He trailed her neck with his fingers, then let them linger on the diamond-and-emerald amulet.

“Is this the original?”

“Yes.” The word was barely a whisper. His face was so close. She couldn’t fight this. The attraction was too unexpected and far too overpowering. “It was found and returned to us.”

“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

And then he kissed her. The world began to spin as if she were on a mad carousel. She kissed him back, over and over until every part of her was lost in the passion and need.

A siren sounded in the distance. He pulled away. “I have to go. Tomorrow night in the ballroom. Same time?”

She nodded. His hand trailed her arm one last time, as if he hated to leave her.

She wanted to see him tomorrow night, and the night after, and every night for as long as she could.

But how long would he stay around once he knew the truth about her?

The Amulet
Joanna Wayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Joanna Wayne lives with her husband just a few miles from steamy, exciting New Orleans, but her home is in the perfect writer’s hideaway. A lazy bayou, complete with graceful herons, colorful wood ducks and an occasional alligator, winds just below her back garden. When not creating tales of spine-tingling suspense and heart-warming romance, she enjoys reading, traveling, playing golf and spending time with family and friends.

Joanna believes that one of the special joys of writing is knowing that her stories have brought enjoyment to or somehow touched the lives of her readers. You can write Joanna at P.O. Box 2851, Harvey, LA 70059-2851.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Katrina O’Malley—She has one thing on her mind until she meets the handsome detective who teaches her what love is all about.

Deputy Bart Finnegan—He’s no longer officially on the murder case, but he’s got too much at stake to give it up.

Deputy Carrie Fransen—After her partner gets shot, she’s spooked over the ghostly happenings that no one can explain.

Deputy Dick McFarland—He’s your typical, arrogant, controlling deputy—and Carrie’s new partner.

Maisie Henderson—She runs a small café and knows a lot about everybody.

Tom Henderson—What he’s seen in the mountains may have blown his mind forever.

Owen Billings—He’s very protective of his troubled wife.

Selma Billings—She’s depressed over her miscarriage—and suspected of having a ghostly experience of her own.

Jeff Matthews—He’s a travel photographer whose pictures tell a frightening story.

Harlan Grant—He’s done time for a sex-related crime, but is he guilty now?

Marjorie Lipscomb—A renowned psychologist who had an eerie and mysterious experience while staying at the Fernhaven Hotel.

Elora Nicholas—The victim who was raped and killed the night Bart Finnegan was shot.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Visibility was next to zero in the thick fog, and the roads were wet and icy from the light sleet that had started falling about ten minutes earlier. It was the kind of night a man should be sitting in front of the fire, cuddled up with some sweet young thing and sipping wine. It was not a night for driving deadly mountain roads.

The going was slow, and the steep, winding road seemed to go on forever before Bart Finnegan finally caught a glimpse of the lights from the Fernhaven Hotel. The place seemed to erupt from the mountain and soar to the sky. And somewhere inside the vast, castlelike structure, a man was looking for his wife and afraid she’d met with foul play.

Hotel security had taken him seriously enough they’d called the sheriff’s department. Bart had heard the call when it came through and volunteered to investigate even though he was already off duty.

He made the sharp curve to the right. The impressive hotel was in full sight now. Shrouded in the mist, it looked like something straight from a horror novel. He lost sight of the hotel again as he wound through the expansive grounds.

He knew there were secluded guest cabins out there somewhere, but he couldn’t see them in the dark. He rounded another sharp curve and something moved into the beam of his headlights before disappearing. Probably an animal of some kind, but instinctively, his hands tightened on the wheel and he pulled to the shoulder.

He didn’t see anything in the glow of the flashing red and blue lights, so he lowered his window and aimed his high-powered flashlight into the wooded area. No sign of movement, but still he climbed out of the car for a better look. And that’s when he spotted what looked to be two people darting from one tree to another.

Adrenaline hit and he reached back in the car to grab the loud speaker as he palmed his weapon.

“Police. Identify yourself and your business on the property.”

The response was a bullet that ricocheted off the front fender of his squad car. Damn. He had a nut on his hands. Bart aimed his gun, but didn’t fire. A reckless shot wouldn’t do anything but antagonize the shooter, and if the second figure happened to be the missing woman, it might put her in more danger.

Taking cover behind the car, he scanned the area with the flashlight once again. When he didn’t see movement, he turned it off, knowing it would make him a target when he moved from behind the vehicle.

He took off in the direction the figures had disappeared, using the light from the police flashers to guide him. The land was rocky, wet and icy in spots, making maneuvering difficult. He traveled a few yards, then leaned against a tree and listened for a rustle of grass, the dry crushing of leaves beneath a boot, the sound of breathing, anything. And then as if she knew he was seeking a sign, the woman screamed.

Bart moved toward the sound, though he’d reached the outer edges of the flashers’ illumination and was moving in almost total darkness. He didn’t know this particular area, but he knew the dangers of the Cascades. They were riddled with drop-offs. One wrong step and a man—or woman—could wind up at the bottom of a cliff with a crushed skull.

Bart stopped again, took a deep breath and made a quick decision, hopefully the right one.

“We have you surrounded,” he called from his spot behind the thick, protective trunk of a towering tree. “Give the woman up before the shooting starts and this will go a lot easier on you.”

There was no answer, but Bart heard noises coming from his right. From the sound, he’d guess the man was dragging the victim along. The decline grew steeper, making footing even more treacherous on the icy ground. His foot slipped on a rock, and he had to grab a low-hanging branch to keep from falling. The branch snapped and crashed to the ground, telegraphing his position.

He darted for cover as the sound of gunfire cracked through the cold air. The bullet dug into his flesh. The pain was intense, ripping through his stomach like the blade of a hunting knife. He fell over, tasted dirt and blood and felt his insides rattle against his backbone.

And then he felt nothing at all.

Chapter One

One month later

Bart Finnegan stood at the window and looked down on the lush foliage that bordered the west lawn of Fernhaven Hotel. The evergreens were dusted with white as was the grass. They’d had heavy snows up higher in the mountains, but all they’d gotten at this altitude was a few flakes.

He’d have preferred a real snow. The dusting reminded him of the powdered sugar his stepmother used to put on cakes in lieu of icing. Cakes without icing were like peanut butter sandwiches without jelly. She’d put those in his lunch tin on several occasions as well.

Odd to be thinking about that now. He hadn’t seen the woman or his father in years. Once he’d joined the Marines at eighteen, he’d pretty much put them and his past life behind him. It had been easier than he’d expected. Enemy bullets had been less scathing than his father’s constant criticism and his stepmother’s nagging.

A young couple rode by on the bike path that bordered one of the several creeks that ran through the property. They were dressed for the activity, in matching red and navy jogging suits and navy ski caps. Her long dark hair flowed behind her, even though she didn’t seem to be pedaling all that fast. The man kept turning his head around as if to make sure she was still behind him.

They were the first people Bart had seen since he’d taken this room in the west wing. Actually, the wing wasn’t even open yet, which was why the room was available. The rest of the hotel was sold out. If you build it, they will come.

