Dead Man Talking

by Jana DeLeon

  “I heard. The old fool needs to sell that place and get a one-story.”

  “Yes, well, she’s been doing some remodeling at the lighthouse and I thought it would be nice to get her a rosebush for her sitting garden. I’ve never seen roses as beautiful as yours, so I thought I’d ask your advice on what to get.”

  The clipping finally stopped and he stared intently at her, as if trying to determine if she was serious or if her words were all part of some nefarious plot to steal one of his roses and run for the hills. She tried to look as pleasant, earnest, and honest as she was capable of and after several uncomfortable seconds, he finally sniffed and nodded.

  “A bush is always a better gift than a vase of flowers,” he said. “If properly cared for it can produce beautiful blooms long beyond the life of its owner. I don’t know Sapphire’s skill level, so I would suggest starting with a simpler variety to care for and one that will thrive in sandy soil, perhaps Rosa rugosa, commonly referred to as the beach rose. If she wants to invest more time in her landscaping and less in those godforsaken animals she’s filled her house up with, then she can add something more challenging.”

  “I take it you’re not a fan of cats?”

  “Of course not! I’m allergic and they can tear up a flower bed in a matter of minutes with their quarreling. A darn nuisance if you ask me.”

  “They can be a handful. Hey, do you still have that old black Cadillac? That car was in perfect condition.”

  “Unfortunately, no. Some drunken hooligans ran into it when I was parked at the post office. Insurance said it wasn’t worth fixing. I argued, of course, but couldn’t change their mind. I have a pickup truck now. It’s not as comfortable, but it’s better for hauling plants.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. It was a really nice car. Well, thank you for your time and your advice, Mr. Simmons. I’ll let you get back to your roses.”

  He had already returned to his work before the first two words left her mouth and didn’t so much as glance up as she began to walk away. As soon as her back was turned, she blew out a breath. Holy crap! Disgruntled old Simmons might be one of the thieves. The watery eyes and runny nose could be from coming in contact with Sapphire’s cats, and he drove a pickup truck. She just needed to verify the color, but for the moment, Simmons was at the top of the list.

  As she walked down the sidewalk, her cell phone rang. The number in the display had her back and neck tightening. She stopped walking and took the call from her boss, praying he wasn’t about to tell her things she didn’t want to hear.

  “Parker,” he said. “When will you be back?”

  She knew there was no point, but she still bristled. “My aunt is doing well, thank you for asking.”

  “Uh, that’s nice. So you’ll be on the next plane to LA then.”

  “I’m afraid not. She’s still in the hospital and I can’t leave until she’s released and I’m certain she’s okay being alone.”

  There was silence on the other end for a bit and she steeled herself for what she was certain was coming.

  “The position opened up. Pamela’s already interviewed and you know what that means. My bosses want to close a deal as quickly as possible and they won’t even consider you without talking to you.”

  Zoe struggled to fight back the tears that were forming. “They won’t consider me anyway unless I’m offering up the same skill set as Pamela.”

  The office rumor was that Pamela had made the rounds in the executive lounge a time or two. She was blonde and plastic with fake boobs and a fake smile. She didn’t have half the knowledge Zoe had and didn’t seem to care about it, but then apparently, she didn’t have to.

  “Isn’t there something you can do?” Zoe asked. “You know how long I’ve been waiting for this opportunity and how hard I’ve been working.”

  He sighed. “If I had my way, we’d have fired that idiot brother-in-law of the CEO and you’d have been on the air years ago. But you know how it is.”

  The resignation in his voice had her tears to the point of bursting loose. Her boss was so abrupt people often took him as rude, but he knew talent. And before the station had been bought out by a big conglomerate, he’d had an excellent staff with great credentials, but those days were long gone. Somewhere deep down, Zoe had always known it would come to this. That she was grasping for something that no longer existed. That politics and who you knew, biblically and otherwise, were what got you ahead…not actual talent.

  But it still sucked to hear it.

  “Zoe?” he asked. “You still there?”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t leave.”

  “I would have been surprised to hear you say anything else. I’m really sorry, Zoe.”

  “So am I,” she said.

  As soon as she disconnected, the dam burst.

  Chapter Nine

  Zoe had a good cry in her rental car and got a few concerned stares from festivalgoers, but fortunately, no one had felt the need to knock on the window and ask her what was wrong. She wiped her nose with a napkin from the coffee shop and checked her face in the rearview mirror. Her eyes and nose looked as bad as Mr. Simmons’s had. She pulled a tube of tinted moisturizer out of her purse and rubbed it on, then reassessed. The blotchy red spots still showed through the light cream but it was a little better. At least some of the redness in her eyes was starting to fade away.

  Maybe by the time she got to Harriet Wilson’s house, she’d look semi-normal.

  She started the car and drove a couple blocks away from downtown to the house where Harriet’s family had lived for three generations. It was an old Victorian and had been painted an old and unattractive shade of yellow when Zoe lived in Everlasting, and as she pulled up to the curb, she saw that hadn’t changed. In fact, Harriet had doubled down on the ugly yellow because two men were outside painting.

