Indigo.
She woke with a start. It was still night, and the darkness seemed to press down on her. She was suddenly certain that something was there with her, hidden in the shadows, that she was being watched.
She leaped out of bed and dived for her light switch. The room jumped into view, and she blinked against the sudden harshness, tense, her body ready to spring.
But there was no one there. The room was empty.
She felt foolish, but she went into her bathroom, took the bloodied, discarded clothing and carried it into the kitchen, where she placed it in a larger trash bag, which she hauled out into the garage. She knew it was silly, but she wanted that reminder of the evening as far away as she could get it. Then she went back to bed, where she turned on her small bedroom TV and didn"t turn off the light.
It occurred to her then that no one had asked her if the dying man had said anything.
And so she was the only one who knew that he had spoken that single word.
Indigo.
Emil Landon was a man of an indeterminate age; he might have been a worn thirtysomething, or a fit man in his fifties. Because Adam Harrison-owner and director of Harrison Investigations, the rather unique private investigations firm that was Dillon"s actual employer-had contacts with access to just about any record on any human being living in the United States and beyond, he knew that Landon was forty-eight, had married and divorced three wives, had fathered one child who lived in Dublin with his mother, and had inherited millions from a grandfather who had been a Turkish oil baron. Sound real-estate investments had added to those millions. He liked to be a player. He liked the clothing and the cars, and the women who followed the call of big money. But he wasn"t a lucky gambler himself, so he"d discovered a way to profit from the propensity of most men to count on luck"s eventual appearance, gamble-and lose. He"d opened his own casino and was in the process of negotiations to create more gambling meccas, something of a sore point in the community. On his mother"s side, he could provide the proper court-required doc.u.ments to prove that he was one thirty-second Paiute-in fact, he only needed to be one sixty-fourth-which gave him the right to build casinos on Indian land, where he would no doubt see to it that the proceeds of his venture stayed in his pockets and didn"t reach the Indian nation that should benefit from it.
Dillon hadn"t followed much of the legal process; he had seen it far too often already. He didn"t think much of Emil Landon, and he still wasn"t sure why a man as moral as Adam Harrison had wanted him to take the case.
Dillon knew plenty of wealthy people who were also extremely responsible with their money and were courteous to those around them, no matter what their financial or social status.
Emil Landon wasn"t one of them.
Now Landon was convinced that someone was trying to kill him, and Dillon figured that the man had been a jerk to enough people during his life that there might easily be several who found the thought of killing him appealing. But that was the thing. Most people thought thought about killing someone but didn"t actually take steps to do it. Revenge was frequently savored sweetly in the mind. Most people had a conscience, and even if they didn"t, they didn"t have the means to commit the perfect murder, and they sure as h.e.l.l didn"t want to get caught and spend the rest of their lives in prison. Of course, with enough money, murder for hire was always a possibility. And if a crack a.s.sa.s.sin couldn"t be found, there was usually some dope addict around, willing to take a life for a few thousand-or a few hits. But dope addicts weren"t playing with all their cards, and such an attempt usually ended with a dead dope addict. about killing someone but didn"t actually take steps to do it. Revenge was frequently savored sweetly in the mind. Most people had a conscience, and even if they didn"t, they didn"t have the means to commit the perfect murder, and they sure as h.e.l.l didn"t want to get caught and spend the rest of their lives in prison. Of course, with enough money, murder for hire was always a possibility. And if a crack a.s.sa.s.sin couldn"t be found, there was usually some dope addict around, willing to take a life for a few thousand-or a few hits. But dope addicts weren"t playing with all their cards, and such an attempt usually ended with a dead dope addict.
Tonight Dillon had been checking out the casinos, seeing who was in town and had the right money and connections to order a hit, along with a real bone to pick with Emil Landon. He still wasn"t certain that Landon was even in any real danger. During his first consultation with the man, Landon had told him that he"d been having dreams about being murdered. Gunned down in his own casino, stabbed in his own bed. He was certain he was being followed, though he had no proof of it.
He had hired two of the best-known bodyguards in Las Vegas, Hugo Blythe and Tanner Green. Though now only Hugo Blythe was left, and he lived in a penthouse high atop the Big Easy, where the casino security staff-bonded and put through a screening process that would have done the CIA proud-was always on guard at both the penthouse elevators and the actual door to his suite.
