Jessy was surprised when Dillon picked her up and hugged her.
A spasm of jealousy flooded through Jessy and she deplored herself for it. Of course Dillon had friends, and some of them were bound to be women.
She kicked herself for being even momentarily ridiculous when the woman was followed by a man who warned, “Dillon, go gently there, I prefer my wife unbroken.”
Dillon grinned and unabashedly greeted the tall man with an embrace, as well. “Come in, come in….” He turned to smile at Jessy, and that smile warmed her all over, conveying as it did that she was important, important enough to be introduced to his guests right away.
“Jessy Sparhawk, Nikki and Brent Blackhawk—and Adam Harrison, of course,” Dillon said. “Brent, Nikki, Adam, this is Jessy.”
Adam took her hand first. “Of course?” he asked teasingly. “Does everyone know me right away because I’m old?”
“Never old, Adam, just distinguished,” Nikki assured him, taking Jessy’s hand. “Nice to meet you. And I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion. After Dillon called Adam, Adam called us.”
Her husband stepped up next. He had long black hair, but his eyes were light, indicating that there was probably some white blood somewhere in his heritage. “Jessy,” he said, taking her hand and studying her openly. “Sparhawk, huh? With that hair?”
“Lakota Sioux, just a little further back,” she told him. “You’ll have to meet Timothy, my grandfather. He’s half.”
“Brent is Lakota Sioux, too,” Dillon said.
“Looks like it’s you and me against the assembled tribes,” Nikki said to Adam, but her grin made it obvious that she was teasing.
Jessy laughed along with everyone else and realized that she already felt comfortable with the newcomers, and she hadn’t known any of them for more than a few minutes.
Clancy started barking for attention then, and Brent hunkered down to pet her. “Clancy, old girl. What’s up? I heard you need some help around here, but the house looks in good shape to me.”
Clancy barked happily, then bounded over to Nikki for more petting.
“Ringo, you can come out now,” Brent called over his shoulder.
Ringo made his appearance from the hallway. He ignored Brent and walked straight to Nikki, giving her an ethereal kiss upon the cheek. “Hello there, beautiful,” he told her.
“Ringo, behave,” Dillon warned.
“He’s all right,” Nikki said. “So, cowboy, how’s it going?”
“I wasn’t a cowboy,” Ringo said indignantly. “I was a decorated war hero and a gunslinger, I’ll have you know.”
“Lord, this is frustrating,” Adam said, and turned to Jessy. “So you see Ringo, too?”
She nodded.
“Would someone mind telling me what’s being said?” Adam asked.
“He just wants us to know that he was a civil war hero and a gunslinger, not a cowboy.”
Jessy looked at Adam curiously. He was looking in the right direction, but she had a feeling that was only because he saw where everyone else was looking.
“You never…see? Is that frustrating?” she asked him quietly, wondering whether seeing ghosts was really much of a gift anyway. It was simply a…phenomenon, one that came to you. You couldn’t buy it, steal it or simply wish it into existence.
Adam smiled serenely. “I’ve learned to see Josh, my son. That’s what matters to my heart. When I can’t help others because I can’t see them, that’s frustrating.”
“It’s all right. You always know how to find us,” Nikki told him affectionately.
“So she’s a nightwalker, too?” Brent asked Dillon, inclining his head in Jessy’s direction.
“Yes, but only very recently. Her ability seems to be connected to Tanner Green’s death,” Dillon explained.
She was a nightwalker. The word was terrifying, in a way, and yet it also filled her with a strange sense of pride and belonging.
“You guys will have to fill us in on exactly what’s going on,” Nikki said, then looked probingly at Dillon and Jessy. “You two look like you’ve been in a fight.”
“Jessy was attacked earlier tonight,” Dillon said.All eyes turned to her with concern.
“I’m all right,” she assured them quickly.
“Tell us about it,” Adam said, walking into the living room and taking a seat.
As soon as everyone else was comfortably settled, too, Ringo groaned. “It was my fault.”
“It was not,” Jessy said.
“What wasn’t what?” Adam asked, and Dillon told him what Ringo had said.
Then, between Dillon and Jessy, they explained the events of the evening.
“Two men, obviously a planned assault, using ski masks. I’d say someone out there is getting scared,” Adam commented. He looked at Dillon. “The police are investigating the obvious leads, right?”