The familiar phrase played in Bart’s mind. He’d never have believed that the statement would have been true of a hotel built in a secluded part of the Cascade mountains. But, apparently, the rich and famous could be drawn anywhere that they believed was the in place of the winter season, even if a female guest had been raped and murdered only a month earlier.

But then thanks to the press, most people believed she’d been killed by her husband. They were wrong.

Bart was not one of the rich and famous drawn to the hotel to see and be seen. That’s why the room in the unfinished wing fit him to perfection. The price was right, and the other hotel guests wouldn’t even know he was around unless he chose to mingle with them.

Neither would the sheriff’s department. As far as they were concerned, the gunshot wound had left him out of commission and there was no way they would ever have okayed his searching for the perp.

So he’d slip in and out of his isolated room and investigate on his own, roam the halls, listen in on conversations, nose around where he had no business. The old rules didn’t apply anymore. What the sheriff’s department didn’t know couldn’t hurt him.

CARRIE FRANSEN stared at Sheriff Huey Powell, trying desperately to hold her temper, a skill she’d never been good at. “Why Rich McFarland?”

“You can’t work homicide without a partner. It’s a department rule.”

“I’ve heard you say more than once that rules are made to be broken.”

“Not this one.” He raked his fingers through his thin gray hair. “I know how close you were to Bart. That’s why I left you alone for this long, but it’s time to move on. You have to take a partner on this case.”

“Then give me Kirk.”

The sheriff shook his head. “Can’t do that, not after what I received in the mail today.” He took a clear plastic bag from the top of his desk and handed it to her. “I’m sending it out for a fingerprint check, but you can see it for yourself.”

Stop me before I kill again.

There was no signature, but the logo of Fernhaven Hotel was taped to the bottom of the note. The logo looked as if it had been torn from one of the cocktail napkins they used in the lounge.

“It could be a hoax,” she said.

“Could be, and I hope it is,” Powell agreed. “But we can’t ignore it. That’s why I need Rich on this case. Other than me, Rich’s got more years in law experience than anyone else in the department. Not only that, but he worked homicide in Seattle for ten years. We need that expertise on this case.”

“It’s taken weeks to get the people in the area to open up to me. If Rich goes in there with his tough guy, big-city cop routine, they’ll crawl back into their reclusive hideaways and refuse to give us the time of day.”

“You have more than the natives to deal with. You have the hotel staff and the guests that were there that weekend. As far as I know you haven’t ruled out anyone yet.”

“Not officially.”

“Unofficially?”

“Not unofficially, either,” she admitted.

“Then we’re wasting our time here. You’re working with Rich on this case. I’ll let him know this afternoon. Fill him in on what you have and take him up to the hotel and introduce him around.”

So that was it. A new partner—whether she liked it or not. And it would have to be the one guy in the department she’d cross the street in the rain just to avoid having to speak to him. The guy was just too arrogant for words.

Bart would laugh his head off if he were standing here right now. Only if he were here, none of this would be happening.

Sheriff Powell stood and stepped from behind his desk. He put a hand on her back between her shoulder blades. Not a hug. Not a clap like he would have given one of the other deputies. She was his only female deputy, and she was pretty sure the gender difference made him uncomfortable.

She didn’t get it, but the sheriff was pushing seventy, and he saw a lot of things differently than she did.

She could hold her own, and she’d put her shooting skills against Rich McFarland’s any day of the week. Bart had made sure of that. He’d gone with her to the shooting range several times a month, insisted that when it was crunch time, it was cop instinct and shooting accuracy that made the difference between life and death.

And sometimes even that wasn’t enough.

THE NIGHT SPARKLED with tiny white lights that winked and blinked from the tall, stately spruce trees that dotted the grounds in front of the hotel, all part of the Christmas decor.

“Pretty impressive,” Rich said. He slowed before they reached the circular drive where a crew of bellmen waited.

“Is this your first time to the hotel?” Carrie asked.

“I’ve been up here a couple of times since they finished it, but always in the daytime. The place looks different at night.”

“Is that why you wanted to wait until dark to drive up here?”

“Partly. I also had some other business to take care of this afternoon.”

He didn’t explain what else he had to do, and she didn’t ask.

“Hard to believe that a year ago, there was nothing here but woods and a few bricks from the fireplaces of a hotel that burned to the ground over seventy years ago,” she said, once again marveling at the grandeur of the hotel.

Rich nodded. “Harder to believe someone built a hotel in the exact same spot. Obviously they weren’t superstitious, which means they were probably not from around here.”

“No, but the woman who rebuilt it was a descendant of the original builder. She meant it as a monument to her ancestor and the past. That’s why she built almost an exact replica.”

“Kind of like the Titanic Two,” Rich said. “But from the looks of that parking lot it must not matter.”

He slowed as he reached the circular drive.

“I guess we should introduce you to the night security supervisor before we do anything else,” Carrie said.

“I’d like to see the spot where they found the woman’s body,” Rich said, making a U-turn and heading back the way they’d come.

“Tonight?”

“Seems as good a time as any.”

She tried to count to ten silently, but only made it to eight. “They found the body at the bottom of a ravine.”

“So?”

“It’s pitch-dark out there.”

“You scared of the dark, Fransen?”

“Of course not. I just don’t see the point in roaming the woods at night when I’ve thoroughly examined the scene in the daylight and documented all my findings. You have read the reports, haven’t you?”

“I read them, but I like to see things for myself.”

“You can’t see a lot in the dark.”

“I’ll see what the perp saw that night. And what the woman saw before she was raped, branded and murdered.”

“It’s not safe to hike that area in the dark.”

“Must be why they made flashlights.”

Smart-ass, she mouthed, her gaze straight ahead.

“You know if I didn’t know better, Fransen, I’d think those ghost tales had gotten to you and that you’re afraid to go into the woods at night.”

“Nice you know better.” But the comment got her attention. “I haven’t heard any ghost tales.”

“Then you must not be talking to the right people. The locals up here claim this area of the Cascades is inhabited by the undead.”

“The undead?”

“That’s what they say.”

“And exactly what are the undead?”

“You’ll have ask someone who believes that bull for the definitive answer, but according to Maizie Henderson they are referring to people who are no longer living, but not gone from this dimension.”

She didn’t know a Maizie Henderson. “I’ve talked to a number of locals during the course of the investigation. No one mentioned ghosts to me.”

“They’re not big on talking about their superstitions, especially to outsiders.”

“And just how would you know that, Mr. Seattle cop?”

“My grandparents lived just a few miles from here up until my parents moved them to an assisted living facility in Seattle a few months ago. My grandfather was big into mountain lore.”

Great. Now Rich was not only the authority on homicide, he was also the authority on the locals. She wasn’t sure why that irritated her so, but it did.

He slowed to a crawl. “Aren’t we near the spot where Bart stopped that night?”

“Just around the next curve.”

