Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(30)
“Did they do it last night?” she asked cautiously. For all she knew, Val could be remembering her childhood.
“That’s when the spirit rose,” Val said with a definite nod. “You heard him. We all heard him. He howled his anguish.”
Remembering the cry that had woken her, Sam really got spooked. “Did you see what happened?”
“The world sees,” Val cried, gesturing dramatically at their surroundings. “The stars, the moon, the birds in the trees—they all know when a life is taken. He must be mourned and his spirit laid to rest.”
If Sam was translating correctly, someone had died last night, and been dumped up here in these rocks.
She hastily scrambled down off her perch, to the safety of Deputy Walker—who was already striding toward her, ready to catch her if she fell.
Chapter 11
Walker held out his arms to catch the Nordic beauty descending the rocks so hastily that her platinum hair flew in a breeze of her own making. She practically fell into him, and he held her like that, letting her catch her breath—enjoying the fresh scent and firm curves of a woman for the first time in over a year.
He was too male not to notice how well her tattered jeans fit her hips and the way her loose shirt clung to her breasts—while they anticipated death. Nice, Walker, real nice.
Warily, reluctantly, he set her back. He wasn’t ready for anything resembling a relationship, and someone as young as Sam had commitment written all over her.
“I think you may need cadaver dogs. Is that what they call them?” she asked, brushing nervously at wisps of hair escaping her disheveled pony-tail.
She sounded normal, but she was pale as death and breathing erratically. Walker wanted to crush her against him and return her to the laughing know-it-all she’d been while driving up here, but he was on duty, and she was off limits.
“There’s another body?” he asked grimly.
“You asked me to translate.” She marched back to the truck, her shoulders stiff.
He was translating her body language as rattled. This place would do that to you.
“Can you tell me exactly what she said to make you think there’s a corpse?” He opened the passenger door, caught her elbow, and helped her in. She shivered, as if with cold. Or fear.
She waited until he climbed behind the wheel to reply. “Aside from evil, spirits, and crows, she pointed at the tumble of rocks on the far side of the clearing and distinctly said There. They dumped him there. The animals have already found him.”
“I saw her pointing, but it could have been at the horizon for all I knew.” He muttered a word he didn’t want her to hear, but she flinched anyway. He needed to remember she had sharp ears. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go, then radio for help. Can you keep this quiet until I get a cadaver team up here?”
“I won’t say anything, but the Lucys know already,” she said, sounding as grim as he did. “And you can take me to the lodge. I want to use the computer, and you may need me to translate later. Want to ask me where I was last night?”
“Not up here, I hope!” A thousand scenarios flashed through his mind. He knew what crazy was. He’d lived with crazy. He was real bad at differentiating between real crazy and Lucy crazy.
“I was in my bed, listening to a spirit howl, according to Val. And afterward, I watched a car a lot like Carmel’s—maybe it was a ghost car—driving up to the cemetery just the way we saw it do earlier. And I saw a man who might have been Harvey watching from the woods. I’m ready to join Val’s exorcism. She may be right and evil walks the night.”
He was relieved that she wasn’t taking any of this seriously. “Nah, that’s just Harvey hunting for branches for his walking sticks. He’s a vampire who sleeps most of the day.” Walker tried to sound humorous but it came out hollow.
“Oh good, vampires and witches. Any werewolves I should know about?” She slumped in the seat and shoved loose strands of pale hair out of her face.
“Want me to describe the Nulls?” This time, he did manage amusement. “We’ve got sexual predators, embezzlers, and looks like possibly, a murderer. I’ll take the witches anytime.”
That got a laugh out of her. “I trust the predator is old and gray and not about to start stalking women?”
“Ask Dinah,” he said curtly. “Although if she’s seeing auras now, I’m not sure she qualifies as a Null. Maybe it’s this town that makes us crazy.”
“Dinah as a sexual predator?” She sat silent and contemplated that. “At what age did they slap that label on her? When she looked like a little boy and was exploring why she felt like a little girl?”
“She’s black and it was New Orleans. I didn’t read the case, but psychic guessing will get you there, yeah. Our laws are about as primitive as our medicine sometimes.”
“She’s happy here, where people only care that she bakes a mean biscuit. I’m glad she found a way out.”
“It’s good to know you’re not one of the bigots who judge people because they’re different. You need that here.” Given the harassment he’d suffered as a kid for his not-quite-Caucasian features, he appreciated her ability to see past the surface. Walker pulled up at the back of the lodge. “I need to warn Kurt we’ll be filling this lot with cars again. He won’t be happy.”