Chapter 30
The sheriff threwa file on Walker’s death. “Wasn’t much of a cross to set a mountain on fire. It wasn’t more than a dead sapling nailed into a dead treetrunk.”
Walker flipped open the file and scanned the arson team’s report. “If it was Xavier who nailed thesapling...” Walker shoved his hand through his hair. He knew a little too much about these people. “He probably only meant to ward off evil spirits with a Christian symbol. It makes no sense that he’d rub that kerosene can free of prints, then incriminate himself carrying itaround.”
The sheriff shrugged. “The kerosene was poured on the base of the tree in pine debris. The team has noproof your clown ignitedit.”
Who else would want to burn down the Kennedy’s mountain? The Lucys seemed the only likely suspects, but they were tree huggers, not arsonists. At least, that’s what he’dthought.
He’d had enough for one day. He needed to get back to Sam before his brain burned out. He strode out to the sheriff’s parking lot and almost ignored his phone when it rang.Sam wouldn’t be calling it. But his office might. With a sigh, he punched thebutton.
“Gump had Xavier transferred to a rehab in Vegas,” Sofia said curtly into hisear.
“What?” Walker shouted, hurrying toward his car. “Gump? How the hell do you knowthat?”
“Earlier, I asked one of the nurses to let me know if there was any change in his condition, and she gave me acall.”
“Have you located himyet?”
“It’s private information. I’d need to lie or hack their computers,” Sofia saidstiffly.
“We’re legal. We don’t do things like that,” Walker assured her. Looked like his burned-out brain needed another workout. “Unless we have a case against Gump, even the sheriff can’t act. Go home. It’slate.”
“You should, too, dear. Your father wouldn’twant you to work yourself todeath.”
But if he didn’t follow up the links to the killers, other people might die. He didn’t want one of them to be Sam. If he couldn’t talk to Xavier, maybe he could get some sense out of Francois. He sure as hell wouldn’t persuade a moneymaker like Alan Gump to even look at him without a warrant and a raft oflawyers.
Walker pulled out his cell phoneand the file on Francois and punched in the numbers while he was still near atower.
“Havingus both in this place is what Susannah feared most, I think,” Valdis said unexpectedly, as she settled onto a rock seat and reached for Daisy’s sticks andstones.
Sam couldn’t leave after that mention of her mother. Walker would just have towait. She added more of the statues to the outer circle but encouraged her aunt to keep talking. “Do you know how to reach Susannah? Should I let her know I’mhere?”
“Mariah, bring me more of those redwood branches,” Daisydemanded.
Mariah grimaced and accepted her place of servitude in Daisy’s palace. She sent Sam a look that said she wanted to hear all about it later, then climbedout to fetchbranches.
“Sue washed her hands of us,” Valdis responded in her usual gloomy voice. “She left with no forwarding address and doesn’t keep in touch. I have no good idea where she is. This place nearly broke her, broke all of us. You should have stayedaway.”
“Sam, gather up some of those foundation stones over there.” Nibbling at the sandwich Mariah had brought for her,Daisy pointed at the far end of the house. “We need this wall done if you won’tleave.”
Sam began gathering stones, but at least she was still within listening distance. She looked for a way past her aunt’s gloomy prognostications. “She must have been crushed with grief, losing so much in such a shorttime.”
“It had been coming long before that, disaster upon disaster. They shouldhave all left when I did. But Sue stupidly thought she could save your father. They were happy for a while, I suppose.” Val snipped wire and wrapped it around the stones, handing the rough form to Daisy to finish. “Of course, as I learned, life in the city wasn’t anysafer.”
Dang, what did she have to do to get past the gloom? Sam looked for a way to carry more stones at once but she onlyhad her pockets. “How did my mother know Jade andWolf?”
“Sue went to the university for a while. She wanted to write and illustrate children’s books. She imagined herself as a modern Dr. Seuss. Jade and Wolf were teachers who encouraged her. She must have kept in touch when she came back here. The house had burned, and we’d lost the land by then, of course, so she and Zach stayed withCass.”
“Do you think she’s still writing children’s books?” Sam asked cautiously, emptying her pockets in front of Val. Her aunt had never been so loquacious. Maybe she needed familiar territory to feel safe? Or to ventgrief.
“Hope so. She was good, and she shouldn’t have to sacrifice everything. She sent you away because she loved you, wanted you to be safe, and she was homeless,broke, and just a teenager. Our parents were dead, and I was barely surviving as a waitress. She didn’t want to live off your trust fund or Cass. Jade and Wolf were older, already established, desperately wanted children—and promised to live a long way from here and danger. It must have made sense at thetime.”
“And she didn’t want the Kennedys to have this land,” Daisy added, soundingcompletely coherent for a change. “Your mother gave you away in hopes the Evil One would wither and die, but evil doesn’t die,” she finished sadly. “He is up therenow.”
Oh well, almost coherent. “So you had the land back by the time I was born.” She’d never quite understood the timeline of the disastrous year of herbirth.
Val pushed back her veil to sip from her water bottle. Inthe dying light of the sun, shadows danced on her angular face. “I remember my parents when they were good people, talented, generous, gregarious. My childhood was happy, if a little strange, with so many people wandering in and out of it. I think the intentions of the commune were initially sound. But drugs and jealousy consumed them and blackness descended. The land returned after their soulsdeparted.”
