Sapphire Nights Read online

  Sam turned to look out the window and could just make out a pink haze rising over those hills.

  “We’re gradually making it back on the map again,” Mariah continued, “but we’re still so far off the beaten path that we only make money in summer. So if you’re looking for work, I wish you well but minimum wage is about it. Some of the psychics do well, but it takes time to establish a clientele.”

  “No internet to spread the word?”

  Mariah refilled her mug. “Oh yeah, we have cable. Stay here long enough and you’ll meet our mayor, Monty Kennedy. His family owns half the mountain north of here. He and his brother had cable run in for the lodge. So far, they haven’t actually bought a satellite or cell tower. Give them time.”

  “I detect a faint sour note,” Sam said with amusement as Mariah filled her own cup and opened a pie case with yesterday’s leftovers.

  “Monty and Kurt are the Null to end all Nulls. Men are so. . . damned logical. To most women, TV waves and internet clouds are magic. To most men, they’re easily explainable technology. But give men a whiff of weird they can’t account for without cords and wires, and they go bug-eyed.”

  “That’s sexist.” Sam’s taste buds watered as Mariah slapped a piece of apple pie in front of her. “I’m down to my last few dollars,” she admitted. “I can’t contribute much to the economy. How much does pie cost up here?”

  “It’s leftover. It’s free. Coffee’s on me, a welcome-to-town gift. If Cassandra sent you here, then there has to be a good reason, and I’m eager to hear your story.”

  Sam tasted the pie and let it melt in her mouth. This was normal. She considered her answer as she chewed. “I don’t think I’m free to tell my story yet,” she said. Not until she knew what it was anyway.

  Mariah nodded just as a cheery voice rang out from the back. “Pour me some of that java, dear. I feel a good wind in the air. It’s time to fix my beignets.”

  “Dinah, we’ve got company. Come meet Sam.”

  “You finally got a man, Mariah girl?” A tiny African-American cook swaddled in a white cotton apron popped through the swinging doors. Short Afro hair, ruby lips, rings in her ears—and an Adam’s apple and no breasts under a flannel shirt much like Mariah’s.

  Dinah took one look at Sam, cocked a hip, and pouted. “You ain’t no Sam. You’re as straight as our ghostcatcher here.”

  That’s when the wind blew open the front door and a uniformed officer strode in—limping.

  Chapter 2

  Morning, June 16

  * * *

  Rather than reply to not being a Sam, she studied the tall, masculine arrival overpowering the small café. Mariah and Dinah didn’t flinch at his entrance. Unlike them, Sam observed the uniformed officer from a perspective of fear—and not just because her eyes were on a level with his broad chest. The mirrored shades tucked between the buttons of his khaki shirt oddly escalated her fear. Had he come in because her car was a stolen vehicle? She bit down on her tongue to keep from freaking out.

  Finally daring to lift her chin, Sam looked straight into single-lidded green eyes in a flat-nosed, taut-jawed visage that indicated mixed-race parentage. For some reason, the tightness in her chest lessened. He met their stares with a hardened expression and a nod. Studying his full lower lip, Sam swallowed for different reasons. She was definitely heterosexual. Or terror turned her on.

  He took off his official cowboy-style hat, revealing dark hair shaved on the sides. “Good morning, ladies.” His laser-beam gaze focused on Sam. “Don’t think we’ve been introduced.”

  “Sam, this is Deputy Chen Ling Walker. Walker, Sam is staying up at Cass’s place. She’s brought Emma back, so all is well.” Mariah poured a mug of coffee and slid it across the counter. She gestured from Sam to Dinah. “Sam, this is Dinah, the best cook in town. If you’re looking for work, she’s the place to start.”

  Dinah held out her hand. It was callused, blunt, and strong. “Sammy here has a blue aura that bodes well, hon. If she’s staying, I’m hiring.”

  Was she staying? It wasn’t as if she knew where else to go. “Thank you. Let me sleep for a few hours so I can think straight before I make any major decisions.” And pray she’d wake up knowing who she was. Was it possible to hire people without ID?

