Moonstone Shadows Read online

  Hannah admired the dark hardwood floor, the mid-century modern furniture in what appeared to be a family room and study, and the open, stainless-steel kitchen that seemed to fill the center of the house. An air conditioner whirred quietly, keeping out the hot August heat and humidity—a rarity in Hillvale, she knew.

  Seeing a refrigerator, she opened that while Sam called her husband, the police chief.

  “He has beer, wine, and some fancy bottled water,” she called. “Mariah, sit down.”

  “I don’t dare,” the computer expert cried. “This sofa looks like a high-end designer piece, probably listed in Antiques-R-Us.”

  “So do the chairs,” Hannah agreed. “But you know Aaron uses them. Sit.”

  “Dang, these are first editions!” Teddy said, opening volumes on the bookcase. “Where’s Harvey?”

  “Closing up the antique shop.” Fee appeared beside Hannah, opened a few refrigerator drawers, and removed lemons and limes. “Mariah and Sam need vitamins, not beer. You and Teddy are on your own.”

  “Wine,” Teddy called. “Chilled, preferably.”

  Hannah had already had enough wine for one day. She settled for water. “Will Harvey know we’re here or will we scare him to death?” She peered around the wall of cabinets and found stairs. Apparently there was another level that hadn’t been obvious through the trees. The house was huge.

  Teddy, not being as polite as Hannah, ventured into the front room and peered out the front door. “There’s a separate entrance at the end. If Harvey doesn’t want to speak to us, he can sneak in.”

  After serving drinks all around, petite Fee perched on a counter stool and spun around. “So, do we talk about who would want Francois dead, or why Aaron is showing his house to Hannah when he never showed it to anyone else?”

  Aaron’s patience had been tested almost beyond endurance by the time Walker arrived. Val kept wandering off, presumably in search of lost souls. Brenda refused to leave Francois alone until she’d verified his death. Tullah and Cass fell into their medium and stooge act—he assumed to consult with any invisible entities in the area.

  And he was left fretting over Hannah and the others left vulnerable to whatever evil lurked. But he couldn’t follow them until he was certain the rest of the Lucys were kept off haunted killing fields.

  A sensible Null like Walker was a relief. He came accompanied by men with a stretcher, the coroner, and a deputy.

  “He’s probably been dead since before noon,” the red-haired nurse practitioner told them. “I didn’t want to touch the body but I saw no contusions or abrasions, no sign of violent death. Francois was a man in his fifties who smoked and drank too much and led an inactive life.”

  “No signs of struggle?” the coroner asked as the others followed the trail Aaron indicated.

  Aaron kept his eye on the Lucys rather than follow Walker. He didn’t give a damn about the blackmailing SOB lying in the field, but everyone knew Francois never acted on his own initiative. Who had ordered him to dig up what? Or bury it, for all that mattered.

  Once the law officers departed, Brenda spoke again. “Digitalis toxicity,” she said with certainty. “He was probably on medication. Someone pushed him over the edge with an overdose. It could have been done in any number of ways, but foxglove is the favorite of mystery readers. We don’t grow any other digitalis herbs here.”

  “Samantha planted foxgloves in the city garden,” Cass said.

  The Lucys instantly left for town. Aaron assumed that they’d decided Francois had left nothing of interest exposed by his digging. He had a feeling Hannah wouldn’t leave it at that.

  Walker stopped beside Aaron to watch the body carried out. “No sign of violence, but Sam says Fee smells mildew and must.”

  Aaron bit back a groan. “That means she’s suspicious. Brenda says digitalis poisoning. I suppose it would be too easy for him to have the missing stone on him.”

  Walker didn’t even question but jotted a note. “He hadn’t dug far. Found an arrowhead and possibly a femur. Coroner said it was ancient.”

  “It’s a graveyard,” Aaron said. He hesitated, uncertain whether to explain why they were here. But Sam would tell him eventually. “That’s the site of an old well, one depicted in the Eversham painting I was accused of stealing.”

  Walker nodded. “Makes no sense, like every other damned Lucy episode. Are you certain Carmel wasn’t a Lucy?”

