“If Daisy was killed for her knowledge, could it be for her crystalline knowledge?” Keegan suggested.
“Or the sketch in her cart?” Mariah poked the box with her staff.
“My resident ghost told us the eyes in her paintings contained tourmaline.” Teddy gestured at several ugly oils on the shop walls. “Did she know what she was talking about? The rubellite form of tourmaline, at least, is a pretty rare and pricey gem, but it’s usually pinker than red.”
Keegan studied the paintings in question, then stroked the eye areas with his fingertips. “Beryl in the blues, with a hint of garnet. More garnet in the browns, pretty much the same as in Daisy’s stash. This last one might have a trace of rubellite mixed with the garnet, but the dust is too fine to be certain. Your ghost was duped if she thinks this is pure rubellite.”
“I hate guessing,” Mariah said in frustration. “Keegan, now that you know what the stones feel like, can you search the bunker again?”
“I would have noticed anything feeling like those in the box,” he said dryly. “It isn’t radiation as we know it, but I’d recommend lead sheathing for the container and lead gloves for handling until I can test them in a laboratory. Harvey, I hope you weren’t in the habit of carrying those on you or you ought to see a physician.”
Harvey shook his head. “I kept them in a locker.” He twirled his staff, studying it. “You’ve been wandering our hills, and you’ve not felt anything like these?”
Keegan looked at the box with distaste. “Those aren’t natural. What I need is my ancestors’ missing journals to see what experiments they performed to create that weird energy. If someone like the Ingerssons acquired the old journals, they may have tried the formulas on new crystals. We have no idea what’s been done to them.”
“That may be where your Trevor fits in,” Mariah said, frowning. “He may have had access to the journals and/or have some of your gift.”
“I have no idea when the first journal disappeared, but you said your Lucinda Malcolm had one,” Keegan said. “We haven’t had a good librarian until recently. So Trevor stealing the second journal half a century ago is a possibility.”
“How old are the journals and crystals that were stolen from your family?” Harvey asked, running his thumb over his staff.
“From the late 1700s, when experimentation first became popular.” Keegan glanced at his useless phone. “I need to order the lead. Teddy, do you have a password for the internet I see in here?”
She retreated to her counter, pulled out a laptop, and set it up for him. “I don’t remember passwords. Just use this.”
Mariah sighed and wanted to admonish Teddy for her casualness with a dangerous weapon, but she couldn’t yell at the world for existing. Keegan gave her the evil eye before he accepted the computer. She smirked in retaliation. He still had no idea what she could do and wouldn’t believe it if she told him.
“So if Daisy was killed for knowledge, what did she know that we didn’t?” Mariah said, thinking aloud while Keegan typed on the keyboard. “She had access to all of Hillvale from the resort to the cemetery.”
“Which means she could have overheard anything from Kennedy business deals to ghosts weeping on a tombstone,” Harvey said in disgust. “And what if it was something in the past, something from the commune?”
“Why would anyone worry about anything from half a century ago? My bet is on more recent information. What knowledge would someone kill for?” Mariah glowered at the sunny main street outside Teddy’s front window. The tourists didn’t usually wander around town much until after lunch, but she could see a gaggle of flowery dresses and fancy hats heading this way.
“And how would they know that Daisy knew it?” Teddy asked reasonably. “It’s not as if she was in the habit of communicating.”
Keegan pushed a button, closed the laptop, and returned to the conversation. “What if they were simply removing a possible witness? Or what if a news story like those from Expoleaks about corrupt corporations and politicians and international fraud—only something a little more local—made a villain worry that his past would be uncovered?”
“By a half crazy old lady?” Harvey scoffed. “That’s more far-fetched than a country music song.”
Mariah narrowed her eyes at Keegan, but Mountain Man wasn’t even looking at her. She couldn’t live with paranoia. She had to assume he was talking theory and not about her. “You think the killer’s past was in the commune, and Daisy is the only remaining member who could identify him? That doesn’t sound right.”
