By the time they reached town, it was full dark, and both search parties had either gone home or gathered in the café. Walker noted the Kennedy Escalade parked in the lot, with Francois sitting inside, drawing on his cigarette. Did that mean Carmel had returned?

Inside the café, Monty and Mariah were glaring at each other, but at least the mayor had waited around instead of driving back to the lodge. No other Kennedy was present though, so why was Francois here? Monty’s Tesla was usually parked behind his office.

Seeing a graying blond head at the far end of the counter, Walker answered his own question. Carmel’s artist brother didn’t drive or even come to town often. The chauffeur must have brought him. Lance was contemplating a selection of pastries as if they were a still life to be painted. Walker almost laughed when Lance moved a beignet into a more artistic composition with the fruit tarts on his plate.

Oddly, Alan Gump, the real estate magnate from the city, was also at the counter, drinking coffee and telling loud stories to a group of business owners. Walker had Gump pegged as behind the condo deal the Kennedys were putting together, but he didn’t need town approval, so why was he here at this hour?

The Lucys had gathered at the far end of the counter from the Nulls, near the entrance. They hugged Daisy in excitement at her return, chattering and keeping their voices low, so the Nulls couldn’t overhear.

Walker was glad these people weren’t normally violent because the divisiveness was becoming more apparent every day.

Sam settled Daisy on a stool so Dinah could pamper her.

Confused by the way Sam, the scientist, fit in so easily with the crazies, Walker sat beside Monty for a normal summary of events. “Valdis?”

“Mariah said they searched the cemetery and didn’t find her. For whatever reason, they’re waiting for you and Sam to come up with a better solution. Got any?” Monty slugged his coffee as if it were whiskey.

“Bloodhounds? Wiggling sticks?” Walker gratefully accepted the burger Dinah slapped in front of him. He didn’t quibble over the avocado and sprouts because the bite of sriracha sauce made nutrition worthwhile.

Monty went back to glaring, this time at the mural. Lance appeared to be studying it almost surreptitiously, in between rearranging his food. And there was the reason Carmel’s artistic brother had deigned to descend from the mountain—he’d heard about Lucinda Malcolm and the mural that had been staring them in the face all these years.

Finding Cass looking gloomy in one of the booths, Walker decided if he had to look at misery, it ought to at least be female, he picked up his plate and sat across from her. “How is Xavier?”

“If you’ve tested the kerosene can for prints, you already know he burned the cross,” she said without hesitation.

Walker raised his eyebrows in surprise at this admission. He knew the story he was about to hear would have nothing to do with rationality, but he asked anyway. “He burned the mountain so the Kennedys had to go forward with the condos?”

Cass glared at him. “He says the spirits made him do it, but he thought they were the good spirits telling him to cleanse the evil. He says he only planted the cross and didn’t start a fire. So now he’s not so sure if the spirits were good or evil, and he wanted to ask Sam. Why would he want to ask Sam?”

“Because he’s crazy like everyone else up here?” Walker suggested. “Did he say where he got the drugs?”

Cass cast him an evil eye, but at least she was looking less depressed. “Are you going to arrest him? He needs medical help, not prison.”

“Is anyone pressing charges? If he lit that fire, he pretty much destroyed the lodge’s business, so it’s Kurt and Monty you need to talk to.” Which is why Xavier had gone to Sam, Walker realized. Cass wouldn’t talk to the Kennedys, but Sam might go with him to explain. The man was only half-crazy.

“The sheriff’s office will press charges if you tell them to,” Cass said.

“The sheriff’s office will do whatever the D.A. says,” he corrected. “I’ll take a wild guess and assume the D.A. will have difficulty convicting with only a drug-addicted mental case’s half-confession, unless there is other evidence. The kerosene can was a plant to make sure he was implicated and probably to explain his overdose. It was wiped clean of prints.”

Cass’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Then she narrowed her eyes and glared when she realized she’d given away Xavier’s confession for nothing.

Walker continued without waiting for her protests. “I can’t imagine Xavier was lucid enough to wipe fingerprints if he meant to confess. They can’t even get him for possession, since he had nothing on him. And last I checked, they still didn’t have the blood analysis. From what was said the other night, chances are good that this wasn’t a normal overdose and someone tried to kill Xavier. That’s the person I want.”

Cass looked thoughtful. “We don’t do drugs up here anymore. Maybe I can pry his source out of him. I was reluctant to ask for fear he’d incriminate himself more.”

“We want killers, not demented old men, although if Xavier is in the habit of burning out the spirits, he may need help.” Walker waited, but Cass didn’t respond. Dementia had many disguises in Hillvale. “Where do you think Valdis might be? Is this unusual for her?”

