Silver Sparks (30 page)

She approached slowly, peering into the hole in the floor. Cal grabbed her arm to keep her away from the edge, then just held on to her even though she wasn’t going anywhere. She didn’t have to. She could see the hoist, the huge hydraulic cylinder standing like a pillar in the center of the rectangular pit. Next to its base Jameson lay still on the cement floor.

“Is he dead?”

“I’m pretty sure. Looks like he hit his head on the hoist.”

She didn’t need to see it. Amber apparently did. She trotted across the open center of the barn, stopping at the other side of the hole. She peered down, unflinching. “Is he the one who killed them?” she asked. “The one who killed Julie?”

“Yes.” They said it at the same time, and Cal gave her a questioning look. “He told me. He said Rafe choked them when he . . .” She didn’t want to say while he raped them, even though Amber probably knew, judging by the angry look on her face. “They might have been unconscious.” Let Amber believe that. “They knew what Rafe had done and they would talk. Jameson couldn’t let anyone find out. So he killed them. Rafe must have known.”

Cal sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m not so sure about that. He doesn’t expect to see women again after he’s done with them. Maybe he’d started to wonder these past few days, after the police questioned him about so many women disappearing after he was with them. But I don’t think he knew.”

“He’s still a slimy little prick,” Amber said. No one disagreed. She looked back into the hole at Jameson’s body. “I’m glad he’s dead.” A moment later, her gaze settled on Maggie’s arm. “You’re bleeding.”

Cal was instantly alarmed. “Where? Did he hurt you?” He grabbed her shoulders, looking her up and down. It didn’t take him long to see the blood dripping from her arm. Worry changed to outright horror. Gently, he took her hand, lifting her arm.

His fingers brushed the cut by her thumb and she finally felt it, sucking in a sudden breath at the pain. Cal let go immediately, and she held her arm up for him to see. “It’s not too bad. I didn’t even feel it until now.”

A scowl darkened his face as he glanced at the cut on her hand, then examined the deeper one that curved from the top of her arm to the underside just below the elbow. His mouth tightened in a grim line. “Maggie, this is deep. You need stitches.” His gaze darted over her before he began unbuttoning his own shirt. “Why didn’t you say something?” he demanded, directing his scowl at her.

“I forgot.” Although, now that he’d pointed it out, she became aware of a dull throbbing in her arm. It wouldn’t be long before her shock wore off and the pain hit her full force. She watched him wrap his shirt around her arm, and winced at the tight knot he made with the sleeves. Blood was already seeping through the shirt.

“Come on, we’re getting you to the hospital. Amber, will you get my truck and drive it up here so Maggie doesn’t have to walk so far?” He pulled keys from his pocket and tossed them to her. “Put it in four-wheel drive, the ground’s soft.”

Amber took off at a jog. Cal wrapped his arm around Maggie as they walked across the barn. It felt good, and not only because she was cold. Shock was beginning to set in, the aftermath of operating on pure adrenaline.

“Cal, we can’t just leave with a dead body back there. This is a crime scene.”

“I’ll call it in. But they’ll have to question us at the ER. We’re not waiting for EMTs to get here when you’re bleeding like that and there’s a twenty-four-hour clinic a couple miles away.”

She gave in meekly. Truthfully, she would be glad to find a warm place to sit down, curl into a ball, and stare at the walls. A psycho had just tried to kill her. Probably would have succeeded, too. She didn’t want to think about what he would have put her through before finishing the job.

And it felt awfully good to be wrapped in Cal’s protective embrace. She sank into silence, content to be with him as he called the police, as he drove to the clinic, while they hustled her back to a room. Cal was given a scrub shirt to wear while the nurse sliced through the one he’d wrapped around her arm.

He touched her uninjured arm. “Will you be okay if I leave you? The police will be right behind us and they’re going to want to question Amber. She’s a minor, so I want to be with her and make sure no one digs for information they don’t need to know. That whole dancing thing with Rafe has nothing to do with Jameson trying to kill you.”

“Sure, go ahead.”

He smiled and squeezed her hand. “I’ll find you when we’re done.”

He didn’t come back while they put twenty-six stitches in her arm, but she hadn’t expected him to. She gave a statement to the officer who came, then sat in the lobby to wait. Two hours later, she was still waiting when Zoe called.

