Crystal Vision

by Patricia Rice

  Walker put a hand at her back as they approached. “Not world ending,” he whispered. “You’ve got us.”

  The reassurance helped. She’d spent these last years of being truly orphaned, feeling alone and wondering about her birth parents. Now, some of her questions were about to be answered—she hoped.

  At their approach, the Lucys quit chattering, all but forcing the visitor to look up. The stranger’s eyes were the same sapphire blue as Sam’s. Her hair was the same champagne blond, although more silver than Sam’s. There were shadows under her eyes and her jaw muscles had started to sag—but the bone structure was indistinguishable from Sam and Val’s. Their Nordic ancestors had left their mark.

  She was about to meet her mother. Sam swallowed hard.

  “And here comes our botanist now,” Amber declared proudly as Sam stepped up.

  “Environmental scientist,” Sam corrected. “Are we having a party out here? I haven’t had dinner yet.”

  The newcomer continued to stare at her as the crowd returned inside the café. Sam was aware that Mariah and the Brit miner had arrived with the mayor and were literally at her back. She had friends. She could do this.

  Inside, Teddy waved from behind the counter. “Dinah has gumbo waiting for you. Take a seat.”

  Sam slid onto the stool and leaned over to whisper, “Can you tell anything about her?” She hoped Teddy’s empathic abilities might give her insight into how her mother was feeling.

  Teddy shook her head. “Too many people in here, sorry. She seems sad and nervous, that’s the best I can tell you.”

  Bless Walker’s heart, he was the one to take charge. He approached the stranger, who was still looking for a seat. “I’m Chen Ling Walker. You wouldn’t happen to be the Susannah Ingersson I spoke to on the phone?”

  Looking relieved, Susannah offered her hand. “Chief Walker, yes, good to meet you. I’m a trifle overwhelmed by the warm welcome.”

  “You can’t think you and your family have been forgotten, Suz, can you?” Cass’s voice carried over the chatter.

  Heart in throat, Sam swung around to watch her great-aunt enter behind Mariah.

  Cass had raised Sam’s father. When he’d overdosed after Sam’s birth, Susannah had sent her child off for adoption, effectively stripping Cass’s rights to infant Sam. Since Cass had no other children, she had good reason for animosity.

  Walker squeezed Sam’s hand as the two older women faced off.

  “Cass,” Susannah whispered. “I didn’t dare hope you’d speak to me.”

  “Life goes on.” Looking like an ascetic saint in her floor-length silver skirt, Cass commanded the room, emptying a booth with just a look. “Have a seat.”

  She gestured regally at the newly-emptied booth. “Sam, Walker, you should join us.”

  “Hang on to your walking stick,” Mariah whispered as Sam stood up. “If the stick’s energy doesn’t work, you can always beat them with it.”

  Sam almost smiled at Mariah’s grim humor. Friends. She had friends—and Walker. Love swelled in her, giving her confidence.

  As Sam approached the booth, Cass gestured. “Susannah, I’d like you to meet Samantha Moon, the talent behind those flowers you were admiring. Sam, this is Susannah Ingersson, your mother.”

  Leave it to Cass to lay all the cards on the table at once. Twenty-five years of emotion smoldered beneath them.

  Susannah paled as she studied Sam. “Samantha Moon? Jade and Wolf Moon. . . ?”

  “Were my adopted parents, yes. I’m happy to finally meet you, Mother.” Sam slid into the offered seat. She hadn’t planned what she would say in this moment. She wished she had.

  “Samantha,” her mother said the name wistfully. “They kept the name we chose. I hope they were as good as I thought they would be.”

  “They were exemplary parents.” Her adopted parents had given her the freedom to be herself, even when Sam didn’t fit neatly into the conservative community she’d been raised in.

  Susannah appeared teary-eyed as Teddy delivered food no one had ordered. “I never hoped to find you here. I really wanted you to have a better life than Hillvale has to offer.”

  “How long are you planning to stay. . . Mrs. Ingersson?” Walker asked, heading off any argument over Hillvale. “We’ve arranged a room for you at the lodge and hope you’ll be part of the art walk.”

