Sapphire Nights

by Patricia Rice

  Daisy popped out of the concealed door, her frizzy gray hair coated in dust. Ignoring Cass, she strode straight past the gathering Lucys, to her line of lamassu. Walker noticed the gathering Lucys deliberately placed themselves between the door and the Nulls, hiding it from view.

  Sam emerged next, with a hopping Valdis on her arm. Walker thought he’d never seen anything more beautiful than Sam’s smile as he hobbled up to greet her.

  “You’re alive,” she said, joy lighting her eyes like blue sapphires. Just the sight jump-started his long dead heart.

  Someone took Val’s arm, leaving Sam’s free. In heady relief, Walker gathered Sam against him, offering prayers to this universe of insanity that had returned her to him, hearty and whole. He drank in the wonder of her heart beating against his, of her arms wrapping around him as if she could never let go.

  And the adrenalin racing through him like an amphetamine high found a focus. He was almost light-headed with joy as his terror seeped away. That didn’t mean a new set of fears didn’t take its place, but this was the kind of anxiousness that formed when someone you loved was endangered.

  “I need you,” she whispered, clinging to him as she never had before. “I spent these past hours with you in my every thought. It was almost like having Cass in my head again, but better. I knew you would come.”

  Walker wanted to jump for joy and carry her away and make love and forget the world. He nibbled her ear and ran his hand down her back and pulled her closer. “I couldn’t protect you,” he protested, releasing some of the horror of these last moments.

  “You don’t need to,” she told him, hugging him harder. “I am responsible for me.”

  Sam said that heroically, trying to absolve Walker from his overactive sense of responsibility, but having him in her arms. . . she wanted to weep for joy. “I thought I might never see you again,” she murmured, giving in to tears.

  Her heroic lawman clutched her tighter, covering any part of her face he could reach with his kisses. “You want to imagine how I felt, watching a mountain tumbling down on you? I’m not sure I could survive your loss.”

  And there it was—they’d both suffered devastating losses. How did they find the courage to love again? She lifted her face to give him a salty kiss, then murmured, “Then you know how I feel. If we’re only given these fleeting moments. . . shouldn’t we grab the joy while we can?”

  Walker shuddered and rested his cheek on her head. “It’s more than just sex, isn’t it? That’s what scares the crap out of me.”

  She smiled through her tears. “You can afford to lose a little crap. I want to believe what we feel is real and not just a result of terror, but I’m too shaky to think straight. Give me time.”

  “I’d give you the stars, if I could.” Walker glanced over his shoulder to see if they could get away.

  In the dusk, the mob of Lucys was gathering brush and blocking view of the door. The sheriff and the town Nulls were further up the hill, playing with ATVs and shotguns, going after the snakes and climbing up after Gump.

  With decision, he shed the need to follow up on the killer. “Gump most likely killed my father for the same reason he blew up the mountain—money. He can go to a hell of his own making.”

  She nodded in understanding. “We can’t help up there. I want you to see something before the Lucys hide it all again.”

  “I’ll gladly follow you anywhere.” Walker took Sam’s hand, relishing the warmth and life and fearing what lay ahead for his damaged heart. “Just don’t ever do that to me again.”

  “Do what? Stay alive?” she asked, blinking and feigning innocence as she led him down the cold stairs. “Did we have an earthquake?”

  “Of the human kind.” That’s what he liked, maybe loved, about Sam. She might be a starry-eyed Lucy, but she stayed grounded. His heart still hadn’t slowed down, but he flicked on his flashlight to see what she wanted him to see. The beam glinted off a crazy construction of mirrors and crystals. Paintings were stacked against walls and hung anywhere that had space.

  She briefly leaned into him, letting their mutual relief calm their racing pulses. As if afraid to get too close, she kissed his cheek, then pointed at a gallery of small portraits. “Look, that’s Xavier, when he was younger. His eyes are a lovely brown. He must have visited here back when it was a commune.”

