Sapphire Nights: Crystal Magic, Book 1

by Patricia Rice

  “You’ve told me the cards have multiple meanings. Death can mean the end of a project or a way of life or any number of things. Maybe it means the death of secrets.” Impatient with their superstition, Sam tapped the Hanged Man card. “We make our own fates.”

  Amber didn’t look any more relieved. Sam couldn’t help that.

  “Maybe you should listen to Amber, dear,” Cass said, her usually smooth face lined with worry. “Her interpretations are in tune with the Universe. Visit Monty another day.”

  Cass had to know what she meant to tell her other family. But her great-aunt had brought her to Hillvale knowing the disturbance she would cause.

  Sam retrieved her staff and stood up. Some Lucy superstitions had a practical base. Speak softly and carry a big stick suited her, if she’d just learn to keep her big mouth shut. “And tomorrow may never come. Procrastination only drags out the anxiety.”

  “If we visit Monty in broad daylight,” Mariah murmured as they left the older Lucys frantically flipping cards, “everyone in town will know.”

  “And this is a bad thing why?” Sam started down the hill toward town.

  “They’ll say we’re conspiring with the Nulls. They’ll shut us out.” Mariah reluctantly followed.

  Reject her, as she’d been rejected so often. Sam hated being an outcast in this town to which she had so many ties, but maybe she’d grown up a little. Being herself first mattered, she finally understood. She couldn’t be everyone’s good little girl.

  “No,” she argued. “No more secrets. The only way we can move forward is to open all lines of communication.” Sam hoped she knew what she was doing. It wasn’t as if a master’s degree gave her experience in the real world. She prayed announcing to the Nulls who she was and who owned the farm above town wouldn’t get her killed, as Cass seemed to fear.

  “This better be worth ruining my Lucy reputation,” Mariah said grumpily.

  The front door of the town hall was open, but no one occupied the reception area. It looked like a Chamber of Commerce tourist center with brochures advertising local entertainment and maps for hiking trails.

  Mariah indicated the empty office. “No money for staff.”

  “And no cash to be guarded, I get it.” Sam started for a door marked Employees Only calling, “Anyone home?”

  Mariah muttered a curse, pushed ahead, and opened the door. “Company, Kennedy!”

  Sam entered a short hall adorned with aging paintings and photographs. At the end, Montgomery Kennedy stepped out, frowning and shoving his hair out of his face. “What is this, an invasion?”

  “A mayor should be accessible to his populace,” Sam said cheerfully. “I’m here to prevent revolution. Are you willing to talk?”

  “Revolution? You mean the Lucys holding a sit-down in the parking lot? By all means, let the negotiations begin.” He gestured to the door behind him.

  “You have no idea what we can do, Kennedy,” Mariah said defiantly. “We’re organized. We’ll sue if you try to take our town away.”

  “Stand down, Mariah. We’ve come to talk, not threaten.” Sam followed her uncle into his office. She studied the serious lack of décor and amenities and chose a worn-out chair that appeared to have been discarded from the lodge lobby.

  Mariah sat cross-legged on the floor, forcing Monty to take the other shabby chair on the visitor’s side of the desk if he wanted to see her.

  “What do we need to talk about?” the mayor asked wearily. A normally large, handsome man, he had faded to almost the same shade of gray as his brother today.

  “Openness and honesty,” Sam said, feeling a tug of concern for her overworked relative. “Before I have my lawyer start looking into the documents Walker claims exist—did you know that I’m an Ingersson and that Val and I own the farm?”

  Monty shook his head. “The land, no, of course not. That’s foolish. I did hear talk about you being related to Val, though. I’ll accept it if you do, although I don’t see the resemblance.”

  Mariah snorted. “That’s because you’re too blind to see people instead of numbers. Val dyes her hair and hides behind veils. If you ever looked at her, you’d see the resemblance, although admittedly, Sam looks more like Cass and your lot.”

