She looked at the cop. He came on as gruff, but he had spoken so gently just now.
“I’m over in Henderson. Just hop on the highway, and I’ll show you where to get off,” Sandra said. “And thank you. My girl is pretty grown-up, but I don’t like to leave her alone at home too late.” She sighed. “You just never know what can happen.”
“You sound like a good parent,” Cheever said approvingly.
“She’s everything to me,” Sandra told him. “What about you? Your job is pretty dangerous, huh.”
He shrugged, and a slight smile crossed his face. “Not so dangerous. Narcotics, now, that’s dangerous. Drug lords and junkies. Those folks are scary. In homicide—well, by the time I get to them, they’re not going to hurt me.”
“That’s not true,” Sandra warned. “The victims may be dead, but whoever killed them is still out there. Take this case. Whoever killed Tanner Green is still out there and going after Jessy.”
He cast her a glance. “Are you an entertainer, too, Ms. Nelson?”
“Call me Sandra, please. And I was, but now I’m a writer. Which I guess means I’m still an entertainer, in a way.” She pointed to a sign along the highway. “There…Take this exit.”
“So are you…still married?” Cheever asked.
“No, not anymore. What about you?”
Cheever shook his head. “Believe it or not, dating is not such a breeze when you’re a homicide cop. Go figure.”
“The right person will come along for you, Detective. I’m certain,” she assured him. “There, that’s my house on the right.”
Cheever pulled up in front of the pleasant little ranch-style dwelling she’d pointed to. “I’ll see you into the house,” he told her.
She smiled. “Thanks.”
She got out of the car, glad that he was staying until she’d locked the door behind her.
“Reggie?” she called as she opened the door.
“In here, Mom, on the computer!” Reggie called.
Sandra thanked Cheever for the ride, then leaned back against the newly locked door. She was still worried sick about Jessy, but at least Jessy had Dillon now. Reggie was her world. And Reggie was safe. Life was good.
Timothy lay in bed, staring up at the ceiling. This had been a good day. He enjoyed spending time with Mrs. Teasdale. True, she needed her medications, but she was bright and her mind was still clear, and she made him feel young again. Not this week, but soon, one day when Jessy was free, they would plan their trek out to the reservation.
For now, he was feeling fine. Usually everyone, even Jessy, did nothing more than humor him when he talked about the people in the wall.
But today…
Today Dillon Wolf had come by to see him, looking so much like the man in the image the ghosts in the wall kept showing him.
Right now, Billie Tiger was up on the ceiling. At first Timothy had seen only the patterns in the plaster. Then, as they always did, they began to take shape, almost as if there was a movie playing on the ceiling.
Billie Tiger was a handsome man with his feathered headpiece and clothes in traditional bright Seminole colors. His skin was deep brown, in color, and he had large almond-shaped eyes.
“Brother Hawk,” he said gravely to Timothy.
“Tiger,” Timothy returned.
“The time grows near, the time when times collide,” Tiger said. “They are gathering, but I have not seen the men at the door, the men who come with evil purpose, driven by greed, who care not what danger they bring to others.” Tiger’s voice faded, and the movie began. Timothy saw the dusty roads of an old ghost town. He saw the buildings, faded almost to the color of the sand. Timothy felt as if he were there, as if he were walking down those streets. He strode along a wooden sidewalk toward the swinging doors of the saloon. He pushed them open, and then he was inside. A man was playing the piano, and when Timothy sat down next to him, it was as if he somehow slid into the body of the other man. The keys felt so real beneath his fingers. There was a woman standing at his side, leaning against the piano. She was pretty, but she would have been prettier if she hadn’t looked so tired and worn. She began to sing, but it was clear that her heart wasn’t in it. Once, when she’d been young and filled hope, she had probably sung in a rich soprano. She might even have smiled back then, and her smile would have lit up a room. But she was tired, he knew, and so was he. They had both been in Indigo too long.
He turned and saw the bartender wiping down the bar with a rag, while several patrons were pouring whiskey down their gullets, neat.
He looked around and saw the poker players. John Wolf had a quiet strength that marked him as a leader, though he wasn’t a chief. He was a half-breed, a man who had learned that he would never be accepted in either world and had become stronger from having to make his own way in the world. If anyone could save Indigo, it was John Wolf.
