She cleared her throat. “You painted a happy person,” she pointed out. “You show that Sam’s dad achieved the peace he never knew on this plane. From my point of view, that’s not a bad thing.” She bit her tongue on finishing with if you’d painted him as a tortured soul. . .
Both blond women turned to study the image again. But believing Susannah had painted Zach’s soul in a better place was too far-fetched for either of them to comment. Mariah would have to think it on her own.
“Basically, it’s a very happy, upbeat mural,” Teddy said. “It makes me feel good looking at it. The Ingerssons look a little manic maybe, but there are no red eyes in the bunch.”
“It was never meant to be serious, so they didn’t use the crystal paints.” Susannah smiled weakly. “Lance had the most awful crush on Val, but she was young and had her heart set on the stage. And then we lost everything, and it all just fell apart. There were rumors and accusations between my family and his, and it was all awful. Val ran off to the city. When Carl offered to send me to work in his uncle’s South Pacific travel business, I grabbed the chance. It was like starting life all over, and it was what I needed. I’m sorry, Sam.” She squeezed her daughter’s hand.
“You were younger than all of those people up there,” Sam said. “You deserved a chance. I remember Jade buying me books by a Susan Menendez. I had no idea that was you. They were lovely lessons for a child in handling uncertainty in a chaotic world—except mine wasn’t chaotic, so I probably didn’t properly appreciate them. You didn’t do those wonderful illustrations?”
Susannah shook her head. “I did some brief sketches and let the editors find the illustrator. I haven’t touched a paint brush until I came here.”
“How did you know the Menendez family?” Mariah asked, ready to drag the conversation to less sensitive ground. “They’re not in any of these murals. They don’t live here. There was never any family homestead on their land.”
“They live down the mountain mostly. I knew the younger ones from high school. Carl was already graduated from college when he sent me to his extended family. They used to grow grapes up there, until the water dried up. They still think of this area as home.” Susannah looked a little more composed as she squeezed Sam’s hand. “I have to go back to our island. I never meant to stay this long. We just popped over to say hi to Carl’s family and bring those paintings. I’m so glad I had this chance to see you!”
That was a conversation she didn’t want to hear. Mariah saluted them with her paper coffee cup and left.
Long distance families just didn’t work. Keegan would have to return to his. She’d have to learn to enjoy the sex while she had it and not bother becoming any more involved.
She’d always been a free spirit. She would manage somehow. The tears in her eyes were just left over from Susannah’s tragic story.
“You were supposed to come alone,” Valdis whispered, hiding the black book in her long veil. “No one should know who has the book.”
“That can be arranged.” Keegan held up his hand to Harvey, halting him in his tracks. “Step back, old boy. Private conversation required.”
“I’ll take the goat path over there and head on down then.” Harvey saluted with his staff and ambled off in a different direction.
Even when Harvey was out of sight, the black-garbed crone sat stiffly, hiding the journal. “I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. You said the books belonged in your library.”
“Malcolm journals do. I don’t know if that’s what you have.” He was almost certain it was, but he bolted down his excitement.
“Lucinda wasn’t really a Malcolm,” Val said, looking into the distance. “She just called herself that to protect her family.”
“None of us are really Malcolms any longer. Names are irrelevant. Blood lines are what counts, and Lucinda’s family is a direct descendant from the original Malcolms. I’m not sure why any of them would have removed a journal from the library, though. It’s regarded as dangerous to do so.” Rather than tower over the older woman, Keegan leaned back on a shorter boulder and waited, hiding his impatience. If she meant to hand him what he wanted, she deserved his attention.
“I had wondered.” She produced the volume again, rubbing her hand over the faded leather. “I think, perhaps, the book is jinxed.”
Her hands were not those of an old woman, and he remembered she was Sam’s aunt, not old. The spooky drapery just made her seem ancient.