  “Menendez,” Susannah murmured. “I married Carlos Menendez after I left here.”

  The Menendez family who wanted to turn the mountain into a casino. . .

  Teddy nearly dropped the soup bowl she was setting down. Walker cursed under his breath. And Cass looked as if she could order a beheading.

  Six

  July 8: Sunday, evening

  “She’s scouting for the Menendez family, mark my words,” Monty muttered as Mariah made change at the register.

  “She knows archery,” Mariah whispered back. She understood how fear led to distrust and suspicion, but sometimes it was right to be wary. Someone had killed Daisy, after all—why not the woman who knew that land inside-out, and who had just returned out of the blue, aligned with avaricious forces?

  Digging into the mountain of food Dinah had made for him, Keegan sent them both a questioning look.

  “The Menendez family owns the land above the lodge and next to the commune farm,” Monty explained. “They’ve been wanting to put a casino up there. Their lawyer has been talking to ours because the easiest access is through the resort.”

  “Only government-approved tribes can open casinos. Have they established legality?” Mariah asked in scorn.

  “They’re claiming their grandmother was Ohlone, just like you.” Monty kept an eye on the newcomer in the booth.

  “Daisy said I was Ohlone. She didn’t mention any Menendez. Neither did Nana.”

  “Daisy was crazy,” Monty reminded her. “And your Nana had no reason to draw a family tree.”

  Mariah could—if she had a computer. She never had because the past was best left behind. Witness poor Sam over there, learning what kind of crap piece of goods her mother probably was—marrying a money-grubbing Null!

  “What if Daisy could have proved that they weren’t Ohlone?” Keegan asked, apparently following her thought process.

  “Daisy was incompetent. That’s what made her harmless,” Monty countered.

  “She was gifted and traveled time,” Mariah corrected. “But it confused her if anyone questioned too deeply. Our gifts don’t always play well with reality.”

  Across the aisle, Walker got up holding a car key. “She’s brought art with her,” he told them. “Monty, help me carry it in.”

  “Way to keep it in the family, Walker,” Mariah taunted, but the chief barely acknowledged her existence. Mayor Monty had spilled her secrets to the police chief, so she liked to keep Walker at a distance.

  “This Mrs. Menendez is the one who may know about the crystals or my book, correct?” Keegan asked, studying the mural behind the counter. “She is too young to be one of those people in that portrait.”

  Mariah finished her sandwich while studying the counter-length painting. “That’s Lars Ingersson, Susannah’s and Val’s father, posing as Jesus. Looks like he was only in his twenties then, so unless there are toddlers hidden behind the coffee pot, Susanna and Val aren’t in it. That’s probably their mother, though, the one with the beads in her platinum hair.”

  The canvases Walker and Monty carried in were small, easily transportable in suitcases, Mariah noticed. If she had a computer she could trace Carlos Menendez. . . Not going there. Not her circus, not her monkeys.

  Teddy showed the men where to hang the canvases on hooks along Dinah’s walls where she’d lately been displaying photographs.

  “Cass, is this you?” Teddy asked, indicating one of the paintings. “This is brilliant!”

  Unwilling to climb off her stool and hobble over, Mariah studied the paintings from a distance. The oil Teddy was examining showed a tall, slender couple holding a
n infant. If the subject was Cass, she had brown hair rippling down her back—very hippy-seventies. The man with her—Cass’s late husband?—had a dark ponytail, a huge mustache, and wore a paisley shirt. The infant was wrapped in a lacy white shawl—Sam’s father, the nephew Cass had raised?

  “Can you see if the eyes are corroded?” Mariah whispered to Keegan, who sat closer.

  He shook his head. “No red,” he murmured back.

  “My father painted these,” Susannah explained from the booth. “I kept the sentimental ones, but I thought maybe they’d be better shared with the town, if we’re celebrating Dad’s art.”

  “That’s the Kennedys and Xavier, back when they were all in college.” Cass studied a painting brimming with people. “I’d forgotten how talented Lars was at capturing faces in a few strokes. You and Val are the children playing in the corner, right? Who are the others?”

