Fantasy Life (41 page)

He would have thought that he could have shaken her over the years, gotten her out of his system, replaced her with someone else. But he hadn’t. Lyssa had gotten to him when he was young, in a way that no one else had been able to do since.

“You handled that well,” he said as she stopped near him.

“What?” She looked over her shoulder as if she could see what he had meant.

“I meant the reporter. But you handled the car well too. I hadn’t realized you were inside.”

Her smile was tired but sincere. “That’s all right. Looking at that car now, I can see why.”

“It’s wrecked, Mommy,” Emily said.

The little girl had panic in her voice. Gabriel gave her a sharp look. It was clear that the car meant something to her, or that it had been important to the family somehow.

“I’m sure the insurance will cover it,” Lyssa said in a voice that wasn’t certain at all.

“At least you’re here in Anchor Bay where you really don’t need a car,” Gabriel said.

Lyssa frowned at the highway.

“It’s only seven miles long, and a few miles wide. You can walk everywhere if you have to.” His explanation sounded lame, even to him.

“I suppose,” she said. “I’m used to a city with public transportation.”

After marrying into such a rich family, she was probably used to a lot of things that Gabriel couldn’t provide. And now her memories of that time were about to get worse.

He had no idea if he should tell her about the call he had gotten from dispatch just before he’d got out of his car. Nicole Drapier had sidetracked him, and he had been partially glad for it.

The helicopter landing on the private landing strip outside of town created more problems for Gabriel than he wanted to think about. Mayor Asher avoided problems as best he could. He hadn’t ever come down here, although Gabriel had had him paged.

He couldn’t imagine how the mayor would deal with Samuel Walters, the head of Walters Petroleum.

Lyssa drifted past Gabriel, toward the beach. The honking still continued as Zeke kept corralling the creatures toward the drainage system under the hill. She seemed fascinated by the exodus stream pouring out of the ocean. Maybe now that she wasn’t directly threatened by the creatures, they seemed interesting.

Her daughter stood beside her, still talking softly about the car. Gabriel sighed. He had no idea how to tell them that Samuel Walters was coming.

He had no idea why Walters was coming. The only thing that Gabriel could think of was that Walters had flown here to see his granddaughter.

But Gabriel didn’t know why. He also didn’t know how Walters knew Emily was here. Athena had been clear about the estrangement with that side of the family—an estrangement that had happened before Lyssa’s husband had died so mysteriously.

Was Walters coming to apologize? If so, why had he flown in with so little fanfare, and why hadn’t he contacted the Buckinghams?

Gabriel knew about this only because Walters had requested an emergency meeting with the local sheriff and the mayor. Maybe he knew something about the oil that was choking the fantasylife. But Gabriel couldn’t think how.

Denne and Athena were walking toward Gabriel as well. They were deep in conversation, probably about the creatures and what to do about them.

Gabriel was even more hesitant to tell Athena that Walters was coming. She disapproved of the family so strongly that the topic of Lyssa’s marriage always seemed to infuriate Athena, and her reaction hadn’t gotten better over time.

Once Gabriel had made the mistake of asking Athena why she didn’t go visit her great-granddaughter. Athena’s eyes had flashed with an anger so deep that she frightened Gabriel.

Her last name is Walters,
Athena had said, then left the room, effectively closing the conversation.

Her last name is Walters.
He shivered, not sure what to do.

Cassandra Buckingham made her own way across the street, her gaze on her daughter and granddaughter. Cassandra seemed even tenser than usual. Her face was gaunt and lined with fatigue.

When she saw Gabriel, though, she smiled. “Smart thinking, Sheriff,” she said as she walked past him.

He assumed she was referring to the creature stream. He shook his head slightly. That had been as much luck as anything. Lyssa was the one who had found the solution, not him.

Cassandra joined Lyssa and Emily at the railing just as Denne and Athena reached Gabriel’s side.

“It’s working better than I thought,” Denne said.

“It’s just going on a lot longer than I expected,” Gabriel said.

“There’s a lot of magic in that ocean,” Athena said.