  Monty waved his hand in concession. “I’m not arguing about family ties. The problem lies in the rest of the statement. Val’s land was lost long ago. We hold the deed now.”

  Sam’s stomach tied in knots, but this was why she had to put everything out in the open. Walker had professional reasons to keep quiet. She didn’t. “Walker has had men investigating me, and in the process, they have searched the property office. This is public information. You can look for yourself. The farm is owned by a trust. He says the documents he’s located show Val and I are the beneficiaries of that trust.”

  Mariah looked stunned. “How is that possible? No one even knew you existed! What if you hadn’t found your way up here? Who would get the land then? Are you sure Walker isn’t perpetrating some scam?”

  Monty shook his head. “Sorry, not to demean Walker in any way, but that’s dreaming. The condo company has the deeds or they wouldn’t be spending money to draw up development plans. My father set it all up long ago, but we’ve tried to stay out of it until now. I don’t doubt Walker’s done his job, but there is apparently a missing piece.”

  “And that’s me,” Sam said quietly, thinking about what Mariah had just asked about who might get the land if she hadn’t showed up. “As long as I didn’t exist and Val barely clings to reality, there might have been some hope of fighting for ownership.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Monty said. “No respectable company spends money based on wishful thinking!”

  Sam shook her head. “Cass knows, she’s just not talking. I think she’s afraid more people will die if she does. She raised my father as her son, and losing him must have hurt very much. I don’t know what it cost her when my mother sent me away as an infant. You and Kurt were just kids and wouldn’t care. I think everyone simply kept quiet after your father’s death and the threat of development faded away.”

  Monty glared as if he’d like to snap logs. “I’ll call my lawyer. This is ridiculous. Too many years of planning went into this development to believe this Lucy nonsense.”

  “Your lawyer and mine probably ought to look into this together,” she agreed, putting her executor’s business card on the desk. “But if what Walker has uncovered is truth, and he has no reason to lie, then someone worked very hard and sacrificed a lot to keep you from ever developing the farm. It may be time to locate my birth mother.”

  Mariah was still looking stunned. “How is any of this possible? How can land sit there for twenty-five years and no one own it? The taxes alone would ensure the county moved in.”

  “If the trust works like the one my father inherited, then an executor is handling it. He has no authority to sell while we’re alive, but there was apparently money involved in the settlement suit. I don’t know how much is left, but if someone intended no one to develop that land, the money must be invested to produce enough income to cover taxes.”

  “And executor fees,” Monty added. “And this is all highly improbable. I was too young to know the details but Alan assured us that the court favored the bank, the foreclosure was allowed, and his company took over. The Ingerssons died shortly after the suit was settled. I vaguely remember them stubbornly refusing to leave and living in a tent after fire wiped out the farmhouse. But I was only five or six at the time. I don’t remember their deaths. I’m sorry Val feels as if she was cheated out of her home, but the past is past.”

  “Could you call your development people and ask to see a copy of the deed?” Sam suggested.

  The land meant nothing to her, but the town was important to her friends and the condos were important to her family. She was damned no matter which way she turned.

  Monty scowled but picked up his landline and dialed a number he apparently knew by heart. “Is Gump ther
e? Fine, then tell him I need to see a copy of the deed on the old Ingersson property.” He listened for a minute and his scowl deepened. “I want to frame photos of the land as it is now and include deeds as part of the montage. Right. Let me know when they’re available. Thanks.”

  He hung up and glared. “There’s no one in the office who can produce them right now. They’ll get back to me.”

  Mariah stood up, looking militant. “Hitch up the lawyers, folks, it’s time to visit the courthouse. Someone, somewhere is lying, and my bet is on your development company.”

  Monty stood, frowning formidably and looking at his watch. “It’s too late now, but I’ll call my lawyer in the morning. A deed to a trust is meaningless without looking into ownership of the trust.”

  He nodded at Sam. “Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I’ll see if Kurt has done his homework, but we’re not lawyers. We rely on the people we work with to be trustworthy. I have no reason to doubt a company that has spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars on planning this development, but it’s good to double check. You need to do the same.”

