CHAPTER -nine of wands

The hermit reversed, eight of cups reversed, nine of wands (workaholism)

~~~

Unsure of what to do next, Cassie looked at the totes she filled with Nick and Erin's clothing. She carried them to the front room then move the empty totes which held her stuff while she was in the hospital to the storage loft above the garage. She didn't feel ready just start working again. She didn't want her stalker to know she was taking recording contracts. Standing by her garage, she looked around her little valley in the spoon-shaped box Canyon. She missed the peace and solitude of her home while she was at the resort-like mental hospital. Miss Priss yowled from the porch at Niko, who was on the roof watching her then chirp-meowed.

"Stop bickering, you wretched felines!"

Sighing, Cassie walked back to the house and got the broom from the pantry. She swept the porch deck on the front and back of the house and the walk out to the garage. Absently, she wondered if Audie had returned or if he was still with the cows across the valley at the Tanner ranch. She heard a truck and retreated inside behind the safety of tempered bulletproof glass and steel-framed walls. Nick parked his truck then he and Erin both got out and walked toward the house so she came back out.

"Are you sure you want us to leave? I don't have to go back this semester if you need me," Erin insisted.

Cassie shook her head. "I'm much better now," she lied with conviction.

Eyeing her cautiously, Nick shook his head as if he didn't believe her. "Are you much better or did you just convince the doctors so you could come home because you haven't left here for three days?"

"Really, Nick?" Cassie glared at him. "I've spent the last three days cleaning my house." Then she waved her arm toward her meadow. "And who told you to mow my wildflowers?"

He held up his hands in defense. "Darlin', most of those wildflowers were weeds."

"I planted them from a special mix I ordered online for hummingbirds, bees, and butterflies," she snapped back. "Just because the Rocking M doesn't grow crops doesn't mean it doesn't need pollinators."

"Here we go again," Erin rolled his eyes.

"It's serious, Erin. Globally pollinating species of birds and insects are on the threatened or endangered lists, just the same as ocean wildlife. We need to replant their habitat if we aren't using it to grow crops for ourselves."

"Well, if you want a hive of bees, I'll talk to my cousin Molly," Nick offered. "But next time you plant some wildflower mix, make sure there isn't ragweed in it because your brother is allergic and snores loud enough to draw the bears."

Erin scowled at his boyfriend, refuting him, "I think that was you snoring, and you woke yourself up."

As they bickered, Cassie listened then she threw her hands up in the air, exclaiming, "You two sound like an old married couple... I packed for you. Your clothes are in the totes in the living room, and I have a small tote in the bathroom for your products and shaving things."

Erin gave his sister a grateful smile. "Thanks for packing for us so we could spend the day with Grandpa McConnell."

"Did you have fun?" Cassie asked. "Because you both smell terrible."

"Really? We showered before we came home," Erin revealed. "We shouldn't stink."

"Well, we do, darlin'," Nick teased, "We spent the whole day helping dip and deworm an entire herd of meat goats and sheep. We won't get the smell off us for a week."

"I can't smell like this for a week. We start classes in three days," Erin complained.

"You can use my exfoliating sugar scrub if you think it will help," Cassie offered her brother.

"What about me?" Nick whined.

"You're fine. You look like someone who would smell like sheep and cows and goats," Cassie taunted.

Nick and Erin both laughed as they went into the house ahead of her. When Erin reached out to pet Miss Priss, she growled at him and hissed, wrinkling up her nose and flattening her ears.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Cassie warned. Going in the bathroom ahead of them, she pulled two different types of scrubs from under the sink. "This one is an almond sugar scrub, and this one is a citrus oil and vitamin C salt scrub. Please, use them,  all of them, or you're sleeping out on Audie's bed in the garage tonight," Cassie threatened with a mock glower. "I'm going to make dinner before I lose my appetite from the stench."