He took the curve, then pulled off the road and killed the engine and the headlights. A blast of cold air hit her in the face when he opened his door. She grabbed her parka from the back seat, and pulled it on as she stepped out of the car. An owl hooted somewhere above her and something rustled the grass a few feet away.

“Ready to hike?” Rich asked, cutting away a wide swath of black with the bright beam of his flashlight.

All of a sudden she had the bizarre but almost overwhelming feeling that someone was watching them. But it couldn’t be. She and Rich were the only living souls around. “I’m ready,” she lied.

He handed her a flashlight. “Want to lead the way?”

“Sure.” Lead the way right past the spot where Bart had been shot. Right to the ravine where Elora Nicholas’s body had been found, her stomach branded with some weird design. She breathed in a huge gulp of cold night air and started walking. She would not be spooked by the dark or ghost tales. Or by the icy tingles climbing her spine.

IT WAS ten past nine when Bart took the service elevator to the first floor, then followed the strains of a waltz to the Glacier Ballroom. According to information in the hotel lobby, the ballroom was the site of fabulous Christmas balls held every Saturday night in December. The soirees were acclaimed as a not-to-be-missed activity, and Bart had no intention of missing this one.

Not that he was into balls, but it was an excellent opportunity to check out the guests, at least sixteen of whom also had been guests the night the woman had been abducted, and he’d been shot. Apparently, people couldn’t get enough of this place. Considering the prices they charged, he found that pretty amazing.

But then the hotel did have an ambiance he hadn’t expected. Elegant, yet the staff was warm and friendly. Breathtaking scenery, rugged yet serene. Remote, but there was a shuttle that made a run a few times a day to the ski trails an hour northwest of here.

He adjusted the jacket of the black suit he’d “borrowed” from the servant supply closet on the first floor. The fit wasn’t great, but it would do for a waiter. For the most part he hoped to go unnoticed amid the party crowd. He was here to observe and overhear, not to be seen.

The ballroom was already crowded when he followed a middle-aged couple through the open double doors. Men in black tuxes and women in elegant dresses that swept the polished wood floor filled the dance floor and sat at white-clothed tables listening to the music and sipping champagne.

Huge crystal chandeliers hung from the domed ceiling, and everywhere he looked there were huge bouquets of flowers and tables of food accented with delicately carved ice statues. It was a far cry from his usual Saturday night burger and a couple of beers at Jake’s Bar and Grill.

The band started a new number, this time a tune he recognized, though he didn’t know the name of it. A woman walked past him, close enough that the silky fabric of her gown brushed his fingers and the fragrance of her perfume crawled inside him and evoked a memory he’d thought was dead and buried.

It got to him a lot more than it should have. He took a few steps backward, then stopped, mesmerized by a woman across the room.

Her hair was the color of molten gold, though the strands that caught the glow of the chandeliers took on a reddish tint. It was piled high on top of her head, with curly tendrils falling about her cheeks and forehead.

Her dress was emerald-green, cut low enough to show cleavage. It fit tightly around her tiny waist, then swirled into yards of satin that didn’t stop until they reached the floor. But the jewel of the outfit hung from a silver chain around her neck, a huge emerald surrounded by pale yellow diamonds. He’d never seen anything so spectacular in all his life.

He looked around, half-expecting the rest of the people to be staring at her the way he was. They weren’t. They were dancing, filling crystal flutes with the champagne that bubbled from a fountain or snaring delicacies from the trays of waiters who meandered the ballroom.

Only he seemed to be enchanted by the woman, and not just by her physical appearance and the pendant. She had an ethereal quality about her that made it seem as if she were more dream than reality.

He started toward her. A middle-aged woman in red bumped into him. Her champagne spilled and dripped onto his slacks and the toe of his shoes. He bent to brush it off. When he looked up again the woman in the emerald gown had disappeared.

He hurried across the room, searching the crowds for a glimpse of her. When he didn’t find her, he pushed through the double doors that led to the garden. Still no sign of her.

Yet somehow he knew he’d see her again.

Chapter Two

The cold sneaked into Carrie’s lungs as she and Rich tramped the near frozen ground. The mountains had a whole different feel at night. Eerie shapes coalesced in the mist, and crept across the rugged terrain at the far edges of their flashlight beams like translucent shadows.

The decline grew sharper, and she had to grab on to the trunks of spindly trees or to low-hanging branches to keep her balance as her boots crashed through the layers of leaves, twigs and exposed roots.

“I still can’t imagine why the man dragged Elora all the way out here to kill her,” Carrie said.

“Maybe he wasn’t planning on killing her. He may have been taking her somewhere, then panicked when he crossed paths with Bart.”

“Taking her where?”

“Maybe a mountain hideaway or an old cave. It might have been a kidnapping that turned deadly.”

Could have been, but she hadn’t uncovered any evidence to indicate that was the case. “The body was found over there,” she said, aiming the beam of her flashlight at the ravine just past a downed tree. There were still remnants of the yellow crime scene tape. The rest had been blown away.

Rich stepped over the trunk of the fallen tree, then shot a beam of light into the ravine.

Carrie stayed back. “You’re not crawling down in the ravine, are you?”

“No, I can see enough from here. Mainly I wanted to get a feel for what it was like out here in the dark. It helps me put myself in the killer’s shoes.”

“I don’t know about the killer, but I’m sure Elora must have been terrified.”

“Yet she apparently didn’t make enough fuss when they left the hotel that anyone noticed.”

“He probably had a gun to her head. She may have even been gagged.”

“Or she may have known him. I’m sure you checked for any sign of a lover’s triangle.”

“I checked. Not even a hint of one.”

“And the husband checked out.”

“I didn’t find any reason to suspect him. If anything he seemed very much in love with her. He’d even blown his Christmas bonus to bring her here for their tenth anniversary.”

Carrie was certain Rich would check all this out for himself, if he hadn’t already. He was just getting her take on the details, probably to find fault with it.

“But they’d argued just before she disappeared?”

“He wanted another drink and she wanted to go back to the room so she could call and check on the kids. She stormed off, and that was the last time she was seen alive.”

“But one of the shoes she was wearing was found by the back service entrance?”

“Right.”

“Have you got any leads on those markings the killer carved into her stomach?”

“No. One squiggly line intersected by a straight one, but not at right angles.”

“Yeah. I’ve seen the crime scene photos,” Rich said. “Still hard to figure. He had a gun, so why kill the woman by slitting her throat?”

“And then throw her into a ravine,” Carrie added.

“That made sense. Like the condom he used, the water would make it more difficult to collect DNA evidence.”

Carrie stamped her feet a few times to warm them. “It’s almost like the type of pattern you’d find from a serial killer.”

“Or someone who’d given this crime a lot of thought before he committed it. Be nice if someone had found either the gun or the knife.”

“Agreed. We have the bullet that hit the squad car. It was from a .38.”

Crazy, but she almost felt guilty talking to Rich about this case. Bart had been the only partner she’d ever worked with. He’d taken her on when she was so green she didn’t even know her way around a warrant. He was her mentor, her friend, her…

“Had to be a man who not only knew about evidence, but also knew his way around the mountains and around the hotel,” Rich said, breaking into her troubling thoughts. “A stranger to these parts would never have taken off through the woods on a pitch-dark night. Reminds me of some other murders that occurred near here a few years back.”