  Zoe got out of the car and headed up the walkway to the house. The two men painting both stopped working to give her an up-and-down. She gave them a quick nod and picked up her pace. She was no stranger to being stared at and had even had her share of catcalls, but something about those looking her over created the strong sense of needing to shower. She stepped onto the porch and rang the doorbell. There were footsteps inside and the door flew open, and Harriet Wilson glared at her.

  “You’re interrupting my game shows,” Harriet said. “What do you want?”

  “Mrs. Wilson, I’m Zoe Parker. I don’t know if you remember me.”

  Harriet narrowed her eyes. “Sapphire Parker’s niece. I can’t imagine what you’re doing on my doorstep because if it has anything to do with Sapphire, it can’t possibly be important or relevant.”

  “I’m actually here to ask you about some of the history of Everlasting. I know your family goes back to the beginning, as does Sapphire’s. I’m documenting some of the town’s legends and stories of origin and thought you might have some historical documents that reference how Sapphire’s ancestors brought magic to the town.”

  If Harriet’s head could have spun around on her neck like The Exorcist, Zoe was certain it would have. Her entire face turned red and she began to sputter.

  “That woman should be burned at the stake for her lies! My family is the source of the magic and she knows it. I have the proof if you’re interested in seeing what a liar your aunt is.”

  “I, uh, yes. I would love to clear things up once and for all. I really want this document to be accurate.”

  “Then get in here and I’ll show you.”

  Harriet let the door go and stalked across the living room muttering. Zoe caught the door before it closed and hurried after her. For an old broad, Harriet could move. She disappeared through a doorway at the back of the living room, and Zoe followed her through and into a surprisingly pleasant kitchen, given the surliness of the owner.

  Harriet stood at a bookshelf along the back wall of a sitting room just off the kitchen, looking over a set of old leather-bound books. Finally, she located the one she was l
ooking for and yanked it off the shelf and carried it into the kitchen, where she plopped it on the counter.

  “Do you want to sit down?” Zoe asked, worried that the red coloring in Harriet’s face hadn’t yet subsided.

  “Hell, no, I don’t want to sit down. You’re not going to be in my house long enough to warrant it.”

  Harriet opened the book and started flipping through the pages. Zoe leaned in to look and saw handwriting. It was a journal, and it looked old.

  “Here.” Harriet thrust the book at Zoe, pointing to a page. “Read that.”

  * * *

  I managed to slip the stone in my pocket when the pirates weren’t looking. They threw the others overboard and I was certain I was next. I didn’t know if I could survive the sea and make it to land, but I had to try. Not just to save myself but to make sure the emerald was not lost beneath the sea forever.

  I swam for so long I lost consciousness. As I slipped into darkness, I remember my last thought was of my failure.

  I awakened on the beach, unaware of how much time had passed. A few of my fellow travelers were there as well, the only survivors. Immediately, I checked my pocket, worried that the emerald had slipped out during my bitter struggle with the tumultuous water, and almost cried with relief when I felt it still in place. I knew then that we were meant to bring the stone here. That the magic it carried within was already working to create something special. Something found nowhere else on earth.

  I couldn’t risk keeping it with me. I had to hide it somewhere that no one would ever look. Where it could be safe forever, permeating the ground and bringing life into whatever it reached.

  * * *

  Zoe flipped the page, but that was the last entry in the journal. “What happened after that?” she asked.

  Harriet yanked the book from her and slammed it closed. “He died. But he succeeded in hiding the stone, and it’s remained hidden all this time and will remain that way. The magic protects it.”

  “And it was a relative of yours who wrote the journal?”

  “Of course. His name was Reginald Hatch.”

  Zoe frowned. Somewhere in the back of her mind was a distant memory of that name. Then it hit her.

  “I’ve seen that name,” Zoe said. “In Sapphire’s family Bible. Hey, you two must be related.”

  Harriet’s eyes widened and she clutched the kitchen counter as if she were going to pass out. “Get out. I won’t hear those lies in my own house. You’re just like your aunt. You can’t admit the truth, even when it’s right in your face.”

  Zoe didn’t even bother to argue. There was no point and besides, Harriet didn’t have anything else to show her. “Thank you for your time,” she said, and headed out of the house.

  She could feel the two guys painting staring at her as she walked down the sidewalk and hurried away. One of them whistled, and she kept walking. A lady pulling weeds at the house next to Harriet’s shook her head.

  “I don’t know why she hired those two hooligans,” the woman said. “The Belmont brothers have never been anything but trouble.”

  Zoe forced herself not to turn around and look, because she knew they were staring right at her. Instead, she increased her pace and kept going, her gaze locked on the sidewalk in front of her. She could hear them laughing as she walked away.

  They heard her identify herself to Harriet, so they knew she was Sapphire’s niece. Was that why they’d whistled? To unnerve her? Because if so, it had worked. The brothers were creepy, and so were the whistling and the laughing. She wanted to put as much distance between herself them as quickly as possible.

  Dane was cleaning the grout bucket when Zoe pulled up, the engine of her econobox whining as it turned in the driveway, going way faster than was probably advisable. He rounded the corner in time to see her jump out of the car and hurry for the front door. Something was wrong. He knew that look and that walk, and neither was a good thing.