When Dillon arrived, Landon was wearing a designer leopard-print robe and was surrounded by his secretary-a blonde with breast implants the size of Texas-his chief security officer and Hugo Blythe.
And he was in a state.
Pacing, he barely paused to glare at Dillon when he entered, then launched right into a tirade. "I told you I was in danger. I could tell you didn"t believe me. But now Tanner Green is dead, and it"s a warning to me. A message that the killer can pick off people around me so I don"t have anyone to depend on. How the h.e.l.l was he killed right in front of you?" He paused in his pacing to stare accusingly at Dillon.
Dillon just shook his head disdainfully.
"He wasn"t killed right in front of me, he was stabbed outside the casino. And there are dozens of security cameras focused on the area, so hopefully the cops will find something on one of the tapes. My theory is that he was stabbed inside a car, then thrown out at the entry. From there, he staggered inside before dying. I suggest checking his phone records and his movements over the last few days to see who might have gotten him into that car and under what pretense. Of course, there"s still the possibility that he was killed for something he did in his past, or just because he p.i.s.sed off the wrong person."
Landon frowned at him, shaking his head. "I told you, someone is after me."
"Yes, you told me that, but have you told me everything I need to know?" Dillon asked. He wasn"t expecting a real answer from Landon. The man had been cagey from the start. There was no doubt that his activities hadn"t been totally legit through the years, and he seemed to have a hidden agenda, as well, maybe pertaining to the casino on tribal land. Still, asking him questions, even if Dillon didn"t expect real answers, might provide some bit of information he needed.
"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" Landon demanded impatiently. "Someone is trying to kill me. What more do you need to know?"
"I need to know all the possible whys whys," Dillon said. "I need you to be honest with me, to think really hard about any business deal that might have gone sour, any affair that might have ended badly. I need to know any possible reason why someone with the resources to have you killed might want you dead."
"I am am being honest with you. Sure, I have enemies." Landon"s eyes narrowed. "There are some radical members of certain Indian tribes who don"t get the fact that my casinos could provide jobs for a lot of people. Any rich man has enemies. You know that. But this...s.h.i.t! Tanner Green? He was a pro." being honest with you. Sure, I have enemies." Landon"s eyes narrowed. "There are some radical members of certain Indian tribes who don"t get the fact that my casinos could provide jobs for a lot of people. Any rich man has enemies. You know that. But this...s.h.i.t! Tanner Green? He was a pro."
The quadruple-D blonde came over to Dillon with a tray of shot gla.s.ses filled with a.s.sorted liquors. "Drink, Mr. Wolf?"
He shook his head. "Thanks, no."
"Mr. Wolf, I"m going to be on duty twenty-four hours a day now," Hugo Blythe said earnestly. "I"ll be following Mr. Landon every step he takes. But we"ve got to figure out who"s trying to kill Mr. Landon, and take care of him."
"I"m not an a.s.sa.s.sin," Dillon said sharply. "Anyway, the police are on this now."
"The police?" Landon exclaimed derisively, then suggested what the police could do with themselves.
Dillon rose. "I should be seeing those tapes first thing in the morning. I"ll call you after I"ve seen them."
"You"ve got to do something, and you"ve got to do it quickly," Landon said.
"I can still use more help from you," Dillon said.
Landon looked as if he wanted to explode at Dillon again, but though he wasn"t a genius, he wasn"t stupid, either. "I"ll think back and come up with whatever I can," he acknowledged.
Dillon left. As he rode down on Landon"s private elevator and strode out onto the main casino floor, he appreciated the fact that Landon had found the right business managers and builders. The Big Easy was going to do well. He wasn"t too sure that he would choose Vegas for a family vacation himself, but plenty of people did, and Landon had made sure to cater to them as well as the hard-core gamblers. The Big Easy offered an entire floor of arcades, character restaurants, toddler rides and one huge roller coaster. There was a Western show aimed just at kids and a room reserved for "young"uns"" birthday parties.
As he headed over to the elevators to the parking garage, his eye was caught by an advertis.e.m.e.nt for the party room. It showed two Old West gunslingers with a pretty saloon maid between them. The picture was pure PG, but the face of the woman grabbed his attention and stabbed oddly at his heart.
It was Jessy Sparhawk. Smiling, her beautiful red hair twisted up on her head and topped with a saloon-girl hat. The costume she was wearing was almost prim, and yet he didn"t think he"d ever seen a picture of such an arresting woman.
