“I was in my bed, listening to a spirit howl, according to Val. And afterward, I watched a car a lot like Carmel’s—maybe it was a ghost car—driving up to the cemetery just the way we saw it do earlier. And I saw a man who might have been Harvey watching from the woods. I’m ready to join Val’s exorcism. She may be right and evil walks the night.”
He was relieved that she wasn’t taking any of this seriously. “Nah, that’s just Harvey hunting for branches for his walking sticks. He’s a vampire who sleeps most of the day.” Walker tried to sound humorous but it came out hollow.
“Oh good, vampires and witches. Any werewolves I should know about?” She slumped in the seat and shoved loose strands of pale hair out of her face.
“Want me to describe the Nulls?” This time, he did manage amusement. “We’ve got sexual predators, embezzlers, and looks like possibly, a murderer. I’ll take the witches anytime.”
That got a laugh out of her. “I trust the predator is old and gray and not about to start stalking women?”
“Ask Dinah,” he said curtly. “Although if she’s seeing auras now, I’m not sure she qualifies as a Null. Maybe it’s this town that makes us crazy.”
“Dinah as a sexual predator?” She sat silent and contemplated that. “At what age did they slap that label on her? When she looked like a little boy and was exploring why she felt like a little girl?”
“She’s black and it was New Orleans. I didn’t read the case, but psychic guessing will get you there, yeah. Our laws are about as primitive as our medicine sometimes.”
“She’s happy here, where people only care that she bakes a mean biscuit. I’m glad she found a way out.”
“It’s good to know you don’t judge people because they’re different. You need that here.” Given the harassment he’d suffered as a kid for his not-quite-Caucasian features, he appreciated her ability to see past the surface. Walker pulled up to the back of the lodge. “I need to warn Kurt we’ll be filling this lot with cars again. He won’t be happy.”
She sat there, staring at the lodge. “Call the sheriff first, get people up here. Val may very well be right about evil. And if it exists, this is the place closest to where the bodies are. It didn’t feel right up there.”
She got out and walked away as Walker punched the call on his radio. The lodge didn’t feel right? The dispatcher responded before he could go after her.
Sam pulled the key card out of her back pocket. Had it only been yesterday that she’d learned the names of her parents? So many things had happened. . . and she’d had no way to combat her anxiety and curiosity and get to the lodge until now.
Before she could slip in the side door where Walker had left her, a lanky, graying blond man ambled out of a small cabin near the lodge kitchen. He bore a strong resemblance to Carmel in the broad, bony shoulders, sharp nose and cheekbones. She’d heard about Carmel’s artist brother. Splashes of paint on his shabby gray clothes identified him.
If she ran into him in the dark, she’d almost believe in ghosts, though. From the little she’d seen, Carmel was brimming with color and temperament. It was hard to believe the two were related.
Sam stopped to greet him, but he didn’t seem to notice her existence. He opened the kitchen door and wandered inside. Shrugging, Sam took the side hall back to the empty business office. The aroma of coffee and bacon emanated from the restaurant, so she assumed most of the guests were eating. Taking a seat at the computer, she logged in and put her parents’ name into the search engine.
She didn’t find much. Her father had been a pilot. The plane had gone down in a winter storm over the mountains just after she started at the university, as Walker had said. The Utah paper called them local artists who showed their work in galleries in major cities.
Having just seen Lance, the Kennedy artist, she wondered if he’d known her parents—but she had no way of connecting them to Hillvale except her strange position.
She searched under her parents’ names as artists and found one or two newspaper articles from San Francisco and Los Angeles. The news photos of their artwork weren’t good, and she got no sense of familiarity from them. She’d have to drive down to the galleries. . . After she got a license.
Had they left a will? A house? An executor?
Digging deeper, she found one grainy photo of the two of them together. She stared in disbelief.
Wolf Moon was as Native American as his name—thick black straight hair pulled back from a wide dark brow. Sharp nose, powerful jaw, grim mouth.