  She’d brought him down to look at an ancient painting? “What am I supposed to see?”

  “No red,” she said inexplicably, dragging him on. “The small portraits are Lance’s style. Daisy probably stole them from his studio. He’s not very original, but he’s obsessive and a good copyist. Look, doesn’t this look like a younger Gump?”

  She pointed at an arrogant-looking blond man in his early thirties, with his coat pushed back and his thumbs hooked in his trouser pockets. Even then, he wore expensive suits. There was something peculiar about the expression. Fascinated by the way her mind worked, Walker leaned over and studied it closer. “Why are his eyes red?”

  “Evil. He’s infected with evil. Most of these paintings down here are portraits of evil. This is Daisy’s way of burying them.” Sam gestured at the bunker. “Let’s go back up before they lock us in.”

  She grabbed the small portrait of Xavier and took Walker’s hand.

  To hell with portraits and evil. What was important was Sam’s trusting hand in his—and that they were alive to see another day. He didn’t want to waste another precious moment without her.

  “I’d give you the stars, if I could.”

  Sam replayed Walker’s words in her head as she showered. She longed for family. She wanted to believe she was the one who could fill the empty place in his heart, make a family with him, build the life they both craved. There hadn’t been time enough to grasp what she was feeling, but it was much stronger than sex. She could easily love a man as thoughtful and caring as Walker. But was she twisting his promise to suit her needs?

  Exhausted, rattled, and thrilled that Walker had come for her, Sam dreamed an impossible future while scrubbing off a mountain’s worth of dust. How could they make a life here, where her only family lived, after what they’d just experienced?

  She still couldn’t process what had happened. Had Daisy’s lamassu actually stopped an avalanche? Had the positive energy she’d felt in her staff been real or just her imagination?

  Was there a study she could conduct to test physical energy around what everyone called a “spiritual” vortex? What if ghosts were part of that spirit energy?

  That’s how tired her mind was.

  When her bathroom door opened and a filthy, disheveled Walker entered, she forgot thinking entirely. He’d been magnificent out there today, with his shirt stripped off, his shoulders and biceps bulging and covered in sweat while he shoveled and hauled with the rescue crews. But inside that muscled body existed an inquiring mind and a huge heart, a heart he was currently protecting from harm after a merciless bruising.

  She didn’t know if she could heal him, but she welcomed him into the shower with all she had to offer. Until Walker had come along, she’d felt like a lost child. Despite his ridiculous need to protect, he made her realize she was a grown woman capable of accomplishing anything she set her mind on. Her mind wasn’t on anything except him right now.

  They made passionate, bone-jarring love in the shower, then tumbled between the sheets in sheer exhaustion.

  “Did Mr. Gump survive?” Sam asked in a sleepy whisper.

  Walker tugged her into his arms. “Not long enough. I couldn’t wish that level of agony on anyone. What the rocks didn’t crush, the rattlers poisoned. We didn’t even try to make sense of his curses, although he seemed to be blaming Xavier and half the world for not doing as told. He wouldn’t admit wrong, even at the end.”

  “Proof he was a self-serving ass, but not that he killed your father,” she said, understanding. “I’m sorry. Do you have enough information to lay the case to rest?”

  He hugged her closer. “Cass
took Xavier in, promising to work her voodoo and see that he stays clean. We’re hoping he’ll talk. And we’re thinking Gump has been threatening Francois about the gun. We’re hoping he will speak up. We’ll see. But other than details, I have a good idea what happened and why. It’s enough.”

  She nodded against his broad shoulder. She could already hear the distance in his voice. He was thinking of the time ahead, when he returned to his real world. This was the point where she had to make herself vulnerable, strip away the immature Sam, and become the woman he needed.

  She kissed his shoulder and tilted her head to kiss his bristly jaw. “I’m not ready to give you up,” she murmured. “I don’t think what we have is just physical.”

  He hugged her closer. “That’s what I’m afraid of. You make me want to live again—which terrifies me. I should let you walk away, find a better man, but I want to find a way to keep you. I want to see what we can build together. If that’s selfish, I won’t apologize.”