He headed down to the parking lot, his mind still full of Jessy, so lost in thought that it took him a moment to recognize the presence at his side.
"Brilliant, just brilliant," Ringo said, keeping pace with Dillon Wolf"s strong and determined walk. The folds of his long railway jacket made a slight rustling sound, but nothing compared to his spurs ringing against the ground.
Every now and then Dillon saw a head turn. Someone out there, someone who couldn"t quite see Ringo, was still aware that something, someone, was in the area. They heard the sound of his pa.s.sing on some distant level.
"What?" Dillon asked impatiently.
Ringo cleared his throat. "The most beautiful creature in the world holds court at the c.r.a.ps table, I perform amazing tricks-and you let her get away. Brilliant. I may be deceased, but you"re you"re the one who"s really dead, my friend." the one who"s really dead, my friend."
"Excuse me, my friend my friend," Dillon said. "But I have work to do. Tanner Green was murdered and Emil Landon is getting restless-and working for the man, I might remind you, is something you you pushed me into." pushed me into."
Ringo ignored him and stuck with his original topic. "I saw the way you smiled at her. Take a minute to smell the roses or you"ll be dead a whole h.e.l.l of a lot sooner than you think," he said knowingly.
"The way I hear it, you stopped to smell the roses and wound up smelling a dung heap," Dillon said curtly.
"Ouch! Not kind at all," Ringo said. "And may I remind you, I died because I was caught up in someone"s grudge against one of your your ancestors." ancestors."
"Ringo, I"m sorry, but that was more than a hundred years ago, and there"s not a d.a.m.n thing I can do about it now. I"m sure he appreciated your help."
"Probably. I was good back then. d.a.m.n good."
A woman walked by, frowning nervously as she stared at him. He lowered his head, wincing. Usually Ringo refrained from speaking to him when they were in public, because usually he didn"t reply. What the h.e.l.l was up with him tonight? A man had been killed, of course. But it went beyond that. Something felt off. Felt...
Felt urgent.
It was as if he was facing the onset of something critical. Something that might end in death.
"You are are going to ask her out, right?" Ringo said. going to ask her out, right?" Ringo said.
"I tried to drive her home. She isn"t interested."
"A man had just died on top of her. You need to give it another go."
"Look, Ringo, you and Adam got me into this mess with Emil Landon, so let"s deal with that first, huh?" He put aside the fact that Jessy Sparhawk had affected him more deeply than he could possibly have expected, but there had just been something about her. She wasn"t some hustler hanging on to the money men, wasn"t a wild-eyed party child out to prove the truth of the slogan "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." She was different. She lived here, worked here. She knew the city. Knew the pitfalls to be found in a place where every business in town was out to separate you from your money.
So it was interesting that she had been playing high-stakes c.r.a.ps.
"Are you paying any any attention to me?" Ringo demanded. attention to me?" Ringo demanded.
He felt himself flushing, because the fact was, he was completely intrigued by the woman. So why was he embarra.s.sed around Ringo? Maybe precisely because he was was so fascinated by her. But his life didn"t allow for emotional intimacy, at least right now, and business had to come first. "Ringo, I"m looking for a killer. Don"t you think I ought to find out what the h.e.l.l is going on before I drag someone else into my life?" so fascinated by her. But his life didn"t allow for emotional intimacy, at least right now, and business had to come first. "Ringo, I"m looking for a killer. Don"t you think I ought to find out what the h.e.l.l is going on before I drag someone else into my life?"
Ringo didn"t have an answer for that. He followed Dillon to his car, seeping through the pa.s.senger door, though he could have opened it. He sat silently throughout the ride to Dillon"s house, just on the outskirts of the Strip.
Clancy, Dillon"s huge Belgian shepherd, was wagging her tail at the door. She knew Ringo was there. At first she had hated him. She had barked up a storm whenever he was around, and it had all but driven Dillon crazy. But then, to his huge relief, she hadn"t just accepted Ringo"s ghostly presence, she had decided that she liked him. And when Dillon could get Ringo to stay home, rather than trailing after him, he was great, letting the dog in and out, and playing with her.
"So what now?" Ringo asked. "Shouldn"t we be off somewhere, doing something?"
"I don"t know what you"re you"re doing, but doing, but I"m I"m getting some sleep." getting some sleep."