  “That coffee won’t help you sleep.” The deputy threw his leg over a counter stool one away from hers. “That your Subaru in the lot?”

  Oh gulp, here it came. “Good car,” she murmured evasively. “Didn’t give me a bit of problem even when the deer jumped at it.”

  “I’ve been thinking of getting one for the traction in winter, but they’re not very tall. You’ll have to give me a ride sometime.” He drank his coffee and looked at Dinah, adding a note of hope to his voice. “Don’t suppose you have any of that pie left over?”

  Sam looked guiltily at the last piece on her plate.

  “Don’t you worry, hon, I brought in a fresh one just for you. Give me a minute to get set up, and I’ll be right out.” Dinah sashayed out as if she were in full evening regalia.

  “Blue aura?” Deputy Walker asked.

  Sam mentally thanked him for asking.

  “Blue has all the positive connotations of the universe,” Mariah said, polishing off her piece of pie. “Clear thinking, healing, calm, intuitive, and in the right shade, clairvoyant.”

  “You read auras too?” Sam asked, wanting to believe in hocus-pocus because she had nothing else to go on. She didn’t feel very clairvoyant though. Or calm.

  “Nah, I just watch and learn. Pays to keep up with the crazies in this town. Dinah is one of the sane ones, though. I’m sure the good deputy here can tell you all about her past, but it doesn’t matter up here. I’ve got to get back to my route. If you want me to show you Cass’s place, I’ll ride along with you. That’s easier than biking uphill.”

  Sam would have liked to have heard about Dinah’s past, but the knowledge that the deputy checked everyone out scared the bejeebers out of her. Although—if she wasn’t a criminal—maybe she could ask him to trace her license plate?

  What happened if she couldn’t get into Cass’s place? Could she leave her car in the driveway and sleep in it?

  She savored the last bite of pie, finished her coffee, and stood up. “Good meeting you, deputy.”

  He saluted her with his mug but didn’t bother looking up. Well, so much for that quiver of attraction. She probably looked like dirt. She felt like it anyway.

  Mariah shouted at Dinah that they were leaving, then led the way out. To Sam, she said, “We all have our secrets out here. Not all of us keep them. Be careful to whom you talk.”

  “Like the deputy?” Sam unlocked the car doors, not certain whether it was safe to open the back door to re-cage the cat. Was Emma an escape cat? And how did she know some cats liked to escape?

  Mariah solved the Emma problem by opening the passenger side, finding the cat on the front floorboard, then settling down with it in her lap. Emma stretched her marmalade paws and purred. “Walker is a decent guy, but he’s here for a reason he’s not telling us. There’s more to him than meets the eye, so watch out.”

  Well, so much for asking for a license plate trace. She’d wait for desperation to set in—which could be right after she’d had a few hours of sleep. It belatedly occurred to her that since she had no purse, she had no driver’s license or insurance card. Shit.

  Apparently, she was someone who used foul language. She backed the car out and turned south, as Mariah indicated.

  “Does everyone here have something to hide, then?” she asked, wondering if that included Mariah and afraid to find out. She’d like to think she had one friend.

  “Nah, the mayor and his family own half the valley. He’s been here all his life and is as straight as they come. Boring, arrogant, and a bully, but he doesn’t try to hide it. There are a few other people who were born here, not many. Everyone knows the entire past of the locals and some of everyone’s future, if you believe in clairvo
yance.”

  “I don’t think our fates are carved in stone, so fortune-telling doesn’t make sense to me,” Sam said, thinking it through as she peered through the fog to find the road. It wasn’t as if she knew what her former self thought. If her memory didn’t return, she might have to become a whole new person.

  “But it might be possible to predict a future based on current paths,” Mariah argued. “Let’s face it, if a con man keeps on conning, then eventually he’ll get caught. That’s not hard to predict.”

  “All right, that makes sense, so the trick would be knowing the person was a conman in the first place.” Sam studied the towering redwoods—how did she know they were redwoods?—lining the road. The fog hadn’t lifted so much as the sunlight had reached over the mountain. Again, she wondered what month it was.