  “Not that I’m aware. Hannah carries a genealogy in her head. You might ask her.” Aaron finally unstuck his feet and started toward home—a home invaded by the women he’d hoped to keep out.

  The sun had gone behind the evergreens when they reached the shortcut to his yard. The women were already pouring out to greet him—all except Hannah.

  Carmel and Tullah had gone ahead on their own. The younger ones peppered Walker with questions. The chief led them away, offering mostly assurances. Aaron let them go. He opened his patio door to find Hannah washing and drying glasses and putting them away.

  “You don’t have to do that. You should follow the others back to town. It will be dark soon.” He glanced around, noting changes in the furniture, a book lying on the table. He was unused to anyone disturbing his environment.

  “I don’t know where I fit in,” she said, gathering citrus peels from the sink. “Do you have a compost can?”

  “I doubt you’ll fit into it,” he said dryly. “It’s under the sink.”

  But he knew what she meant. The Lucys were a tight knit group, like family. Hannah had that sort of connection with her cousins—the kind where she had shared history. With the Lucys—it was shared gifts, and Hannah didn’t feel as if she had any. Until Hillvale, he’d been on the outside looking in for most of his life. He’d adjusted to the loneliness.

  She dumped the peels and washed her hands. “I’ll leave you alone. I just wanted to thank you for letting us in. Mariah tried to do too much and needed the rest.”

  He shrugged. “It was the closest place with a landline. I’m not a complete hermit.”

  “You are the next best thing to a recluse, and you know it.” She put away the misplaced book. “You’ll get worse with age.”

  “I just prefer to take my personal business out of town,” he countered, opening the refrigerator to see if he had any beer left.

  She headed for the door. “The Lucys agree that you have a woman in every town you visit. That isn’t the same as having a life.”

  Worked for him.

  She headed out the door—as he’d told her to do, three verses back.

  He took a gulp of his beer and considered letting her go. He’d done that the other day. It hadn’t helped. It had just made him feel like a callous beast.

  He might live with feeling like a beast, but he’d never live with himself if there was a killer out there, and he let her go alone.

  Fourteen

  “Stay,” Aaron told her.

  Hannah hesitated with her hand on the door latch. “I don’t think I’m likely to be attacked by a killer with a bottle of digitalis. Brenda told us what happened.”

  “Someone sent Francois to dig. I touched his shovel.” Aaron reached for the beer, then remembered neither of them had eaten dinner. Getting drunk might be appealing when he was alone, but not a good idea around a Lucy. He rummaged in his freezer for anything he could nuke.

  She flipped a light switch, found a dimmer, and lowered the glare—as if she were right at home. Then she pulled the blinds. “And?”

  Aaron supposed with her travels, Hannah was accustomed to making herself at home anywhere.

  “Francois had just argued with someone and was angry. He had visions of riches to show someone up, although in his muddled head, wealth seemed to be mixed up with Carmel’s box. So he’d seen it at some point, suspected the contents were valuable, and maybe thought he could find more. There was so much rage and fear that I couldn’t get a clear reading.” Aaron found a frozen lasagna and stuck it in the microwave. Meat and carbs, his
favorite food groups. Tomato sauce counted as a vegetable, right?

  “But he didn’t know the police have the box? Or he thought Carmel buried it?” Hannah opened his refrigerator and pulled out wilted lettuce, then searched fruitlessly for other salad makings.

  “I use lettuce for sandwiches to say I eat healthy. You’ll not find anything else, including dressing.” He set out plates and wondered if he’d lost his mind. He didn’t even share dinner with Harvey, who’d rented a room here for years.

  “And the limes and lemons are for mixed drinks? Figures.” She opened his freezer and located an ancient package of frozen broccoli. “That was all you got on Francois? That he was a lazy idiot?”

  “I got the impression that his thoughts were on the night Carmel died, that he was angry someone had taken his meal ticket, and that the cops had taken the box. He was also angry because he’d been locked out of her suite, where presumably he could have helped himself to the jewelry.” He poured wine. “I wasn’t clear on who the anger was directed at. Half Hillvale, I suspect.”