  “It’s not selfish to follow our dreams, our instincts.” She snuggled against him, reassured that she wasn’t the only one dreaming here. “As long as we’re honest with each other, we can do this one day at a time.”

  “Come with me to LA then. You won’t have to be a waitress. I can take care of you while you decide what you want to do next.”

  She punched his biceps instead of kissing it. “I can’t believe you just said that.”

  Chapter 33

  Morning, June 24

  * * *

  Striding into Hillvale the next morning, Walker rubbed his bruised arm and studied the gardens of colorful flowers decorating the boardwalk and every vacant alley. Heavily blooming pink roses had seemingly sprung up overnight, spilling over what had been a broken, faded fence by the town hall. In addition to the playful barrels on the boardwalk, baskets displayed an array of blossoms dangling from the sagging overhangs of several stores.

  Sam had turned the tired town from faded gray to a bouquet of vibrant color and fragrance—just as she was bringing him back to life. If he believed in magic, he would call her enchanted.

  The men waiting inside the town hall were not in the least magical.

  Walker had persuaded the sheriff that Xavier and Francois were more likely to talk if they weren’t intimidated by badges and uniforms. Monty was there as a witness. He’d brought in more chairs from the lodge, and the two older men had aligned themselves in front of the mayor’s desk. Walker pulled the last chair to one side so he could watch faces.

  Xavier no longer wore a green jacket. Someone had provided him with a navy blazer that he wore over an open-necked white shirt. Clean-shaven, back straight, with his graying hair trimmed, he almost looked like a lawyer again.

  Francois had removed the epaulets from his livery, but his brass buttons still shone with polish. His face was lined and yellowed by years of smoking, and he hadn’t done more with his thinning gray hair than tug it into a rubber band at his nape. His brown-stained fingers shook as he reached for a cigarette that wasn’t there.

  Monty had dressed casually, sporting a short-sleeved shirt—a blue one with a fancy collar and expensive detailing that had been probably been purchased in a Monterey boutique. Kennedys couldn’t even do casual properly. The mayor glanced at Walker, waiting for him to lead the discussion.

  “All I want is details for my report, gentlemen,” Walker said. He wasn’t wearing his uniform, but he’d chosen his blue, collared shirt and khakis to give him a measure of authority. He addressed the lawyer first. “We’d like to close the case with no loose ends.”

  He pulled out his recorder. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to record while we talk. Xavier, do you mind if we start with you? I think you’ve been familiar with Hillvale for as long as Monty and Kurt, am I right?”

  The rental agent looked relieved to be able to speak. He hesitated, apparently seeking a starting place. “I came up here with their father during spring breaks, before Geoff married. Hillvale had quite a reputation as a happening place.” He looked almost startled that he’d said that. “The commune was no more than a group of starving artists, and the farm was dilapidated. We mostly came to do drugs. Ingersson always had a supply.”

  “How much did you know of Geoffrey Kennedy’s desire to acquire more land and create a resort town?” Walker asked, not looking at Monty.

  “Everything.” Xavier shrugged. “The shops were empty. Rats ran loose. The Ingerssons smoked up anything they earned. By the time I had my law degree, we’d already started buying out people who wanted to leave. Our families had money, and property up here wasn’t worth anything then. It was all perfectly legal.”

  Walker waited, letting the older man gather his thoughts. This many words out of the spaced-out lawyer was a miracle in itself. Cass had done some serious mumbo-jumbo on his head.

  He couldn’t believe that Cass had magic potions or hypnosis to influence witnesses, but Xavier had changed overnight. Or maybe he’d just dried out. That ought to worry him, but oddly, it didn’t. He’d seen what Cass had done to Sam—and what the Lucys had done to an avalanche. He still didn’t believe in magic, but there was something at work in Hillvale that he’d never seen in the city. He’d settle for believing in geological energy for now.

