Page 42 of Sapphire Nights
“You were benton rejecting us without valid reason. You needed to meet us with open eyes, using that observational mind of yours and not childish emotion. And now that you’ve had time to study Hillvale, do you still want to walkaway?”
“Thatjustifies whatever you did to me?” Sam cried, although some of her fury had deflated. Walker suspected she’d already recognized why the old woman had done what shehad.
How she had done it was another mysteryentirely.
“Hillvale is special,” Cass said quietly. “We could change the world, if the world doesn’t destroy us first. I was willing to die if it meant you would return to helpus.”
Shit, the old lady had hit Sam’s sympathy buttons. Sam frowned in thought. He really didn’t want to fight the old woman and carry her back inside. Buthe didn’t want her dropping dead on himeither.
“I’m fine,. Let’s go,” Cass said with a wave of her thin hand. “They could be up there bulldozing the vortex if we don’t go backnow.”
“Bulldozing the vortex? Is that what this is all about?” Sam asked, nodding at him in an unspokencommand.
Walker took it as an okay to move on. The hospital would already have Cass’s information.He’d have his assistant double check to make certain they knew she was okay and that they didn’t need more. He was all for interrogating the crazy old bat all the way back totown.
“Are you prepared to tell me what you did to Sam?” he asked before leaving the lot. “Otherwise, I’m hauling you backinside.”
“Drugs, dear. It’s all in knowing your pharmaceuticals. Well, and a littlehypnosis, perhaps. Did thatwork?”
Walker checked his rearview mirror. Cass had a too academic, sophisticated air to look like an innocent old lady, no matter how she tried. He knew she lied, at least partially. She’d probably used mushrooms, all right, but the Lucys did weird inexplicable things. He needed to figure out how before they did itagain.
“You scared the heck out of me,”Sam said angrily. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to not know who youare?”
“My friends took care of you, didn’t they? They only had to look at you to know who you are. That’s the reason Susannah insisted you be sent away. The girl isparanoid.”
Diverted, Sam’s anger turned to interest. “You know mymother?”
Walker recognized the old lady’s tactic. Cass had no intentionof accepting responsibility for these last days of horror. And since he wasn’t even certain a crime had been committed, he grudgingly accepted her change of subject only because it was one Sam needed tohear.
“So Sam’s mother is still alive?” He had already done the math and knew her father had been dead and her mother had moved on before his father had gone to Hillvale, but he knew Sam’scuriosityburned.
“As far as I’m aware,” Cass said airily. “Susannah ran the opposite direction to Jade. She could be in China by now. They were goodfriends.”
“My birth mother isalive?” Sam almost shouted. Walker was afraid to glance over to see herexpression.
“Happily remarried and mother of three, last I heard, which has been a while,” Cass admitted, apparently obliviousto her effect onSam.
“Cassandra,” Walker said warningly. “Sam is just learning all this. There’s no need to hit her over the head with a baseballbat.”
Sam gave an ungraceful snort but didn’targue.
“It’s all old news, dear,” Cass replied with a wave of her bony hand. “The important part is that we have you back. You’ll complete the circle, and we can begin turning thingsaround.”
“No,” Sam said quietly. “The important part is that my mother thought it necessary to send me far away from Hillvale to an environment exactly opposite of the one I was born in. And then she ran the reverse direction. That doesn’t sound as if I belong in Hillvale or that she wants me there. Do my uncles even know Iexist?”
Silence from the back seat was damning. The Kennedysknew nothing of Sam. Walker could almost feel her pain as she took up where Cass’s silence leftoff.
“I’m damned tired of not belonging,” she said. “But first, we need to know more about the skeleton buried on the mountain. How much do you know aboutthat?”
Walker wanted to pump his fist and cheer. Cass was an intimidating old hag, almost as bad as Carmel, but she had met her matchinSam.
He would have preferred to have had this conversation where he could study Cass’s body language, but an occasional glance in his mirror would have to suffice. He had to take this brief interval of captivity before Cass disappeared inside her weird mansionagain.
“A skeleton?” Cass sounded alarmed, but a glance in the mirror showed sadness. “We knew the vortex was drawingon negativity, but askeleton?”
Sam left the opening tohim.
“Do you remember a Michael Walker from almost eighteen years ago? He would have been staying at the lodge and asking questions around town.” Walker knew how ludicrous the question sounded. Cass had no reason to know about lodge guests. But she was his only connection to thatperiod.