  “I intend to, but I didn’t want to do it behind your back. I’d really like to make Hillvale my home, but I can’t if my families are at war. I’ve lived without a home for six years. I can do it again. But I’d hoped there might be a place for me here,” Sam said wistfully. She stood and wished she had the right to hug her uncle. He looked unhappy. But she didn’t think he’d appreciate the gesture.

  Since she may have just destroyed his hopes for the future as well as her own, she understood.

  Instead of taking the door they entered, Mariah opened a panel in the office wall, exposing what appeared to be the bluff. “This way. I’ll show you a shortcut. Amber said you need to lie low, and this might be a good time to listen. Dinah needs to do without you until all lawyers have checked in. Half the town could be out there waiting anxiously for good news.”

  “They saw you come in,” Monty grumbled. “You ought to go out and face them.”

  “I’ll tell them we held a sit-in protest all night but you crawled out a rat hole,” Mariah retorted.

  “Then I’ll go out the front and let them believe I killed you, give them something to meddle in,” he snapped. “You can’t keep hiding who you are.”

  Sam waited for that enigmatic argument to be explained, but Monty merely waited as Mariah led Sam out to a narrow protected area where a Tesla concealed a set of steps carved into the bluff face. Skirting the car’s hood, Mariah started up the stairs, saying, “You might as well know how to get to your farm from every direction.”

  Her farm. Sam actually thrilled a little, for the first time, at the possibility that she might own land here, but she forced herself to stay practical. “Walker will be coming up after he gets off duty. How much time will this shortcut take?”

  “Not much,” Mariah assured her. “Fifty years ago, the Ingerssons—and their tenants in the commune days—didn’t have a lot of vehicles. They walked to town for their groceries and supplies. This is pretty direct, just really steep. Daisy can’t walk it, but Val can. She grew up here. She knows all the nooks and crannies. It’s how she gets around with no one seeing her.”

  Western sun lit the way up the first set of steps, but then the path turned behind a wall of rock, and they walked in the shadows of the bluff. It was easy to see why people talked of ghosts. The wind whistled through this narrow canyon, and the light shifted uncertainly. Above, Sam could see the tall pines she guessed were the ones she’d seen from the farmhouse foundation. They probably provided a windbreak.

  “If Daisy is up here, we should have brought her food.” Sam started to turn around.

  “Oh, shoot, yeah. I’ll run down and procure provisions and explain to Dinah why she’s on her own for a while. You assure Daisy food is coming. She’ll point you to the path that leads to Cass’s so you don’t have to come back this way. The farm really is the key to this town. I can’t believe you own it!” Mariah pressed past Sam to go back down, but squeezed her arm with excitement as she did so. “Bless you for finding us! I haven’t felt this positive in ages.”

  “You have a way of getting into town without walking through the town hall again?” Sam asked in amusement.

  “I drop over the wall and onto Monty’s car most times. Haven’t heard him leave. But if he has, the drive will be clear. I can go around the building.”

  That sounded like a precarious path. She’d have to study it better later. But now, curious to see where the stairs came out, Sam kept climbing. Maybe she could persuade Daisy to show her the art she protected with her stone statues.

  The stairs at the top were more crumbling sandstone than solid granite. She had to watch where she put her feet. She was grateful she’d taken Harvey’s staff with her. She pounded the rocks, although she didn’t see any crevasses where snakes might slither.

  At the top, she reached the wooded area that served as windbreak. She could see now that someone had planted redwoods among the pines, and she ran her fingers over the peeling bark, trying to guess the age. The area had obviously been logged of old growth, but the new trees were doing well in the shadow of the Douglas firs. One day, they would tower over the mountain again.

  She even found a few California rhododendrons surviving in the damp fog that rolled in off the ocean. What a wondrous place this must have been! And it might be hers? Did she dare let excitement build? Probably not, given the land’s history.

