Sapphire Curse Read online

  Pearl said, “I sure as hell hope for your sake you aren’t beating my bar to get my attention.”

  Laying her folded arms on the bar and leaning forward, Jasmine said, “I like pushing your buttons.”

  Pearl fake laughed as she topped off the glass and handed it to a bearded scrawny man waiting by a bowl of pretzels. Pearl turned about as she moved down the bar and snagged two glasses. She talked to a woman that she graduated high school with while she filled the glasses without even looking. Then she moved down to Jasmine with a margarita and a sangria. She handed the first to Jasmine and the other to Darcy.

  Taking the glass, Darcy said, “I didn’t order yet.”

  “You’re a sangria type, Dr. Shaw,” said Pearl.

  Taking a sip of the sangria, Darcy said, “There must have been some announcement about my arrival.”

  “I know faces,” said Pearl, grabbing a towel from a hook on her side of the bar and wiping away a water ring on top. She was always moving. “You patched up my nephew when Porter botched the job.”

  Darcy took another drink and muttered, “The bulletin must have an anti-Porter section too.”

  “Those boys aren’t the brightest, but they’re all I have left of my brother,” said Pearl. “I don’t count their no-good cheating mother. You saved my family. You need anything, you’ve got me.”

  “And that,” said Jasmine, lifting her margarita as though making a toast, “is a very valuable thing to have. Everyone knows you don’t mess with Pearl Radley.” Two other patrons agreed with taps on their glasses and another with a grunt.

  “I ran across this man,” said Darcy, drumming on the bar with both hands. “Maybe you could tell me who he is.”

  “Ooo,” said Jasmine, wiggling her shoulders. “Already playing the field.”

  “Yo, Pearl!” Lyle Gutfrey shouted from the other end of the bar. He was a middle-aged man with a football-shaped head and a basketball-shaped gut. He waved an empty bottle.

  Pearl lifted a hand in reply. That was all Lyle would get for now. To Darcy, she said, “Tell me about him.”

  “Dark hair, a little long,” said Darcy. She kept the feral growl and ability to rip off a head to herself. She added, “Scar at his brow.”

  Starting to shuffle away, Pearl questioned, “Burn, cut, or the bashed in kind?”

  “Uh,” said Darcy, visualizing a bashed in scar for a moment. She shuddered. She waited for Pearl to give Lyle a new bottle and head back her way before she answered. “A cut. Not massive but obvious.”

  Snatching a tip off the bar, Pearl said, “If it’s an older man, you’re talking about Bruce Nickelson.”

  “I wouldn’t say old,” said Darcy. “Mid-thirties, probably.”

  “Ah,” said Pearl. Her cheeks pushed up into round balls under her eyes with her grin. “Mr. Lefont.”

  Jasmine swooned, “Xavier? He talked to you?”

  Darcy scoffed, “You could say that.”

  Pearl said, “He lives in the only house left on Thatcher Road. He comes in here every now and then to buy a drink for a lady. He tips well.”

  Jasmine pouted and said, “He’s never bought a drink for me.”

  “I said a lady.”

  “Hey!”

  “No judgement here,” said Pearl, waving her rag. “Why be a lady when you can be a queen?”

  A dark hand reached for the bar and laid flat beside Darcy’s. Lance Anders leaned forward to face the women and said, “Xavier is an ass.”

  Jasmine pointed and said, “You mean he has a fine one.”

  Lance said, “You sniff out the wicked ones, don’t you?”

  Jasmine playfully sniffed the air three times.

  Cautiously, Pearl said, “It’s early to be hauling off my customers.”

  “I’m off duty,” said Lance. He tossed his credit card onto the bar and sat beside Darcy. “A scotch for me. A round for the ladies, whatever they’d like. First time here, Dr. Shaw?”

  Pearl snickered, “Real smooth.”

  “I think Hutch has an order,” said Lance, pointing his thumb back over his shoulder. Pearl handed Lance a scotch and the women a second round of drinks though only Jasmine was ready for it. When Pearl walked away, Lance took a sip. “Two chance encounters in one day.”