All this he knew because, in some strange way he was not only himself but the piano player. And as the piano player, he knew he had a Lakota wife and three children, and that his oldest son had a white wife who hadn’t wanted to stay in Indigo. The two of them had set up housekeeping on a patch of land closer to the river. They were near the bigger town of White Rock but still near a reservation, and they were somehow managing to straddle the line between those two worlds, heedless of the slights some cast their way, in love despite them. That was the definition of hope, he thought. Hope also resided in John Wolf because Wolf had returned from the territorial capital earlier that day, and something had happened there, something Wolf wasn’t talking about but that had clearly given himself a sense of power that practically radiated from him. And now Wolf was waiting, waiting for Varny, but also waiting for someone else. Mariah. He had something to tell her, he’d said, and he wasn’t going to tell anyone else. Clearly it was connected to the business he’d transacted in the capital. And as he waited, his guns were always within reach. He was a man of peace, but he knew how to shoot.
The other players at the table were the sheriff, Grant Percy, who wanted to be brave but had already been cowed by the man whose malignant presence had infected the whole town. Frank Varny ruled Indigo. He’d used money to bribe and to bully until he’d created a gang of men to do his bidding, and from the labor—even the deaths—of others, he had created his own kingdom. But if money had built him up, then money could also bring him down.
And he knew it.
The town idiot was at the poker table, too.
Mark Davison was a buffoon. He had cast his lot with Varny as soon as he came to town. He swaggered and pretended to be brave, but at heart he was a coward.
Then there was Ringo Murphy. Freewheeling, and too young to know that confidence and a sense of one’s own immortality wasn’t always enough to combat the power of greed and evil. Ringo thought he’d seen it all. He’d fought in the war. He’d watched everything he’d known and loved go up in ashes. He thought his weariness was a bulletproof cloak, but it was not.
The saloon doors suddenly burst open. A man stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the setting sun. Just the dark figure of a man, nothing more, and still he was somehow the epitome of evil.
Varny had shown up before Mariah. The timing was off. Out of kilter. And it would change everything.
“Get the hell out,” he told Milly. And in the dream he was the piano player as he spoke to her.
And then he rose from the piano and slipped out the back.
As he did so, the movie began to fade away and Timothy felt himself sinking back into his own body, his own consciousness. The swirls in the plaster were once again nothing more than swirls in the plaster. Not even Billie Tiger, who was trying so hard to find the truth and reveal it to him, remained.
“Where are you, Tiger, my brother Tiger,” Timothy asked.
He thought he heard the whisper of an answer.
“I am trying very hard to see, brother,” Tiger told him. “Time shifts, the years pass, and what happened once happens again, but what was is hidden by what is, and still I seek the truth.”
Then even Tiger was gone and there was nothing but the ticking of the bedside clock.
But one certainty remained. Timothy knew he had to keep seeking the truth. With Billie Tiger’s help or alone, he needed to find the truth.
Because they were assembling….
And the bloodbath was coming again.
14
Clancy suddenly passed them and raced to the front door, where she set up a racket. Jessy looked instantly to Dillon, alarmed and alert.
He offered her a smile. “Right on time,” he told Jessy. “Down, girl, it’s all right,” he added, addressing the dog as he headed for the door.
“It’s all right?” Jessy asked, rising. “How do you know…?”
“Because it’s Adam Harrison,” Dillon told her.
Jessy stared, her brows rising. He hadn’t told her that the Adam Harrison was on the way, but then again, she couldn’t really fault him for that because he hadn’t had much of a chance.
“Adam? That’s great,” Ringo said.
Jessy looked at Ringo. “You know Adam, too?”
“Yes. And no,” Ringo told her. He sighed and rose. “Adam isn’t a nightwalker like Dillon here. He can see things sometimes. But he can’t really see me, though he hears my spurs pretty clearly. We talk sometimes, through Dillon.”
Dillon had opened the door, and Jessy could see Clancy wagging her tail. “Leave it to you, Adam,” Dillon said. “Every other plane in the sky may be late, but you always land right on time. And it’s good to see the rest of you, too.”
The rest of them? Jessy looked toward the door and saw that three people were entering.
The first was clearly Adam Harrison. He was around Timothy’s age and had snow-white hair and beautiful light eyes, a lean face and, again like Timothy, he stood ramrod straight and was a tall man, though shorter than Dillon.
He was followed by an extremely beautiful young woman, lithe and slim, with long golden hair and brilliant aqua eyes.