Dream Under the Hill (Oberon Book 8) Read online

  “The kid you were with just now. Back at the playground.”

  “You mean Seth?” There was a longish pause before she added. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

  The pain in her voice was a beautiful thing. Gregg smiled. “Don’t worry, my pet, he will be,” he told her, not even realizing he’d spoken aloud until she turned puzzled eyes on him again.

  “Huh?”

  “I’m a psychic, didn’t you know?” He smiled disarmingly. “I’m making a prediction.” What he was really making, however, were plans. Plans to make it look as though this Seth had wanted very badly to be her boyfriend. A little too badly.

  Cara shook her head. “Yeah. I don’t think so.”

  “You’ll see,” he promised, although, of course, she wouldn’t – not unless the dead really did hang around in the ether, watching helpless as the living fucked each other over. It was something to hope for, anyway.

  After she was dead, he’d collect some souvenirs from her body. He’d collect them sooner, but he didn’t want the noise. Then he’d plant them on the boy. He shot her a glance. The boy was big, but she looked strong enough to put up some kind of fight if he didn’t take no for an answer.

  More of a fight than Gregg would let her make. But that was beside the point. He’d rough her up anyway, just to make it look realistic.

  He slung an arm around her shoulders, and cuddled her possessively. “It will all work out just fine,” he assured her, chuckling as she looked up at him and tried to smile. “Just fine,” he repeated, thinking about how it would all turn out. “You and I are gonna have us a real good time.”

  Chapter One

  Even though I walk in the dark valley,

  I fear no evil; for You are at my side, O Lord.

  With Your rod and Your staff that give me courage.

  The Third Saturday in March

  Gradual of the Mass

  For the Saturday after the Third Sunday in Lent

  It was a beautiful day for a wedding, Chenoa Johnson reflected as she put the finishing touches on the cake she was decorating. The sky was blue and cloudless, the weather surprisingly warm for March. True, it was a little bit windy, but she didn’t think that sort of thing would bother the bride.

  Siobhan Quinn lived within a stone’s throw of the Bay, surely she would not object to a little weather on her big day.

  Chenoa took a step back and studied her handiwork.

  “Very nice,” a male voice said from the bakery’s open back door. “Seems a shame to let anyone eat it.”

  “Thanks.” Chenoa smiled as she gave the turntable a spin, so she could examine the cake from every angle. It was nice, she thought. In fact, it was more than nice. Since she’d taken over the bakery last October, following her grandfather’s death, she’d tried very hard to uphold the bakery’s reputation for creating desserts that appealed to all the senses. She might not be the equal to Paco’s artistic mastery, but, now that she’d taken a really good look at it, she did believe that Siobhan’s cake might just be her masterpiece.

  To honor the bride’s Marine Biology background, Chenoa had covered the cake with pearlescent sheets of rolled fondant, tinted in a variety of pastel shades; peach, rose and lavender, ivory and blue and pale sea green. The way the colors swirled together created the impression of a beach at sunrise, of white sand glimmering under dawn washed water.

  And, just in case anyone missed the marine motif, she’d crafted a variety of white chocolate confections—shells and snails and starfish, crabs and a variety of other crustaceans—and set them spiraling up the sides of the cake, climbing from layer to layer to layer.

  “We like to think of it as edible art, Liam,” she explained, turning to smile at her friend. “So it would defeat the purpose if it didn’t get eaten sometime. I just hope it’ll taste as good as it looks.”

  Liam McKnight left the doorway and sauntered closer. “I’m sure it will. But, you know, if you’d like to be sure, I’m more than willing to act as taste-tester.”

  “And how do you propose to do that?” she asked raising an eyebrow at him. She had a pretty good idea what he had in mind, and if he laid one hand on her cake she was going to slap him with a spatula.

  Liam gestured at the cake. “Well, you could cut me a small piece—from along the edge, or something—cover it up with more icing, and there you have it. No one will ever know the difference.”

  Chenoa rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, great idea. Thanks, but I think I’ll just have to hope for the best.”

  “That’s not very nice of you, is it?” Liam answered in mock sorrow. “You flaunt a delicious looking cake at a man and then tell him he can’t have any?”