  “Sorry about your luck,” said Darcy.

  “Sorry isn’t the word,” he said as he took another drink.

  “Lance,” said Jasmine as she draped an arm over Darcy’s shoulder. She waved her glass at him. “Thanks for the drinks, but three’s a crowd.”

  He laughed, “You want me to leave so you can talk about Xavier and all the other men you’d like to be with right now?”

  “Stuff it,” said Jasmine.

  Lance nudged at Darcy and said, “I wouldn’t trust Xavier.”

  “Do you even know the guy?” asked Jasmine.

  “I know who he hangs out with, and I’ve heard stories,” said Lance. His tongue tucked into his cheek. “That’s enough for me.”

  Darcy said, “Never said I trusted him. He doesn’t seem the type I’d want to grab a drink with.” She tapped her glass against his before finishing off her first sangria.

  Lance slid off the chair and stepped toward Jasmine. Any charm in his voice was gone. He said, “I need to talk to you when I’m on duty.”

  “Ooo. Bad cop role play,” said Jasmine. Shaking his head, Lance took his drink and found a free table. Jasmine finished off her second drink and pressed closer to Darcy. “Sorry no one in this town knows how to handle fresh meat. Give it a few weeks and you can get a drink without being swarmed.”

  “You were born here, right?” asked Darcy.

  “Moved here when I was five. Right after my mom left.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No big deal. Her family never liked my dad much.”

  “Native American, right?”

  “Mom was,” said Jasmine, plucking the lime from her drink and biting into it. “I’ve lived with my grandfather since then. I took classes at the community college nearby, so I never really had to leave.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “It’s incredibly boring.”

  “Not at all,” said Darcy. “I never had a place to call mine. My father moved us around a lot for construction work. He’s gone now.”

  “Aww, I’m sorry.”

  “I get by,” said Darcy, shrugging a shoulder. She teased the rim of the other glass of sangria with her fingertip but wasn’t yet tempted to take a drink.

  “Just you?” asked Jasmine.

  “And my dog. That’s really all a woman needs.”

  “Not anymore,” said Jasmine as she brushed her hand over Darcy’s hair. “You’ve got me. Dogs are great, but every woman needs a friend, especially in this town.” Jasmine took up Darcy’s spare sangria and downed half of it. “Dancing is about the only thing to do around here. Show me your moves, doctor.”

  ξ

  Darcy was the only one left at closing that Pearl would let drive home. She took Jasmine though there was an offer from Benny Woolery to do it. Pearl had a policy on men that didn’t bring a woman trying to take her home, so Benny left with cheap beer on his crotch and a mark across his cheek from Pearl’s towel.

  The windows of Darcy’s truck fogged over. Jasmine dug through the piles of belongings in the floorboard and pulled out a jacket to drape over her legs. Her words were still warm from margaritas and sangria. She curled her legs up under her and smiled at her driver.

  “Did you see Shane Peterson?” Jasmine rolled her head back into the seat and tasted the flavor of his name melting on her tongue. “The Marines did him good.”

  “I don’t know who that is,” said Darcy, both hands on the wheel as she turned.

  “Of course you don’t!” Jasmine squealed. “What about before here? Did you have friends? A man?”

  Darcy swallowed before she answered, “More friends than men but yes. There’ve been a few.”

  “I bet more than a few,” said Jasmine, raising both hands and waving her fingers. She took to giggling. She soon stopped and pointed at the front window. “You can stop there. I’ll walk.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Darcy, slowing the car.

  “My feet are a lot lighter on that gravel than your tires,” said Jasmine. “I’d like to not wake my grandfather. I hear enough from him and everyone else about my late nights.”

  “I won’t preach to you about them,” said Darcy, completely stopping the car.

  Jasmine stroked Darcy’s chin with her finger. “That’s because you’re out here with me. I think we’ll be good friends. You can never have too many of those. Thanks for the ride.” She slipped out of the car and closed the door gently as though Russ could hear it. The house wasn’t even in view.

