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
