Chapter 9
Destiny
Destiny clutched the blanket tighter around her shoulders and grabbed a fireplace poker. Stuff like this shouldn’t scare her. She’d investigated haunted psych wards for cripe’s sake. She’d seen a black massed shadow man before. She’d seen ghosts, but this was different in a way she couldn’t explain.
Goosebumps had bloomed on her arms. Her stomach had turned queasy. When Walker had been in the shower, she’d known she wasn’t alone, as if someone had been watching her. A sense of unease, unlike anything she’d experienced before, had prickled her senses.
Walker was out there now, checking things. She turned off the lights. The shadows from the flames in the fireplace danced in the room. She could just make out Walker following the beam of his flashlight as he searched the ground and surrounding trees.
This mountain seemed to have its own stories to tell.
She slipped her phone out and texted her mom. Short, sweet, to the point.
The ghost has returned. I’ll text you tomorrow.
Walker blustered through the door,letting in the arctic air before closing and locking it behind him. He rested the shotgun in the corner, shrugged out of his jacket, and then hung it on a peg. “There’s no one out there.”
Destiny rubbed at her temples. “I know what I saw. I can’t explain it.”
“Not a problem.” Walker sat and unlaced his boots. “Better to be safe than sorry, and knowing someone could be up here with us, someone who stole from the homestead, I’d rather you tell me and let me check.” He brought the boots to the hearth and left them in front of the fire to dry out from the snow.
She should have apologized for making him go out in the cold, but she hadn’t imagined it. Someone,somethinghad been lurking outside that window. Regardless of their hike, and how tired every bone in her body was, the added shot of adrenaline meant sleep wouldn’t be coming anytime soon.
Walker fixed a plate for dinner and then settled at the table. Destiny joined him with her water bottle.
“Did you always want to be a forest ranger?”
“Yep,” he answered without adding any hint as to his reasoning. Guarded. Just like Monique had said.
“What about you? Did you always want to chase ghosts?” he countered, taking a bite of the canned stew he’d warmed on the camp stove.
She shrugged and peeled at the label on the bottle. “No.” Heat crept into her cheeks. “I wanted to be a reporter in Washington on the political beat.”
Walker took a bite of his food. His brows dipped as he chewed as if wondering why the change in career moves. Most people would never understand.
“You’re a long way from politics. I would have pegged you for wanting to be a local news anchor.”
A smile stretched onto her lips. “Politics were huge while I was growing up. My dad’s a senator.”
“Ah.” His spoon clattered against the plastic bowl when he scooped another bite. “You wanted to spend more time with your daddy?”
She raised her brow. “No, not really.” She met his gaze. “I wanted to expose him for his lies and cheating on my mom.”
“Revenge. That can be a productive motivator.” He nodded and took a sip of his water.
Destiny didn’t hide the hate she had for her father. He may have been part of the reason she’d come into this world, but she wouldn’t claim any more than his basic DNA. He wasn’t a good father or a good husband, constantly leaving them both alone. He’d driven her mother to drink.
“He ran for office on a family values platform. Values he personally never embraced. It’s not a crime to want everyone to see through his lies as I do.”
“Nope.” Walker shoveled another bite onto his spoon. He held it in front of his lips as he spoke. “So, what stopped you? Did you have a change of heart?”
No change of heart. Not that she’d ever admitted. “My father is an asshole, but he’s an asshole with connections.”
“Assholes with connections can be slippery.”
“No denying that,” she answered and took a sip, swallowing through the tightness in her throat at the memories and how it had all played out. “I couldn’t get a job reporting on politics, so when I started dating Putnam and he offered to put in a good word for me, I took it. I didn’t realize this line of work would make me sound crazy, but here I am.”
“Chasing ghosts,” he said, dropping his spoon into his empty bowl. He shoved the dish aside, and rested his folded arms on the wooden table. “So, you didn’t start by chasing ghosts. It sounds like the ghosts of your past were chasing you.”