“Maggie! I haven’t had a chance to call until now. Are you okay? They told me you got cut, and someone said it was pretty bad, and someone else said it was nothing, and I don’t know what’s going on!”

“I’m okay, just got a few stitches in my arm.”

“Did that De Luca lawyer really try to kill you?”

She didn’t want to increase Zoe’s anxiety, but didn’t know how to play down attempted murder. “Yeah, he did. But I’m fine, really.”

“Oh, my God, how can you be fine? You must have been terrified!”

More than she had ever been in her life. “I’m okay now, honest. Zoe, could you do me a favor? Could you give me a ride home?”

“I’ll be right there.”

She ended the call and dialed Cal, but got shunted to voice mail. He hadn’t called back by the time Zoe’s car pulled up to the emergency entrance.

He did after she got home; a quick message to say they were still talking to Amber and he’d see her later. He sounded tired and dejected. She wasn’t sure if it had to do with her, and didn’t want to ask. She felt pretty dejected herself. With the crisis over, her R-rated dance on the bar loomed larger than ever.

Chapter
Eighteen

C
al looked at the clock on the dashboard. Nearly five-thirty in the morning. Not the usual time to bring someone home.

“Do they get up early at the commune?”

For a few seconds Amber’s face was blank while she processed the question. She’d answered a lot of questions in the last couple hours. They both had. Blinking sleep away, she said, “Some do. Flynn and Amy. Marcy.”

Good enough. He started the truck and left the Alpine Sky for the second time that night. Away from the news vans and police cars, Two Bears Mountain was quiet, still cloaked in predawn darkness. Cal opened his window a few inches despite the cool temperature, just enough to feel part of the peace and solitude of the mountain. He breathed deeply as the wilderness worked its magic, dissolving his tension. The only sound was the soft rumble of the engine, the only light the glow from the dash.

“I don’t want to go home.”

Amber’s soft words startled him. He’d thought she was asleep, but the pain in her eyes told him her mind had been far from peaceful. Apparently she wasn’t as attached to the members of the commune as they were to her. “I can take you back to my cabin if you don’t want to stay at the commune.”

“No, I don’t mean the commune. I mean
home
. Los Angeles. I don’t want to go back there.”

“You don’t have to leave yet if—”

“Ever.” Her troubled gaze stabbed at his heart. “I don’t ever want to go back there.”

“Your mother . . .” He left it hanging, not sure where to go with the thought.

“She won’t miss me. You know she won’t.”

She was right. And he couldn’t blame her. It wasn’t that Sherrie June Drummond Ellis Howard Whatever was mean or abusive to her children. She just didn’t care. He knew what it was like to live in a home without love. It sucked. He’d be glad not to send Amber back to that.

But she was too young to be on her own—she hadn’t even finished high school yet. She needed a home.

The idea had been in the back of his mind for several days, and needed no deliberation. “You can live with me.” It wouldn’t be the “normal” family life he’d envisioned, but they’d manage.

“You mean in
Oklahoma
?”

You’d have thought he’d said Lower Slobovia. “Oklahoma City, to be exact. It’s a great place, and it has anything you’d want—theaters, museums, parks.” The horrified look hadn’t gone away. “Malls.”

“I want to stay
here
. At the commune.”

He frowned. “I thought you hated being there.”

Her gaze shifted away, evading his. “It’s not so bad. The people are nice, and Kate and Pete are pretty cool.”

He suspected he knew why she said that. “Yeah, they encouraged you to pierce your lip. Real cool.”

She glared. “For your information, Kate talked me out of the lip ring. And I already got a new piercing. Here.” She turned her head, holding the long brown and blue strands away from her ear. A shiny silver cuff shone at the top of her ear, with a delicate chain connecting it to a black stone midway down. Different maybe, but not weird.

“Oh.” He almost hated losing that bargaining chip. “So you want to stay and learn to make jewelry?”

“No, I’m not interested in making it. But did you know there are people who travel all over the world, finding things to sell in stores over here? Maggie buys stuff from people who do that. That’s what I want to do, after I learn about jewelry and maybe some other stuff. Kate and Pete are teaching me a lot.”

“And what about school? Kate and Pete won’t let you drop out.” At least, he hoped they wouldn’t. “If you did, they wouldn’t take you in. You have to finish high school at least, and you can’t do that living in a remote commune in the mountains. Even Maggie and her sisters had to move to town with their grandma during the school year.”