Gabriel looked at her. She seemed sad, defeated, old. Something was leaving her as well. “You okay?”

She shook her head slightly. “I’ve been better.”

“Athena seems to believe that the creatures are leaving of their own accord,” Denne said. “That it has nothing to do with the oil.”

Denne had just provided Gabriel with the opening he needed. This exodus had to do with the oil or Samuel Walters wouldn’t be here.

Gabriel’s gaze met Athena’s. The powerful woman was still part of her. No matter how tired she was, she still had the ability to terrify him.

“If it has nothing to do with oil, then what is it about?” Gabriel said.

“I have no idea,” Athena said. Then she looked across the street and visibly started. Gabriel followed her gaze.

A slender woman with black hair down to her midthighs stood beside Nicole Drapier. The woman looked familiar. At that moment, she turned toward the Wayside, and Gabriel felt a pang of recognition.

She looked like Lyssa, an older, darker version of Lyssa.

“Who’s that?” Gabriel asked.

Athena sighed. “No one.”

“It can’t be no one,” Denne said. “She looks just like your granddaughter.”

Athena shot him a glare so filled with anger that Denne took a step back.

“Her name is Roseluna,” Athena said, her voice trembling with fury. “And she’s the reason we’re out here today.”

“She is?” Gabriel couldn’t hide his skepticism. “How is that possible?”

“She convinced them that life is better out here, that it’s time to take back a world they once considered theirs.” Athena had turned her attention back to the woman.

“What?” Gabriel asked. “The creatures? She convinced the creatures?”

Athena nodded.

“How could she do that?” Gabriel asked.

“I wish I knew,” Athena said. “They were safe here. Now they’re going to God knows where for heaven knows what reason.”

“I think he means,” Denne said quietly, “how could a human influence the fantasylife?”

Athena whirled so fast that Denne took a step back. “You think she’s human?”

“She looks human,” Gabriel said.

Athena snorted. “Looks human. Of course she looks human. It’s her secondary form.”

“She’s a selkie,” Denne said, awe in his voice.

“Yep,” Athena said. “A selkie with a modern education. God help us all.”

She shook her head and walked toward her family, turning her back on the women across the street.

When Athena got out of hearing range, Denne said, “What do you think that was all about?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. But he wasn’t as intrigued by Athena’s anger as he was by the woman across the street, and her resemblance to Lyssa. Lyssa, who had the same dark eyes, the same black-black hair. Lyssa, who had always seemed slightly otherworldly to him.

Perhaps the Buckingham magic had nothing to do with Cliffside House.

Gabriel shook his head. The mess he had walked into seemed even more tangled now than it had before.

“What’s the matter?” Denne asked.

“I thought I understood this place,” Gabriel said. “I’m beginning to realize that I was wrong.”

Anchor Harbor Wayside

She felt him. She felt him as if he were right there beside her, as if she had just seen him fifteen minutes ago instead of thirty-four years ago.

Cassie shivered and moved away from her family. They hadn’t acknowledged her anyway. Lyssa was watching the last sheriff’s car corral the creatures still streaming out of the ocean. Athena was watching Emily. And Emily was staring out to sea as if she knew something no one else did.

Cassie walked toward the beach access. She wasn’t going to go down there, but she didn’t want her family to share in her memories again. The fact that her mother and her granddaughter had seen her memories of Daray upset her deeply.

She rubbed her arms as another shiver went through her. She made herself take a deep breath.

He had put his hands on her arms the afternoon he had arrived in his helicopter, rubbing them like she did now.

You look cold, darling,
he had said with that appalling Texas accent of his.

Cassie had stepped away, but he’d followed her. Daray was on the beach, raking up the straw, his shirt off, the muscles in
his back rippling in the sun. He didn’t see her standing near the Wayside railing with Spark Walters.

I’m not cold,
Cassie had said, trying to keep her distance. He looked a little less formidable than he had looked when he’d arrived. The wind off the ocean teased his hair, and somehow he had gotten oil on his cream-colored suit.

Cassie shivered again, forcing herself out of the memory. Spark Walters. She was sensing him because of last night, because of the memories that Lyssa had forced to the surface.