Damn. She didn’t know about any other murders. Not one person had mentioned them, not even Sheriff Powell.

“A serial killer?”

“No. A mass slaughter. Four female campers had their throats cut one summer night. Two were found in the tent, apparently killed while they slept. The other two were killed in the surrounding woods. It appeared they’d tried to run away, but the lunatic had chased them down.”

“How long ago did that happen?”

“Twenty years or so. I was in junior high. It made quite an impression on me at the time.”

“What happened to the killer?”

“He was never officially apprehended, but some transient who’d been sleeping at the camp grounds killed himself a few days later, and most thought he’d done it from guilt.”

“I’m surprised the sheriff hasn’t mentioned those murders in view of the present investigation.”

“Why? No reason to think there’s any connection between those and what we’re dealing with.” He rested one foot on the trunk of the downed tree and lifted his head as if studying the dark haze that surrounded them. “Ready to head back to the car and a little warmth?”

She nodded, but the campsite killings stayed on her mind during the hike back, making the woods feel more eerie than ever.

Rich didn’t talk at all until they reached the car. “See, that wasn’t so bad,” he said, opening his door and sliding behind the wheel.

“Not bad at all,” she lied. “I found the mountain air invigorating.”

And she missed Bart so much it hurt.

THREE DAYS LATER, Bart had still not run into the woman who’d mesmerized him in the ballroom. He had seen Rich McFarland several times, however—always at a distance.

It galled him that Rich had replaced him as Carrie’s partner. This should have been his case all the way. He wouldn’t interfere with what they were doing, but he wouldn’t let them interfere with what he had to do, either. And he’d keep an eye on Carrie the way he’d done since the day he’d taken her on as a partner.

She was smart, but she still had a lot to learn. Not the kind of things you could learn from books. She’d aced all of that in her classes at the university. The knowledge she lacked was the kind that came from experience.

Bart had gotten his experience the hard way, working his way up the L.A.P.D. He didn’t miss it anymore—at least not often. He breathed a lot better in the Cascades.

The sun was fighting its way through the early-morning haze when he took the service elevator to the first floor and slipped into the garden. It was too cold for blossoms, but the maze of perfectly manicured shrubbery still made for some interesting scenery.

Besides, if he went all the way to the far south corner, he could watch the arriving employees and the departing night staff. You could learn a lot by seeing who left in groups and who took off alone.

The garden was empty except for an older woman sitting on one of the stone benches. She looked to be at least in her seventies with paper-thin skin and deep wrinkles around her mouth and eyes. A full, dark skirt hung to her ankles revealing only a glimpse of her black leather boots. A woolen cloak shrouded her, covering her head, but he could see enough of her hair to tell it was gray.

She looked up when he approached. “Good morning, sir.”

“Good morning. What brings you out so early?” he asked, mostly making small talk, but somewhat curious as to why she was out and about before the sun had cleared the horizon.

“I like to watch the sunrise from the garden.”

“Do you come here often?”

“Too often.”

A strange answer, but he wasn’t about to pry into her business. “Enjoy your day,” he said, in way of goodbye. He’d already walked by her when she responded.

“He’ll kill again.”

Bart stopped and spun around, wondering if he’d heard her wrong. “What did you say?”

“He’ll kill again.”

“Who’ll kill again?”

“The man who abducted the woman and shot you.”

The statement threw him off. He’d been certain no one knew who he was or why he was here. “How do you know who I am?”

“I listen.”

That didn’t explain much, but his thoughts were rushing ahead. “Do you know who abducted the woman?”

“No. Why are you looking for him?”

“I just want to find him and make certain he goes to prison before he strikes again.”

“Is that your duty?”

“That’s the way I see it.”

She nodded and pulled her cloak tighter. “Maybe you should reconsider your priorities.”

She stood and walked to a nearby fountain. Slowly, she slipped off her gloves and stuffed them into her skirt pockets. She spread her open arms in front of the spray the way people held their hands in front of the fireplace to get them warm. After a few seconds, she pressed her damp fingers to her thin lips.

“He kills because of what was done to him.” Her voice was low and she was still facing the fountain, more as if she were muttering to herself than talking to him. He stepped toward her.

“You seem to have given the killer a lot of thought.”

“No, but the mist is full of whispers.”

Bart was beginning to doubt the woman was totally lucid, but she knew about him, so maybe she knew about other people as well. “I’ve been looking for a woman I saw the other night in the ballroom,” he said. “She was wearing a long, green satin dress and a magnificent diamond-and-emerald pendant.”

“Katrina.”

“Is that her name?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know her room number?”

“No, but if you watch for her, you’ll see her again.”

“What’s her last name?”

“Katrina is all I know.”

“Is she here with someone.”

“No. She is always alone.”

He heard voices on the path just beyond the garden. He checked his watch. Ten before six. The first of the day crew were arriving. The restaurant opened at seven, but room service ran all night, and the silver urn in the foyer was filled with hot coffee at exactly six-thirty every morning.

When he turned around again, the old woman was gone. But at least now he had a name for the mysterious woman. “Katrina.” He said the name out loud, liking the sound of it as it rolled off his tongue.

Katrina. Beautiful. Elusive. And much too enchanting to spend her nights all alone.

CARRIE PUSHED UP the sleeve of her uniform and glanced at her watch. Only eight-thirty, and Rich was already getting on her nerves. It was the third day into the partnership, and she was still desperately searching for a sign it might actually work.

“I’ve already questioned half these people,” she said, tossing the list of names he’d just handed her to the top of his desk. The same way she’d already questioned Elora Nicholas’s husband, but Rich had spent the past two days putting the poor guy through an intensive interrogation.

“So, we’ll talk to them again.”

Her hands flew to her hips in spite of her determination not to butt heads with him today. “So what’s the problem? Do you think I don’t know how to handle a few questions?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what makes you think we need to redo everything I’ve done for the past month.”

“The case isn’t solved, and we’ve got a killer out there threatening to strike again.”

Like she needed him to point that out to her.

Rich picked up his coffee mug, an ugly green one with the logo of a Seattle pharmacy emblazoned across it in black. He took a long sip, then pushed back from his desk and grabbed his jacket. “You got a better idea for how to spend the day, Fransen, or do you just want to sit around here and jaw about it?”

“Jaw about it?”

“Okay.” He gave a mock bow. “Is it your wish, Deputy Fransen, that we remain at the office and discuss this matter further?”

“It’s my wish that we not waste time backtracking.”

“So, what do you have in mind?”

“I know the hotel owners won’t like it, but I think it’s time to start tracking down all the guests who were staying at the hotel that night.”

“According to your notes, you already ruled them out.”

“I did cursory background checks on all of them,” she said, “but I think we should interrogate some of them further.”

“For what purpose? The only red flags you reported were James Fox from Portland, a one-time shoplifting charge from twenty years ago, and Bailey Ledlow who did time for embezzlement.”

