Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(65)

“I really haven’t given any of this enough thought,” Cass said. “Mariah dumped the announcement on us that the Kennedys are going through with the construction we thought we’d stopped all those years ago. I never wanted to look for the names of people who were here when your father died. It would have stirred up all those old ghosts. Most of the people involved are gone, foreclosed on, dead, retired—there just aren’t that many of us left. It didn’t seem relevant.”

“But Xavier Black was one of them,” Sam said. “I learned that much. He said he moved here about the time Geoffrey Kennedy died, but he didn’t seem particularly coherent. I thought perhaps he had some form of Asperger’s and didn’t know how to socialize.”

“He was a friend of Geoffrey’s back then,” Cass said. “He socialized just fine. He had a law degree but chose to become a mortgage broker. He talked people into taking out loans for improvements that they couldn’t afford. He sold them on easy loans that go up with the interest rates or had balloon payments.”

“Free market,” Walker said cynically, administering another dose of the spray. Xavier began to cough again, spitting up the meager contents of his stomach. Walker moved out of the way but kept a moaning Xavier tilted on his side so he wouldn’t choke on his own vomit.

Sam sent a little prayer of thanksgiving that he wasn’t a corpse.

“Yes, dear, the fine line between legal and moral. Geoff’s bank knew those people wouldn’t be able to afford higher rates, but they gave the loans anyway. That was one of my allegations when I hired lawyers to sue. That brought in the federal regulators, but much too late for most of them, the store owners in particular. Carmel always hated that I’d deprived Geoffrey of half the Kennedy fortune. She’s been determined to make up for it ever since. That’s how the Kennedy’s leasing company came to own most of the town.”

“What happened to Xavier?” Sam demanded, recognizing her aunt’s procrastination.

“He spent the night in the cemetery.” She sounded almost proud. “The law couldn’t provide justice, so we did.”

Sam exchanged a puzzled glance with Walker, who shrugged and steadied his waking patient. “You knocked him out and left him in the cemetery?” she asked when Cass didn’t continue.

“Really, I shouldn’t say anything with the law as witness. It implicates others. Let us speak in theories. If one believes in ghosts and spends the night in a haunted house, what happens?”

“One imagines ghost and goblins and runs screaming from the building,” Walker said dryly.

“Yes, well, if the door is locked, then there’s no leaving, is there?” Cass leaned her back against the concrete stair wall. “The spirits cleansed him. Xavier was a changed man. Geoffrey fired him. We didn’t have a mayor or an official town back then, but we had already signed a petition to start one. So we appointed a temporary mayor who set Xavier up in one of the empty storefronts and gave him a list of properties to rent out. He’s been there ever since. Of course, since the Kennedys have bought the bulk of the rental properties, he’s essentially working for them again.”

Mariah arrived at the bottom of the stairs with a stranger. Cass and Sam moved out of the way.

“Brenda is a nurse practitioner,” Mariah said, remaining at the bottom.

“I’m retired,” Brenda protested. Small and wiry, Brenda didn’t appear old enough to be retired.

Walker explained what they’d done so far, then held up his flashlight so the nurse could check under the patient’s eyelids and take his pulse. She had Walker hold the light over Xavier’s shaking hands and on his face again.

“I’m not sure this is Vicodin. That’s his usual escape, but there’s blue around his mouth. There’s some alcohol on his breath, but he knows better than to have more than one drink. His temperature is elevated and so is his pulse. Bring me some cold water and towels.”

Sam jumped up to unlock the door, fetch her meager stash of towels, and rummage for a bowl for the water. She could hear the others talking as she filled the bowl.

“Coke?” Walker asked. “There’s a dealer up here?”

“Not anymore,” Cass insisted. “We’re all into yoga and health foods. We learned our lesson long ago.”

“I’m no expert,” Brenda said. “I’m only operating on what little I know. But drug use isn’t all illegal. Hillvale has a large older population. We all have medicine cabinets full of prescriptions. It could be a prescription or a cocktail of drugs I don’t know about.”

Sam supplied the water and helped apply the compresses. “Can you check on the ambulance?” she asked Walker as Xavier began to shake.

Walker took his radio inside the house, out of the way. She was pretty certain she heard him mention suspicious circumstances. Her heart sank to her feet.

She glanced at Daisy’s little statuette and her anxiety rose even more.

Crazy Daisy may have been here when Xavier arrived. What did that signify?



The ambulance took Xavier away. Brenda walked Cass back to her house. Walker stayed with Sam, hugging her close while she wept from the aftershock of the night’s events.

“Given what we know about Juan’s death,” he told her, “the sheriff will try to expedite the blood tests on Xavier and turn this into a crime scene. Better get some sleep before they start tramping up the stairs.”