And Jade. . . Jade Moon was at least part Asian. Delicate bone structure, elongated eyes, petite nose, smiling warmly.
Sam felt a distinct tug at that smile, but nothing in this photo looked like her image in the mirror. How had Walker concluded that they were her parents? She dug her fingers into her own pale haystack of hair and gazed in admiration at her parents’ silken black locks.
If she’d been adopted, she supposed their names would be the ones she would use as her parents on a university application. She wouldn’t know any other.
Feeling totally spooked now, she decided she ought to know as much about Deputy Walker as he did about her. That decision tilted her world back upright.
She dug down, looking for a Chen Ling Walker with a police background and an age of roughly early thirties. She uncovered a small article from about a year ago, in the LA Times, about a Chen Ling Walker who’d been shot attempting to save his young son from his suicidal wife. There were no follow-up stories. Someone had hushed it up or there would have been big headlines on a story this juicy.
Sam stared at the article, her stomach roiling. It merely listed this Walker as CEO of a Los Angeles security company. The wife had a history of mental illness. No specifics. The son had only been a toddler. He’d died. Her heart ached for a man she didn’t know. Or did she?
Walker limped—from a gunshot wound? There weren’t too many Chen Ling Walkers in the world. Could this really be him? If so, she wished she hadn’t looked. How did one survive that level of anguish?
But why would the CEO of anything be working as an underpaid deputy in the middle of nowhere?
She poked around and couldn’t find anything more likely. Maybe he was related to this other person, and it was a family name. Or maybe he really was just that invisible—no public recognition for anything. She didn’t have the ability to search credit records and government databases the way he did.
She had just put her own name into the search engine when the glass office door blew open on a whirlwind. Sam looked up, startled, as Ms. Viking Shoulders swooped in. Carmel Kennedy practically glowed California gold—including amber eyes that weren’t warm as she glared at Sam.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?”
“Good morning,” Sam said brightly. “And you are?”
She was definitely smart-mouthed. Wouldn’t a poor student be obedient and terrified?
Carmel obviously thought so. Her glare grew colder. “I own this place and you are not one of my guests.”
“What gave that away? The tattered jeans? The muddy Nikes? Sorry I didn’t wear my diamonds to climb the hill.” Really, if she’d talked like this all her life, someone should have shot her—except she didn’t talk like this at the diner. “May I help you? The other computer should work, if you need it. The facilities here are excellent.”
“Only guests are allowed access to this office. I will have to ask you to leave,” the ogre demanded frostily.
The more Carmel irritated, the more Sam dug in. Weird. She really ought to be intimidated.
“Kurt considers me a guest,” she said with her biggest smile. The resort manager would no doubt kill her, but she was quite done with being treated like an insect. “If he asks me to leave, I will happily do so.”
Fortunately, before Golden Girl exploded, a familiar male voice spoke from behind her.
“Samantha? We’re going to need your help with Val. Good morning, Mrs. Kennedy. Kurt said we could
use the back lot again, if that’s all right with you.”
Deputy Walker waited in the corridor, unable to enter the office without bodily removing the resort owner. Although he wasn’t a bulky man, he stood taller and broader than Carmel. Despite his polite words, his authoritative baritone said it wasn’t a request. This was not the deference of an underpaid deputy.
“I am talking to the DA about this repeated invasion of private property,” Mrs. Kennedy said in a low voice that resembled a hiss. “I will not tolerate these locals harassing us.”
“Then find a way to keep people from burying bodies up there, and my job is done.” He backed up and gestured for her to depart.
Oh crap, they really had found another body. Did she want to go with him? No, she wanted to flee this mountain and never come back—if only she knew where to go.
Only because Walker looked sympathetic as she stood up did she agree to accompany him. If he’d been one of those glaring, belligerent cops, she’d have. . . Behaved as she had with Carmel? If so, it was probably a good thing she hadn’t encountered police before or she would have a record for Walker to find.
