had plenty of consignment shops. Perhaps they could earn a little capital by selling some rare or kitschy pieces. Hadn’t Nat ever watched those storage shows on TV? Even old soda bottles had buyers out there somewhere.
Corie stepped across irrigation trenches and through the olive groves. A gleam on the ground caught her eye in a shaft of sunlight.
Gold? Brass?
Her skirt swept the ground as she knelt and scooped up the object.
A ring of keys.
Looking around, she wondered at them. They were old, but not weather worn. A finger-length army knife was clipped to the ring.
She’d ask around once the workers arrived. Somebody was fretting about lost keys.
With a song in her voice, she walked on to the barn to discover what other treasures lurked in the shadows of this house of secrets.
Pretty soon, he could give in. His work would be done.
But for now, Rudy Kastleheimer knew he must maintain the façade. He was too enmeshed, and mistakes couldn’t be allowed. His and Natalie’s paths were parallel now. The hospital. Wine country.
Rudy drove with the masses, heading to work at the home warehouse, reviewing his morning.
The flowers he’d lifted from the florist shop were a nice touch, he thought. Sunflowers for the medical examiner. White roses for Mrs. Valence.
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