“We should find the names of everyone who ever lived in the commune and see if they’re being killed off?” Teddy suggested.
They all groaned. The shoppers shoved open the door and filled the room with chatter and light, dispelling the gloom.
“I still need to hunt my missing journals.” Keegan headed for the door. “And I need to determine if there might be a stash of those crystals buried on the farm. I don’t think I’m of much use with Daisy.”
“Wait.” Mariah used her staff to push to her feet. The knee throbbed, but the swelling had gone down. “I know those hills better than most. I’ll go with you.”
He looked as if he’d object, but she brushed past him and out the door before he could say a word.
She had an ugly vision of turning into Daisy: secretive, non-communicative, half-crazed, driving around the mountains hunting stones. Was that the way she wanted to spend the rest of her miserable life? No. She just hoped the world would eventually forget her existence so she might eventually return. . . under a new identity. Right.
“I’m not a geologist,” she announced, deciding to share what little she knew. “But I’ve been poking around, trying to determine where the hippie crystals came from. I know a canyon further inland with rocks that look like ones I used to find on the coast down by the Channel Islands. They’re out of place.”
“The Channel Islands are volcanic rock,” he said instantly. “They were formed by ancient volcanoes from the vicinity of the Santa Monica mountains. The Santa Cruz mountains around us have tectonic faults, but I had not heard of volcanoes.”
“Volcanic rock glitters?” Relieved that he was taking her seriously, she led him toward the golf cart.
“Quartz glitters, and most volcanic rock contains a degree of quartz. What you call crystals are simply combinations of minerals in the soil forced together by pressure.” He slowed his great strides to match her limping one.
“Keeping in mind that my rock hounding is only a recent hobby—is it possible an earthquake could have brought some form of old volcanic rock to the surface?” Deciding either her knee wasn’t so bad this morning or the painkillers were doing the job, Mariah climbed behind the wheel of the cart.
Keegan shrugged his ox-sized shoulders and checked to see if she had water in the storage compartment, helping himself to a bottle. “Given what we know about our paranormal talents, we have to admit that anything is possible. I go into any situation with an open mind. So you’re thinking there are natural crystals in these hills and not just the ones from my ancestors?”
“I’ll let you be the judge of that. I don’t go into the canyon often.” And when she did, it was often in the mind of a hawk, which could see the glitter but not analyze it. “I’m just worried that the place might have gotten Daisy killed. She would have known of it.”
“I trust this will not be a rugged hike.” He glanced at her knee.
“The path to the edge of the canyon can take three-wheelers. This cart can get us there, if we don’t take out the suspension and the engine doesn’t croak.”
He muttered an imprecation under his breath. Mariah figured that revealed Keegan’s level of desperation when he didn’t outright call her an idiot. He really wanted those rocks.
She really wanted Daisy’s killer, but she lacked experience. She needed whatever help she could find.
She took the cart to the end of the dirt road up to the farm, then bounced it off road th
rough dry chaparral along a path she’d carved out with her feet over the years. Daisy had used it, too. There were still wheel marks in the dried mud. “Do you feel vibrations in Daisy’s stone guardians?”
Ever the gentleman, Keegan helped her out of the cart when she parked it in front of a stack of boulders at the end of the path. She grabbed bottles of water and stuck them in the pockets of her camping shorts.
“Not like those in Harvey’s bag, which was why they surprised me. If he’s been handling them for years, I shouldn’t have reacted so strongly.” He sounded disgusted with himself.
“Teddy and Samantha reacted just as strongly when they were doused in crystal dust. Cass called it evil. I’m guessing the red crystals, at the very least, have been infused with something that causes chemical reactions in oil paint and affects our paranormal senses.” Mariah tested her knee as she led the way past the boulders into the inhospitable canyon. The northern-exposed slope had more scrub pines and cover. This western ridge had sandier soil and grew rocks better than vegetation.