  “Listen, you,” Chenoa replied, severely, barely hiding her smile. “I didn’t flaunt anything. It’s your own fault for invading my kitchen uninvited. There’s plenty of pastries for you to sample in the front of the store. That’s where all my other customers go when they’re looking for handouts.”

  Liam looked affronted. “I’m truly hurt. Are you saying I’m just another customer?”

  I don’t know what you are, Chenoa thought, ignoring his question to add a couple more starfish to the cake. She’d met Liam some six or seven months earlier, when her grandfather first started treating him for an imbalance in his chakras. Since Paco’s death, Liam had been coming to her for energy work on a fairly regular basis. With his piercing blue eyes and unkempt good looks, Liam was undeniably attractive; but he was an empath. His extreme sensitivity to the feelings of others might have been something of a bennie, in his police career, but it also left him vulnerable to frequent emotional upsets and impulsive behavior. That, coupled with his sporadically rigid views of right and wrong, made him a little too high maintenance for Chenoa’s tastes.

  She hadn’t thought either of them were interested in taking their relationship beyond the professional level, but lately she’d begun to wonder if Liam wasn’t interested in something more.

  “Well, if you’re not going to give me a taste now, I guess I‘ll just have to crash the wedding to get a sample.” Liam said, apparently still focused on the cake. “What’s on the inside, anyway?”

  “Devil’s food,” Chenoa replied a little absently, as she moved a tiny chocolate crab that seemed in danger of sliding right off the cake. “Apparently, it’s the groom’s favorite.”

  Liam sighed. “Yeah, that figures.”

  Chenoa looks at him questioningly, struck by the note of something akin to bitterness in his voce. “You don’t like him?”

  He shrugged. “Ah, it’s not that. Henderson’s okay, I guess. Better than some. It’s just— I don’t know, maybe it’s a cop thing; you know, the lure of the dark? I mean, when you consider all the time we spend exploring the darker side of human nature, we must be drawn to it on some level, don’t you think?”

  Interesting theory. I’m just not sure it extends to cake. Chenoa smiled. “Maybe that’s true for all of us?”

  Liam clapped a hand to his heart. “Oh, no, don’t tell me that. Ya gotta leave me with a few illusions about the rest of humanity.”

  But Chenoa had been struck belatedly by a single word – we. “So, what are you planning on doing with yourself, now that you’ve quit the police?”

  A look of surprised dismay, crossed Liam’s face.

  Just as I thought, Chenoa sighed to herself. Deep down, he still thinks of himself as a cop. She imagined she’d be doing a lot of energy work correcting Liam’s self image, once reality sunk in.

  “I don’t know,” Liam said quietly. “Maybe go back to school? I’ve got some money saved, so I’ve got time to think about it.”

  For a moment, they both lapsed into a thoughtful silence, then Liam roused himself. “Well, I’d better get out of your way, let you finish up. I guess I’ll see you later, huh?”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Later? When later?”

  A mischievous grin curved his lips. “This afternoon. When I crash the wedding.”

 
Chenoa watched him go. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell if he was serious, or not. But one thing was certain. She was going to keep a very close eye on her cake until after it was cut—by the bride and groom.

  * * *

  Outside, Liam paused and looked around. The sleepy town of Oberon looked beautiful today, bright as a dream in the clear, spring sunlight. In fact, he thought, the town was a lot like Chenoa’s cake; shiny and smooth on the surface, unspeakably dark beneath.

  Sometimes, it was hard to say which was sweeter.

  * * *

  The sun was also shining on the far end of town, in the shadow of the mountain, at the very edge of the encroaching forest, for He maketh His sun to rise on the evil as well as the good. It dappled the ground beneath the trees and glistened on the strands of the spiders’ webs, that stretched between their branches. It shone its light on the man currently known as the Reverend Gregg Stevens, as he strolled the grounds of his church, breathing in the scents of redwood and cedar and admiring the electric fence he’d just had installed.