So he had at least read her notes. Which meant he knew she’d talked personally to both of those men and was reasonably sure they weren’t involved in the abduction. Ledlow was seventy years old and in poor health. He probably couldn’t have made the hike through the woods alone, much less dragging a woman. James Fox and his wife had argued that weekend and checked out of the hotel early. They’d been back in Portland by the time Elora Nicholas had been abducted. Besides, neither of their prior crimes made them suspects in a murder case.

Rich walked to the door. “You going with me, or not?”

“Partners usually discuss their day.”

“I thought that’s what we just did.”

He would. She started to point out that he was a jerk, then decided against it. Even if she argued and won her point, he was probably right. The killer was probably still here on the scene. Why else would they have received the note?

So they’d do this his way today. She’d just take advantage of this opportunity to sit back and watch McFarland in action, see if he had anything on her when it came to questioning the locals.

“Come on,” Rich said. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

“At the hotel?”

“At ten dollars an egg? Dream on.”

She stopped at her office to grab her parka and to stick the copies of old police records from the campground slaughter into a manila folder. They were another dead end. The transient who’d killed himself was the likely killer and there had been no similar crimes in the area since then.

Rich was already running down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor by the time she reached the hallway. She took the elevator, hoping she’d beat him down. It was the principle of the thing. She didn’t. So much for principles.

CARRIE HAD BEEN to the area many times since signing on as deputy two years ago. She’d never been to or even seen the wind-and-weather mangled sign that said Maizie’s Café. In fact, she’d never known this road existed. From the highway, it looked more like a dirt trail leading to someone’s barn.

Turned out there were half a dozen or more houses and at least that many mobile homes tucked back in the trees along the dirt road that dead-ended at Maizie’s. The sign and the array of mud-encrusted pickup trucks parked in a square of gravel where the yard should have been were the only indication this wasn’t just another residence.

The house was a one-story, wood cottage that needed a paint job. A big gray cat was perched in a squeaking porch swing.

“How did you ever find this place?” Carrie asked, friendlier now that breakfast was beaconing.

“The third house on the left after you leave the highway is where my grandparents lived.”

“I didn’t notice. You’ll have to point it out as we leave.”

“Not much to see. Just an old house, about like this one.”

“Who lives there now?”

“No one.” He put the patrol car in Park, then climbed from behind the wheel. She followed, enticed by mouthwatering odors wafting on the slight breeze. He waited until she reached the porch before opening the restaurant door.

Once inside, she was hit with a new wave of the tantalizing odors she’d smelled from outside. She shrugged out of her parka and hung it over one of the hooks by the door while a chorus of gravelly voiced how-you-been’s greeted Rich.

Okay, so he did know his way around the area. She’d give him that one. She looked for an empty table. There wasn’t one, so she waited while Rich stopped at a couple of tables to jaw.

“You still looking for the guy who shot the cop and abducted that woman?” a man asked.

“Still looking,” Rich admitted.

“I knew there would be trouble when they rebuilt that fancy hotel,” another said. “Got strangers running these roads all hours of the day and night now.”

Rich gave a noncommittal nod. A young waitress passed carrying a plate of bacon, eggs and biscuits.

“There’re tables in the back room, Rich.”

“Thanks, Jen.”

“Obviously you’re a regular in here,” Carrie said as they found a table in the next room, one that was most likely the original dining room of the house. It was right off the kitchen and had a couple of windows that offered a great view of the mountains.

“Not so often.”

“You know the waitress by name.”

“I’ve known Jen since she was in diapers. That’s Maizie’s granddaughter. She and her mother live in the mobile home next door.”

A minute later, Jen stopped at their table with two glasses of water. “What can I get you?”

“I haven’t seen a menu,” Carrie said.

“No menus. We got all the usual. Pancakes, eggs, sausage, bacon, pork chops, biscuits, toast. Got some homemade blackberry jam, too.”

“I’ll take two eggs, over easy, some sausage and biscuits,” Rich said. “And coffee.”

“Same for me,” Carrie said, imagining her arteries hardening as she said it. But she hadn’t heard a lot of healthy choices among Jen’s offerings.

A smiling woman who looked to be in her mid-forties served the coffee. “’Bout time you got in to see me,” she said, smiling at Rich. “How’s your grandmother? Is she adjusting any better?”

“A little. She still misses being home. And she misses you. She said to tell you hello.”

“You tell her hello right back. I been thinking about trying to get down there to see here, but I don’t like driving in Seattle. Too much traffic. Gets me all rattled.”

“I’ll drive you down one day. She’d love to see you. Dad would, too.”

“How’s his heart?”

“Still beating.”

“You tell him that darn dog of his still won’t sleep here. He comes down to eat, but then he goes right back up there. Sleeps on the front porch most of the day, right in front of the front door. He’s waiting for ’em to come back home.”

Rich introduced Carrie to Maizie Henderson. Maizie merely nodded at her, then looked back at Rich. “I got to get back to the kitchen before Tom lets my sausages burn.”

“How is Tom?”

She shook her head, and the smile she’d been wearing caved into a frown. “He just ain’t the same anymore, Rich. It’s like his body’s here, but his mind’s still up there in the mountains somewhere. I just wish I knew what happened on that hunting trip.”

“He’s still never said?”

“No, but something happened up there. A man don’t just go hunting a normal man and come home a zombie unless he’s seen something.”

The statement captured Carrie’s attention, but she waited until Maizie had returned to the kitchen before questioning Rich.

“Is Tom Maizie’s husband?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to him in the mountains?”

“Had a stroke, I expect, but you’d never get Maizie to buy anything that rational.”

“Why not?”

“Easier to blame the mountains than his health, I guess.”

Jen returned to the their table with the coffee and a couple of apple muffins on flowered saucers. “Just out of the oven,” she said, setting a muffin down in front of each of them. “I’ll bring some butter to go on them.”

Carrie took one bite of the muffin and forgot everything else. The texture was light and fluffy and there was just enough nutmeg and cinnamon to make her taste buds sing.

Before they finished the muffins, Jen had returned with their breakfasts and more coffee. Carrie was halfway through her eggs and sausage and her stomach was sliding past full when her mind when back to Maizie’s suspicions about what had happened to her husband.

She waited until Rich was finished and excused himself to go to the men’s room before she walked back to the kitchen. Maizie was turning eggs on the grill. Jen was arranging biscuits on a plate. Tom was nowhere to be seen.

Maizie looked up when Carrie approached. “How was your breakfast?”

“Delicious. The muffins were to die for.”

Maizie smiled. “Everybody seems to like them. It’s the fresh apples.”

Carrie waited until Jen left with a tray of food. “It must be hard on you taking care of this place by yourself now that your husband’s ill.”

“Hard enough. He helps some, when his mind is clicking in.”

“It seems strange that he’d go off on a hunting trip and come back so…”

“Out of it. Just plain out of it,” Maizie said, finishing her sentence when Carrie hesitated.

“Does he know who you are?”