“I’ve not had experience with journals that have escaped the library. I can’t imagine my ancestors deliberately jinxing the journals, though. Still, my family is pretty spooky. Things happen that we can’t always explain.” Like turning rocks to diamonds, he thought grimly.
She nodded. “Daisy didn’t want it to ever see the light of day again, but I don’t think I can protect it as she did. If you can return it to where it belongs, I will sleep easier.”
Finally, she lifted the book and handed it over. Breathing deeply, Keegan clasped the slender volume in his large mitt. “Thank you. I hope you don’t believe Daisy died because of this book.”
He wanted to flip it open right then and there, but he slid it into an inside pocket of his hiking vest, one beneath his sling, completely concealing it even when the sling wasn’t fastened.
“Daisy knew she would die, and she was ready. She tried to protect all of us before she left. She was always the heart of this land. I’m hoping Mariah will stay to take her place. Daisy believed she would.”
Keegan gritted his molars, fearing this was a warning. He’d been vaguely considering ways of returning Mariah to the world of travel he lived in, but if she was needed here. . . “Why Mariah?”
“This land once belonged to her people. Mariah’s ancestors lay beneath this ground, enslaved by missionaries, slaughtered by settlers. Her clan was a peaceful one. They had mystics long before your Malcolms did. Daisy was descended from them as well.”
“How much of this does Mariah know?” Keegan asked out of curiosity.
“I can’t say how much her grandmother told her. We’ve left her to find her own way, hoping she’d fly back when she was ready. And she did. That’s enough, for now. With Daisy’s departure, she’s all we have left.”
Ah, Keegan got it. She was giving him the book in hopes he’d go home and leave Mariah behind. He ought to. He needed to. He just wasn’t ready.
“Do you really think Mariah should be condemned to the life that Daisy lived?” he asked. “Shouldn’t she be free to fly as she wishes?”
Val clasped her hands in her lap. “What will be, will be.”
“That’s a hell of an attitude. What will be is what we make it be. I thank you for the return of the book. If there’s anything I can do for you, I will be happy to do so. But I will not hold Mariah back from whatever she wants. She deserves our respect.” He stomped off before he said anything worse.
He’d never had a volatile disposition until he’d met Mariah. She was ripping off his armor, and he didn’t like it—but he had to admit that he was feeling more fully alive than he had in years.
Harvey was scanning the cavern’s wall when Keegan arrived. “I didn’t hear any wailing, so I assume our resident death goddess wasn’t telling you the limits of your mortality?”
“No, she was trying to persuade me to make Mariah stay here, as if I had anything to say about it.” Keegan headed straight for the narrow back of the crevasse where he’d found the most promising quartz earlier.
“The old ladies have a habit of being right, or at least, getting what they want. So be careful.” Harvey tapped the crystal head of his staff along the wall as he followed Keegan.
“We have that at home. Women worry. It’s what they do.” Keegan stepped back and let Harvey proceed along the wall that had caught his interest.
Harvey halted in the same place Keegan had. “There’s a streak of energy, right along here, isn’t there?” He traced his staff along a line parallel to the ground.
; “I don’t sense energy the way you do, but the molecular structure through there is irregular. It’s almost as if. . .” Keegan ran his hand along the broad line of vibrating crystals. “It’s almost as if they’re waiting for me to tell them what I want them to be. And that’s just crazy.”
“Can you use that little pick in your belt to pry out a few stones? Is there some way to compare them with the crystals we already have?”
“Normally, yes. With these. . . Do we want to chance a mountain tumbling on our heads? This is about where I felt as if I were putting my hand through a wall.” Keegan warily pressed one hand against the long streak. Perhaps using both hands last time had caused the anomaly. Malleable, he concluded.
“The energy feels stable and neutral to me,” Harvey reported. “Over by the lodge, there are whole fields of negative vibrations. This. . . seems benign. Not that I’m any expert, mind you. I never felt vibrations until I came to Hillvale.”
“What brought you to Hillvale?” Keegan didn’t really care. He just wanted to keep Harvey talking while he assessed the situation. The streak ran deeper into the mountain, but he was losing his sense of direction as he squeezed down the narrow crevasse.