  Mariah wanted to limp over and examine that one, but no one was exclaiming over anything unusual about it. The Kennedys’ father should have red eyes, at the very least. The man had recklessly stolen homes and lives in pursuit of wealth. If their theories were correct about the corrosion, Susannah had either tampered with the crystal paint or Lars hadn’t wasted it on friends and family.

  “That was done about ten years before Dad died,” Susannah said. “He probably painted it while on a coke high, so the details aren’t as good as his earlier works. But that’s Carl’s father and Ralph Wainwright at the table too. I think Mrs. Kennedy must have brought him. That’s when I first learned about Lucinda Malcolm.”

  Lucy Wainwright, who was actually Lucinda Malcom, the famed painter with a gift for painting the future. Mariah studied the painting after Teddy hung it. Legend said that way back in the thirties, Lucinda took her pseudonym to protect her wealthy East Coast family from her reputation as a painter of oddities.

  Ralph must be her son or grandson, or maybe a nephew. He looked older and less comfortable than the others at the table. He wore a white dress shirt instead of the colorful tie-dyes and jeans on everyone else. Even snooty Carmel, now mother to Kurt and Monty, looked casual in a flowy dress that probably cost a fortune from some San Francisco boutique. This was a portrait of wealth—sitting in a crude farmhouse getting high, if the paraphernalia on the table was any indication.

  “Wainwright?” Keegan whispered. “There are Wainwrights around here?”

  Mariah narrowed her eyes and returned her attention to him. “Not that I know of. Why do you ask?”

  “We have distant cousins of that name. I remember a Ralph Wainwright visiting when I was still in primary school. He was a dodgy pillock. If I’m guessing the lady’s age correctly, that portrait is probably thirty-five or forty years ago, correct?”

  Mariah shrugged, ignoring an itchy feeling that she should recognize Ralph. “Probably. So, he visited your family what, twenty years ago? So?”

  “So, I don’t like coincidences,” Keegan stated. “I know Lucinda Malcolm was a Wainwright. Your legend says she brought a compendium on crystals here—one that vanished from my library generations ago according to our records. More recently, I’m missing two journals on crystal experiments, one that could have disappeared anytime in the last fifty years, the other more recently. Ralph shows up in my library and here in Hillvale for no good reason I can ascertain. . . I need to look into my family tree.”

  “Well, just about all the people in that painting are dodgy pillocks,” Mariah said, enjoying the slang from the proper Oxford scholar.

  “Back to your theory about evil eyes?” he asked. “They don’t look corroded.”

  “Because Susannah apparently knows the formula for disguising the evil.” Mariah nodded at the mural behind her. “We know that she and Teddy’s cousin repaired the mural decades ago, and Teddy’s cousin was the last person who admits to having the compendium. She was murdered by her husband, and no one’s found it in her possession or his.”

  Keegan’s fathomless dark eyes lit from within. “Susannah may have the book?”

  “Hadn’t thought about it, but possibly.” Mariah studied Sam’s newly-discovered mother. Susannah Menendez looked like any comfortable housewife who had kids and didn’t watch her diet or exercise. She didn’t look like a thief.

  Right on cue, Sam picked up the dinner table painting. “Your father didn’t use the crystal paint on these?” she asked. “The eyes didn’t corrode like the ones did around here.”

  Susannah rubbed wearily at her cheek. “That’s an old ugly story. Let’s not get into it now. I just thought people might enjoy seeing the history behind this town.”

  Dinah chose that moment to sashay from the kitchen. She’d put on fresh lipstick and wore an apron over her sprigged shirtdress. She wore her kinky curls cut close but smoothed them nervously before she spoke. “Are you the artist who fixed this here mural behind the counter?”

  Susannah’s eyes widened as she studied the mural they’d been working hard to uncover from a mishmash of shelves and appliances. “You kept it! It’s a sacrilegious conceit. My mother used to complain about it.” She stood up and leaned over the counter to study the various figures. “I’d forgotten his disciples. I don’t think I ever knew who they were. Yes, Thalia and I cleaned and fixed it while I was still in high school.”

  “Could you recommend someone who could fix it up again?” Dinah asked. “My customers like it.”

  “Is Thalia still around?” Susannah asked. “She had the formula in that ancient book she had about crystals.”