“He knows. It just don’t seem to matter none. It’s like he’s somewhere else in his mind.”

It did sound as if he might have had a stroke, or Alzheimer’s. “What do the doctors say?”

“They say he’s had some minor strokes and that his heart’s wearing out. They use a lot of big words and keep wanting to try a lot of drugs, but they don’t know the mountains the way I do.”

Maizie’s voice dropped a decibel or two and her hand shook as she lifted an egg from the grill and slid it onto a waiting plate.

“What do you know about the mountains that frightens you so?” Carrie asked.

“You don’t want to know.”

The eeriness of the conversation was making the hairs on the back of Carrie’s neck raise, but she did want to know. Not that she was superstitious or actually believed the mountains were inhabited by ghosts, but she needed to understand these people the way Rich did. It was important to the investigation. “What could happen to a man in the mountains?”

“Not just to a man. It can happen to anybody. Ask Selma Billings. She can tell you, ’cept she don’t like to talk about it.”

“Doesn’t like to talk about what?”

Finally Maizie looked up from the eggs and met Carrie’s gaze. Her wrinkled flesh had grown pale, and her eyes had taken on a guarded look, as if there were secrets behind them that she couldn’t let escape. “Just don’t get trapped up there when the mist is thick.”

The temperature of Carrie’s blood seemed to drop a degree or two.

“So this is where you got off to,” Rich said, joining them in the kitchen.

For once, Carrie was glad to see him. “I just wanted to offer my compliments to the chef.”

“It’s just breakfast,” Maizie said. “Anyone can cook an egg.” She cracked a couple more onto the hot grill.

It was clear the discussion of the mist was over. Just as well. The whole idea of a man going hunting in the mountains and coming back a zombie was freaky. Really freaky.

But like Rich said, there was probably a medical explanation for Tom’s condition, and it would have nothing to do with the mist.

They said goodbye and left the back way. Carrie slid into the front seat of the car, but her mind was stuck on the conversation with Maizie. She reached to the backseat and picked up the list of names Rich had shown her earlier. Selma Billings was near the bottom.

“I say we start the day’s questioning with Selma Billings,” she said.

Rich scowled. “Exactly what did Maizie tell you when the two of you were alone in the kitchen?”

“That I shouldn’t get trapped in the mist. What happened to Selma Billings that she won’t talk about?”

“Don’t know. She doesn’t talk about it.”

“Don’t brush me off, Rich. I don’t believe in ghost tales any more than you do, but I need to know what we’re up against with the locals.”

“It’s an old Indian legend.” He pulled into the driveway of a gray clapboard house with a black mixed breed cur curled up on the front porch. The dog perked up, then uncurled and came loping toward them.

Rich jumped out of the car and greeted the dog like they were old pals, scratching him behind the ears while the dog’s tail wagged like mad. The dog ate it up. Surprise. Who’d have thought dogs would like him?

“Yeah. Good to see you, too, Jackson,” Rich said, still walking toward the house.

She got out of the car and followed Rich and the dog up the narrow walkway. Obviously they were at his grandparents’ house. She wasn’t sure why they’d stopped, but before they left she planned to hear the details of the Indian legend and find out why Maizie was convinced the mountains had supernatural powers.

Chapter Three

Rich’s grandparents’ house possessed a warmth that seemed to seep from the painted walls and the worn rugs themselves. The furniture was heavy and over-stuffed, made for settling into with a good book or a mug of hot chocolate. The coffee and end tables were knotty pine, possibly homemade.

It was different than the foster home where she’d grown up. Most of the furniture in the house had been off limits. She was pretty much ignored except when the social worker came to call. Then everything was rosy.

Rich took off his jacket and tossed it on top of a stack of newspapers on the coffee table. “Make yourself comfortable. I won’t be but a few minutes. I need to check on a couple of things while I’m here.”

“It looks as if your grandparents just stepped out for a few hours,” Carrie said, running her fingers across the carvings on the back of a wooden rocker before draping her own jacket across the beautiful wood.

“In their mind they have,” Rich said. “They think they’re coming back as soon as Gramps gets his strength back from his last heart attack. It’s the only way they’d agree to leave the place.”

“Hello, Jackson,” she said, bending to pet the dog who was nosing her leg and sniffing her fingertips. “You like the smell of Maizie’s cooking, don’t you, boy?”

Jackson licked her hand in answer.

“Don’t they allow pets in the home where your grandparents are?”

“No, but even if pets were allowed, they wouldn’t have taken Jackson.”

“They can’t just leave him out here by himself.”

“He’s not by himself. He’s got the mountains and the neighbors.”

“But he’s grieving for your grandparents.”

“Missing someone doesn’t kill you. Being thrown into an environment where you can’t run free might.” He walked away, leaving her standing by the brick hearth and an enormous fireplace that still held the smell of wood smoke. On the opposite wall, three windows looked out on the mountains.

Haunted mountains where a man could go hunting and come back without his mind. She stared into the distance for a while, trying to make sense of Maizie’s story. Finally, she gave up and went in search of Rich. She found him in the kitchen, replacing a bulb in the overhead light fixture.

She started to question the need for replacing bulbs in a house where no one lived, but decided what Rich did in his grandparents’ house wasn’t her concern. She rested her hands on the back of a kitchen chair. “Tell me more about the Indian legend.”

He finished changing the bulb and climbed down from the chair he’d been standing on. “It’s just a bunch of nonsense.”

“Like what?”

“It has variations. Which one do you want?”

“Let’s start with the variation Maizie believes, the one she thinks robbed Tom of his reasoning abilities.”

Rich opened the freezer section of the refrigerator, took out the old ice and dumped it in the sink. Once that was done, he straddled one of the kitchen chairs. “Basic legend is that the dead sometimes got trapped in the mist and their spirits can’t break away from the mountains.”

“Why would it trap them?”

“That’s the part that varies according to who’s telling the story. Some think it’s a form of punishment. Some say the undead are warriors left to guard the land. Some believe it was because they had some task that was still unfinished and they can’t be released until they fulfill their obligation.”

“That’s downright creepy.” But she could see where they got that idea. The mist had seemed almost alive the other night when she and Rich had hiked to the ravine. “Do they believe all the ghosts are Indians?”

He exhaled slowly, and she got the distinct impression that it bothered him to talk about this. She didn’t know why. It wasn’t as if she was going to jump on the ghost bandwagon.

“Some folks think that when the original Fernhaven Hotel burned to the ground that a large number of the guests were trapped in the mist.”

“Why would they be trapped?”

“I don’t know. It’s a ghost story. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“It could be that when the guests died so suddenly, many of them were in the prime of life,” she said.

“Who cares? It’s fiction. Get it?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Then make sure you remember that wasn’t a ghost who abducted Elora Nicholas and shot Bart. It was a live, human killer that I plan to apprehend.”

“That we plan to apprehend,” she corrected him.

“Whatever.” Rich stood and scooted the chair back to the table, clearly ready to drop the conversation.