  “And that’s the whole basis for fortune-telling,” Mariah said in satisfaction, “Knowing your clientele. Cass’s drive is right up here, on your right. The cemetery is only a few hundred yards further on.”

  They hadn’t driven far from town. She could easily walk it, if needed—avoiding anything that might require a license. The driveway was distinctively marked by a bright red barn of a mailbox sitting on a rusted hand-held plow post. That didn’t look very scary.

  “Crazy Daisy built that mailbox,” Mariah said as they turned up the rutted, once-graveled drive. “She said Cass’s black monstrosity spooked her.”

  Oh well, live and learn. “Crazy Daisy?” Sam asked politely, searching for some sign of a house amid the trees and overgrown bushes. With excitement, she recognized bay laurel saplings among the redwoods. How did she know these things?

  “Daisy is too weird to pry anything sensible out of her. Artistic as heck, though. Creates cool sculptures of twigs and wood and stone, and recycles junk into usable stuff like the mailbox back there. She’d probably be homeless elsewhere, but here, we pay for her talent, if only in food and shelter. It’s easier for people who aren’t capable of living in normal society to find a place with us. We need all kinds.”

  A silhouette of a building appeared through the mist, and Sam didn’t reply. Cassandra’s house was tall, much taller than she’d imagined when she hoped she was coming home. As they approached, she made out a huge Victorian with turrets and wide porches, and if she was seeing correctly, gargoyles on the gutters. “Wow,” she murmured.

  “Cass calls it a B&B and rents rooms when any of us have guests, but she doesn’t advertise. I don’t know how she lives out here all alone in this spooky place. She travels a lot, so she leaves me the keys. I’ll put you in the guest house. It’s more modern and comes with a small kitchen and everything.”

  “A bed would be good right now,” Sam admitted, feeling the stress catching up with her, grateful that Mariah accepted that the invisible Cass wanted her here. “Will Emma be all right in the guest house or does she prefer her own home?”

  “Emma is a slug who will do whatever she likes. She’s familiar with the territory and comes and goes at her leisure. Don’t worry about her. As long as there are food and water available, she’s good.”

  As if in agreement, Emma offered a loud meow. Maybe she knew she was home.

  Mariah pointed at a side drive to the back of the house. “Cass had a studio built over the garage.”

  Sam pulled up to a two-story white-washed stucco garage—a far cry from the painted lady beyond the manzanita and serviceberry hedge. A pot of orange-red geraniums spilled color at the foot of a tiled entryway—a bright spot of light against the gray fog. “This is lovely. Are you sure Cassandra won’t mind?”

  “Not if she sent you up here with Emma. I’ll carry the cat if you want to take your suitcases.”

  Terracotta tile lined the stairs up to a small balcony overlooking the mountain ridge to the east. Inside the heavy timber front door was an open-floor-plan studio with more tile, artwork, and windows with a panoramic view of trees and scrub tumbling down to the west—presumably toward the sea. Sam gaped at the vast horizon.

  “The bed’s behind the Mexican blanket over there. It’s all simple but functional.” Mariah set down the cat, who sniffed the baseboard, intent on tracking down intruders. “I’ll bring up the cat stuff if you want to take a look around and settle in.”

  She needed to investigate her suitcases and boxes. Whatever fugue state had held her all night must be dissipating with dawn. Maybe she had a laptop. As weary as she was, she was even more scared now that she knew she had no family or friends to tell her who she was. Maybe pure terror was blowing out the cobwebs in her brain.

  Mariah brought up the cat food and dishes and glanced at the ghostcatchers in the corners. “It looks clear in here. Cass doesn’t like having the nets in her house, but she agreed they might be good for guests. I’ve never found a ghost here though. I think Cass put a spell on the foundation when they were building it.”

  Sam was so weary, that she almost expressed gratitude for the thoughtfulness of spelling away ghosts. She rubbed her brow, found a small mole-sized bump, and realized that other than a glimpse in a dim rear-view mirror, she didn’t even know what she looked like. “Thanks for everything, I really appreciate it. How do I reach you if I have questions?”