  Keegan covered Mariah’s hand with his and squeezed. The Book. Lucinda’s book—with the crystal formulas.

  It really existed. And Susannah didn’t have it.

  Seven

  July 8: Sunday, late evening

  Taking a chance on the headlight cutting through the darkness, Keegan stepped in front of the golf cart puttering up the lane to the commune farmhouse. A chilly wind blew in from the west, scuttling clouds across the stars. But after spending these past hours in the stuffy café, listening for clues, he was more than ready to clear his head.

  Mariah cut off the cart’s engine to glare at him without speaking. He’d like to pretend it was only sexual attraction, but his curiosity about this mysterious female was eating him alive.

  He climbed onto the padded bench. “I figured you wouldn’t leave the shelter unguarded. Did you get the key from Valdis?” He was uncomfortable calling the wailing banshee by the fandom name for a death goddess, but calling her Miss Ingersson in a town full of Ingerssons was too confusing.

  Mariah turned the key in the ignition and set the cart up the lane again. “Why is it your business?”

  “Because I don’t think it is safe on this mountain, and two people are more likely to scare off predators better than one female with a bad knee.” He squirmed, barely able to fit his legs into the ancient vehicle.

  She was silent long enough to have him wriggling with more discomfort. He was an experienced engineer and man of business, confident of his place in the world. Yes, his inability to connect emotionally had caused problems in prior relationships. Still, he had no reason to be concerned about the opinion of a woman who appeared to have no past and no name—except she stirred his base desires and more.

  “The killer’s still out there,” she finally said. “And you think it’s the bunker he’s after.”

  “Not necessarily. But since you’re here, you must, and I can’t completely disagree. Your police chief has his hands full with the arrival of his potential mother-in-law and dealing with the sheriff on this murder case, so it makes sense for someone else to stand in for him.”

  “I can’t decide if you waited for me so I wouldn’t suspect you of sneaking around unauthorized, or if you just plan on killing me the easy way.” She steered the cart down an even rougher lane, at an unnecessary speed, nearly jouncing him out of the seat.

  Since he’d stopped trusting people, he appreciated the way her mind worked. “I wrote my doctorate on crystalline st
ructures. I taught for a few years as a graduate student. If you dig deep enough, you might find my photo in a few places. I don’t live a public life, so there won’t be much to convince you I am who I say am.”

  “I’ll have to trust Aaron,” she said grumpily, stopping the cart near the bushes concealing the farm foundation. “He’s the one vouching for you.”

  “Ah, yes, you never explained why Aaron says you are not allowed near computers.” He jumped out and crossed to her side to assist her from the cart. In the chilly air, he thought he detected a hint of salt on the ocean breeze.

  She ignored his inquiry. “You’re expecting me to believe you’ve traveled half way around the world to find a musty old journal on crystals. You have that much wealth you can waste time chasing down bunny trails?”

  “I’m on sabbatical,” he said, helping her unload a sleeping bag from the back of the cart. “The family business is foundering and might benefit from historical insight.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.” She shouldered a backpack and pulled out her walking stick. “The book means money. I respect that—to a degree.”

  “As I believe I’ve heard Aaron say, you are a piece of work. Take my arm so you don’t fall from the weight of that backpack. Did you bring the kitchen sink?” He held back the prickly bushes so she could climb over the rock foundation.

  “Not that it’s any of your business, but I brought food, clothes, and my net-making supplies. Does your copious knowledge of crystalline structure tell you anything about Daisy’s guardians? Teddy wants to sell them. I’m not sure it’s a good idea.” She actually took his arm without protest to hobble over to the line of rock creatures the artist had left as her legacy.

  Keegan took the stack of wired-together stones she handed him. He could easily identify the crystals, although he knew she wouldn’t believe him. “I assume you aren’t interested in my analysis of the molecular structure, but that’s how my gift works. Textbooks will tell you these black stones are schorl, often called black tourmaline. It’s fairly common, although I haven’t heard of any deposits in this part of California. They have some good ones further south, though. The stones in this other figure are a silicon dioxide crystal that jewelers call smoky quartz. It’s also quite common.”