  “So we know Francois didn’t murder Carmel, one suspect off the list, if you’re reading the shovel right. Did the police take the shovel?” She poured broccoli in a colander and set it over a pot of water to steam, then rummaged in his cabinets to produce olive oil and an old bottle of vinegar.

  “They did.” He sipped his wine and watched her hunt. Natalie used to produce feasts out of nothing. He’d forgotten that. He needed to forget it again. He turned his back to fill Hannah’s glass and let her search. “I need to go through his things and see if I can find out who told him that digging would bring him gold. Francois wasn’t much inclined toward hard work.”

  “His room will be roped off. We need to simply dig where Francois did, as I originally intended. Eversham wanted us to see that well and boulder for a reason.”

  His late wife had never been this stubborn. She’d always listened and let him lead the way.

  Natalie had only been an inexperienced twenty-two-year-old. Hannah was probably the virtuous lady in the painting stubbornly rejecting the knight, even after he’d returned from the Crusades with a Healing Stone.

  Where the hell had that thought come from?

  From their shared vision earlier, the one he’d deliberately shut out? Double deodamnatus.

  He didn’t believe in reincarnation, did he?

  The Lucys did. That’s essentially what their whole spirit world was about. Just kill him now.

  By the time the lasagna was done, Hannah had tossed a salad with wilted lettuce, broccoli, the mushrooms he used for steaks, and a dressing made from whatever ancient herbs cluttered his cabinets. It was even edible, he discovered, when they sat down and ate.

  “We need to experiment,” she said when they were done.

  He was feeling relaxed and on strong ground again. “No, we don’t.” He picked up their plates and set them in the dishwasher.

  She took the plates out, rinsed them, and returned them to the dishwasher. “There’s a killer on the loose. Evil has saturated the land. And the killer may have the stone needed to heal Hillvale. I can dig on my own, but you hold the key to interpreting what I find.”

  “Ask one of your psychic family to do it. I’m not for hire.” He rinsed the crystal wine glasses and set them in the drying rack.

  Hannah rummaged until she found a drop of dishwashing liquid and a sponge to soap the crystal. “My family would not let me out of their sight if I they could read my mind. I understand you don’t want to see me drop dead any more than I want my students to see it. I get that, honest, I do. But what we want and what we must do are often different.”

  “You don’t know the half of it,” he muttered. “I’ll walk you home before you start polishing the granite.”

  She dried off her hands and gave him a piercing golden glare. “I don’t particularly want to die. I cherish a ridiculous notion that a healing stone might actually heal. So, yes, I have ulterior motives in wanting to find a killer. But if you have a chance to heal this land with a magical stone, shouldn’t you jump at it?”

  She damned well had him there. Killing the evil would set him free.

  Hannah had harbored vague hopes that Aaron would let down his walls and take her to bed, but he walked her back to the store instead. Probably for the best, but if she was going to die, she’d like to go having great sex.

  She was uncertain if Aaron had any interest in the same. A handsome, confident man who could have any woman he wanted wouldn’t necessarily want a plain one who came with a lot of baggage. She had to quit reliving that damned painting—or making up stories to go with it.

  Aaron verified the shop wasn’t inhabited by digitalis killers or ghosts, said good-night, and left her there, alone.

  To hell with that. She let herself back out again and wandered over to the café. It was closed, but a nice contingent of the younger Lucys had congregated in the restaurant next door. They waved her over to join them.

  “Kurt still doesn’t have a bartender, so we’re limited to wine,” Teddy said as Hannah pulled up a chair. “We could repair to the lodge bar, but that’s where the men are.”

  “Dinah doesn’t object to us filling up one of her tables?” Hannah checked and the restaurant was bustling.

  “Not us,” Amber, the sunset-haired tarot reader said with laughter. “We’re like the special groups in history—the Algonquin Round Table, the Rat Pack. . . We need our own name.”

  “Lucys ought to be enough,” Fee said dryly. “People stare at us as it is.”

  Hannah glanced around. Fee was right. Several of the customers watched them and whispered among themselves. Not many, just enough to know the town’s reputation for weird was spreading.

