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“Does Claire hear the whispers when she’s awake?” he asked the old Navajo, not in the least surprised when Orrin sighed heavily at the question.
“If so, she did not tell me, nor did the whispers that drift by me,” he said softly. “My granddaughter, even at a young age, was well versed in keeping her secrets.”
“She loved the night, didn’t she?” Graeme asked then, wondering how much the chief did know where Claire was concerned.
Orrin’s head lifted, his gaze staring beyond Graeme’s shoulder before he turned to the warriors and nodded to the cavern opening. All but one left the natural enclosure. Lincoln moved from where he stood, though, and took a seat next to Orrin.
The Navajo hiding in the small crevice leading to another cavern came forward then, his saddened features and bitter gaze attesting to the fact that none of the Martinez family had escaped the repercussions of one son’s actions.
Terran moved to Orrin’s other side, sat and stared back at Graeme silently.
“You spoke to Claire?” Orrin asked then.
“Last night.” Graeme nodded. “You told me once Cat awoke that Claire would find her rest, Orrin.”
He hadn’t known of the ritual until he’d scented Cat in the same body that he’d known carried a different scent years before. It was then that Orrin had come to him in the desert and explained the actions the chiefs had taken to save Cat and Honor, as well as Judd.
“The ritual was to place your Cat in a sleep so deep none could find her,” he said softly, a small, rueful smile tugging at his lips. “Perhaps the winds did not tell me how determined that little Breed was to rule her fate, no matter who others believed she was.”
“Plastic surgery was performed after the ritual?” Graeme wasn’t pleased over that. He’d liked Cat’s looks fine when she was a child.
But Orrin nodded. “The surgery was required to alter her facial features to more closely match those of Claire’s.” His voice hoarsened with emotion then. “Barely six months after the ritual Cat awoke and Claire went away for such a long period of time I feared she would not return. Then the Breeds began arriving, and Claire would return when they were near. She was your Cat’s protector when needed, but otherwise, she slept so deeply that even I, with all my knowledge of the intricacies of that ritual, could not find her.”
Yes, his Cat was determined, Graeme agreed silently. He had no doubt she’d come awake with a vengeance, but he doubted Claire had slept as much as Orrin suspected.
Graeme knew how desperately Cat had ached for a friend who couldn’t be taken from her as everyone had been taken in the research center. She would have kept Claire awake every second possible.
“What happened the night Claire died?” Graeme asked. “What sent a fifteen-year-old racing into the desert with her father’s vehicle into a canyon guaranteed to kill not just herself but also the girl she claimed as her best friend?”
Orrin merely shook his head, lowering it silently as though he didn’t know.
He knew something.
Growling, Graeme glanced to Terran, who did the same, then to Lincoln.
“Are you going to lie to me as well, warrior?” He freely released a portion of the madness just waiting to leap free and do whatever necessary to protect his mate.
His body heated where the stripes emerged, his vision became so clear no detail was missed and those extrasensory abilities he’d acquired when giving himself to the pulsing fury became so much sharper he could almost hear the thoughts of the brother who himself ached to know why.
“She called Grandfather that night,” Lincoln revealed as his grandfather expelled a hard puff of air. “You could hear the whine of the car’s motor in the background and Liza’s frantic cries that they wouldn’t make it. Claire was crying.” Lincoln swallowed tightly. “She told him . . .” He shook his head, turning away from Graeme.
“‘Tell Lincoln . . .’” Orrin whispered Claire’s words. “‘Tell him, Grandfather, I’ll miss climbing in the canyons with him. I love you all.’” A tear fell from the corner of the old man’s eye. “Then she and Liza were screaming until the sounds ended in the crash.”
“Your granddaughter was murdered,” Graeme snarled. “And all these years you’ve called it suicide.”
Orrin shook his head as his hands tightened on his knees. Gnarled and swollen with arthritis now, they whitened with the desperate pain pouring from him.
“Raymond found drugs in her room. The pills were known to produce hallucinations. Claire had been caught smoking, drinking . . . He was her father.” Bitter anger resonated in his aged voice. “She seemed to love him. She never told me of any problems in her life, and Lincoln knew of none. Until the past days, the explanation seemed to make sense.”
“Whatever happened that night I knew it wasn’t drugs,” Lincoln bit out furiously. “But he and Mom were broken that night.” His jaw tightened. “Or they seemed to be broken. But any man who loved his daughter would be desperate to keep alive the young woman protecting her spirit within her own body.”
Orrin, Terran and Lincoln, three men Graeme knew had loved Claire before her death, and each was immersed in the guilt of ignorance.
“What did my granddaughter say to you?” Orrin asked then, desperate for news of his granddaughter. “Did she have need of us?”
The hope he expressed was one Graeme almost hated to dash.
“She came to me with a warning that Cat would try to run, to escape.” That much he would reveal. “And she said she wanted to see the night. She’d missed it.”
