Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(20)

“Does that mean he’s worried about her?” Sam asked, not understanding.

“No, this line is your future. It means he’ll worry about you. Turn the next card.”

Sam flipped the middle card and admired the tall sunflowers spilling around a fence. It made her even twitchier to think the deputy might someday worry about her, but she could only handle the present right now. The deputy would have to do what deputies did.

“More change,” Amber said, a frown forming above her nose. “Cass is opposed to change, but you might be the harbinger of change. The two of you are in opposition somehow, not enemies but on different sides. Turn the last one.”

The final card showed funeral lilies and a casket. Sam felt a strong urge to flee. “Someone is going to die?”

“No, the card doesn’t necessarily mean death. Or if it does, it can be death of a concept, death of wealth.”

“Or dead flowers,” Sam said with relief. “I hope I don’t kill your planter.”

Amber deliberately set her mouth to a smile. “Of course. I’m being too serious today. I hope they discover that skeleton was just some lost hiker from decades ago. We should think about making the world better with flowers.”

“None of this explains where Cass is,” Sam reminded her.

They both looked at the casket, until Amber scooped up the cards and shuffled them.





Chapter 8





The next day Walker drove up the mountain in the early morning fog on his usual rounds. He’d spent part of his day off trying to satisfy his curiosity about the new girl in town. Another few hours had been spent at the office, checking out Jane Does who might be Cass. Without an official request, he couldn’t do more.

It hadn’t taken long to verify what he already knew about the skeleton case. The coroner had estimated the corpse had been buried approximately fifteen to twenty years ago. The only missing person reported on that mountain in that range of time was Roger Walker, his father. Hikers occasionally went missing and so had some of the hippies who had last been seen at the commune, but the timing, age, and sex of those didn’t match the coroner’s guesstimate.

He’d found what he’d taken this job for, but that wasn’t enough. His mother had clung to hope for years, then remarried when he was in college, after having his father declared officially dead. Walker had never believed the man he’d idolized had willingly deserted him. Now he needed to know why his father had been killed with a blow to the head all those years ago.

Walker had shown his father’s missing person’s report to the sheriff, who had labeled the case as homicide and sent forensics up, but they both knew there would be little to find after all these years.

The case rested on the people of Hillvale, the ones who had lived here eighteen years ago, when his father had last been seen here. Cass was one of those people.

Driving into town, Walker knew he should continue his route up to the lodge. He could ask questions of the Kennedys, who’d owned property up here all their lives. Or walk up to the crime scene, see if the locals had behaved.

But he pulled into the parking lot instead. Samantha Moon probably would have been six or seven years old when his father disappeared. She knew nothing. But he stopped anyway.

As he entered, pulling off his sunglasses, she smiled at him, and his pulse raced. So maybe it was more than police instinct pulling him in here. He liked that she seemed to see him and not his genetics. Even in this day and age, bigotry ran rampant—one of the reasons he’d taken over his father’s company instead of entering the police force after college, he understood now. He had believed that hiding his mixed race behind a desk allowed him to accomplish more than in the streets.

He was six years and a lifetime of experience older than Sam, so he had no business acting on hormones. That didn’t make his physical reaction to her go away.

There were still shadows under her eyes, but she didn’t seem quite as wan and hesitant as she had upon arrival. She was a striking woman, and he wasn’t dead yet, so of course he was interested.

She set a mug down and filled it to the brim. “Pie or breakfast?”

“Pie is fine. I ate before I left. Did everyone behave while I was gone?”

“They held a death ritual last night.” She reached into the pie case to give him the last leftover. “They had to do it in the lodge parking lot because security blocked the path. I understand words were exchanged.”

Dinah popped out from the kitchen and slapped what appeared to be a cheese biscuit in front of him. “Taste this. Tell me what you think. And leave Sam alone. She don’t know nothin’ about nothin’ and people been running her ragged with foolishness.”

Walker hid his grin behind his coffee cup. “I reckon Sam’s old enough not to need a mother hen clucking after her.” He imitated Dinah’s accent. It slipped back to its origins when she got excited.

Sam walked off to take a customer’s cash. At this hour, there weren’t many people to overhear them.

“You been lookin’ into Sam the way you nosed into everyone else?” Dinah demanded, unfazed by his mockery.

“You said you were worried about Cass. Sam seems to be the last person who saw her. What else do you want me to do?” Walker bit into the biscuit. It nearly melted in his mouth.