  Once Darcy had driven away, Jasmine sang aloud a Johnny Cash like her father used to do instead of bedtime stories. She could see clearly, but her feet were a little under the influence. She turned the missteps into square dancing and entertained herself until she was in sight of the Redwood house.

  Jasmine went quiet, but the trees didn’t. The wind flirted with the leaves that still clung to the branches and stirred up the piles on the ground that had long given up. She closed her eyes to take in the sound. Her grandfather said listening to the wind was important, but she didn’t remember much of what he said. She was always distracted by the feel of it more than the sound. What she wasn’t expecting was the scent of it to change.

  It was something smoky. Her tongue twisted in her mouth as she opened her eyes. The moon had turned the outlines of the trees silver and the grass of the ground a deep jade. She tasted the wind again. The flowers from the Redwood house couldn’t mask the smell, and not even the wind could muffle the sound of moving gravel.

  “Randy?” Jasmine murmured. She hoped there was no one there to hear her. As she turned on the toe of her shoe, no one heard her scream of disappointment either.

  4

  Come morning Darcy still smelled the sangria on her skin until she washed it away in her late grandmother’s antique bathtub. The Shaw house was large. There were two main stories and a small basement for storing wine and tools. The walls were either covered in wood paneling or paper. In Darcy’s room the paper was navy with a regal looking white pattern. She dried her hair with a thick white towel that hadn’t been used in over a year as she stood in front of a silver-framed mirror as long as the hand-carved dresser it was over.

  From what Darcy could tell from her belongings left behind, Priscilla Shaw had been a woman of pride. The house wasn’t filled with extravagancies, but what did dress the nooks and corners were items picked with care. As Darcy cleared the dust, she felt Priscilla’s approval from knowing her home was being cared for again.

  Something scampered across the hardwood floor in the hallway. Darcy closed the drawer of the dresser so gently it didn’t make the scraping sound it usually did. She laid the towel in a woven hamper and tiptoed behind her open door. The scampering drew closer. Darcy bit down on her lip and held a breath as a creature leapt into her bedroom.

  Darcy lunged forward and latched her arms around the brown dog that thought he could be the one to surprise her. His tail swung and smacked her but not as wildly as his tongue.

  “Won’t you learn, Watson?” Darcy laughed as she flung Watson’s long ear up over his head. “You can’t sneak on these floors.”

  Watson shoved into Darcy’s knees, nearly knocking her over. She rubbed his back and then patted him away before he could take her down. He ran around her twice before jumping onto the bed. His tail continued to tick back and forth as he rested his head on his front paws.

  “Goober,” Darcy said with a smitten grin. She moved toward him, unable to resist the chance to love on him again. As quickly as Watson had bound into the room, he darted out again.

  Darcy followed the sound of his nails down the narrow hall. She sighed as she entered another room. Watson was in the corner near a dusty bed with a handmade quilt that had been in that very spot for decades. Darcy hadn’t spent much time in this room after realizing it had been her father’s.

  This was a time capsule that held a man she was closer to than anyone else in her life, yet the pieces of him in this room she had known very little about. There were pictures of Carter on his high school basketball team. In a box she left open on a desk Darcy found his valedictorian speech. He never told her he was first in his class, not even on the day she gave her own speech.

  She went to the box to close it but was tempted by it instead. She moved the speech and found more pictures. There was one of him and his father. They looked like the same person from two points in life. There was another of Carter as a boy with a dog. She flashed the picture at Watson. His tail flailed. The picture below the one of Carter as a boy started the trembling in Darcy’s hand.

  She knew who it was though she didn’t at the same time. It was a teenage girl in a homecoming dress. Her hair was a flame. She was slender and delicately built though there was a strength in her eyes. Perhaps it was something other than strength. Whatever it was, the young woman’s rich brown eyes were mesmerizing. Darcy understood why Carter was enchanted by her mystery. It was the piece of thin paper beneath the picture that told a piece of the mystery as to why Carter Shaw left Cape Emerald, never to return.