She wondered if he really feared she was flaky enough to buy into the ghost story if he talked about it too much. If so, he had a lot to learn about her. Not that she gave a darn if he learned it or not. When this case was over, she hoped to be through working with him.

Her mind went back to Bart. God, how she’d love to talk to him about this and get his take on the ghost gambit and how that might or might not hinder their chances of getting the locals to work with them on this.

Bart’s insight in situations like this was always amazing. He wasn’t from around here, not even from the state of Washington, but he had a way of getting people to open up to him—the way he’d got her to talking about herself that night after she’d first had to pull her gun on a suspect.

She’d spilled her guts, shed a few tears and then ended up laughing over a stale cream-filled donut in the middle of the night.

Rich turned and walked toward the front door with the mixed-breed hound at his heels. He didn’t bother telling her he was ready to cut out anymore than he’d asked her if she wanted to stop at his grandparents’ house in the first place. He just did things. Maybe it was the mountain way, but she doubted it. It was more likely the Rich way.

She mulled over the ghost idea as she followed him to the car. She didn’t buy the legend, but something might have happened that night to spook old Tom right out of his mind.

If so, the investigation could get really creepy before it was all said and done. But in the end, they’d get their man. She had no doubt of that.

Their killer was not trapped in the mist.

KATRINA HELD the diamond-and-emerald pendant in her palm, letting the silver chain loop around her fingers. The jewels warmed her hand as if they contained a literal fire. It was the only warmth she felt anymore, and it made her ache to get on with this and finish what she was here for.

She stood in front of the window, watching the world go by, a world she didn’t understand anymore. Maybe she never had. She’d certainly gotten love all wrong. And when love was wrong, all of life was wrong.

She wondered if the man she’d seen in the ballroom the other night had gotten love all wrong? Or was he still searching? She thought it might be the latter. His eyes had been so penetrating, so intense she’d felt as if he were touching her.

She hadn’t seen him again, and she hoped she didn’t. Of all the nights she might have yearned for his company, now would be the worst time to feel any kind of attraction or form even the most pregnable of bonds.

Still she was aware of him, sensed that he was here in the hotel. But why? Not for fun. There hadn’t been a glimpse of frivolity in his eyes. And here she was thinking of him when all her thoughts should be on the reason she was here.

Katrina left the window and stepped into the hallway. She had to keep her mind clear. Her task was simple, but there could be no mistakes.

She slipped the pendant into her pocket. It was the key to everything.

FOR A HOTEL that had been crawling with security guards ever since the abduction, Bart found it surprisingly easy to move through the building at will. If he’d been officially assigned to the case, he could have never taken such liberties. There were definitely advantages to working a crime detail without the restricting properties of a badge.

He’d already learned a lot, though most of his facts had come from eavesdropping rather than snooping through guest rooms. Jeff Matthews, the young Caucasian in room 211 puzzled him.

Supposedly, he was a freelance travel writer and photographer, but Bart had spotted him following a blond woman the other day at a distance and shooting candid shots of her through a high-powered binocular lens. Bart doubted the shots would ever show up in a travel magazine.

He watched while the photographer stepped out the door of his hotel room, then waited until he was on the elevator before Bart slipped into his room. Breaking in was easy. Locked doors never stopped cops.

As expected, photographs were scattered about the room, spread out on the round table by the window, displayed on the bed and even lined up on the floor.

Bart checked them out. The ones on the bed were of a starlet he’d caught on the late show a few weeks back. One snapshot showed her in the garden, lip-locked with a movie-star handsome guy Bart had spotted getting off the ski shuttle yesterday.

The photos spread on the table seemed more legitimate. They showcased the magnificent foyer, the garden gazebo and the sparkling crystal chandeliers in the ballroom. Looking at the photographs, it was clearer than ever that the whole place was a monument to the past. The photos could have come straight from a 1930s travel magazine.

The photos on the floor were puzzling. They looked like mistakes, but Bart couldn’t imagine a professional photographer saving his errors.

He stooped to get a better look. They appeared to be shadows, most dark, but some with an eerie glow to them.

They had been taken on Fernhaven property, inside the hotel, near the more secluded cabins, and some in the wilderness areas.

One grabbed his attention and held it. He picked it up and studied it. The snapshot was mostly trees and shadows. Yet, it held a frightening familiarity for him. Or maybe it was just that the picture took him back to that horrible night when he’d taken the bullet.

He returned the picture to the floor, leaving it exactly as he’d found it. But as he opened the door and stepped into the hall, he decided that Jeff Matthews was worth watching. He might be a photographer just as he claimed, but he could be more. He could be a murderer.

But then so could dozens of the other men who worked or were registered at the Fernhaven Hotel.

Bart was almost to the stairwell when he sensed someone following him. He spun around to find the old woman he’d met in the garden the other day just a few steps behind him.

“You get around,” she said.

“You, too.”

“Not so much. Mostly I stay in the garden.”

“Then I’m surprised you’re not there now. It’s a beautiful day for mid-December and it may be the last we have for awhile. They’re predicting snow in the mountains by the end of the week.”

“Snow can be beautiful, or deadly.” She shuffled forward and laid a hand on his arm. “She’s in the garden, just past the fountain where I was when we last talked.”

The woman’s change of subject confused him for a second. “Are you talking about Katrina?”

“Yes. If you hurry, you can find her.”

“Did you look for me just to tell me that?”

“It’s not as if I have a lot of other things to do.”

“Does she know you came to find me?”

The old woman smiled sheepishly, her wrinkled lips almost disappearing as she did. “If she knew, she’d leave before you got there.”

“You’re not trying to play matchmaker, are you?”

“What if I am?”

“You’ll be disappointed. I’m not exactly what you’d call a great catch.”

“But you might be exactly right for Katrina. You’ll never know unless you give it a try.”

He knew, but still he wanted to see her again. “Thanks for the information.”

“Just don’t disappoint her.”

“I’ll try not to.” That was as much as he could promise. He didn’t know if he’d disappoint her or not since he had no idea what she’d want from him—if anything.

He gave the woman a parting smile and hurried away, taking the stairs two at a time, as he’d always done. He didn’t know what he’d say to Katrina if he found her in the garden. He’d never been good at small talk unless it involved crime, and there was no reason to suspect she’d be interested in police work.

He raced through the hotel and took the double doors to the garden. It was nearly deserted, but he passed a woman pushing her baby in an old-fashioned perambulator and a man sitting in his wheelchair reading. Neither of them made eye contact as he walked by.

Katrina wasn’t near the fountain and neither was anyone else. He was about to give up when he spotted her standing in a cluster of potted tree peonies obviously straight from the hotel greenhouse.

She looked even more beautiful than the silky blossoms, and he stood there and stared like some awkward teenager. She was dressed differently than she’d been the first time he’d seen her. The dress was not as formal, not as revealing. She looked younger, more innocent. The dazzling pendant was missing from her neck, but her eyes sparkled as brightly as the diamonds had.

No two ways about it. She got to him. He should turn around and walk away. Forget that. She was moving toward him, her full lips slightly parted, her red skirt dancing just above her shapely ankles.

