Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(66)

Holding Daisy’s artwork, she nodded against his shoulder. If this was a crime scene, it had already been seriously disturbed. Still, he’d have to tell the sheriff about the kerosene and the butterfly in the morning.

Taking Sam’s nod as permission to lock the door, Walker guided her behind the colorful blanket to her bed. “Anything look out of place in here?” he asked, switching on the lights.

She jerked back, surprised. “You think someone was in here?”

“The door was locked, so no, I don’t think so, but I thought it best to check before we mess up anything else.” He really wanted her in that bed. He needed sex, not tears. No more tears, no more crazy, no more responsibility for anyone but himself.

Setting her stone butterfly on a wall shelf in the front room, Sam pushed back the curtain. She checked the suitcases she seemed to be living out of, went into the bathroom and looked through her personal belongings, and came out to examine the open studio. “That first time, I could tell someone had been in here. This time, nothing.”

Her space was limited, neat, and easy to tell if anything was out of place. Walker nodded agreement. “Since Xavier probably has keys to every rental in town, he may have been the one who searched your place earlier. If he meant to do it again, he could have. So he must have come for another reason, then passed out waiting for you.”

“A purpose besides burning me out? What would have happened if I’d been here?” she whispered in a mix of panic and horror.

“If you’d been here, you might have seen whoever gave him the drugs. Or you might have been accused of giving them to him. It’s a damned good thing you went with me to the lodge.” He shouldn’t have said that.

Her eyes grew wide and looked almost purple in this light. “You think they may have been framing me?”

“You seem to hold the key to the Lucys, but let’s not speculate. Come on, let’s go to bed. We can just sleep, if that’s what you want. It will be a short night.”

Fortunately for him, Sam wasn’t ready for sleep. They worked off their adrenaline overloads together, without any need to discuss where their non-relationship was going. Walker thought he might be able to handle this friends with benefits business they had going.

In the morning, they explored the tiny shower together. For the first time, Sam studied his damaged thigh, running her fingers over the puckered skin and injured muscle. Walker stood still for it. He supposed he had to explain sometime.

“I only read the small piece in the newspaper,” she said hesitantly.

“My late wife heard voices.” He knew she needed to understand the true extent of his damage. “She was a writer, said medication messed with her work.”

“You don’t have to tell me if it still hurts,” she whispered, caressing his chest.

What she was doing distanced the pain. He knew talking would help, but he had to grit his teeth to continue. “The voices told her our son was a distraction she didn’t need. She took my gun out of its case and opened fire.”

Here was the hard part, and he hugged Sam close while he talked over her head. “I should have jumped on her and taken the weapon. But I followed protocol and took the safe route. I grabbed Davey and rolled beneath the car. Tess kept firing until she only had one shot left, then turned the gun on herself.”

Emergency services had arrived too late to save Davey from that first direct shot or his wife from the last one. Intellectually, he knew he couldn’t have done better, but the if-only leech sucking his soul wouldn’t let go.

He felt her hot tears against his skin even through the stream from the shower. She didn’t question his actions as he’d been doing for months. Instead, she kissed his chest and said, “You must have been in rehab for months.”

Tension leeched out of him. He despised sympathy, but she was simply acknowledging a truth. He lifted her chin and kissed her thoroughly, before turning off the water and reaching for a towel.

“Months in which I decided life was short, and I wanted more than a desk job,” he said, watching as she rubbed her hair dry, leaving the rest of her gorgeous body visible for his perusal.

“And being a small-town deputy fit the bill?” she asked, rightfully dubious.

“Looking for the reason for my father’s disappearance fit the bill.” And it still did. He wasn’t ready to give up on finding the killers, now that he knew for certain that his father had been murdered here—and that the murderer might still be on the loose.

She wrapped the towel around her and ran product through the tangle of her hair. “That’s how I feel. I want to know what happened to make my parents abandon me. Cass knows a lot more than she’s telling.”

“I think it’s all starting to unravel, but I can’t feature any of the people here as killers.” Walker missed the fresh uniform he had waiting at the lodge, but he hadn’t been thinking of clothes when he’d led Sam out last night. He strode into her bedroom to gather his discarded uniform.

“You don’t limp as much in the mornings,” she called after him.

“Muscle tires out. I’m supposed to be doing exercises to build it up again. I figured hill climbing works.” He yanked on briefs and trousers and reached for his shirt.

She appeared in the doorway, combing out her shoulder-length hair. “Do you believe in evil yet?”