Page 94 of Sapphire Nights
Walker droveinto Hillvale and screeched to a halt before he ran over a wheelchairgranny shouting and swinging acane.
The whole damned parking lot was churning with Nulls and Lucys screaming and swinging at each other. Flabbergasted, Walker sat there for half a minute just making sense of the scene. It was almost good enough for a movie comedy, if it weren’t sotragic.
Monty and Kurt had stripped off their fancy suit coats and were jabbing at each other likeold-fashioned English boxers. Pasquale, the grocery store owner, was in Dinah’s face, shouting and gesticulating. People Walker had never seen before argued, struggled, and swung at folks he’d only occasionally seen in the diner. The town’s whole entire population of 350 had to be outhere.
Sam wasnot.
That’s when Walker’s observational skills kicked in. All the stores were closedand dark. Mariah wasn’t here. Neither were Aaron, Tullah, or any of the people he identified as active Lucys. He parked in the lot, cut off his engine, and warily climbed out. The people here now, the ones not identifiably Null like the Kennedys, were mostly the elderly and infirm, swinging their sticks and shouting the usual incomprehensible gibberish aboutEvil.
The Nulls were fightingthem as well as each other. He couldn’t arrest the wholetown.
So he aimed for the men he’d counted on to be sensible. Not even bothering to tune into the arguments, Walker strode through themelee.
He blocked a cane blow with his forearm and winced at a kick to his ankle. He was less than happy when he finally reached the Kennedys. He grabbed Kurt by his starched collar and yankedhim backward, unbalancing him before the lodge manager could swing. Monty’s cross blow just missed Kurt’sjaw.
“Take different boxing classes next time, will ya?” Walker advised, gripping Monty’s right fist and shoving him off before he could swing again. “You know each other’s moves before you makethem.”
Both men glared and appeared on the verge of turning on him. Not having timefor a brawl, Walker yanked their arms behind their backs, hard. “Where’s Sam? And all herfriends?”
Kurt and Monty looked blank, then glanced around. Both muttered the same expletive in the same tone. Walker releasedthem.
“Last I saw, Sam and Mariah were headed up to visit Daisy,” Monty said, rubbing his wrist and glancing up the bluff behind thetown.
The summer sun hadn’tcompletely set. Golden light illuminated sandstone outcroppings and cast crevasses intoshadow.
The border of evergreens prevented any good view of the flat farmland.
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 outof it and now they were just getting their jollies by dodging eachother.
Kurt frowned. “Monty and I were arguing. My security guy stepped in. Then Pasquale intervened, and I don’t know what happened fromthere.”
“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 tookKurt’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 theKennedys.
Walker’s gut twisted, but he clung to the hope that Samwas 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 heretoday?”
“They locked Xavier up, didn’t they?” Kurt asked. “If the law can’t keeparsonists—”
Monty interrupted. “Alan was up here earlier with the engineering team. They’re probably back in the city bynow.”
“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 hisrump.”
“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 weresaying?”
“They were shouting it to the world,” Dinahagreed.
Anxiety levels rising, Walker checked the blufffor 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 thetrust?”
“Gump assured us the deed had beensettled,” 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 hiredhim.”
“Is he the only one onthe team who was up here when my father died?” Walker askedpointedly.
“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 originalgroup.”
Not proof positive, but enough to raise Walker’s hackles. “If you see Gump, hold him. I need to talk to him. I’mgoing 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 ofrehab.”
Walker strode off, leaving the brothers to act on the information as they thoughtfit.
Why wouldGumptake poor muddled Xavier out ofrehab?
Not until Walker reached Sam’s studio and found it empty did his anxiety reach full-fledgedfear.
When he turned to find a bruised, bleeding, and jacketless Xavier pointing up the mountain, fear escalated toalarm.
“He’ll kill them all, just as he did the others,” Xavier said, beforecollapsing.