  The fence was truly a thing of beauty, Gregg decided; of beauty and function combined. Designed to keep the curious out and the rebellious in, it brought his dreams of everything The Universal Church of Truth, Light and Vision could become that much closer to being fulfilled. Not that any of his little family were thinking about rebelling yet, but when they did, the fence would be there. Waiting for them. Ready to halt their flight, to guide them back to reason, to protect them from themselves.

  The question was, did he want to tell them ahead of time when the fence was turned on? Or was it better to keep that fact a happy secret, a small mystery, a glorious surprise?

  He watched as a song bird attempted to land on the whorls of barbed wire that wrapped along the top of the fence. Flames shot from the bird’s chest as it exploded, and dropped to the ground.

  So much for surprises. Gregg studied the charred and smoking remains. This kind of thing would surely alert anyone to the fact that the fence was hot, except at night. Or unless you were someone in the habit of ignoring such obvious signs of danger.

  Perhaps a small test was in order?

  He turned toward the house, intending to summon his pet. She’d be a good test subject. It wasn’t that Cara lacked for intelligence, but her inability to recognize danger was almost lamentable.

  Just look at the way they’d met. She’d allowed him—a complete stranger—to pick her up, late at night, and take her to a graveyard under the guise of a date…

  “I thought we were getting something to eat?” she’d asked, as she looked around.

  “We are. See?” He pointed toward the throng of people milling about in one, small, well-lit corner of the cemetery. Toward the booths selling tacos and pastries and a variety of other foods. Toward the squealing children who ran about, playing hide and seek among the grave stones. Toward the strolling musicians whose music would mask out any other sounds, such as a young girl’s dying screams. “It’s El Dia de los Muertos—The Day of the Dead. It’s one big picnic here tonight.”

  “A picnic,” she muttered. “Yeah, that’s some fun all right.”

  He smiled at her discontent. “It is if you’re an ant.” She didn’t want to have a picnic? Perhaps she’d prefer to be one. Prefer it, or not, that’s what she’d be by morning. Just another picnic for the ants to attend. Just a little more death for the crowd to celebrate.

  She studied him suspiciously for a moment and he felt his guts tighten. Had she figured things out yet? Was she getting ready to run, to scream? God, he hoped so. He always loved a good chase.

  But no such luck. Cara merely sighed and shook her head and then allowed him to lead her to the farthest, darkest reaches of the graveyard; to an area of hulking stone crypts and massive trees, where no one would see them, where no one could hear.

  It wasn’t until he had her sprawled beneath him on the cold stone, his scarf knotted at her neck, his weight pinning her in place that alarm flashed in her eyes.

  “Are you trying to scare me again?” A faint tremor shook her voice and betrayed her fear.

  At last, he thought, smiling as he shifted on top of her. He pressed an arm across her chest, leaned just a little more of his weight against her throat, and pressed close enough to whisper in her ear, “It’s not a joke.”

  It was amazing that it had taken her so long to figure things out, he thought now, as he kicked at the dead bird. It was even more amazing that he’d let her live. But, most amazing of all, was how easy it had been to brainwash her into believing he’d done it for her own good.

  He looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching. He smiled as he shifted his foot to cover the bird. “Ah, there you are, pet. Come to see the new fence?”

  Cara shook her head. “No. I’m going shopping. Can you give me some money? Like a hundred, maybe? Or, maybe two?”

  Gregg looked at her consideringly. “And what do I get?”

  She went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Whatever you want,” she murmured dutifully.

  He shook his head. “I get that anyway, don’t I?”

  She slanted him a look and smiled teasingly. “Maybe.”

  “Only maybe, huh?” He pulled out his wallet. “Not sure I like that answer very much. What do you think of my fence?”

  Cara shrugged. “It’s ugly. And I still don’t understand why you wanted it.”

  “I told you,” he answered patiently, slowly counting out ten twenties. “It’s for protection. This isn’t just a house anymore. It’s a sanctuary now. The church members are different from ordinary people. They’re all special. They need to feel that they’re safe here. That the outside world can’t touch them.”

  Cara rolled her eyes. “Yeah, they’re special, all right.” She glanced at the fence and grimaced. “Some sanctuary. The place looks like a prison now.”