  “You’ll just have to leave a message with Dinah. I’m in and out of there all day, helping when it’s busy. There are some basic groceries in the kitchen. You can pick up more at Pasquale’s once he opens. Everything is there in the town square. Get some sleep and come on back to town.” Mariah slipped out, closing the door behind her.

  Sam was alone again. And life was most definitely not normal yet.

  She stopped in the bathroom to get rid of the coffee and looked in the mirror over a vanity made from an antique Mexican washstand. Apparently she was a tall thin woman, younger than she felt, with fly-away ash-blond hair, a mole above her left eyebrow, an average nose and mouth, and blue eyes. Her crinkled cloud of hair probably needed a ton of product to control it.

  She saw no bruises, bleeding, or knots that might indicate she’d been hit over the head.

  Emma curled around her ankles, purring reassuringly. Sam scratched behind the cat’s ears and returned to the bedroom and her suitcases. They were battered old hard-sided ones that looked older than she did and could have been picked up in a thrift store. Whoever Samantha Moon was, she wasn’t rich.

  Inside the first one was a case of toiletries, underwear, pajamas, and a collection of old t-shirts, tank tops, shorts, and jeans. She apparently dressed like an impoverished college student.

  Inside the second case was a newer—although not new—navy blazer, no-iron white blouse, and a long gray skirt, all wrapped in plastic to prevent wrinkles. If she was to make a guess, she’d call them job-interview clothes. Underneath was a layer of khakis, leggings, and long-sleeve shirts for cooler weather, plus one broomstick, tie-dye skirt in shades of olive green. She might as well be a time-traveling hippy.

  There was no computer or any other piece of technology.

  “Well, Emma, we’re up a creek now, aren’t we?” she asked the cat, who had jumped on the bed to examine her meager wardrobe.

  “Hmmmm,” Emma purred, before nesting on the plastic-covered clothes.

  It would be good to believe the cat had told her she was home. She loved the studio already, but then, she was probably crazy.

  Sam removed the suitcases, cat and all, to the floor. A little orange fur wouldn’t hurt that motley assortment of apparel. Digging out a ragged gray sweatsuit, she changed out of her jeans and sweater and slid between the sheets.

  Maybe she would wake up and all would be right again.

  Chapter 3

  Afternoon, June 16

  * * *

  Hours later, Sam woke abruptly to loud pounding. Sunshine poured through the windows beyond the blanket wall. The urgent thumping on the timber door could have been made by an ax. Panicking, she reached for her phone—and realized it wasn’t there, that she didn’t have one.

  How did one c
all 911 without a cell phone? Oh, cable, landline. Dragging herself from the lovely feather pillow, she glanced around. An old push-button phone was on the lower shelf of the nightstand.

  Emma yowled a warning, leaped from the suitcase, and ran from the room.

  Calling 911 would likely bring Deputy Walker.

  Grabbing a hair tie out of the toiletry bag she’d left on the dresser, sliding on a cheap pair of rubber flip-flops, Sam slipped into the front room. She tried to peer through the stained glass of the sidelights to the balcony but could only see shadows. The thumping momentarily stopped and a loud bell tolled.

  Sam glanced up at the ceiling. Sure enough, a mission bell hung overhead, attached to a rope that probably went outside. It rang again.

  She tugged open the heavy door and was rewarded with a sharp rap on her head. Without thinking, she grabbed the offending weapon and yanked it away, then rubbed her head and glared. “Ow, what did you do that for?”

  Nearly as tall as Sam, a skeletal woman dressed in a concealing veil and black drapery scowled at her and retrieved her gnarled walking stick. “You didn’t answer. I need Cass urgently. Tell me where she is.”

  “Not here. And hello to you too.” Hmmm, this Sam person might be a smartass.

  “I know she’s not here,” the—witchy was the best description—woman snarled. “But you must have seen her. Where?”

  Since the last address Sam remembered was the one in the GPS, she responded, “Monterey.” She was about to slam the door, then remembered she was a stranger here and needed help. Never close the door on someone she might need to ask for help—it seemed a good proverb to live by, whether or not she’d made it up herself.