“I don’t think she’s conscious,” Cass said worriedly. “She has a very strong presence. If she was awake, I’d eventually hear her or she would hear me. She said she wanted to visit with the spirits of her parents before she followed Daisy. As far as I’m aware, that’s the last anyone saw of her. I’d hoped she was with Daisy.”

Walker didn’t know how to react to Cass hearing Valdis. But the possibility that Xavier may have been given a lethal overdose on purpose escalated the possibility that a killer was targeting the Lucys for a reason. Not that Xavier was officially a Lucy, but he lingered there on the edge, betwixt and between—as did Sam, Walker realized worriedly. And both had connections to the Kennedys—if that had any relevance.

Since land fraud had been the reason his father was killed. . . Still no obvious connection to recent occurrences. The Kennedys and the development company had all the land they needed, and the Lucys were barely a speed bump on their highway to riches.

Xavier had been in Hillvale when Walker’s father was killed. Valdis hadn’t. But Valdis was Sam’s aunt—and part owner of a rather valuable piece of land. As was Sam. Instinct roiled.

How many people knew the farm still belonged to Ingerssons? Did it matter?

Walker finished his burger and slipped out of the booth. “I want to take another look at the cemetery. If I don’t find anything, I’ll put in a report to the sheriff’s office, persuade him Valdis might be in danger so he’ll organize a search party.”

“You’re a good man, Walker. I’m sorry about your father, but if it brought you up here when we need you, Fate has served its purpose.”

Walker wasn’t any too certain of that, but Sam turned to meet his eyes as he returned to the counter, and he almost started believing in the stars and planets and Fate as well. They were in synch in ways he couldn’t explain. He saw her concern, and it was the same as his.

“I want to give the cemetery another search,” he told her, keeping his voice low.

“I’m going that way,” she said, agreeing without saying the words. “Do you want anyone else?”

Walker cast a glance over the crowd. He’d like to have Harvey and the mayor, since they hadn’t searched the cemetery earlier, but he didn’t see a good way to extricate them without everyone zooming in. “One of them could very well be a killer. If they sabotaged the search earlier, I’d rather not have them do it again.”

That raised her eyebrows. She obviously didn’t have his experience with the criminal mind. And at this point, he feared he was dealing with a killer who planned ahead, not a flake who OD’d. Homicide was not his division, in his real job or this one, but his background and education had developed his instincts for danger.

Following his example, Sam casually waved at Dinah. “I’m too tired to think. I’ll be down early to clean up, Dinah, so leave everything in the sink.”

Hoots and catcalls followed them out, but Walker didn’t give a damn. He steered Sam to his official vehicle and kept an eye out to see if anyone followed.

Monty and a blustering Alan Gump emerged, arguing vociferously. Both men were large, but Gump was older and carried more fat than muscle. Unless Gump was carrying a gun, the mayor could hold his own. Walker fastened his seatbelt and kept an eye on his rearview mirror. Lance trailed out to the Escalade, looking morose. By the time Walker had his vehicle in gear, half the diner had emptied and some were striding toward the cemetery.

“I don’t think you can keep what we do quiet in Hillvale,” Sam said in amusement, watching the side mirror and following his thoughts.

“I shouldn’t have told Cass I was taking another look around. Damn, when will I learn?” Just in case he might fool anyone, he drove the SUV down Cass’s drive and parked in front of the garage/studio.

Anyone following would most likely be on foot and take a while longer to catch up.

“Let me run up and get another flashlight.” She dashed up the stairs and came down in an instant, shoving flashlights in her pockets and dangling a small backpack off her shoulder. “I brought a snakebite kit, just in case.”

Walker was out of the car with his own flashlight in hand. “What’s your hang-up about snakes? They’re more afraid of you than we are of them.”

Swinging her walking stick, she easily fell into stride with him, cutting across Cass’s yard and keeping to the concealment of the shrubbery. “Got bit when I was a kid. The pain was beyond excruciating. Only time I ever saw my parents go into full-scale panic. They were screaming at each other. I was terrified, and I’m sure they must have been out of their minds with fear, but it was their screaming that told me I was in trouble. They never argued.”

“So you associate snakes with dying and panic?” he asked, trying to grasp her fear.

“Mostly, I think I associate it with losing the ones I love. I was afraid they were going to divorce and go away like the parents of some of my friends, and that made me panic even more. I know it’s an unreasonable phobia, that snakes are good for the environment, but I can’t even look at one long enough to identify it. I just freak and run.”