Ringo cursed as Dillon headed for his room. Feeling completely worn-out, he stripped down and slipped between the sheets. They were into the wee hours of the morning, and he wanted a nap, at least, before heading to the police station.
But instead he lay awake. And when he closed his eyes, he could hear the drums of his childhood. He could hear the chants, see the warriors in the circle at the dance. A Paiute chief had been the one to develop the Ghost Dance, which had been picked up by many western tribes. The chief had envisioned casting the white men from the land, leading to a return of tribal power.
It hadn"t happened. Not by a long shot.
He"d been to dozens of Ghost Dances as a child, but he"d never seen a single ghost at any of them. It had been at his parents" funeral, when he"d been a bitter young idiot, that he"d first seen the maiden in white.
It was rumored among the Indian nations that she was the guardian of the white buffalo, a mythical heroine who knew the hearts and minds of both the living and the dead. She was beautiful and wise, and she could read a man"s soul.
She had never been anything but a myth to him, a beautiful story told by his people.
Until that day at the funeral, when he looked up and she was just...there. She couldn"t be real, he had told himself. She was a figment of his imagination, dredged up by the pain in his heart, and the fury against G.o.d and fate that burned so savagely inside him.
She had stared at him across the open graves. Then, later, when he"d been about to get involved in an idiotic fight at the bar, she had stepped in between him and the man he had intentionally insulted. Apparently he"d wanted to get his face smashed in, had wanted to feel the physical pain to ease the deeper pain that tore at his soul.
But she had stopped him. He had felt her hand on his shoulder, and when he"d turned to face her, her eyes had locked with his and she had whispered, "No, this is not the way. Only time and the true path to peace will ease the bleeding in the soul."
And ever since then...
Ever since then he"d seen the dead.
Usually they just pa.s.sed through his life because they needed something, and once they got it, they moved on. He"d learned that through Adam Harrison and Harrison Investigations. Adam had taken him and turned him from a rebellious and bitter half-breed to a man with a calling. Adam had taught him about life and death, and how to value himself as a human being.
He owed Adam. Not only that, he liked the man.
So the ghosts came, he helped them...
And the ghosts left.
Except for Ringo Murphy. The problem was, Ringo himself didn"t know why he was sticking around.
He"d lived by the gun, and then he"d died by it, and there had been nothing in his life or death to indicate why he was still here.
Dillon shifted around, longing for even an hour"s sleep.
He closed his eyes tightly.
And then, in that state between wakefulness and sleep, in a netherworld between conscious thought and oblivion, he saw the maiden, felt her gentle hand on his face.
"Yes," she whispered to him. "It is the beginning, the beginning-and the end."
3.
"I see them dancing in the sky," Timothy told Jessy. see them dancing in the sky," Timothy told Jessy.
She was driving him back to the home, and she felt torn. Worried about leaving him alone, she"d had Sandra come over to watch him this morning while she"d returned to the casino to turn her chips into cash-later exchanged for a cashier"s check made out to the home-and fill out the IRS forms. She"d never had to fill them out before, because her winnings-the few times she"d played a few dollars for fun-had never been close to enough to report to the government.
She didn"t mind. The government was welcome to its share.
She was concerned now because she had to work that afternoon, and even her sizable winnings weren"t enough to keep her job from being very important to her ongoing well-being. But Sandra had met her at the door when she"d returned and suggested she might want to talk to someone at the home before she left Timothy there.
"Why?" she"d asked.
"Maybe it"s not as bad as I think, but..." Sandra hesitated. "He"s having conversations with imaginary people. And when I asked him who he was talking to, he gave me a sly look and said they were people in the walls, and that they were his friends and they made him happy, so I shouldn"t worry. And maybe, if he"s happy..."
Now it seemed that his friends were in the sky.
Maybe she was just nervous because she"d woken up in the night, certain that someone was watching her again. That kind of feeling usually vanished with the coming of day, though, and this time it hadn"t.... This morning, as she"d been brewing coffee and tossing raisin bread into the toaster, she"d paused again, feeling eyes on her before telling herself that you couldn"t feel someone watching you. Except that you could could. Somehow people knew when they were being observed. Maybe it had to do with that huge part of the brain scientists said went unused.
But there hadn"t been anyone there. Not last night, and not this morning.
But this morning Timothy had been talking to people in the walls, and now he was seeing dancers in the sky.
Which one of us is actually going crazy here? she asked herself. she asked herself.