“Back in the sixties, my grandfather used to live on the commune. His family owned land up here. The family tales say that the crystals are supposed to help us access our talents, so I came looking for someone to help me understand the ones I inherited.”
“Only to find everyone else as puzzled as you,” Keegan said. “I’m starting to recognize that feeling.”
“Yeah, well, I’m thinking the crystals are what you make of them, but that’s a bit hard to prove. Do you think they pried crystals from this cave?”
“Some of them, not all. I suspect the original stash came from my family, centuries ago. If they stayed with someone who has my ability, that person may have been looking for more like them. I have no way of determining if any that you or Teddy own are the originals or if they were created here or purchased elsewhere. A crystal is a crystal. The origins might be detected if they contain certain types of flaws, but my knowledge is limited.” Keegan gestured at the malleable wall. “Find me the most stable area you can, and I’ll risk prying loose some stones. Maybe if I don’t touch them, they’ll stay solid.”
“I can’t tell that any are more stable than others. I’d probably avoid anything that looked red and go for the blues but it’s hard to see color here.” Harvey ran a flashlight beam further into the crevasse. “It glitters, that’s all I can say.”
“All right, I have my sample boxes and markers. Let’s do it this way—I’ll take a sample about every ten inches along this streak.” Keegan swung his pick, removed a fist-sized chunk, placed it in a box, marked it, and put a corresponding mark on the wall. “You keep track of the samples like this as I go.”
They worked their way inward until they reached a narrow wedge neither of them could ease through and Keegan’s bad arm ached like hell.
“I think we have enough samples for now,” Keegan decided. Besides, the book was burning a hole in his vest. If this was Lucinda’s compendium, it hadn’t been in the family library for decades, maybe longer. It wasn’t the one Bri had taken and wouldn’t unlock the key to his father’s innocence, but it might take him one step closer.
Keegan led the way to the opening, carrying a considerably heavier backpack. When a shadow blocked the exit, Keegan stepped in front of Harvey, shielding the slighter man with his bulk.
“Who gave you permission to take from my land?” a menacing voice asked.
Twenty-four
July 12: Thursday, mid-morning
“Keegan told me to hide his computer,” Aaron called from his desk in the antique store as Mariah entered.
Shit. Feeling useless and without anchor, she stopped at a display of the pottery Teddy’s family had collected. “I just want as complete a list of people who lived at the commune as I can put together. I don’t suppose any of your books has that?” She gestured at the shelves lining the walls. This was an antique store, but Aaron’s real passion was books.
“No one has that.” He set down an ornate silver urn he’d been polishing. “I can’t imagine it can be googled either. It wasn’t as if they kept records. How would a list help?”
Mariah grimaced, forced to put instincts into words. “Daisy was part of the original commune. Thompson’s family was a more recent part of the commune. He tried to break into Daisy’s vault for a reason, and now he’s dead. We know the people with red eyes in the portraits often turn out to be criminals. It seems to make some weird sense that it all goes back to the commune.”
“I thought Daisy’s sketch vaguely resembled Keegan’s relation. Go ask the reporters about Trevor Gabriel. Journalists love a good scam artist. Let them do your research.” Aaron put down the urn, crossed his arms, and leaned back against a wall of drawers.
Mariah figured his position concealed Keegan’s computer. She had been hoping if she didn’t delve too far, she could handle a quick internet search, as she’d done in looking up Trevor’s image. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t worked with computers for years before going off the ledge. But she wasn’t explaining her limitations to Aaron. “I’m not hanging out with journalists. And focusing all suspicion on one person is bad policy. Don’t you ever watch TV mysteries?”
“No, I don’t. And you still can’t have the computer. I don’t know what it is with you and computers, but you have no right to invade other people’s property.”
She shouldn’t. Like an addict, she knew she shouldn’t. But she was restless and uneasy, and touching stones and talking to ghosts didn’t work for her. Computers were all she had.
