Sapphire Nights (Crystal Magic Book 1)(97)
“Last I saw, Sam and Mariah were headed up to visit Daisy,” Monty said, rubbing his wrist and glancing up the bluff behind the town.
The summer sun hadn’t completely set. Golden light illuminated sandstone outcroppings and cast crevasses into shadow.
The border of evergreens prevented any good view of the flat farm land.
Walker’s instincts screamed for action, but experience had taught him to go in with all the information available. “What’s going on here?” He gestured at the melee, although it appeared as if the fury had gone out of it and now they were just getting their jollies by dodging each other.
Kurt frowned. “Monty and I were arguing. My security guy stepped in. Then Pasquale intervened, and I don’t know what happened from there.”
“I think they were trying to keep us from blows,” Monty said, frowning in the same manner as his brother. “I was pissed that no one had seen the actual deed to the farm. Pasquale took my side. Alonzo took Kurt’s.”
Idly swinging a frying pan, Dinah stepped in. “Mariah and Valdis took food up to Daisy half an hour or more ago. Mariah said she’d be right back and that Sam was supposed to go straight home and stay there. There’s bad auras all over, including yours.” She pointed at the Kennedys.
Walker’s gut twisted, but he clung to the hope that Sam was waiting for him at her place. Still, with bad news piling up, he had to ask, “By any chance did you see Alan Gump or Xavier Black here today?”
“They locked Xavier up, didn’t they?” Kurt asked. “If the law can’t keep arsonists—”
Monty interrupted. “Alan was up here earlier with the engineering team. They’re probably back in the city by now.”
“Gump ain’t,” Dinah corrected. “He was watching the two of you make fools of yourselves just a bit ago. Looked like he had a bee up his rump.”
“While they were arguing over farm deeds?” Walker asked. His brain was adding two and two and a cold chill ran down his spine. “Could Gump hear what they were saying?”
“They were shouting it to the world,” Dinah agreed.
Anxiety levels rising, Walker checked the bluff for movement. Was that a glint of steel? He turned to the Kennedys and demanded, “Did Gump ever say anything about negotiating with the owners of the trust?”
“Gump assured us the deed had been settled,” Kurt shouted. “There should be no negotiating necessary! He was here with the original development team and knew all the details. That’s why we hired him.”
“Is he the only one on the team who was up here when my father died?” Walker asked pointedly.
“Gump is old enough to have been,” Kurt admitted. “I’ve not met all his sales people. It’s only the engineers who’ve been up here, and they’re all too young to have been part of the original group.”
Not proof positive, but enough to raise Walker’s hackles. “If you see Gump, hold him. I need to talk to him. I’m going up to check on Sam. Whether you like it or not, you have a murderer on the loose, and Gump is the one who broke your arsonist out of rehab.”
Walker strode off, leaving the brothers to act on the information as they thought fit.
Why would Gump take poor muddled Xavier out of rehab?
Not until Walker reached Sam’s studio and found it empty did his anxiety reach full-fledged fear.
When he turned to find a bruised, bleeding, and jacketless Xavier pointing up the mountain, fear escalated to alarm.
“He’ll kill them all, just as he did the others,” Xavier said, before collapsing.
Chapter 31
Before helping Valdis descend into the bowels of hell, Sam cast one last glance over her shoulder. She could swear she saw sunlight glinting off crystals—like gleams off polished swords—all over the cliff face. But if any ephemeral figures were up there holding staffs, they were concealed by shadows in the dying sunlight.
“Don’t dally. They’d not be up there unless they’ve felt Evil walking,” Valdis said briskly.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. . . Sam thought, shivering. Staffs detected evil? She hadn’t felt it. Hooking the stick over her wrist, she offered her arm for her aunt to lean on as they descended what appeared to be stone stairs into the mountain. This wasn’t a properly built concrete bunker, but a cellar only her creatively insane family could concoct, she suspected.
The concrete walls were embedded with crystals that caught what little light came through the open door. Below, Daisy lit a lantern.
No snakes rattled. Sam took a deep breath and relaxed a little.
“Shut the door,” Val commanded.
“Against what, nuclear holocaust?” Sam knew better than to expect a rational answer. Reluctantly, she swung the steel door closed.
Amazingly, it didn’t dim the light. Crystals, mirrors, and polished metal set in the walls reflected the lantern’s gleam. Val grasped a metal rod set in the concrete walls and balancing on her staff, managed the stairs on one foot.
“Evil,” she repeated, as usual. “Evil was committed on this land for eons. It seeps into the rocks, flows through the vortex, pollutes the soul. You’ll see. Now that you’re here, you’ll see.”