  He rinsed off his hands and went in the back door and found her in the kitchen, strangling a bottle of water like it owed her money.

  “Let me help you,” he said as he took the water from her and removed the cap. He handed it back, and she took a big gulp.

  “I promise I didn’t step on the grout,” she said. “I could tell it was fresh. I walked in between.”

  “The grout is fine,” he said, “but you’re not. What’s wrong?”

  “This thing happened and I got nervous, then mad at myself for being nervous, and…I don’t know.”

  “Tell me.”

  She took another drink of water, then told him everything that had happened since she’d left that morning. When she got to the part about the Belmont brothers, he could feel anger coursing through him.

  “They had no business messing with you like that,” he said.

  “I probably made it into something that it wasn’t. I mean, it’s not like men haven’t whistled at me before. It’s just that it felt creepy. You know, like I needed to rush away from there and rinse with bleach, then shower for a day or two.”

  “That’s a pretty strong feeling. The woman I used to know always told me that feelings like that shouldn’t be ignored because they might save your life.”

  “That woman was a pain in the ass.”

  “That’s a whole other topic, but on this particular subject, I don’t think she was wrong.”

  She stared at him for several seconds, then blew out a breath. “Fine. I was right. They’re weird and probably dangerous, and it would probably be smart for women—not just me—to stay away from them. But I scurried away like a chicken and that pisses me off.”

  He smiled. “I bet it does.”

  “With everything that’s going on, I just don’t feel like myself.”

  He got the impression her worries went further than just the situation with Sapphire. “Is something else wrong?”

  “Nothing you can help with. I got a call from my boss earlier. Things are heating up in LA.”

  “I assume this is about that promotion you want?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m really sorry. I know how badly you want this.”

  She forced a smile. “It’s all right. It’s not like I’m out of a job or anything, just looking a bit sketchy on the promotion. I know people at other stations. I’ll put out some feelers when I get back to LA. There are some smaller markets that would appreciate my education and experience.”

  “Of course there are,” he said. Dane didn’t know anything about California news stations, but whatever was going on had Zoe miserable.

  “Anyway, enough about that,” Zoe said. “The important things are Mr. Simmons is allergic to cats and is in the throes of a reaction right now, the Belmont brothers are creepy and probably capable of anything, and there might have really been an emerald which may or may not have been hidden in Everlasting.”

  “But we still have no idea where it might be hidden, and Harriet probably has the only recorded reference to it.”

  “That ended abruptly because he died.” Zoe sighed. “I don’t suppose we could take out an ad in the local newspaper and say all that.”

  “To what end? Even if the thieves believed that Sapphire didn’t have a map, the logical place for them to think the emerald is hidden is still the lighthouse.”

  “This sucks,” she said. “I’ve completely lost my ability to think about this any longer. I’m going to go upstairs and make some notes so that I don’t forget any of this, then I’m going take a shower until there’s no more hot water. Maybe that will help clear my mind and erase the itchy feeling I got from the Belmont brothers.”

  “That’s a good idea. I’m leaving in about half an hour but I’ll lock up everything before I go.”

  “Are you still going to the Magic Eight Ball?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know that I can find out much, but I’ll try to get some info on Simmons and the Belmont brothers. If Simmons is one of the guys, he’s got a partner. Maybe I can get an idea of who that mi
ght be.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  He hesitated, wanting to suggest he stay at the lighthouse that night, but one look at Zoe’s body language and he knew she’d never go for it. She was too stressed, angry, upset, and tired to even entertain being closed up with him all night.

  “Yep. First thing tomorrow. Call if you need anything and be sure to pull the dead bolts when you come back downstairs.”

  “I will. Thanks.”

  He nodded and headed out the back door to finish putting away his tools. He hoped he could find out something tonight that helped. Not that he was counting on it, but seeing Zoe so dejected made him ache for her. If he thought it would help, he’d fly to LA himself and punch someone out to get her that job. But that situation was completely out of his control. The one with Sapphire, however, he could help with.

  He just had to figure out how.

  Zoe stepped out of the shower and dried off, then wrapped a towel around her wet hair and headed into the bedroom for clothes. The steady stream of hot water had done wonders for her stiff body but unfortunately hadn’t even put a dent in clearing up her confused mind. Sapphire, her job, her feelings for Dane, were all cobbled together in one big tangled mess. What she needed to do was focus, and since she couldn’t focus on three things at once, and one of them was a distraction she didn’t want to focus on at all, she needed to direct all of her attention to fixing things for Sapphire.

  It wasn’t as though she was out of a job and would be starving somewhere under a bridge. She could return to LA and step right back in the same job she’d had when she left. The only difference was, she’d be feeding all her educated findings to a bimbo instead of a douche. Not really a step up or down. Anyway, the whole job thing could wait until she was back in California.

  The Dane thing could wait forever. That was territory she’d never planned to revisit when she left six years ago, and she couldn’t see any reason to bring more aggravation and conflict into her life now. Realizing she still had feelings for him had been surprising and depressing but that didn’t mean she had to change anything. Time would fix it all.