She didn’t look discouraged. “Then I’ll do that, too. I’ll find someone to stay with in B-Pass,” she said, adopting the local abbreviation like a native. “Maybe I could even stay with Maggie. Or her grandmother. It’s just for the school year.”

She’d already shoved him out of the picture. He should be relieved. He didn’t need a stubborn, impulsive teenager messing up his plans. But someone had to take responsibility for the kid, and if it wasn’t going to be her mother, then it would damn well be him. He refused to examine the idea that he’d grown fond of her, might even love her in a brotherly way. She wouldn’t care, and that wasn’t the point. A kid needed a home, and he wasn’t going to let his little sister be passed around from family to family because she didn’t have one.

“We’re family,” he told her firmly. “And you’re a minor. It’s Oklahoma City or Los Angeles, take your pick. Next summer if you want to come back here, I’ll bring you.”

She clamped her jaws together and folded her arms. “I knew you wouldn’t understand. You’re such a control freak.
Don’t do anything reckless
,” she mimicked in a deliberately taunting voice. “
Don’t talk to strangers
. You think you get to tell everyone how to run their lives. Plus, you’re boring.” She made it sound like a disease. She slouched down in her seat and turned away, staring out the side window.

Cal ground his teeth. The name-calling might be immature, but it still hit a sore spot. He wasn’t boring. Hell, he was a lot of fun. She’d only known him while he was hunting down their sister’s killer. After she’d known him a few more months, she’d see how wrong she was. And he didn’t try to tell everyone how to live their lives, either. He just wanted to keep Maggie safe from reckless impulses.

Not that it had worked. That last one in the bar had been a doozy.

He sank into a grumpy silence. He’d done the right thing. Amber would have a home, and someone who cared about her. Someday she’d appreciate what he’d done, how he’d given her stability. She might even decide to go to college. They’d both finally have a normal life.

And Maggie . . . He flinched at how he’d messed up her life. She’d nearly lost her store and had probably destroyed her reputation, two things she cared fiercely about. And it could have been worse—helping him investigate Rafe had nearly gotten her killed.

She’d be better off without him.

He waited several hours before calling the West Coast, but it still sounded like he’d gotten his mother out of bed. The gravel-voiced “’Lo?” sounded sleepy, but could also be part hangover.

“It’s Cal,” he told her.

“Cal? Hang on.” He heard rustling sounds, murmured voices, and finally the click of a door closing. “What are you calling for?”

Nice to hear from you, too, he thought. “It’s about Amber.”

“What about her? Didn’t she show up?”

Fine time to ask. But that attitude just made it all the more likely that she’d agree to let him take her. “She’s here, but now I’m leaving Colorado. I’d like to take her with me to Oklahoma if it’s all right with you.”

“What for?”

“To live with me for a while. She could go to school there and we could get to know each other.”

“Live with you?” Her voice rose in disbelief. “I need her back here.”

Caught off-guard, he just blinked for a few seconds. He hadn’t expected to run up against maternal instinct, and wondered if Julie’s death had somehow awoken it. “You want her back?”

“Damn right. Bud and me need her to watch his dogs while we go on a cruise.”

The glimmer of hope faded to black. “Tell Bud he can put them in a kennel.”

“They
are
in a kennel. Bud raises greyhounds for racing. He’s got fifty or sixty of ’em. But his kennel manager just up and quit. We figure if Amber takes over the kennel job for the summer, it’ll save us a pretty penny.”

It didn’t sound like any of those pennies would be going to Amber, either. “Does Amber know about this?”

“Not yet, but it don’t matter because she likes dogs, and she don’t have a job. This’ll be good experience.”

For what, indentured servitude? “I forgot to mention, Amber broke her arm. The cast has to stay on for at least six weeks, and she can’t do much. Can hardly even wiggle her fingers.”

He waited through a long pause. “Well, shit. Now what am I supposed to do?”

“Hire someone to run the kennel, I guess. But it’ll be best if you stick around until she gets that cast off, because she’ll need help with stuff. Getting dressed, cutting her meat, stuff like that.”

“Fuck that. I ain’t givin’ up my Mediterranean cruise. If she can’t take care of herself, then she can just stay with you.”

“Okay. I just wanted to make sure you didn’t mind . . .” He didn’t finish the sentence, because the line had gone dead.

No way in hell would he let Amber go back to Los Angeles. Ever.