“At least you have good reason. Most people freak without thinking.” Like Tess. Walker tried not to compare, but his mind kept wanting to believe Sam was different, that she might be the partner he needed. But that was loneliness speaking. And good sex.

She swung her stick and stayed silent. He supposed not arguing with him was a good sign. When they reached the cemetery, he concentrated on looking for footprints in the dry ground, but too many people had traipsed this path and dust wasn’t permanent.

“She’s not here,” Sam said abruptly. “I want to check the amphitheater. I’ll meet you back here in half an hour.”

Walker fought the protective urge to follow. Sam was an adult. She didn’t need a babysitter. And she’d just told him Valdis wasn’t in the cemetery as if she knew something he didn’t. As if she heard voices in her head?

Clenching his molars, Walker stomped up to the cemetery, alone.

An owl hooted and flapped its wings over her head. Sam jerked nervously. Walking up to the vortex had been different in daylight, or when she’d been surrounded by people she knew. Out here on the rocks, all alone, was a little intimidating. If she tripped, she’d have to scream loudly for help, and she wasn’t even certain anyone would hear.

She tried not to think about snakes and cougars or nasty spider webs.

The trees had been logged long ago. It was just scattered underbrush and rocks—and forces that drew her staff as if iron to lodestone. She wondered if that was part of the magnetism of the vortex—a layer of magnetite beneath the layers of sandstone and granite. But magnetite wouldn’t draw wood. She could swear the staff twitched from vibrations, and the crystal eyes possessed an ethereal gleam. Refusing to believe in the supernatural, she wasn’t afraid, just curious. She followed its direction around the top of the amphitheater, not into it.

She had to assume twitching staffs were ideomotion. She wanted to find her aunt, therefore her brain provided sympathetic pulses so she imagined she was helping. She should be searching with the others. If Valdis was dead or injured, Sam couldn’t send psychic help messages to the universe. She needed real live cell reception.

If the Kennedys wanted to build condos out here, they’d have to build cell towers first. How did one go about doing that?

What if cell towers interfered with the vortex? Not that she believed the vortex had special energy. . . But someone ought to study any possible energy effects before the vortex was lost. A seismograph might give some indication of underground vibrations, but she wished she could use satellites to help find imbalances and measure heat the way climate change was tracked. Differences in heat energy would explain a lot.

The stick twitched to a path leading up another hill, away from the amphitheater and the cemetery, in the direction Walker had called the Ingersson land. Which was when Sam had a horrible thought—what if her grandparents weren’t buried in the cemetery? She hadn’t seen a gravestone for them.

She froze to consider what she was doing. It was dark and getting cold. If she were a snake, she’d be slithering into a warm nest about now, except she had a vague recollection that rattlers hunted at night. She wore sturdy boots, but she had no idea how old the batteries were in her flashlight. A sensible person would go back and ask about the graves—but if anyone knew, wouldn’t they have mentioned it already?

A sensible person wouldn’t be out here paying attention to the frantic tugs of a dead tree branch. She knew she was following this insanity out of fear. Valdis had been out in the heat and cold without water or food for twenty-four hours. How much longer could she last? What if she had a heart condition? What if she’d been bit by snakes?

What if someone had tried to murder Valdis as they had killed Juan?

Instinct and emotion. . . or science and fact?

She’d spent her life with science, enough to know that book learning wouldn’t help her now. The time had come to extend her experience beyond the ivory tower.

She followed the damned twitching stick. Walker would never speak to her again. She regretted that, but he’d never promised more than good sex. He would be going back to LA and his executive position, and she was pretty certain by now that she wouldn’t follow. Her hands belonged in dirt, not on computers.

It tore at her lonely heart to give him up, but maybe she’d find a home in Hillvale. She missed having family. She needed to figure out what kind of life she wanted to make for herself, and what people she wanted populating it. Even if she eventually had to leave to make a living, she would like to think she had a place to come back to, where people knew her.

The staff led her up a crude path through shrub untouched by the fire. She sensed she was heading in the same direction in which they’d found Daisy, but this was higher ground. Surely Valdis wouldn’t have buried her parents way up here? Why?

If she could see below, she was pretty certain she’d see the farm in the distance. This had to be the ridge high above the bluff that had protected Daisy’s little hideaway. She sensed the oddly bad energy on this side of the vortex. If she was into woo-woo and spiritualism the way the other Lucys were, she’d be concerned too. Instead, she wondered about polluted aquifers or an earthquake fault hidden beneath the pines and manzanita.

Of course, if she could find those, she might be able to stop the development with science. Her other family would hate her.

An anguished banshee howl lifted the hairs on the back of her neck.