  “Tell us what you found out from Aaron,” Teddy said eagerly.

  “There’s no private conversation among Lucys?” Hannah asked doubtfully, uncertain of the unwritten rules.

  “The men want us to think like that, but communication is key to solving problems, and a killer is a real problem. We’re developing a bad reputation that will destroy the momentum we’ve developed over the past year." As a successful jewelry designer, Teddy had business experience and the confidence to use it. As wife of the owner of half the town, she also had influence.

  “Well, the reporters keep my café busy,” Fee said wryly. “But I can see brides might be reluctant to hold weddings with murderers around.”

  Hannah had communicated enough with these women recently to know them fairly well, but she was naturally reticent about herself. And somehow, Aaron had become part of that reticence. She sorted through what little she knew and told them about Francois and the shovel.

  “So you think we need an archeological dig?” Amber looked dubious. “We’d better bring in Sam and Mariah on that, they have more understanding of what’s out there. I’d love to use the golf cart and take a look though. Until I get this bum knee worked on, I don’t want to walk all the way there, then have to run from crazed killers.”

  “Ha, Hollywood movie star,” Fee teased. “You don’t want to mess your pretty hair. Besides, don’t you have a recording schedule?”

  Amber wrinkled her nose and sipped at her bubbly water as if it were wine. “I don’t want to miss out on any Lucy fun. I can reschedule if needed.”

  “I’m supposed to be setting up a school,” Hannah reminded them. “So this gets complicated.”

  “Kurt is bringing in workmen to convert the upstairs for your apartment and to start painting and whatnot in the schoolrooms. Sally is asking for chalkboard paint and a bulletin board divider for the classrooms. You’ll probably need to tell them what you need.” Teddy waved at Brenda, the nurse, as she hovered in the entrance.

  A woman in her late forties or early fifties, with dyed red hair, Brenda was petite and wiry and always seemed to be in a hurry, Hannah noticed.

  “Samantha can’t tell if the foxgloves have been disturbed,” Brenda announced. “Any part of the plant can be dangerous
. He could have drunk tea from the leaves or someone could have put flowers in his salad or pounded seeds into his coffee. . . I have no idea what that would taste like.”

  “Do we know for certain that he was taking digitalis?” Hannah asked.

  “Mariah checked the sheriff’s report. The coroner hasn’t done an autopsy yet but they found prescription bottles in his room, so yes, digitalis poison is very possible. Did Aaron say anything useful?” Brenda asked.

  “He said Francois was angry, and that he’s pretty sure he wasn’t Carmel’s killer. He thinks maybe someone sent Francois out there. He also said the evil was stronger than usual today. Combined with what Fee said about the smell of must and mildew, is there any chance the killer was with Francois when he dropped?” Hannah hadn’t drunk much of her wine, but she took a gulp now, waiting for the verdict of the other Lucys on her theory.

  “We need to get into Francois’s room,” was the conclusion Teddy reached.

  “Aaron needs to get into it,” Hannah corrected.

  “And Mariah needs to research Francois,” Fee added worriedly.

  “The cops probably have his pill bottles, so I’m no more help here. Let me know if you need anything else.” The nurse departed without sitting down.

  “Aaron won’t go near Francois’s room unless Walker lets him in.” Hannah was pretty sure she’d correctly read his reluctance to break the law. He’d even been upset about her removing a pebble.

  “Divide and conquer,” Teddy crowed, draining her glass. “Sam can persuade Walker to take Aaron around Francois’s bedroom. I’ll go with Hannah and Kurt to the schoolroom tomorrow, ostensibly to inspect the place where my niece and nephew will be educated. Afterward, Hannah and I will go off to discuss plans—and just happen to wander down to the old well. I’m not Keegan. I can’t sense crystal mother lodes. But if there are crystals anywhere around there, maybe I can sense something that will lead us to the right area for digging.”

  “I can’t contribute much, but I know how to use a shovel,” Hannah agreed. “I think we need more evidence than sensing evil or the smell of mildew to convince Keegan to join us.”