Chapter 10
“How didyou find out about Hillvale?” Sam asked Dinah the next morning on the fourth day of her new life. She wiped down the counter as her employer re-filled the pastry shelves. “Is the area well known in circles I don’t belongto?”
Dinah laughed. “The wholepoint of Hillvale is that no one knows of it except those wealthy enough to stay at the lodge. You tell someone you’re packing up and leaving for New Orleans, they know right where to find you. You tell them you’re going to Hillvale, and it could beanywhere.”
“That’s going to change,” the big blond guy in the tailored suit at the end of the countercorrected.
Grumpy Gump, the realestate mogul. Dinah elbowed her, and Sam remembered no one talked to him. But she neededinformation.
“Why is that?” Sam asked, taking money from a customer at theregister.
“When you have a lot of wealthy people congregating, like in Vail or Jackson Hole, people hear about it. Once we get the condos built and the ski lift in, we’re going to be the next Vail.” Golden Boy wiped hismouth with anapkin.
Dinah snorted and slammed back into the kitchen. Sam could see why. A ski lift in this tranquiltown?
“I’ve lived a sheltered life,” she said, closing the register. “Explain why I should know about Vail if I’m not askier?”
“If you want to make money, you go where the money is,” he said as if to asimpleton.
“Ah, and the people who currently livehere do so because theydon’twant to make money. They want quiet lives to be themselves in an area they can afford. Got it.” Sam smiled and abandoned the real estate mogul to wait on acustomer.
He glared, left his money on the counter, and slammed out thedoor.
She wasn’t very good at this interrogation bit. She hadn’t learned a thing this morning but managed to irritate a richcustomer. She almost looked up in relief when Walker blew in, looking crisp in a fresh uniform, his dark hair recently washed and slickedback.
“Any chance you can get away for an hour or two?” he asked gruffly, studying the breakfastcrowd.
Dinah immediately reappeared. “Why youask?”
Obviously understanding that every ear in the place listened, he leaned on the counter andreplied in a low voice. “Because Val has turned banshee, and I need atranslator.”
Dinah looked somber and yanked at Sam’s apron strings. “Go, girl. Mariah will come in to take yourplace.”
“Why can’t Mariah translate? I don’t know Val,” Samprotested.
“’Cause, just ’cause.Go.”
“I think I’m here to be the town stooge,” Sam grumbled as she followed the deputy out. “Everyoneknows more than I do. Explain why Mariah can’t do this. What am I supposed to translate? Do I know a foreignlanguage?”
“Mariah sent me to get you.” Walker opened the door of his official vehicle and let her in the passenger seat. “My psychic guessing powers say the Lucys need you for reasons only they understand. Maybe you’re some kind of trigger that makes themlogical.”
Sam almostlaughed. “That’s not happening. What do you mean about Val turningbanshee?”
“She’s way above the Menendez land wailing like a wounded catamount. Her usual tribe is refusing to climb past the skeleton site and demanding that I fetch you. You are the only rational person any of us know,apparently.”
“Charmed, I’m sure.” Sam watched the cultivated landscape of the resort pass by. Oncethey drove through the lodge’s parking lot, Walker turned up a gravel road that deteriorated toruts.
“Old timber road. The Menendez family may own land up here, but they’ve never built any other entry. They’ve apparently claimed some right of way that the Kennedys have paved over. Rather than argue, both families share access. It’s not as if any of them comes up here more than twice ayear.”
“So, applying my psychic guessing powers, the Menendez family probably does own the right of way or the Kennedys would have put up gates and locks. I wonder if I’m really this cynical or if not knowing who I am has changedme?”
Walker shot her an admiring glance that tingled her spine and heated her cheeks. Sam glanced out the window so he couldn’tsee.
“If you’re smartnow, you were smart before. And I don’t think you learned about people in a couple of days at a café. You may be feeling comfortable mouthing off here where no one knows you, but that’s the best I canoffer.”
“Stripped of my façade, I’ve become my real self?” she asked with a laugh, until Walker stopped the car and bent to look out thewindshield.
She did the same. Up on a rock formationtaller than the vehicle was a familiar scarecrow draped in black rags. Someone needed to buy Val some new clothes. Might be hard to replace the long black veilthough.