“You should have gone with Keegan,” she said, roaming Aaron’s shop, hoping for inspiration. “You could have felt the rocks, tried to understand what happened there.”
“I did that,” he said. “The killer didn’t touch anything. Only Thompson left fresh impressions. And after everyone stomped through that area yesterday, there isn’t a chance of my finding anything coherent. You might as well ask Cass to reach beyond the veil and talk to Daisy.”
“Daisy was pure essence,” Mariah said with certainty. “She moved on very quickly. She’s with us in an incorporeal sense, but you’ll not pry any more out of her in that state than you did in a corporeal one. It’s hard to explain.”
“But makes sense, in its own way. My mother used to call the mentally challenged the Blessed and the Innocent.” Aaron returned to his polishing.
“Like evil and sin exists only in functional brains. I can buy that. It’s hard for the mentally incapacitated to plan two murders, much less carry them out and not get caught.” Mariah debated how much she dared say. Keegan needed to go home and help his family. She needed to crucify Daisy’s murderer. Something had to give. It might as well be her.
“You can hold the keyboard, and I can just tell you how to search,” she suggested. “I don’t employ the usual browsers. I write programs for a living. I know how to work from inside your operating system.”
Maybe if she did it this way, without touching the computer herself, she could stick to the straight and narrow and not be tempted down the rabbit hole. Maybe.
Aaron looked suspicious. “Do I need to call Walker?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “If you control the keyboard, I can’t do anything dangerous. You want to find Daisy’s killer, don’t you?”
“Damned right, I do. But I also want to nail the creep who made that fake pottery, jeopardized our exhibition, and swindled Teddy’s generous parents. I want a lot of things. That doesn’t mean I’ll do anything illegal to get them.”
“I thought we’d decided Lonnie Thompson created the fraudulent pieces? Are these the ones Keegan said were fakes?” She circled back to the table of colorful, ugly ceramics. “I can check Lonnie’s invoices, sales, and trace the ceramics he sold,” she suggested, like an alcoholic promising only one little drink. “If you have some way of proving they�
��re fakes, you can help the police nail them.”
He finally looked interested. “I tried to persuade the sheriff to do that, but they’re understaffed. He’s more interested in nailing Lonnie Thompson for murdering his wife.”
“He has a point. He doesn’t care about rich fools buying fraudulent junk. But Lonnie is a fairly simple search compared to locating commune members. There were no computers, no records, back then. It will take researching every newspaper reference to every well known member, hoping for additional names and contacts. And then tracking families. Now that I think about it, I should probably take a chill pill and go home and sleep on it.”
She really needed her hands on the computer for her inner hawk to flit down the electronic byways. She couldn’t tell that to Aaron.
The door rattled and a customer entered, distracting Aaron from any reply. While he turned his attention to the newcomer, Mariah eyed the drawer he’d been guarding.
Why hunt for Keegan’s computer when Aaron’s was sitting there open, just waiting to be used? She inched in the direction of his desk, hearing the siren call of electrons whizzing over invisible airwaves. All she had to do was capture just one. . .
“Say, don’t I know you from somewhere?” a woman’s voice asked from the front of the store.
Mariah froze. She had no reason to believe the question was for her, but every reason to fear that it was. She eased toward the exit in back, hoping—
Aaron’s voice murmured something reassuring. The woman insisted, “No, no, I’m certain. If you’ll just excuse me. . . Miss de Cervantes?”
Behind Mariah, furniture scraped the old floor as the woman pushed past Aaron. Without need of more warning, Mariah bolted out the back.
She slipped past delivery entrances, passing the café, finally reaching the safety of Teddy’s fenced backyard at the end of town. She only needed to cross the highway to run up the lane to her cottage—but she didn’t want to lead anyone to her lair.
Inside the fencing, Syd’s kids were chattering. Teddy would have a computer.
Crystal Vision Page 22