  “It does not,” he snapped, pulling the bills back out of her reach. “Don’t talk about things you know nothing about.” He knew what prisons were like, damn it. They were not like this.

  She stared at him uncertainly, her eyes flickering back and forth between his face and the bills in his hand. “Sorry,” she said, cautiously. “I didn’t mean it.”

  “It’s a nice fence,” he repeated. “Why don’t you go touch it and see?”

  She shook her head, crossing her arms and shivering just a little. “Uh-uh. I don’t want to.”

  He held up the bills and nodded at the fence. “Go on. Go and make friends with my fence, or these go back in the wallet.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him and then shook her head once again. “Nu-uh. Forget it. I don’t trust you.”

  Gregg smiled in disbelief. “You don’t trust me?”

  Cara’s eyes darkened with remembered fear. Her cheeks flushed and she hugged herself more tightly. “No,” she pouted. “Not right now, I don’t. You’ve got that funny look in your eyes again.”

  Gregg laughed. So. Not so dumb after all. Spying a pretty little newt crawling around on the forest floor, he snatched it up and winged it at the fence; where it stuck and sparked and shriveled. And sizzled away to nothing.

  “Oh, gross,” Cara exclaimed looking almost sick. She stared at him in horror.

  He couldn’t keep from grinning at her reaction. He tugged the neck of her shirt open and stuffed the wad of bills inside. Then he pulled her close and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Go have fun,” he commanded. “Bring me back a present.”

  She looked at him doubtfully. “You weren’t really gonna let me touch that, were you?”

  He arched an eyebrow at her. “Don’t you know better than to ask me a question like that?”

  “No,” she muttered, frowning unhappily and dropping her gaze from his face. “Not really.”

  He jerked her chin up again and kissed her hard on the mouth. “Better go before I change my mind. And, remember, it’s Saturday. There’s a service tonight, and I expect you to be here for it. So, don’t stay out too late.”


  “Okay,” she nodded as she headed for the driveway. “I won’t.”

  He watched her go, waiting until she was almost at her car, and then he shouted after her. “Stop!”

  She jumped and then turned, regarding him questioningly. “What?”

  Gregg smiled as he pulled the remote control out of his pocket and aimed it at the fence; first turning off the current, and then opening the gate.

  Her eyes widened. She looked at him in surprise. “Hey, wait. If that’s gonna be locked, from now on, how’m I supposed to get back in?”

  Gregg smiled in approval. That was exactly the right question. And if she hadn’t thought to ask it, he wouldn’t have let her leave. “Here.” Taking a second control from his pocket, he tossed it in her direction. “Keep it locked up in your glove compartment when you’re not using it. No one else gets one. You understand?”

  She glanced at the remote in her hand, and then at him. Her cheeks turned pink. She smiled and nodded happily as she opened the car door and got in.

  The little fool, Gregg thought, watching as she drove away. He aimed the control again and closed the gate behind her. She’d better not forget to bring back something nice. Or, next time, it wouldn’t be a newt that got tossed into the fence.

  * * *

  The wedding of Siobhan Quinn and Ryan Henderson had been a long time coming. Saint Dominic’s church was packed for the occasion. It seemed as though everyone in Oberon had turned out to witness the event. The right side of the church was a sea of dark blue; practically the entire police force, along with a good size contingent of officers from nearby San Bartolo were in attendance. On the left side, the bride’s side, the Quinn family signature – red hair, in a variety of shades – predominated.

  Because it was the Lenten season, there was a conspicuous lack of decoration. But the church, with its preponderance of gleaming, beige travertine and pale, golden oak, looked not so much austere as elegant.

  Not that it mattered. The church could have been draped in black crepe, or lined with scaffolds and plastic sheeting. Once the music started and the bride appeared, no one present even noticed their surroundings. All eyes were on Siobhan as she made her way up the aisle. Even her attendants—her twenty year old twin daughters, tall, slim and red-haired, younger editions of their mother; and her own twin, identical except for being eight months pregnant—striking though they all were, could not distract from the vision of happiness she seemed to embody.