The Moon Stands Still Read online

  The Moon Stands Still

  Book 7 in the Raleigh Harmon Mystery Series

  Sibella Giorello

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  A Note From Sibella

  Stone and Spark

  Also by Sibella Giorello

  About the Author

  Oh, how the night owl calls,

  calling, calling from its tree!

  The moon is climbing through the sky

  with the child by the hand.

  Federico García Lorca, “The Ballad of the Moon.”

  This book is dedicated to Frank Hotchkiss, my family and my friend.

  Poet, you are much missed.

  1

  In the pre-dawn darkness of November, I dug my shovel into the sandy soil and told the truth. “Everybody needs an escape hatch.”

  “No.” Lani Margolis pushed her shovel into the riverbank, her headlamp flashing golden light on the soil. “You need an escape hatch. The rest of us can deal with love.”

  “I can deal with love.” I shifted my face, beaming my lamp at the gritty grains that scraped against my shovel. “I just don’t want to feel…smothered.”

  Lani threw a spadeful of soil over her shoulder. “Keep lying to yourself, Raleigh.”

  “I’m not lying to myself.”

  She looked up. Under the headlamp, her Asian face resembled a soft moon. She shook her head. The metal rims of her glasses glimmered. “That might be the biggest lie you’re telling yourself.”

  “What?”

  “You’re madly in love with Jack and you’re totally afraid.”

  “I’m not—”

  “You’re afraid Jack doesn’t love you the way you love him.”

  I shifted my gaze. Just past 5:00 a.m. on the muddy banks of the Willapa River. Fog cloaked the nearby RV campground. We had arrived here early because of the tides, because it was clam-digging season, because when people popped up at first light, they would ruin our fossil-and-rock hunt.

  And we came early because I had a daily date at an insane asylum.

  “Lani, I couldn’t go to dinner with Jack, get up at 2:00 a.m., and drive out here with you.”

  She shook her head. “You’re afraid of how much you need him.”

  “Wrong—again. I skipped the date with him so we could find fossils. That’s all. And you should be grateful, you like fossil—”

  “I love fossils.” She stabbed her shovel into the riverbank. “But if I had a choice between digging for paleontological prizes and going on a date with a man as hot as Jack Stephanson, you and I wouldn’t be standing in the mud.”

  “Technically, silt and sand.” I pushed my shovel into the suede-colored muck. On the drive from Tacoma to the Olympic Peninsula, Lani had quizzed me about Jack, then proceeded to offer two hours of relationship advice. Easy for her. Lani married her soul mate.

  I changed the topic. “Where are these concretions anyway?”

  “Patience.” Lani wiped her perspiring neck. “You need patience, Raleigh. Keep digging.”

  I lifted my shovel, hefting the wet, heavy soil up the Willapa’s low-sloping bank. Thus far, our grand total of “paleontological prizes” consisted of two crushed cans of Olympia beer, one rusted wrench, a cracked ring that looked like it came from a gumball machine, and a Sterno stove, complete with one four-ounce can of unused fuel. I threw the soil on our growing pile of worthlessness. It landed with a plop.

  I called over my shoulder. “You’re sure concretions are here?”

  “Raleigh.”

  “We should go get breakfast. Pancakes.”

  “Dig.”

  “Bacon.”

  Lani ignored me, focusing on the dig.

  Concretions were a two-for-one deal for us. On the surface, they looked like gorgeously rounded river rocks. But when broken open, they released embedded fossils. Like geodes, only instead of crystals, concretions held the once-living witnesses of geological time. Lani, the marine biologist, would take the fossils, and I, the forensic geologist, would take the rocks.

  Leaning down, I sifted my fingers through the silty grains. I felt something solid. Round. I shifted my face, directing the headlamp on the object, and lifted it to the pre-dawn sky. “Amazing!”

  Lani swiveled her head, squinting through her glasses. “What is it?”

  “Incredible.” I carried the new object to her, dragging my shovel. “It’s a mini-bar bottle of booze—unopened!”

  Her dark eyes glittered under the headlamp. “You know what you are? You’re a pain in the coccyx.”

  “Imagine the history, Lani. One little booze bottle, carried all the way out here, then lost to geological time. And ironic, too. A glass bottle, deposited in sand and water, returning to its original chemical elements. Good thing we drove all the way out here to find—”

  “Shut up.” Lani snatched the bottle from my hand, chucking it at our discard pile. “Just keep digging.”

  “And now you see why paleontology bores me.”

  “Because—” She lifted another shovelful of wet soil, balancing the handle. “—you have no patience.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Here we go again.” With a soft grunt, she lugged the soil up the riverbank.

  “I have patience.”

  “Waiting for the McDonald’s drive-through doesn’t count.”