Dillon nodded. “And I appreciate the fact that you’re all here to help with the…less obvious angle. There are things I need to do, but now that we know Jessy is in danger, I want someone with her every minute.”
“What are you doing about work?” Nikki asked her.
“I have two days off,” Jessy told her.
“That’s good,” Brent said. “It will help us if we have fewer fronts to cover and fewer crowds to deal with.”
Dillon looked at Adam and said, “Emil Landon is involved somehow. I know it.” He went on to recount the story of Tanner Green dying on the craps table, then counted off the people involved in the case. “As soon as possible, I questioned all the workers who had been out front that night. A guy named Rudy Yorba thought Tanner Green had come out of a current-model super-stretch white limo, but he was killed in a supposed hit-and-run before I had a chance to talk to him again. I’m certain he was killed because someone realized he’d talked to me and didn’t want him saying anything more. Anyway, I checked, and there are two limos fitting that description in use right now—one belonging to the Sun and one to the Big Easy. Strangely, they both ended up in the garage. The same garage.”
“You broke in to that garage, I take it?” Brent said.
Dillon nodded.
“I found a button in the one belonging to the Big Easy—Landon’s casino—and I think it could have come from Green’s shirt. I left it where I found it, though, and planted a bug in Cheever’s ear, so I suspect it will be rediscovered any time now. Anyway, Landon’s remaining goon, Hugo Blythe, showed up at that point, so I got out of there.”
“Did he see you?” Brent asked.
“Yes, but I’m certain he didn’t know it was me. He chased me, but he’s as big as an ox, and that makes him slow,” Dillon explained. “I got away clean. And then there’s Indigo.”
“Indigo,” Brent repeated. “We went out there years ago.” He shook his head. “It’s a ghost town. In fact, it was a ghost town almost from the moment it was conceived. It’s too far from water, and even then, it was a long, dry haul back from there to anywhere worth being. It served the miners who were working the claims owned by a nasty piece of work named Frank Varny. He went down in a rain of gunfire, along with some of the locals, and the town didn’t last long after that. You think something’s going on out in Indigo that’s connected to this case?”
“I do. And I also think it’s connected to something Timothy, Jessy’s grandfather, warned me about. He said that ‘they’ are assembling,” Dillon said.
Jessy turned to him, startled. She realized that Dillon hadn’t been pretending to listen to Timothy; he honestly believed Timothy had an ability to divine information from the people in the walls or…somewhere. She felt a little tremor in her stomach. Had she been too quick to think her grandfather was slipping? No, his ramblings had seemed genuinely bizarre. Then again, she was seeing dead men, and most people would call that crazy, too.
“So what you’re saying is that we’re looking at a number of things,” Adam said. “First, there’s Indigo. We need to find out what we can about the town. Next, there’s Jessy. We have to keep her safe. Then there are the two casinos, and I’d like to take a closer look at the Sun to start with. So first thing tomorrow, I’d like to spend some time with Timothy, then play some craps over at the Sun. Dillon, you keep researching Indigo. Dig deep. Find all the old records you can and see what we don’t know about the town.”
“Right now, I say we need to decide what to have for supper,” Nikki said. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Jessy admitted, smiling.
“It’s awfully late. Will anything be open?” Nikki asked.
Brent, Adam and Dillon looked at her, and simultaneously said, “This is Vegas!”
Nikki laughed. “Good point. So should we go out or order in?”
While the others were debating their options, Jessy turned to Adam. “Emil Landon is anything but a poster boy for ethical behavior,” she told him. “Why did you suggest that Dillon take on this case?”
Adam was silent for a moment, then said, “Emil Landon called me and asked specifically for Dillon. He said someone on the police force had told him that Dillon could find out what was going on.”
“Yes,” Jessy argued, “but don’t a lot of people ask for your help? I’m sure you don’t take on every case, so why this one?”
“I was curious, for one,” Adam said. “Ringo told Dillon that he should take the case, too. Even so, I was going to turn him down, but then, I had a…well, a gut feeling that we should pursue it.”
Jessy swung on Ringo. “Why?” she demanded.
Ringo lifted his hands. “I don’t know. Maybe it was the same thing, a gut feeling. I just had a sense that there was something going on here and we needed to be involved in it.”