  Once out of the wooded area, she was back on unhospitable rock and the burned remains from the recent fire. She knew the dirt between the rocks would grow habitation, but it needed water. Without the pines and redwoods to catch the moisture in the air and provide shade, the rocks dried out.

  She studied the open landscape in the light of the setting sun. The light was probably fabulous for artists. And if she climbed up high enough, she might even see the ocean. She hadn’t gone up on Bald Rock with Val, but that was probably a good perch. She could see it looming over the plateau, well above the hedges surrounding the farmhouse.

  She called Daisy’s name to let her know she was coming. A staff raised above the manzanita, indicating she’d heard.

  The line of protective statues had nearly doubled to surround the old stone foundation. Daisy had been busy.

  “I’ve brought water but Mariah had to go back for food. I didn’t know we were coming up here.” Sam pulled an unopened bottle of water from her cargo shorts and stepped over the guardian border.

  Daisy looked up with a frown as Sam pushed through the hedge. “You shouldn’t be here. The mountain will tumble in your presence.”

  “Uh, well, sorry.” At that warning, Sam glanced nervously at the tall bluff and evidence of previous rock falls, but there wasn’t any good reason for them to fall after the winter rains had stopped. Sam handed her the water. “I’ll leave when Mariah returns. Can I help?”

  Daisy gestured at her dwindling collection of sticks and stones. “The hills are not safe. The village is hungry. They have sent their bravest warriors to hunt the Great Bear, but the warriors do not return. The women dance in mourning around the fires, and the children cry.”

  Listening to Daisy’s chanting voice, Sam could almost travel with her through time, smell the campfires and see the shadows of long lost huntsmen tracking grizzlies with bows and arrows. In a place this isolated, the spirits just might linger. “And then the Spanish came, I guess.”

  If she couldn’t get sense out of Daisy, she might at least hear some history. In comfortable silence, she gathered stones and lined them up by size.

  “The men with spears took the people as slaves,” Daisy said sadly some while later. “The women weep for their homes and the sons who lived and died here.”

  “The grizzlies are gone, aren’t they?” Sam thought Daisy was getting too heavily into doom and tried to bring her companion back to better times.

  “The Great Bear hunts us all. White men bring evil and the wrath of t
he gods. You should leave.”

  Sam quit asking questions and wandered further afield, searching sticks and stones. When she heard the sputter of an engine, she breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want to leave Daisy alone, but she didn’t know how to talk to her either.

  Daisy heard the sound and gestured dismissal. “Take Valdis back with you. Don’t make the Evil One’s job easy. Go far far away.”

  Arguing with Daisy was wasted effort. Sam stood up to welcome the new arrivals.

  Mariah had indeed brought Valdis. Wielding her walking stick like a cane to keep her weight off her injured ankle, Sam’s aunt lurched across the yard.

  “Valdis, go home,” Daisy cried from behind the hedge.

  “You can’t stop Death,” Valdis called back.

  Behind her, Mariah caught Sam’s eye and shrugged. It was good to know she wasn’t the only one thinking she needed to learn the Lucys’ language.

  “Monty and Kurt were about to come to blows in the parking lot when I left Dinah’s,” Mariah whispered, letting Valdis limp ahead on her own. “If only cell phones worked, we might have heard them yelling at the real bastards. But that slime ball Gump apparently wasn’t within shouting distance.”

  “He was in the café earlier with his sales team, remember? What does Gump have to do with anything?” Sam helped Val over the stone foundation.

  “Don’t know. His name just kept coming up. And he’s an asshat who needs to be yelled at. He agitates the universe. And I think he’s harming Xavier.” Mariah pushed through the hedge with her sack of food.

  “How is he harming Xavier?” Sam followed her.

  “He just busted him out of rehab.”

  Chapter 30

  The sheriff threw a file on Walker’s death. “Wasn’t much of a cross to set a mountain on fire. It wasn’t more than a dead sapling nailed into a dead tree trunk.”