Maggie refused to answer the incessant knocks on the back door of Fortune’s Folly. She had no desire to hear the shouted questions from the reporters camped in the parking lot.

Zoe found her anyway. Maggie looked up from taping a box as her sister came through from the shop area.

“Where are the flooring guys?” Zoe gestured at the front of the store. “Your carpenter let me in. He’s the only one out there.”

“There was some snafu with the wood. They tell me they have to reorder and it’ll take another week.” Maggie gave her a cynical smile. “Just one more thing that’s gone wrong with my life lately.”

Zoe settled on the stool at the end of the worktable, fiddling with a spool of packing tape as she watched Maggie finish the box. She nodded toward the bulky bandage circling Maggie’s arm above and below her elbow. “How’s your arm feel?”

“Hurts a little. Everything works, though.” She wiggled her fingers in demonstration. It didn’t even pull on the five stitches at the base of her thumb.

“That’s good.” Zoe twirled the spool absently. “I saw the De Lucas on TV this morning. They were already distancing themselves, expressing shock that such a deranged man was allowed to handle their son’s legal affairs. They’re making noises about seeking damages against his firm.”

Maggie looked up. “They’re suing their own law firm?”

“Deflecting attention from Rafe. They say the firm was negligent for entrusting their son’s legal affairs to a man who was obviously insane. He put others in jeopardy, too—that would be you. The De Luca family is outraged on your behalf.”

“I feel warm all over.”

Zoe set the tape aside. “So. Did he call?”

Maggie nodded, not wanting to talk about it but knowing she couldn’t avoid it. “Yeah. He said he was taking Amber back to the commune.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It was nearly dawn and we were both tired. I told him I was just getting into bed. He said I needed a good night’s sleep so he’d just go back to the lodge.”

Zoe thought it over. “Considerate.”

“Don’t bother trying to find the bright side, Zoe. He wanted to be there so he could check out first thing this morning.”

“Check out?” Alarm made her voice ratchet up to near-squeaky. “What’s that mean—he’s leaving already?”

Maggie shrugged without meeting her eyes. “Can you blame him?”

“Yes! And I can’t believe he’d leave without saying good-bye.”

“He asked where I’d be, then said he’d stop by here. I haven’t seen him yet.”

Maggie dumped a bag of Styrofoam peanuts into the box and refused to meet Zoe’s eyes. She knew her sister was watching her closely, weighing whether to offer supportive platitudes or unleash a string of expletives denouncing men in general and Cal Drummond in particular. Maggie wasn’t sure which would make her feel better.

“It’s still early,” Zoe finally said.

Maggie looked pointedly at the clock. Past two—not what she would call early.

“He wouldn’t just leave, Mags.”

“After what I did? He might. He’s looking for normal, Zoe. The kind of woman who makes rational decisions based on careful thought. That’s not me. It never was. In case there was any doubt, I resolved it with my little demonstration at the bar last night. I’m not only reckless, I’m back to being a bar bimbo. Not exactly what a man like Cal wants. Not even close.”

She could see Zoe struggling to find an argument and failing. Her sister watched as she spread out packaging paper, then lifted a small slab of fossilized trilobites onto the center and began wrapping.

The door from the shop opened. Maggie looked up sharply, then relaxed as Sophie came in.

“You didn’t give me the secret password, Maggie. I actually had to show that carpenter guy my ID before he’d believe I was your sister and let me in.”

Maggie smiled with relief that he was taking her orders seriously. “You might have been a reporter.” Her gaze went to the folded newspaper in Sophie’s hand. “Which one is that? I’ve already seen ‘Bar Bimbo Strikes Again.’ ”

Reluctantly, Sophie laid it on the table between Maggie and Zoe. “The B-Pass
Echo
. I wanted to see how the local press handled it.”

Maggie stared at the front-page picture of herself in a bra and skimpy, fringed skirt, waving her T-shirt over her head. In consideration of family values, the paper had slapped a black bar across her chest, covering her bra, so it was hard to tell if she wore anything at all. The headline read, “Wild Party at Alpine Sky Ends in Death.” The caption beneath the picture proclaimed, “Local businesswoman Maggie Larkin is said to have initiated the rowdy celebration.” Maggie made a face and shoved the paper away. This was worse than when she was a teenager; at least then they couldn’t tie her to a murder investigation.