“It would make more sense if someone experimented with creating the garnets,” he said. “Heat and pressure break the chemical bonds of mineral structures, causing them to recrystallize into tougher substances like garnets. They may have used a solution in the process, but I cannot imagine what constitutes an evil solution.”
“We’ll have to hike around the resort property another day, see if you react to the vibrations over there. Samantha feels them through her staff and calls them negative. Cass calls them evil, but she’s a trifle biased against the Kennedys.” Mariah slid on a pebble, and Keegan grabbed her elbow to steady her.
“Perhaps we are human Geiger counters?” he asked in amusement.
“Well, if we are, we should start ticking shortly.” She used her staff to point at the barren south wall. “There’s the granite formation that marks the area where I’ve found odd crystals and geodes.” To prevent sliding, she grasped a boulder and started down the dusty slope.
Keegan loped ahead of her, the better to catch her if she fell, Mariah thought wryly. Hiking with a bum knee wasn’t one of her better ideas, but she’d do what it took to find Daisy’s killer.
A shot rang out, splintering a rock at her feet.
The next report sent Keegan tumbling down the hillside, into the sage.
Fifteen
July 10: Tuesday, late morning
Flung off balance from the force of the bullet, Keegan dropped for cover and hit the ground with a thud and puff of dust. He’d only heard the two shots. He bit down on a cry of warning to Mariah. If she’d sensibly ducked, he didn’t need to let the shooter know she was here. Perversely, her silence terrified him.
Pulse pumping, he slid toward the cover of prickly bushes while keeping an eye out for Mariah, praying she was hidden. He knew from bitter experience that his wound would hurt like the very devil once he recovered from the shock. He needed to take all precautions now, in case the damned bullet had hit anything vital.
Pebbles slid past his nose. No more shots rang out. A moment later, Mariah’s booted foot connected with his hip. He grunted and grabbed her ankle.
“Stay down,” he muttered, although she’d cleverly done that on her own, he gathered as she slid into the bushes with him. “Can you tell where they are?”
“They’re shooting upward, from the canyon. If this is the only path in and out, we’re in deep shit.” She shoved aside a branch to peer downward. “I can’t see a damned thing from here.”
He muttered an expletive. She rolled over and tore off her vest, then the t-shirt she wore under it. “Good way to scare the crap out of me, Mountain Man.”
Mountain Man? Nerdy professor, maybe, but not a rugged frontiersman. He must have really scared her. But his mind blanked and his tongue froze when confronted with the vision of lovely brown skin and full breasts barely covered by a spandex tank top. Keegan thought he might pass out from lust. He did pass out from the pain when she folded the t-shirt and jammed it against his bleeding shoulder.
He recovered as she used her bootlace to tie the padding over the wound. That unfroze his tongue. “Ow, damn, don’t cut off the circulation!”
“We need to crawl into that crevasse over there.” Brisk and businesslike, she ignored his complaint and nodded at the scrub brush. “I think there’s enough cover if they’re keeping their heads down.”
“Me first. I’ve already got a hole in my hide—what’s another?” He could only use one elbow for crawling, but he was pretty good at wriggling into tight places. He worked his way to the edge of the brush and saw the steep, narrow gully she meant them to use. He ran through his litany of curse words, turned around, and backed down.
Mariah clambered in after him. “Over there, in the shade, under that ledge.”
She bumped his hip to indicate direction.
He’d wonder ten thousand things about Mariah and this situation, but the pain blooming in his shoulder warned he didn’t have much time. He had to concentrate on staying upright—or what passed for upright while on his belly and sliding down ruts.
They lay silent, protected only by the ledge and chaparral overhead but out of sight of the canyon. Keegan clasped Mariah’s fist and felt her pulse pound. A hawk screamed overhead. Sun beat down on the ledge and shimmered on the dust. He caught a glint of quartz in the rocks. He waited for shots, shouts, an engine, anything.
“I can’t stand this. I’m rebooting. Give me a minute,” she whispered. “Don’t move. Don’t say anything.”
He was too woozy to figure out what she meant. He stayed still. Mariah didn’t go anywhere. She lay beside him, motionless as a rock.
