Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(38)
“One thing at a time, grasshopper,” he said in amusement. “Maybe we’ll find your missing purse before all that happens. And if you were moving here, you’d have to go through the system anyway. You’re just feeling overwhelmed.”
“There’s the understatement of a lifetime. Okay, let’s get on with this. I wish I had some way of looking for Cass. I can’t help feeling she’s the answer to everything.”
“Yeah, I know.” He handed her a paper napkin and began wiping the grease off his fingers with another. “We’ll see if there are any reports waiting when we get there.”
Sam caught herself staring at Walker’s fingers and had to jerk back to the moment. He’d carried her down a damned mountain, kicking and screaming. For a CEO, he was pumped. Had she ever had a lover like that?
She couldn’t remember ever having a lover at all, but her body knew what it wanted.
Wiping her hands, she got back in the car and apprehensively waited for her visit to a sheriff’s office. Walker’s threat to lock her up rang loud in her head, but he was behaving reasonably for a change. How long did it take to get back bloodwork? He couldn’t arrest her if she had drugs still in her system, could he?
They didn’t have far to drive before Walker pulled the car into a lot filled with official vehicles. She’d thought this was a rural area, but the building looming over the lot was a sprawling concrete monstrosity. Maybe they had a lot of criminals in the mountains.
“I was hoping we could see the ocean from here,” she said in disappointment.
He turned off the car and looked at her with curiosity. “Why do you say that?”
She wrinkled her brow in puzzlement. “I’m not sure. If I grew up near Provo, then I probably never saw the ocean. Maybe that’s the reason I drove this way once I graduated.”
“So maybe this is some wisp of your memory creeping up?”
“A wish can be a memory? Maybe. I don’t know the geography here. I just assumed a road going west would take me to the ocean, I guess.”
“We’re not far from the coast. I’m supposed to be on duty, so I can’t take you right now. Maybe later.”
She took his hand without protest as he helped her out of the SUV. She’d calmed down since the incident on the mountain. She still resented that he’d turned into macho man and threatened her, but maybe she’d frightened him as much as she’d frightened herself.
She dropped his hand once they were inside. She followed him through cold-tiled corridors, past busy offices, until they reached a portion of the building where people greeted him with waves and stared in curiosity at her.
A young Hispanic woman in uniform rushed toward them, carrying a sheaf of paperwork, as soon as they entered the door marked Sheriff’s Department. “They’ve found her,” she called, waving the papers.
Walker stopped to take them away. “Found who?”
“Cassandra Tolliver. From the description you gave, she’s the Jane Doe down at Community Hospital in Monterey.”
Chapter 13
With the announcement that Cass had been found, Walker picked up another file full of papers from his desk and handed the lot to Sam. “Let’s get your fingerprints done.”
Once he had prints, he passed the file on to the secretary to match against government data. Then he caught Sam’s elbow and steered her out of the building and toward his official car. “Now we can go see the ocean.”
He was more eager than she to get his hands on Cass. Sam was trying to read the file as she walked and slowed his speed.
She waved the papers at him in protest. “You’re taking me to see Cassandra? What about the others who really know her? Should we let them know?”
“How? Call? I’m not driving back up there. What are the chances that any of the Lucys stay connected to their computers or landlines?”
“Probably not good,” she admitted. “But I can’t say for certain that the person in my head is actually Cassandra.”
“If you recognize her as the person you met at the restaurant, we’re on the way to solving two mysteries. I’m willing to take the chance.” If Cass could bring him closer to his father’s murderer, he was all over it.
She slid into the passenger seat and began flipping through his file folder as well as the papers the secretary had handed him. “Coroner’s report on the skeleton.” She handed him a brown folder.
Walker grabbed it before he started the car. “A blow to the back of the head. If it’s my father, that’s the only way they could have done it—from behind, and even then, it’s suspicious. They may have drugged him first. He never drank to excess. They don’t have the DNA back yet, but everything else fits him.”
He slapped the folder back in her lap and turned the key in the ignition. The sheriff wouldn’t appreciate him leaving the county without permission, so he’d just forget to let him know. At this point, they could fire him, and he’d still be good.
“They don’t have a medical reason for Cass’s coma,” Sam said worriedly, apparently reading the hospital report. “She had no identification on her when a maid found her in a hotel room.”
“Did she have a car? Was there any luggage in the room that might be yours?”