She retreated to the kitchen, ignoring Nick's protest that they didn't smell that bad. A little while later, Erin joined her while she was finishing the pasta sauce and rinsing the noodles. He smelled much better.

His eyes held all his concern as he asked again, "Are you sure you're going to be okay here alone?"

"I'm not alone. I can visit Fern and Miss Elizabeth anytime I want. You and Nick are just a Skype call away, and I have a new therapist who will call me for appointments regularly. I'm going to be fine Erin, stop worrying," Cassie insisted. 

She felt so guilty that he almost failed out of school the semester after she was attacked and Shivonne was killed. He managed to salvage his grades, but it had significantly dropped his rank among his fellow students. To reassure her brother, she repeated what the therapist insisted was the truth, a truth her guilt didn't believe. 

"I have survivor's guilt, but I have nothing to feel guilty about. Shivonne is responsible for inviting the man who killed her to our home, but she is not responsible for what happened. He is responsible for what he did to her and to me. The people who came to the party at our house did not hurt her and were not there to hurt me. They were just bystanders after the crime. I'm working on not being afraid of people because it wasn't their fault one person tricked them into coming and ruining a crime scene."

Erin eyed her skeptically then asked for the third time, "Are you sure you're going to be okay living here alone all winter?"

She exhaled, making a frustrated sound as she turned to face him. "I'm a grown woman, I need to stop jumping at every shadow, checking the locks four times a night, and hyperventilating every time I see a face I don't know. I hate that I'm afraid, but I'm working on it. It just takes time. And you dropping out of school won't make me recover any faster."

Pressing his lips together in a thin line, Erin inquired hesitantly, "You believe it isn't Shivonne's fault anymore?"

"I have too." Cassie answered as she began putting noodles and salad onto plates. "I have to believe it isn't her fault, and it isn't my fault, or I get angry and blame myself and her for not stopping what happened to both of us. She died and I can't ask her why she invited him to our house. I survived so I can't ask her why she invited him to our house. I know he's still out there. I know he is still talking to the author of those books Shivonne loved and I can't do anything about it or help anyone. I keep praying Shivonne and I were a one off, and he hasn't killed anyone else, but I can't be certain." Cassie wrung her hands together for a moment, then she picked up the wine glass she had poured for herself to go with dinner and gulped it. "With Detective Stonewall dead, I don't even know who to talk to, or if they would believe me. I don't think my doctors believed me when I said Shivonne's killer used her favorite scene from a romance novel. They thought I was projecting my victimization on to the scenes I read. I couldn't make them believe me."

"I believe you." Erin squeezed her hand. "And I don't think you projected anything from the way we found you."

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Cassie insisted as she poured another glass of wine.

Hearing the water in the bathroom shut off, Cassie gave a glass of wine to Erin to put on the table on the deck for him, and a beer for Nick. She carried out the plates, then went back and pulled the parmesan crostini out of the oven.

"Dinner's ready," she called out to Nick.

As they ate dinner, Cassie steered the conversation toward the upcoming semester. Erin and Nick had two years a veterinary medicine left at the university, then their internship, before they would be licensed. She knew they had too much work to do to be worrying about her, so she planned to make herself seem as sane as possible. She set up a schedule to visit Grandma Fern on the first Sunday of every month and Miss Elizabeth on the 3rd Saturday. She was also going to try to drive around Pagosa county, and take pictures of different places one day a month and then send the pictures weekly like she was leaving the ranch regularly to pick up her grocery order or something. It was going to be hard, but she was willing to put the work into the deception so that she could stay safe in her little valley the rest of the time. So they wouldn't know how crazy she felt she really was.

