The sheriff and his man looked grim andspoke into their radios. No one seemed eager to climb to therescue.
Walker kept walking. Or limping. The climb had been hard on his bad leg. He didn’t stop to investigate Daisy’s crazy lamassu farm, but slid over it, trying not to fall on the hill of loose rubble. Inside the circle, Cass was shoving aside shrubbery and tugging on a nearly invisible steel door. A bunker. Of course the crazieswould have a bunker, if only for drug storage. Either he was going insane or he was starting to understand theirrationale.
Daisy popped out of the concealed door, her frizzy gray hair coated in dust. Ignoring Cass, she strode straight past the gathering Lucys, to her line of lamassu. Walker noticed the gathering Lucys deliberately placed themselves between the door and the Nulls, hidingit fromview.
Sam emerged next, with a hopping Valdis on her arm. Walker thought he’d never seen anything more beautiful than Sam’s smile as he hobbled up to greether.
“You’re alive,” she said, joy lighting her eyes like blue sapphires. Just the sight jump-started his long deadheart.
Someone took Val’s arm, leaving Sam’s free. In heady relief, Walker gathered Sam againsthim, offering prayers to this universe of insanity that had returned her to him, hearty and whole. He drank in the wonder of her heart beating against his, of her arms wrapping around him as if she could never letgo.
And the adrenalin racing through him like speed found a focus. He was almost light-headed with the joy as his terror seeped away. That didn’t mean a new set of fears didn’ttake its place, but this was the kind of anxiousness that formed when someone youlovedwasendangered.
“I need you,” she whispered, clinging to him as she never had before. “I spent these past hours with you in my every thought. It was almost like having Cass in my head again, but better. I knew you wouldcome.”
He wanted to jump for joy and carry her away and make love and nevercome out into the real world again. He nibbled her ear and ran his hand down her back and pulled her closer. “I couldn’t protect you,” he protested, releasing some of the horror of these lastmoments.
“You don’t need to,” she told him, hugging him harder. “I am responsible forme.”
Sam said that heroically,trying to absolve Walkerfrom his overactive sense of responsibility, but having him in her arms... she wanted to weep for joy. “I thought I might never see you again,” she murmured, giving in totears.
He clutched her tighter, covering any part of her face he could reach with his kisses. “You want to imagine how I felt, watching a mountain tumbling down on you? I’m not sure I could survive losingyou.”
And there it was—they’d both suffered such losses. How did they find the courage to move forward? She lifted her face to give him a salty kiss, then murmured, “Then you know how I feel. If we’re only given these fleeting moments... shouldn’t we face our fears and grab the joy while wecan?”
Walker shuddered and rested his cheek on her head. “It’s more than just sex, isn’t it? That’s whatscares the crap out ofme.”
She smiled through her tears. “You can afford to lose a little crap. I want to believe what we feel is real and not just a result of terror, but I’m too shaky to think straight. Give metime.”
“I’d give you the stars, if I could.” Walker glanced over his shoulder to see if they could getway.
In the dusk, the mob of Lucys was gathering brush andblocking view of the door. The sheriff and the town Nulls were further up the hill, playing with ATVs and shotguns, going after the snakes and climbing up afterGump.
With decision, he shed the need to follow up on the killer. “Gump most likely killed my father for the same reason he blew up the mountain—money. He can go to a hell of his ownmaking.”
She nodded in understanding.“We can’t help up there. I want you to see something before the Lucys hide it allagain.”
“I’ll gladly follow you anywhere. Just don’t do that to me again.” Walker took Sam’s hand, relishing the warmth and life and fearing what lay ahead for his damagedheart..
“Do what? Stay alive?” she asked, blinking and feigning innocence as she led him down the cold stairs. “Did we have anearthquake?”
“Of the human kind.” That’s what he liked, maybe loved, about Sam. She might be a starry-eyed Lucy, but she stayed grounded. His heart still hadn’t slowed down, but he flicked on his flashlight to see what she wanted him to see. The beam glinted off a crazy construction of mirrors and crystals. Paintings were stacked against walls and hung anywhere that hadspace.
Shebriefly leaned into him, letting their mutual relief calm their racing pulses. As if afraid to get too close, she kissed his cheek, then pointed at a gallery of small portraits. “Look, that’s Xavier, when he was younger. His eyes are a lovely brown. He must have visited here back when it was acommune.”
She’d brought him down to look at an ancient painting? “What am I supposed tosee?”
“No red,” she said inexplicably, dragging him on. “The small portraits are Lance’s style. Daisy probably stole them from his studio. He’s not very original, but he’s obsessive and a good copyist. Look, doesn’t this look like a youngerGump?”
She pointed at an arrogant-looking blond man in his early thirties, with his coat pushed back and his thumbs hooked in his trouser pockets. Eventhen, he wore expensive suits. There was something peculiar about the expression. Fascinated by the way her mind worked, Walker leaned over and studied it closer. “Why are his eyesred?”
“Evil. He’s infected with evil. Most of these paintings down here are portraits of evil. This is Daisy’s way of burying them.” Sam gestured at the bunker. “Let’s go back up before they lock usin.”
She grabbed the small portrait of Xavier and took Walker’shand.
To hell with portraits and evil. What was important was Sam’s trusting hand in his—and that they were alive to see anotherday.
“I’d giveyou the stars, if Icould.”