“Kurt told me I’m to ignore his mother’s temper, so I do,” Walker said, taking her elbow and escorting her toward a back entrance. “It sounds as if he gave you the same advice.”
“Was I awful? Kurt didn’t advise me of anything. I really don’t know where that came from. I’m a mousy looking person, driving a mousy little car, but I dare roar at lions?” She was still a little shaken by her behavior.
“Mousy?” he asked incredulously, staring at her as he opened the side door and let her out. “If I were to describe you, it would be lionesque. Your roar suits you perfectly.”
“I don’t feel like a lion,” she grumbled. “Maybe a battered alley cat. What have you found and do I really have to go up there again?”
“You don’t have to see the body,” he said, with a hint of sympathy. “We’ve positively identified him. We know the last time he was seen. But Val won’t leave. And her tribe is starting to gather.” He gestured at the women congregating in the corner of the lot nearest the road.
“So maybe I can stay here and encourage them to stay here?” Sam asked with hope. “Or I can talk with them and ask what it will take to bring Val down?”
“That works,” he said in relief. “Thank you. I know it’s nuts asking a complete stranger to deal with the locals, but I think that’s what’s needed. Everyone knows everyone too well around here, and they push each other’s buttons. You’re fresh meat.”
Sam laughed. “If Carmel had her way, I’d be roadkill. Why on earth would she care if I used the hotel’s computer?”
“My guess is that she’s a controlling bitch. I’m sure the Lucys will give you more colorful alternatives. If you need any help, let Alonzo in the security office know.”
He started to walk toward his car, but Sam caught his arm, almost startling herself with the familiarity of the gesture. He wore a short-sleeved shirt and his brown arm was hard and muscular. She dropped it the instant he turned.
“Can you tell me who you found? And can I tell the Lucys?”
“We haven’t notified his next of kin. He’s local, so the Lucys will know soon enough. Sorry, that’s all I can offer.”
She let him go. The uneasiness had returned. Her legs seemed to be trembling, as if the ground moved beneath her feet. Maybe they were having an earthquake. But no one else appeared concerned. Maybe they had quakes here so often, no one noticed.
Shakily, she walked over to join the women. She identified Tullah from the thrift store, Amber the Tarot Reader, Crazy Daisy, and Mariah. The others had been in the café, and she recognized their faces, if not their names. The only male today looked like a university professor with a closely-cut goatee and well-barbered chestnut hair.
He bowed slightly at her approach. “You are the forest sprite who has added lushness to my garden pot, thank you. I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. I’m Aaron.” His accent was vaguely British.
“Of Aaron’s Antiques,” Sam said, recognizing his name from the sign. “Pleased to meet you.”
Wearing her long black hair in multiple braids tied with feathers and beads similar to her ghost-catcher nets, Mariah spoke up. “The spirit is caught here. He’s furious and arousing the other spirits. My nets can only stop so much before all hell. . . and that could be literal. . . breaks loose. We need to pass him on. Val is trying, but she can’t do it by herself. We need safe ground for a ceremony.”
“What is safe ground?” Sam asked, thinking of landslides and earthquakes and wondering why they’d worry about those.
Mariah gestured toward town. “The vortex is still safe, and the land beyond it, but that’s two miles away. We usually use the hill above the resort but the cops won’t let us up there. We need somewhere unpolluted by evil and accessible for as many of our group as possible.”
All the women had dressed for hiking, but some were elderly and frail. Some of the more portly members were already seeking places to sit. The trail required athleticism, and the Lucys didn’t qualify. Sam got that part. “Unpolluted?” she asked. “How do we determine what’s polluted?”
“If you can’t tell, you can’t help,” Mariah said with a sigh. “I’d hoped Cass had sent you for a reason.”
For all Sam knew, she’d killed Cass and stolen her cat.
“I’ve only just arrived,” Sam said, trying to sound reasonable. She wanted these people to be her friends. She desperately needed their support. “I’ve not had enough time to explore.”