Cassie always associated Spark with the taste of oil and that horrible feeling in the center of her stomach, the feeling that didn’t go away for years afterward. Her mother had called it a hard ball of grief and told her that she had to diffuse it, but Cassie had been afraid to touch it, afraid that, if she really examined it, it would engulf her and she would never again be the same.

Lyssa shot her a worried glance, and before she had realized what she had even done, Cassie turned away.

Hiding her emotions from her daughter, even now. Cassie didn’t want Lyssa to see how shaky she was, how even the memory of that period disturbed her more than she could say.

Still, the sense of Spark Walters grew, and it wasn’t just the memory of the young man who had touched her inappropriately in the middle of an afternoon, or even of the man who had talked to her like an equal before she fled the group dinner, but of someone else, someone bigger, stronger, more powerful than that young man had been.

This feeling, this sense of Spark Walters, came from now.

Cassie backed away from the beach access. She turned toward the street, saw Gabriel Schelling head toward his vehicle, parked half on the sand and half on the pavement. Hamilton Denne was watching him, a frown on his face.

Then Denne glanced at Lyssa, and his expression seemed furtive, guilty. Cassie willed him to look at her and he did.

She was right about the guilt. He knew something, something
he thought she should know, something he thought important. He knew—

Then he looked away, and she didn’t fully get the sense of what it was that he knew. She could move closer, reach out with her mind, and touch his ever so gently—he might not even know. But she didn’t. The years had taught her to respect other people’s privacy, even at her own expense.

The hard ball of grief had settled in her stomach like a poorly digested meal. She ran her hand over it, the way she used to do when she was pregnant with Lyssa, as if trying to confirm the truth of it. The feeling had been gone for so long, but now it was back.

Like the acrid taste of smoke in the back of her throat. Like the sense that Spark Walters was watching her, waiting, biding his time.

Cassie shivered again.

Then she looked across the street. That reporter, the one Lyssa had handled so thoroughly, was talking to Roseluna. Fortunately, the reporter’s microphone was down.

But the conversation seemed like a pleasant one, an informative one, as if the women had known each other for a long time.

Was that how the reporter had gotten here in the first place? Had Roseluna told her something was going to happen, maybe bribed her with footage from the storm, then promised something more?

Cassie clenched her fists.

Then Roseluna looked at her—and smiled.

The smile was so like Daray’s—warm, open—that Cassie’s eyes teared. She blinked hard, not willing to wipe them, praying that the tears wouldn’t fall. She didn’t want anyone to see her like that.

She didn’t want anyone to know the depth of her feelings, even now.

As her vision cleared, she realized Roseluna was still watching her, smiling ever so slightly.

And Cassie knew, she knew with a great certainty, that Spark Walters was nearby, and that Roseluna had called him.

The telephone conversation came to Cassie as if Roseluna had revealed it—which she very well might have:

“Mr. Walters? I hope your secretary has told you that I’m with the Marine Biology Department of Oregon State University?”

Such a lie, but an effective one. Since Roseluna had gone to Oregon State, had spent most of her time in the Marine Biology Department, it would sound plausible.

“Yes, yes,” Walters snapped. “She also told me this was an emergency.”

“I know you’re only talking to me because I’m from Anchor Bay—”

“I’m a busy man, young lady. Get to your point.”

No Texas twang now. Or at least, the twang was hidden, pushed back, probably to make Spark Walters more acceptable in an increasingly international marketplace. He had become a player now. Athena had told Cassie that, before Cassie had asked her to stop talking about him.

Cassie hadn’t wanted to hear about Spark Walters once Emily was born. She didn’t want any reminders of the fact that her blood and his had finally mixed and produced a child.

“My point is, Mr. Walters, that we’re getting readings which show that the oil is leaking onto the ocean floor about two hundred miles off Anchor Bay. We’ve been checking the charts, and the oil’s composition, sir. My colleagues aren’t ready to jump to any conclusions yet, but—”

Cassie held her breath, as if the conversation she was eavesdropping on were happening in real time.