“Are you looking for me?”

Her bluntness surprised him, especially when he’d expected she’d ignore him. “Yes,” he answered, thinking even his voice sounded strained since he’d taken the bullet.

“What do you want?”

He tried to think of something clever, or even accurate. Nothing came to mind. “I saw you a few nights ago in the ballroom.”

“I know.”

“I’d like to get to know you better.”

A troubled look settled in her green eyes. “It wouldn’t work.”

“I’m not trying to make something work. I just thought we could talk.”

“About what?”

He had no idea. But now that he was with her, he didn’t want to walk away. “Who are you?” he asked.

“Katrina.”

“Your last name?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Are you married?”

She looked away. When she turned to him again, her eyes were moist.

“No. I was, but no longer.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So am I.” She took a step toward him. “I’m not what you think.”

“I think you’re beautiful and that I’d like to know more about you.”

“Thanks. I’ll consider your proposition.”

He shrugged. A little conversation didn’t actually qualify as a proposition in his book. Besides, he’d never been one to chase a woman who wasn’t interested. He wouldn’t start now.

“Just forget it,” he said. “I thought we might keep each other company for a while, but it’s no big deal.”

She bent down and picked one of the blossoms, then cradled it in her hand. With little left to say, he started to turn away.

Before he could, she walked toward him, took his right hand and pressed the flower into it. The petals fell apart and caught on the wind, flying around him like drunken butterflies. He caught one between his thumb and forefinger.

“I don’t want to forget it. I’d like to see you again,” she whispered. “But don’t look for me. I’ll find you when the time is right.”

He felt lighter than air when she walked away and disappeared behind the clusters of potted blooms. He’d never met a woman who intrigued him the way Katrina did. Tough that it had to happen now when he had his work cut out for him.

Timing was everything. Ask any cop who’d ever lived and they’d tell you that.

BY ONE THAT AFTERNOON, Rich and Carrie had made five calls on people from his list and stopped for sandwiches and coffee at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant in Cedar Cove. They’d discovered absolutely nothing new and Carrie was fighting the urge to taunt “I told you so,” by the time they pulled up in front of the small white house where Selma Billings lived with her husband Owen and at least three large dogs who looked as if they might think the deputies were their afternoon snack.

Even Rich stayed in the car until a man in overalls ambled out from the far side of the house and called off the barking animals. Still wary, Carrie remained inside the vehicle until it was clear the dogs weren’t going to fly into attack mode.

“Morning, Owen,” Rich said.

Owen yanked a red mechanic’s towel from his back pocket and wiped his hands before extending his right hand to Rich. “What brings you out here? Not more trouble at the hotel, I hope.”

“Not that I know of.”

“Good. Selma took it hard when that girl was abducted and killed. She’s been having a hard time anyway since she lost the baby. She miscarried, you know?”

“I didn’t know,” Rich said, “but I can see how that would be upsetting.”

“Yeah, good thing construction work is slow this time of the year. I’ve mostly been doing mechanic work around here. If you know anyone who needs their car worked on, send him to me. I can use the money what with Selma’s doctor bills and all.”

“I guess it’s nice that you’re a man of many talents.”

“It helps,” Owen agreed. “Have you got a suspect yet?”

“Not yet, but we’re working on it. That’s why we’re here. This is Deputy Fransen,” he said, motioning toward her. “We’d like to ask you and Selma a few questions. It won’t take long.”

Owen turned to Carrie, nodded, then turned his attention back to Rich. “If I knew anything, I’d have called you.”

“Sometimes a man sees or hears something he doesn’t know is relevant, things that only add up when linked with the rest of the evidence.”

“I haven’t seen or heard anything about that night except what’s been in the papers and what folks around here are speculating. But I’ll talk to you long as you like. I just don’t want Selma dragged into this. She’s upset enough as it is. You understand, don’t you?”

He looked to Carrie as he made that last statement, as if he expected her to back him up. She did understand, but that didn’t change things. “We really need to talk to both of you,” she said.

He rubbed a work-scarred hand across his jaw, then shook his head. “She’s not in good shape, not good at all. She’s back on those pills Dr. George prescribed.”

“What kind of pills?” Carrie asked.

“They’re supposed to make her less depressed, but they don’t seem to be helping much. Besides, there’s nothing she can tell you. She hardly leaves the house anymore except to go to the grocery store or over to her mother’s.”

“Okay,” Rich said. “We’ll leave Selma out of this. We’re just trying to find something to help us get a handle on who might have committed the crime.”

“Hope I can help then. The guy needs to be locked away, whoever he is. Locked away or given a taste of his own medicine. Come on back to the garage. We can talk there. It’s warmer than standing out in this wind.”

Carrie wanted to protest. It wasn’t that she was insensitive to Carrie’s condition, but Maizie had said ask Selma about the mountains, and that was what Carrie had hoped to do.

Not that she was chasing ghost stories, but what seemed ghostly in the cold mists of twilight might have a perfectly logical explanation. What seemed to be a spirit could well be a living, breathing killer.

They were already following Owen to the garage when the front door of the house opened and a tall, thin woman dressed in jeans and a gray sweatshirt stepped onto the porch. Her long blond hair hung limply past her shoulders and her bangs reached her eyelashes.

“It’s okay, baby,” Owen called to her. “The deputies are just here to talk. We won’t bother you. Stay inside where it’s warm.”

“You can talk inside,” she said. “I don’t mind.”

“That’s okay. We’ll use the garage.”

“I’ll bring out some coffee,” she said.

“No, don’t bother, baby. They won’t be here long.” He picked up his pace.

Carrie slowed, then turned back to the house. Selma was still standing there staring at them. She looked like a lost child. No wonder Owen felt he should protect her. Even the dogs had gone back to quietly sit at her feet as if they knew her emotions were fragile.

Selma hugged herself as if to ward off the wind’s chill, but she didn’t go back inside. She looked right at Carrie, and Carrie had the crazy feeling that she didn’t want her to walk away. Maybe she needed someone besides Owen to talk to.

“Your wife looks upset,” Carrie said, running to catch up with the men. “Maybe I should sit inside with her while you two talk.”

Rich glared at her. She ignored him.

“I won’t question her, Owen. I won’t talk at all unless she brings up something she wants to talk about.”

He pulled his lips taut and rubbed his chin again as if her offer required some major thought. “That might be good,” he said. “She could probably use some woman company. Just don’t upset her.”

“I won’t ask any questions about the abduction.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I guess it would be all right. She’s not well. Even if she talks, it won’t make sense.”

That was it—way easier than she’d imagined. Rich was still glaring, no doubt sure she wasn’t going to keep her promise. That’s how little he knew of her.

Carrie hurried to the house. And for the millionth time in the past few weeks, she wished Bart was here. He’d know just how to handle this.

Selma was still standing at the top of the steps when Carrie reached them. She didn’t even ask why Carrie had come back. She just walked to the door and opened it, as if she’d been expecting Carrie’s company all along.

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