~~~~

When Cassie finally logged back into her acx account, she found that she had dozens of requests to voice audio books. She carefully scrutinized every author, comparing their author page or social media identities with the emails from the audiobook recording service. It only took a few hours to book the next two months of recording time. There were several authors who had already found voices and she was disappointed not to get to read for them, but she understood the recording timetables. Black Friday and Cyber Monday had become popular pre-Christmas release dates. There were three authors who asked if she would be willing to voice their spring releases, allowing her to have work starting the second week of January.

Hjalm had not been wrong about the virtual voice contest, and their second-place wins in two categories and honorable mention in two other categories meant that Cassandra now had more voice work than she could do between recording audio books and doing voice overs for commercials to be aired on television and radio. She would have a busy winter and she was grateful for the distraction. Despite everything she talked through in therapy, Cassie still felt guilty that she survived and Shivonne did not. She also felt guilty because the last face to face talk she had with her grandmother was a fight.

~~~~

Tim struggled against the wind blowing across the decks of the rig. The metal was hot and a late season typhoon was headed straight for the project he had signed on to complete over the next year. He worried because if the rigs were damaged too badly and had to be scrapped, his contract would automatically be extended to cover the time to replace the damaged drilling and pumping oil platforms. He planned to go home to Pagosa Cliffs for Tiana's senior year, but it seemed so far away.

"Tim, you have a call, Tim Ballard, you have a call." Announced the P.A. speakers.

Groaning, Tim made his way back to the radio room by the office. He was certain it was the corporate offices on the mainland calling to warn him again about the typhoon he already knew was on the way.

"Who is it now?" Tim demanded in Japanese.

"Someone named Lloyd McConnell asked for you in Korean," Leong revealed. The communications officer handed over the phone. "You're on line two, take it in the office."

"What do you want, Lloyd?" Tim demanded without greeting.

"You need to come home, our sister needs us," Lloyd demanded hostilely.

"Oh, now she's our sister? What happened to keeping our parent's dirty little secret from her?" Rage seeped into his voice because Tim wanted to tell Molly the truth years ago, but Lloyd refused because Molly loved the man who wasn't really her father with a blind devotion.

"Garrett's dead, Gerry killed him tonight, and Sharon too, at the farm. It was only pure damn luck and Molly's craving for cheesecake that saved her and the baby. She is going to need all the family she has. I am going over to tell her in a few minutes. She needs you to come home, Tim." Lloyd's voice was level and firm.

Gasping like he had been punched in the gut, Tim sat down hard, and he muted his end. Panting, Tim sobbed three times before he was able to get control of his emotions. He loved Garrett like a brother and couldn't imagine what Molly must be feeling. He realized he had been silent too long and unmuted. When Tim spoke, it was a strangled, grieved sound. "I can't. We have a typhoon in-bound, a dozen rigs in the path. I won't be able to get there for weeks. Just... Just do what you need to do for Molly. I'll try to get home for Christmas."

Lloyd took a deep breath and for a moment, Tim was certain he was about to get a tongue-lashing but instead Lloyd said, "Fine. Stay safe."

"Lloyd?" Tim spoke before Lloyd could hang up. "Take care of our sister for me."

"I always do," Lloyd reminded and hung up.

Sitting there, panting, Tim wanted to vomit. Instead, he stood and opened the door. "Leong, I need you to make a call." He gave the communication's officer his grandfather's Veternary Clinic number.

"It's barely dawn there, not even 7AM."

"My grandfather will answer. I need to talk to him, my pregnant sister's husband was murdered last night, and I need to know what happened," Tim's voice sounded strangely cold to his ears, like Lloyd's voice.

Leong worked for a few minutes then said, "I can send the call in forty-five minutes."

Clenching his teeth so hard they squeaked, Tim gritted out, "I'll be back in forty-three."

Walking out into the wind, Tim inhaled the salty air and looked east. He could just see the tops of the storm just over a hundred nautical miles away. In three hours, the platform he was on would be under the leading edge. Time was running out.

He stomped up to the upper level and yelled at the pipe fitters to hurry up and finish securing the loose casing and pipes because in an hour and thirty minutes it would be too windy to work. He glanced at his watch every few minutes as he worked side-by-side with the rig workers.

"I've got a call. I want everything lashed down."

As his workers finished securing everything they could, Tim found out the horrible truth and how much of a miracle it was that his pregnant sister was still alive then they lost the satellite signal. He said a small prayer of gratitude that the town baker had let Molly stay at the Inn turned bakery.

"Your sister?" Leong asked when he stepped out of the office.

"Lloyd spoke the truth when he said Molly's pregnancy cravings saved her. If she hadn't been staying with her friend who is our town's baker, she would have been beaten to death by her husband's crazy brother... Cheesecake saved her life; it and her friend's generosity to bake it for her late at night, saved her and her baby." His hands shook in grief and relief, but there was no time for him to get emotional as the wind howled outside. "Get me the other rigs, I need to talk to the engineers."

As he radioed the engineers on the other rigs, he told them to have the ballasts ready to shift if something went wrong and ordered all life rafts be readied. He prayed the deep anchors would hold the platforms in place because a few years earlier, a rig in this group capsized and the broken pipe from the wellhead spewed oil into the ocean for weeks until it was capped. They all respected the tall cowboy from America, but all could tell something was very wrong today, and more than one feared for their lives in the face of category four Typhoon Misaeli.

~~~~

Cassie groaned as she stripped out of the too small sweatpants. Stuffing them back in the box, she went to her computer and printed out a return label. She was getting so frustrated buying clothes online because what was a size 18 to 20 in one brand was a size larger or smaller in another. Some clothing lines even had different true sizes between different colors of the same item. She wished she had the courage to go shopping and try on clothes, but the one time her frustration pushed her to do that, she had a panic attack in the dressing room and ended up in the emergency room after fainting because the poor clerk thought she was having a heart attack. Grandma Fern brought her home, praising her for being brave to attempt the shopping trip and scolding her for not calling her to go with. 

That afternoon Erin called very worried, but Cassie got off the phone with him quickly by claiming she was waiting for her therapist to call her back before a virtual meeting with a client. It was a lie because she didn't want him to worry. She had finished all her client work weeks ahead of schedule and she was cancelling as many therapy appointments as she was keeping while she spiraled into loneliness, despair, and workaholism. She even started recording books for contracts she hadn't gotten. 

With nothing but her cats and her recordings to fill her time, Cassie felt like she was living in limbo watching the seasons change around her. Her tarot cards didn't help because everyday she pulled a card she was convinced was connected to her stalker while the other two were nonsense. It had started while she was at the hospital. Wondering if she had somehow become out of tune with it, she put her favorite Crystal Visions Tarot deck on a tray and sprinkled salt over the cards, then she dug through all the tarot decks she bought over the years. She pulled three cards from each, trying to find one that spoke to her.