Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(82)
The ambulance was waiting on the cemetery road, as was half the town, it seemed. Men met them at the bottom of the path to take Valdis and carry her out to the road. It took four, because she started to struggle.
Harvey reclaimed his staff and disappeared into the woods without speaking to anyone. Walker draped his arm over Sam’s shoulders and nuzzled her ear. “I’m thinking LA about now.”
“Nope,” she said. “It’s too far and we’re too tired and I want to know what happens.”
“Like a damned soap opera,” he concluded. “That’s what really bites about the investigation business. You can’t just put it down and walk away.”
“My mind is racing, but the rest of me is ready to crash. And now I’m wondering if I should have said anything in front of Harvey. We really don’t know much about him—except apparently his grandparents were part of the commune.” Sam let Walker lead her through the crowd of concerned citizens. Cass wasn’t here. Had she put herself in another trance?
She stopped and cornered Amber. “I heard Cass in my head. Can someone check on her?”
Concerned, the tarot reader nodded, grabbed Tullah, and the two hurried down the path to Cass’s. That and the ambulance departing broke up the crowd.
“I probably should have gone with Valdis,” Sam said anxiously.
“The medics will work better without you crowding them. I’d take you down in the morning, but I have to report to the office.” He hugged her again.
“We’ll worry about it then,” she agreed, too tired to argue.
She probably should have argued when Walker took her home and came inside without asking, but she didn’t, and that wasn’t because she was too tired. Walker’s arms around her were the strength she didn’t have, his kiss was the energy boost she needed. And when she wrapped her legs around his hips, he carried her straight to bed, where they both belonged.
The next day, Walker was relieved that Sam decided to help Dinah with the breakfast rush instead of driving into town with him to check on a crazy woman she barely knew.
“You’ll hear more if you stay here,” he told her, pulling on his wrinkled clothes again. He’d have to think about carrying a suitcase in his trunk at this rate. “Ask around about Francois.”
“And maybe I can ask about crystals and art a bit.” She was still naked after their shower, running a dryer over her wet hair.
Walker soaked up the sight and wondered how hard it would be to leave her here when his job was over. Pretty damned hard, he feared. He wanted to know everything about this witchy woman. He was thinking it might take a lifetime though, and neither of them had an inclination for that.
“You could ask Daisy where she gets the shiny bits she uses on her statues,” Walker agreed, catching a glimpse of the stone butterfly reflecting sunlight from the windows. “I can’t see how they have anything to do with anything, but if Valdis was speaking from some past memory, it must be a strong one.”
“That’s how I’d like to think about it—she’s calling up voices from her past. But that bit about Francois was pretty freaky. How will you go about finding his boyfriend and questioning him?”
“Carefully,” Walker admitted. “He’s been with the Kennedys forever. I don’t know how he could have hidden a lover for long in this town, though.”
“Well, Valdis could have got the relationship wrong. It’s hard telling what she’s seeing or hearing. Old Fraud doesn’t tell us much. Lot of old people here, and I’m guessing half of them are charlatans.” After pinning her hair in a stack on top of her head, Sam shimmied into her underwear.
Walker had to turn away to fasten his belt or he’d never get out of there. “The only legal fraud I know would have been Geoff Kennedy, and he’s dead. I need to go over the attorney general’s old report and run the names of his cohorts through my files to see if anything matches. Nothing leapt out at me in the first read-through.”
“They would have all been eighteen or twenty years younger than they are now. Women could have married and changed their names. People who were merely assistants back then could be bigwigs now. Maybe their names weren’t even in the report.”
He couldn’t resist kissing her again. “I’ll have intrepid Sofia look up the names of the lower echelons at the bank and mortgage company back then.”
She kissed him with enthusiasm, then stepped away so she could finish dressing. “She may have to hack computers. That doesn’t sound like anything that would be public.”
“Payroll reports, human resources, employment agencies, there are always back doors if you know the right people. If we can find evidence that someone from back then was up here the night Juan died, I can have a judge subpoena the company files. I need to drive down and check in at the office. Should I drop you off in town?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. A few recalcitrant strands of platinum hair fell and caressed her elegant cheekbones. “I want to walk down the lane. I haven’t met everyone here, and the ghost house fascinates me.”
Walker felt his insides grind, but he nodded knowingly. “You’re planning on staying here, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. The ghost house has this beautiful garden. . . But I don’t know what I want yet.” Her sapphire eyes begged him to understand.