  Just for that, I moved further down the riverbank. Keeping my back to her, I started digging an entirely new hole. Watch me. I sank the steel blade into the sand. I have patience. The shovel sliced through the soil, producing a soft sssftt sound. And I am not afraid of my feelings. I dug faster. Sssffft, ssffftt. Deeper. Then I heard thunk.

  I set down the shovel and dropped to my knees, combing through the loosened soil, cold and wet and granular. I touched something solid. And round. I yanked out a rock. “Ah ha!”

  The rock was round as a baseball. Reaching back, I grabbed the rock hammer that hung from a belt loop on my jeans. I tapped the claw against the smooth surface.

  Tap. Tap.

  Lani dragged her shovel over. She was silent.

  I looked up, smiling. “Told ya.” Tap-tap-tap. “I found a concretion.”

  “Don’t smash it,” she said.

  TAP.

  “Raleigh.”

  “This is me, being patient.”

  “No, not that.” Lani pointed, her headlamp falling like a spotlight in
to the hole on the riverbank. “Look.”

  “Beer can? Motel room key?”

  She shook her head, the light scissoring the darkness. “It looks like… money.”

  “Gold coins—with chocolate inside?” I kneeled down, brushing away the soil. It looked like a small weathered paperback. Lifting the sodden brick of paper, I brushed away the soil. A face stared back at me and after a moment, I recognized the high forehead of Andrew Jackson.

  “Oh, man!” Lani cried. “We’re rich!”

  “Whoa.” I blinked in disbelief.

  “That’s gotta be what—a thousand dollars?” She was vibrating with excitement. “Two thousand?”

  I turned the bundle carefully. Twenty dollar bills on top. Twenties on the bottom. One thick rubber band held the bundle together, dividing Jackson’s stern face. Judging by the thickness, this bundle was worth far more than one thousand dollars.

  Lani dropped to her knees, clawing through the soil like a dog chasing a bone. “Look—here’s another one!” She pulled out another bundle, shaking off the dirt, and squealing. “I can quit my teaching job. I can do research full—what’s wrong?”

  I clicked off my headlamp. When my eyesight adjusted to the darkness, I could see sunlight creeping along the jagged peaks of the Olympic Range in the distance. Beyond the foggy riverbank, RV windows were starting to show light. Any minute now, clam diggers would appear. With shovels. Lots of shovels.

  “Turn off your lamp.”

  Lani gaped at me. “Why?”

  “Turn off your lamp and put down the money.”

  “Raleigh—” She stopped when she followed my gaze.

  I got up and walked up the riverbank to my backpack. Unzipping the top, I yanked out gallon-sized Ziploc bags and returned to the money hole.

  Lani’s round face was somber as a waning moon. “Don’t tell me.”

  “Okay, I won’t.” I lifted both bundles of money and placed them inside the plastic bags. “Check the hole, see if there’s any more.”

  Slowly, she dragged her fingers through the soil. Then she stood, desultory as the slow river behind us, and pushed her shovel into the ground. I rolled up the bags and used a Sharpie to write on the plastic. Time, date, location.

  Lani lifted her face. “Does this mean we can’t keep the money?”

  I stared at Andrew Jackson. He didn’t look happy.

  “Lani, trust me. This is not the kind of money you want to keep.”

  2

  I pulled up to Western State Hospital for the mentally ill and looked over at my canine passenger.

  “My deepest apologies will never be enough.”

  Madame wagged her tail and climbed over the gear shift, settling into my lap. I stroked her soft black fur, reminded her that she was the world’s greatest mutt, and promised that her visit would only last one hour.

  Inside the looming gray granite building, holding the dog in one arm, I signed the front desk’s visitor log, spoke a few words to Gaelynn the receptionist, and waited for her to hit the buzzer that unlocked the stairwell’s steel door. I climbed the stairs and tried not to breathe too deeply. The air smelled of boiled peas and panic.

  On the other side of the next locked door, the red-haired nurse named Sarah waited. I handed her the dog. We said nothing—this was all routine now—but on my walk back down the stairs, more than my arms felt empty.

  Normally, as part of the daily routine, I went for a run. Running and running and running until lactic acid and burning lungs could consume my feelings. But today I climbed back in the white sports car nicknamed The Ghost and contemplated the plastic bags now resting on the passenger-side floor under a blue towel. I reached into my pocket and turned on my cell phone. No messages, voice or text.

  I redialed the most frequently called number.

  Jack answered on the second ring. “Harmon, if you’re calling to apologize—”

  “For what?”

  “For canceling dinner?”

  “Oh, absolutely. That’s why I’m calling. To apologize.”

  “Really?”