  It was her obituary. It was bare, sharing few details about Felicia. There wasn’t even a picture. She was only nineteen when she passed. The clipping didn’t say how it happened, only that Felicia left behind her parents, an older brother, and a niece. All of them were listed by name. They were like pieces of Felicia for the world to view if ever they wanted to remember her, like her own display in a museum.

  Darcy knew Felicia hadn’t married. Carter had planned to propose but never had the chance. The article didn’t list him. There was no mention of any other family member. Darcy kept her hand from crumbling the fragile paper. The article wouldn’t explain the absence of Darcy’s name.

  It did Darcy little good to hold onto the past when no one in the present could explain it to her. Before she put the top back on the box, one last glance at the newspaper clipping hooked her attention.

  The name was right, assuming this was the same Felicia Darcy’s father had loved as a young man. The other details seemed right as far as Darcy knew. There was a typo. The year of Felicia’s death was wrong by a year. Darcy would be thirty come December. Her mother had to have passed in the summer twenty-nine years ago, not thirty.

  Darcy finally closed the box on the woman she would never truly know right as there was a knock at the door downstairs.

  She glanced at the mirror over Carter’s old dresser. Her hair was wild from the bath. She made her way down the stairs without a creak and caught a glance of the shape of her guest through the clouded glass window. It was a short man with a hunch in his back.

  When Darcy opened the door, she sighed, “I wasn’t expecting company. Is Mary okay?”

  “She’s fine,” said Russ. He fiddled his fingers with the bottom of his sweater vest. “Jasmine didn’t come home last night. I thought you might know something since the two of you were together.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “Lance told me. Did she stay with you?”

  Darcy shook her head. “I dropped her off at your place.”

  “Did you see her go inside?”

  “I dropped her off at the road. She wanted to walk the rest of the way so she didn’t wake you.”

  He slid his unsteady hand down his jaw and gripped his chin. He muttered, “Don’t be in the woods at night.”

  Watson came bounding into the foyer with a tattered chew toy that had once resembled a tiger. He flung it with ferocity until it struck Russ across the shin. Darcy apologized and waved Watson back. He lunged forward instead of backward, paws up to land on Russ.

  “Watson!” Darcy snapped.

  “It’s alright,” said Russ, scratching the back of Watson’s ear. “He can’t help himself. I’m a magnet for furry friends.”

  Darcy was soon able to get Watson off Russ and to sit a few feet away. Watson kept his eyes on Russ like the man truly was a magnet. Darcy stepped between the two of them and asked, “Is there any chance Jasmine ducked out before you could’ve seen her?”

  “No,” he laughed, the first warm sound since he had arrived. “Mornings are her enemy, trust me.”

  “I can help you look for her if you’d like.”

  His lips rolled inward, pulling on the deep-set wrinkles of his face. He started to decline her offer, but he soon took to trembling. Closing his eyes, he said, “That would be wonderful.” His shoulders sank like something heavy fell away and he could relax. “Come with me.”

  ξ

  Darcy drove Russ’ truck to the Redwood place. The ride was filled with anecdotes from Russ about Jasmine growing up, broken by questions here and there about Darcy. If she was an only child. Yes. Why she had gone into the medical field. Her father. How her father had passed. He had multiple sclerosis, she explained. It was true enough.

  The wind chimes hanging from the porch played a soft morning song. Leaves surrounded the base of a crooked tree in the front yard. The curtains were drawn over the large window where Darcy knew Mary was living out her day. Darcy parked by a garden where pumpkin vines ran wilder than ocean waves. An old treehouse clung to the sturdiest tree around the side of the house.

  “Go a little closer,” said Russ. “Always park past the hydrangeas.”

  Darcy pulled the truck up further until she was past the thick bushes that had lost their blue blooms for the year. They both donned a leather jacket, Russ’ black with cracks from years of wear. Darcy’s was teal and not as tattered. When she wasn’t in scrubs Darcy preferred jeans and nothing extravagant. Her clothing budget went to paying off med school.

  Darcy zipped up her jacket and waited for Russ to shuffle around the truck. He lifted his arm and pointed a curved finger toward the woods. Darcy drew in a full taste of autumn air before leading the way.