It took half a minute before he realized there was no Mariah pulsing through the fist he held. Her eyes were closed. She breathed shallowly. But he knew she wasn’t there.
All right, so he must have passed out or was hallucinating. He bit his lip to keep from squeezing her hand tighter. The shadow of the hawk crossed the glitter of the rocks on his right. The air crackled with heat. He’d probably fry before he bled to death. Mariah’s impromptu bandage seemed to be doing its job, as long as he didn’t move.
How many hours to nightfall? Too many. He had only half a bottle of water. He didn’t know how much Mariah had left. He’d heard that rattlers came out at night. Charming.
A quick, deep breath, and the woman beside him returned. Very definitely hallucinating.
She lay still another moment, then her fist unclenched beneath his. “They’re gone. There’s a plume of dust on the other side of the canyon. Must be another path out.”
Keegan’s heart pounded on the dust beneath him. His shoulder throbbed with pain. He wasn’t hallucinating enough to believe her physical body had disappeared. She hadn’t moved any more than he had. She had no way of seeing down the canyon from this angle.
“Keegan?” she asked in a voice finally reflecting her concern. “Keegan? You okay? It looked like the bullet just shot through muscle. You have an awful lot of that.”
“I’m processing,” he muttered, not acknowledging her comment about his muscles. “Do I stick my head back out there to see if anyone takes it off?”
“Unless you want to rot in this hole, that would be my suggestion.” This time, her voice was laced with irony. He did love a woman who didn’t get hysterical on him.
He had to trust her mad declaration that she’d seen the shooter leave.
Because he wanted out of this hole and saw no other choice, he nodded and began the painful crawl back up.
No one took off his head when he stuck it out. A breeze blew his hair. Using his one good arm, he pulled himself out, then instinctively held his hand down to help Mariah. She crawled up on her own, thankfully, or she might have pulled his arm off his torn shoulder.
He could believe she’d mysteriously seen the shooter leave or that she’d made a lucky guess. He might just have to start believing.
He rolled over on his back and stared up at the crystal blue sky
. “I’m starting to hate this place.”
“Can’t blame you there.” She stood—as if confident the shooter was gone—and studied the canyon. “Impossible to tell where they were hiding, but someone is using the canyon. I’ve not seen evidence of anyone growing weed out here. So what’s with warning us off?”
Wincing, Keegan scrambled up, grabbed her waist with his good arm, and steered her in the direction of the cart. “I don’t give a damn what they were doing. Let’s not wait for them to return.”
“Right. Brenda needs to clean that wound.” She led the way as if they’d only been out for a jaunty hike.
Except Keegan noted Mariah was pale again and leaned on her staff more than she had earlier. “How did you see into that valley with your back to it?” he demanded, if only to distract from the pain.
“Magic,” she retorted.
The damned woman never showed weakness, message received. He prodded her anyway. “Which leaves me to assume you were working with the shooters and knew they’d leave.”
Her long black lashes lowered in a glare that perversely thrilled him instead of warning him. With that strong hawk-like nose and high cheekbones, her features reflected the power of the woman within. She’d make a formidable foe.
“You are free to assume anything you like, and you still wouldn’t have it right,” she informed him coldly.
“Shamanic journeying,” he retorted, clasping the bandage tighter against the blood starting to flow. He hadn’t missed her reaction to Teddy’s crystal knowledge. “Explain.”
They reached the cart, and she slid behind the wheel. This time when she narrowed her big, dark-lashed eyes, Keegan assumed it was in concern as he fumbled his grip sliding into the seat. She said nothing until he finally settled in.
“A shamanic journey is no different from astral projection. It just adds a New Age spin, or maybe Old Age, because various Native Americans have been using it for generations. It’s as good an excuse as any to use hallucinogenic mushrooms—which are a lot easier than nearly killing yourself the way some tribes did.” She pushed the cart button angrily. “I don’t use mushrooms.”
Crystal Vision Page 14