  I could hear the disbelief in his voice. “Yes, I’m sorry I canceled. How about tonight?”

  “Tonight? It’s Sunday.”

  “Nobody eats steak on Sundays?”

  “I don’t know if that place is open.”

  “We could go somewhere else.”

  He hesitated. “I’ve got court in the morning.”

  “We’ll go early. Beat the crowd.”

  A silence infused the phone, the kind of pause that comes between waves at the ocean. Anticipatory, expectant. I lifted my gaze to the asylum’s stone walls. My mother was locked inside. She wanted to see her dog every day. But not me.

  “You’re sure?” Jack asked.

  “Yes.” I dropped my gaze to the blue towel. “Tonight would be great.”

  “Okay, I’m looking at their website. They open at five.”

  Something inside my chest released. “Good.”

  “It’s dress-up,” he added.

  My chest tightened again. Sand in my hair. Silt under my fingernails. “Five thirty?”

  “See you there,” he said.

  3

  I owned one dress.

  Black velvet. Haunted with intrigue. And cut tight as European driving gloves.

  At 5:30 on the dot, I stepped inside El Gaucho, a dinner club with a reputation for the best steak in Seattle. Hair washed, hands scrubbed clean, and bucket purse slung over one shoulder, I stood near the empty maître d’ podium. No sign of Jack. Across the dimly lighted room, white cloth draped over round tables. Pale candles luminesced. And on the low stage, a four-piece jazz ensemble laced the night with Latin soul. I inhaled. Seared steak. Roasted garlic. My mouth sprung a leak.

  “Harmon?” Jack Stephanson stepped from the shadows.

  “Right on time.”

  His gaze locked on the dress. “Wow.”

  He wore a black suit. Like my dress, it was an astonishing sight compared to his usual nondescript FBI agent wardrobe. I clamped my mouth shut.

  “Harmon, that dress.”

  “You said dress-up.”

  “But you never follow orders.”

  I smiled. “You promised steak.”

  The maître d’ appeared behind the lighted wooden podium. Swarthy and suave, he gave Jack an obsequious bow. “Mr. Stephanson, would you and your wife—”

  “We’re not married,” I said.

  “Pardon.” Mr. Swarthy-Suave gave another bow. “Your table is ready, right this way, please.”

  Carrying our menus, he led us through the luscious darkness. Couples at the intimate tables leaned into each other, whispering, entranced by their own unique universe, populated by only two.

  Mr. Suave held out a chair at a table to the left of the stage. “Would you like to check your purse, miss?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I assure you it’s secure.”

  “No, thanks.”

  He nodded, laid leather-bound menus on the white tablecloth, and hoped we enjoyed our meal.

  I opened the menu. My salivary glands turned into firehoses.

  “Harmon, thank you.”

  I placed my index finger beside the very important words filet mignon, and looked up. In the flickering candlelight, his eyes seemed as green as polished emeralds. I wondered about telling him the story behind this dress. But there was food to order. “For apologizing?”

  “For wearing that dress.”

  “See what happens when you offer a girl a good steak?”

  “How often can you eat steak?”

  His smile turned my heart into a crazy conga drum. I raised the leather menu, just in case the dress’s sweetheart neckline revealed my sudden arrhythmia. My gaze fell on the words Béarnaise sauce.

  “Harmon.”

  I looked up.

  Jack still hadn’t opened his menu. “You look absolutely gorgeous.”

  “Thank you.” Heart pounding, I returned to the menu and tri
ed to breathe. Fresh crab meat. “How’s the Steak Oscar here?”

  “Good. But not as good as you look.”

  I closed the menu. Oscar, you have my vote. I glanced at the stage. The bass player was walking a sensuous rhythm through the air. When I looked at Jack, every note seemed to slide into those green eyes. Deep green. A color that could stretch to the ends of the earth and come back without ever losing its heat.

  I tilted my head. “Can I show you something?”

  “I’ve longed to hear those words.” He grinned. “Sorry. Couldn’t resist.”

  Before I could go further, the waiter appeared. Suave as the maître d’, he set down a bread basket and offered his name, but in the delirium of fresh-baked bread, I didn’t catch it. Jack said something. The waiter turned toward me.

  “And for you, miss, something to drink?”

  I ripped my gaze away from the bread. “Coke, no crushed ice.”

  He almost flinched.

  “And I’m ready to order my meal. Steak Oscar, medium. Thank you.”

  “Excellent choice. And for the vegetable, roasted asparagus or the broccoli rabe?”

  “Baked potato.”

  Jack let out a groan.

  “Potatoes are a vegetable,” I informed both men.

  “Potatoes are only a vegetable on the Raleigh Harmon food pyramid.”

  The waiter restrained himself. “And how would you like your potato dressed?”