Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(57)

Knowing she would be late, Sam stopped anyway. “I hope you don’t mind that I divided them. I want to find some manure or compost to feed them. I don’t suppose you know anyone with a stable?”

“I know someone with a compost bin. I’ll have him leave a load next time he’s by. I’m Gladys. You must be Zach and Susanna’s daughter. You look like both your parents.”

Someone besides Cass knew her parents! Here was another name for Walker’s list, and she seemed more talkative than the others. Sam was dying to ask about her parents, but now probably wasn’t the best time.

“I’m Samantha. I can haul the compost if you tell me where to find it. I have to go into work now or Dinah will be swamped. May I bring you up a piece of pie later and we can talk? I’m not familiar with the soil here, but you seem to have a knack.” She gestured at the lush garden growing despite the shade.

“That would be delightful but not necessary, luv. Tell Dinah her mother has passed and is sorry for not understanding.” Gladys picked up her basket and vanished beneath a rose-covered arch at the rear of the yard.

“Way too much weird for one day,” Sam muttered. Almost afraid to pass on the message, she found a shady place in town to store the lilies before entering the busy diner. The rich aroma of coffee replaced the nasty stench lingering outside.

Mariah shoved the carafe at her and indicated the tables by the window. Sam now knew that she had waited tables in high school. Apparently her subconscious had known she could handle the job, even when she couldn’t remember it. She washed and began pouring coffee.

Most of the customers today were locals. The tourists who often stopped in after their weekend visit had already left the mountain, which still smoldered in the distance.

Once breakfast was served, they stopped for a break. Dinah cut cinnamon rolls for tasting. Sam sipped her tea and offered the odd information she’d received. “I had a strange encounter with Gladys this morning. She told me to tell you that your mother has passed and regrets not understanding. Is Gladys a friend of yours?”

Dinah’s eyes got wide, and she sat abruptly on a stool she kept behind the counter. “I better call my brother,” she muttered, looking teary-eyed.

Mariah put down the coffee carafe and joined them. “You have a brother? Is he ill?”

“Gladys spoke to Sam. What time is it back there? Noon? I’d better try to catch him when he’s at lunch.” Dinah got up and hurried for her office, where she kept a landline.

“Gladys spoke?” Maria poured herself a cup of coffee and regarded Sam with interest. “Do tell.”

“She had bad news about Dinah’s mother, apparently. I don’t know why she didn’t tell Dinah herself.” Feeling uneasy under Mariah’s stare, Sam nibbled the mouth-watering cinnamon bun.

“Because Dinah isn’t a sensitive,” Mariah explained, gesturing with her cup. “She talks about auras and maybe she even sees them, but she’s been faking for so long, even she doesn’t know what’s real.”

Sam wrinkled her nose at this non-explanation. “What does being sensitive have to do with Gladys? She seemed quite sensible to me.”

“Gladys died of breast cancer last year,” Mariah said, watching Sam. “They buried her casket beside her husband in the cemetery, but I have a feeling they buried part of her in her garden.”

“What part, her heart?” Sam said with mockery. “And that allows her to keep living?”

“Don’t be such a Null,” Mariah retorted. “Gladys is dead. But her garden lives. Until now, I’m the only who has seen her. I suppose the solstice could make the veil thinner, as it does at Halloween, so even a near-Null could see her.”

“That’s absurd,” Sam protested, like a Null.

“Sturdy lady, gorgeous long graying dark hair?” Mariah asked.

“Yes. Maybe it’s her daughter?”

Mariah shook her head. “That’s Gladys. She had no kids. We’re waiting for the Kennedys to realize the lot is being held by the state and to snatch it up for their inventory. But right now, no one lives there.”

“Someone does. The garden is gorgeous,” Sam argued, not mentioning the compost conversation. She’d thought she’d finally found a source, and it would be too disappointing—and frightening—if she’d imagined a conversation with a ghost.

“Some of us try to keep it up to hide the fact that the house is empty, but mostly, the garden tends itself—as if a ghost gardener maintains it.” Mariah finished eating her bun without concern.

“Then you’d better hope your ghost catchers don’t catch her,” Sam said in disgust, before turning to take orders from a new customer.

But when she walked back up to her apartment after the lunch rush, a dump load of beautifully composted dirt awaited her outside Gladys’s cottage.





Chapter 19





“The attorney general’s office has a closed file on the mortgage fraud dating back over twenty years,” Walker’s operative reported.

Walker switched the phone to his other ear and started making notes. “When did they close the file?”

“Not long after your father’s death. Their main suspect was Geoffrey Kennedy, and he died. His mortgage company was sold and the loans scattered. They were following leads on the Menendez family, and the people who snatched up the land under a hippy commune, but Kennedy was the money man. How deep do you want me to dig?”