  “But after a while, Geoff got impatient. He knew Alan Gump from school. Gump persuaded him to partner with his father’s Commercial development team and. . .” Xavier wrinkled his forehead. “I’m not sure when it became intense. Geoff hired me to work with his mortgage company. Gump taught us how his family applied aggressive sales pitches. Eventually, they became borderline coercion. We went after the shop owners to borrow and improve their buildings, even though we knew they couldn’t pay back the loans.” He hesitated, gathering his thoughts.

  That Gump had been involved from the start set off alarm bells. “Was Gump invested in this deal in any way at that point?”

  Xavier rubbed his head. “Commercial Development invested in Geoff’s mortgage company so he could make the original loans, so I guess, yes. His family money was tied up in it just the way Geoff’s was. It took a lot of leverage, but we had grandiose ideas.”

  “And then you went after the biggest piece of land up here, right?” Unfortunately, Walker had seen these kind of investment schemes in his work. Pull one card out of the house of cards, and it crumbled.

  Xavier nodded and looked pale. “I arranged a refinance on the Ingersson farm, even though they couldn’t prove they had an income, knowing they’d smoke the money and fall behind. Ingersson thought we were friends helping him through a bad time. That’s where the greed demon devoured our morals and our souls. We focused on the endgame and didn’t care about our friends or their families who lost their homes or stores. We told ourselves that the old shacks needed to be torn down anyway. We were young and ambitious and the world was our oyster, even after Ingersson went bankrupt and sued.”

  Monty got up and opened a small refrigerator, producing icy bottles of water that he handed around. This was Monty’s father Xavier was talking about. It couldn’t be easy hearing this.

  “And then six or seven years after the lawsuit was settled, and we had almost acquired all the land we needed, I had a tourist ask me an odd question about the ownership of the farm and some of the lots in town.” Xavier quit looking in Walker’s direction. “That was nearly two decades ago. The face and name have faded. I was drinking heavily then. I got sloppy drunk and told a few of the guys on the development team. They wore those awful green jackets and everyone hated them.”

  “The people or the jackets?” Walker asked, hiding the horror building at this tale. Xavier didn’t even remember Michael Walker’s name, but his father had almost certainly been the tourist asking questions.

  “Both,” Xavier replied with a snort. “But they were going to make us rich. Alan Gump was Geoff’s buddy so I pointed out the snoopy tourist in the bar.”

  Walker glanced at Monty, who looked pale beneath his tan. But the mayor tighte
ned his jaw and drank from his water bottle without speaking.

  Xavier continued, “Talking to Gump was probably the worst decision of my life, but at the time, it was just meaningless bar talk. He said he recognized the inquisitive guy from LA, and he’d have a talk with him. I went back to my office in San Francisco the next day. I had no idea what happened until later, when the sheriff started making inquiries about a missing tourist.”

  Francois had tensed at the mention of Gump. The chauffeur reached for a cigarette again, then took the bottle of water just to steady his hands.

  Intent on telling his tale, Xavier seemed unaware that anyone was in the room. He stared at an ugly piece of abstract art over Monty’s head. “The bottom started falling out of our dreams about that time. It’s all pretty blurry in my head,” Xavier admitted. “The sheriff canvassing the town for a missing tourist was followed by legal beagles from the attorney general’s office. Gump and the rest of the green jacket sales team faded away. Geoff died, and I. . . fell apart. When he came back this spring. . . I let him make me believe the glory days were back. I’ve learned my lesson. Drugs don’t make anything better.”

  He stopped like a mechanical toy whose spring had worn out. He stared blankly at the bottle cupped between his hands.

  “Kennedy’s death halted the development plans?” Walker asked, disappointed that Xavier knew no more about his father’s death. “The plans died with him?”

  Xavier shrugged. “Some of the team may have hung around, talking to Carmel, but she was too grief-stricken to care. She sold the mortgage company, and I was too addled to hold onto my job. I’m sorry I can’t be more help.”