“She’s right, Mariah,” Tullah said. Even in boots and khaki, she managed to look like an African queen. “It takes time to learn the energy of a new place. What about trying her with one of Harvey’s sticks?”
“I have one with me,” Amber called, getting up from the rock where she’d perched. She carried a polished redwood branch. A carved seahorse head with a crystalline eye formed the handle.
“Good thought.” Mariah brightened and tested the stick by circling it in the air, perpendicular to her body. “We should ask him to make one for Sam.”
“I can’t pay him,” Sam protested, taking the lovely walking staff when Mariah handed it to her.
The seahorse perfectly fit her hand, and the energy flowing through the wood felt happy and positive. She coveted this stick. Which was crazy, right?
“He negotiates.” Mariel waved away the protest. “How does that feel? Lift it toward me, see what happens.”
Sam pointed the stout flat tip in Mariah’s direction. The stick seemed to quiver on its own, then circle and nod. It felt happy in her hand. “Positive?” she answered tentatively. Did sticks normally feel like anything? Like cream in her coffee, she couldn’t remember.
“Good. Let’s give this a try. We know the ley lines are polluted from the ridge and south toward the vortex. Let’s spread out and try going downhill away from the lodge. Don’t take any dangerous routes that we can’t all follow. Ideally, we’ll find ground flat enough to gather. Ready?”
With the tactical skill of a general, Mariah divided up her army and sent them out to search for safe ground.
“I’ll take this more polluted upper section,” she told Sam as the others traipsed off. “We can hope to find safe spaces between the lines. Stay to my left, just far enough that we can see and hear each other. I’m sorry I expected you to jump into this with both feet. We’re kind of desperate and had hopes Cass had found someone skilled.”
“That wouldn’t be me. I don’t even know what skills you expect.”
“Listening is a good one,” Mariah admitted while her gaze tracked the path of her army marching downhill. “Did Walker tell you anything we should know?”
“Only that the victim is local. He says you’ll know soon enough.” Sam had a horrible thought. “He would have said something if it were Cass, wouldn’t he? Is anyone else missing?”
Mariah looked troubled. “If it happened last night, I think
one of us would have known that Cass was back. And it’s too soon for anyone to report a missing person. Whoever it was created enough disturbance that he was found before he was declared lost.”
Sam nodded. “OK, lead on. Let’s see what I can do.”
Even though she was doing as Walker had directed—keeping the Lucys occupied, she felt like an idiot. She was a scientist. Walking through the woods, holding a walking stick in front of her, waiting for it to take a nose dive like a divining rod was just too ridiculous. At least she knew what a divining rod was, even if she’d always believed they found water, not safe ground. Although maybe if there was water below, it carried off evil pollution? Alice, meet Wonderland.
As they searched, Mariah carried on a running dialogue about the old mill that had once occupied the area, the sisters who had lived in the cabin marked by fallen logs, and the village well that had once been up here and lost in an earthquake.
Sam tried to take in the concept of all these people living here over the centuries—while she held onto a staff with a mind of its own. It dipped and jiggled and shook back and forth like an old man saying no, no, no as they slowly proceeded downhill. The blasted thing practically talked.
She was trying to find the peace she’d found on the other side of the valley, but mostly, she felt edgy and scared. Did a killer live on this mountain? Could he be watching them now? She’d be a lot happier if Walker told her someone had died in a bear fight.
The staff dipped so forcefully, she almost fell. At the same time, she felt her fears lifting. Positive energy soaked through her shoes, and all the muscles she hadn’t known were tense, relaxed. She took a deep breath. Even the air smelled cleaner.
With no memory, she had no preconceived notions to fall back on, so the sensation didn’t strike her as weird or out of the ordinary. Maybe everyone felt safe on some ground more than others. Would that be in her textbooks?
“Mariah,” she called, afraid to sound too certain. “Is this what you’re looking for?”
Sapphire Nights Page 10