Chapter 3
Hours later,Sam woke abruptly to loud pounding and sunshine pouring through the windows beyond the blanket wall. The urgent thumping on the timber door could have been made by an ax. Panicking, she reached for her phone—and realized it wasn’t there, that she didn’t haveone.
How did one call 911 without a cell phone? Oh, cable, landline. Dragging herself from the lovely feather pillow, she glanced around. An old push-button phone was on the lower shelf of thenightstand.
Emma yowled a warning, leaped from the suitcase, and ran from theroom.
Calling 911 would likely bring DeputyWalker.
Grabbing a hair tie out of the toiletry bag she’dleft on the dresser, sliding on a cheap pair of rubber flip-flops, Sam slipped into the front room. She tried to peer through the stained glass of the sidelights to the balcony but could only see shadows. The thumping momentarily stopped and a loud belltolled.
Sam glanced up at the ceiling. Sure enough, a mission bell hung overhead, attached to a rope that probably went outside. It rangagain.
She tugged open the heavy door and was rewarded with a sharp rap on her head. Without thinking, she grabbed the offending weapon and yanked it away, then rubbed her head and glared. “Ow, what did you do thatfor?”
Nearly as tall as Sam, a skeletal woman dressed in a concealing veil and black drapery scowled at her and retrieved her gnarled walking stick. “You didn’t answer.I need Cass urgently. Tell me where sheis.”
“Not here. And hello to you too.” Hmmm, this Sam person might be asmartass.
“Iknowshe’s not here,” the—witchy was the best description—woman snarled. “But you must have seen her.Where?”
Since the last address Sam remembered was the one in the GPS, she responded, “Monterey.” She was about to slam the door, then remembered shewas a stranger here and needed help. Never close the door on someone she might need to ask for help—it seemed a good proverb to live by, whether or not she’d made it upherself.
“Blast and damn,” the woman muttered. “She’s done it. You’ll have to do. Comealong.”
She was starving. She needed to examine the boxes in the trunk. She needed a computer. Now that she had a phone, she couldtry the number in thebook.
“I’m hungry. You may come in and tell me what you want me to do.” Sam turned to go back to the kitchen, but witchy woman grabbed herelbow.
“No time. Without knowing her coordinates, I can’t astral project. Lives depend onus.”
She dragged Sam out the door and into a... golfcart?
Even if she could be heard over the grinding motor or keepher teeth from chattering from the wild bumps on a bad road without shock absorbers, Sam was too busy hanging on to ask questions. Whoever this wild woman was, she drove like a maniac in a vehicle not intended for speed—or for the gravel lane they swervedonto.
Whose lives depended onthem?
With relief, she saw Mariah at the end of the road. Maybe she’d get answersnow.
Staggeringout of the cart, into the dusty chaparral of a plateau well above the town, Sam planted her flip-flops on firm ground and studied the terrain. She noted the natural flora of a dry, west coast plateau but didn’t see anyone dying or in danger of doingso.
Refusing to follow the command of a woman who wouldn’t show her face, Sam rubbed her temple and strained to recall how she’d ended up inthis weird situation—but nothing came to her. She still wasn’t even certain her name wasSamantha.
Other women appeared over the ridge, walking up some back trail. Sam didn’t have a good map in her head of the area yet and wasn’t even sure she could find her way back. Reluctantly, she started toward the one known in this landscape—Mariah.
In the process, she almost stumbled overa long fissure in the dry ground. Mariah stood at the far end of it, staring down in... horror? Fascination? It was hard to tell from this angle. Sam watched where she walked so she didn’t stub her toe on the cracked ground—until she saw thebone.
Instinct kicked in. With interest, she crouched down to study the brown and corroding ivory with one knobby end protruding. She was prettycertain it was a femur. She had no idea how she knew that—but that was a human body down there. She shuddered when she glimpsed theskull.
Without a qualm,Walker ran the Subaru’s Utah license plate through the system. He might be taking a sabbatical from his investigative firm and all his agents, but as a cop, he had access to official databases.No stolen vehicle reports. Owner information from out of state would take a littlelonger.
Sam might just be passing through. Tourists kept the town running, after all. But there was something about the way the women had latched on to the newcomer that said she might be more. Hillvale was full of weird women. Sam didn’t appear to be one of them, but that could be wishfulthinking.
Face it, Walker, life is full of weird women, and you need to get pastit.
He pinched his nose and shut up his inner demon. His self-enforced sabbatical from his real life was meant to quiet the craziness and return him to normal. He only had six months of this rural cop stint left to find out what no law enforcement agency had been able to uncover. He meant to leave no stone unturned—andthat included listening to thewomen.
He steered the county’s official four-wheel drive Explorer up the mountain to the Kennedys’ ostentatious luxury hotel. Redwood Resort could have been as easily called Timberland, the name of the original ranch. The first floor had a log façade, with log cabins dotting the woods surrounding it. He’d read up on the history. Back in the 70’s, environmentalisttree-huggers had nearly burned the place down in protest of the destruction of half a forest and the toxic creosote used to treat thelogs.
