“Some in her desk, some in a tin box in the closet—her idea of a filing cabinet.” She sat down at her mother’s pine desk in the front room, one her father had crafted with his own hands, jack-of-all trades that he was. Sliding different drawers open and gently rifling through things, she said, “Believe me, it took some convincing, from both me and Professor Gering—Elinor, to get Mother the sang counting job in this area. I made her take all the modern devices like a GPS and cell phone they offered, but she refused to e-mail her findings in on spreadsheets and snail-mailed them instead. Still, they knew she was the best person to find sang around here.”
“As I said, we’re going to have to find her sang spots,” Drew said, hovering over her. “Anything about her counts there at all?”
“No, though I can go through everything more thoroughly later. Let’s go check her lockbox.”
“Will you need a key?” he asked, following her into the larger of the two small bedrooms. Mariah had made her bed; the familiar wedding ring heirloom quilt looked untouched, slumping into the shape of two human forms in the double bed her mother had once shared with her father and refused to replace.
“Believe it or not, she seldom locks it,” Jessie said.
She opened the closet door and the earthy, fresh aroma of the forest hit her with stunning impact. Jessie closed her eyes for a moment, breathing in the scent she most associated with her mother, wishing this were a magic entry into the forest, to the spot where Mariah must have met with some accident. You’re being foolish, she scolded herself. Too many childhood readings of Alice in Wonderland or The Chronicles of Narnia from Elinor.
Her mother’s closet looked small but roomy, compared to her own walk-in closet at home that was stuffed with clothes, but that made it easy to see what was on the floor. Hiking boots, walking shoes, only one pair of nice-looking flats, one extra purse. In the back right corner of the closet Jessie spotted the black metal tin box, despite the fact it was covered by a still new-looking Lands’ End backpack she’d bought her mother last year. Stubborn as ever, Mariah must still prefer her own, old, shoulder-sling pack.
Jessie knelt and slid the box out into the room. Drew squatted down to help her. It was about two-feet square and a foot deep and as old as the hills. Sitting cross-legged, Jessie lifted the lid—yes, unlocked.
“You mentioned about urging people to use locks,” she told Drew, “but you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” To her surprise, the papers in the box looked in great disarray, as if someone had pawed through the contents.
“Is it always that messy?” Drew asked, his shoulder bumping hers as he sat down cross-legged next to her.
“I haven’t looked in it for years, but it’s not like her. This looks like it’s been stirred.”
“Or ransacked. Let me carry it into the kitchen so you can go over it better. Don’t touch the lid again, in case we need to dust it for prints.”
Jessie watched, wide-eyed, as Drew took a pair of latex gloves out of a packet from inside his jacket and pulled them on. That bright yellow police tape he’d had across the front door—now this.
Her insides churned as a memory hit her hard. “Drew, when I was in Hong Kong visiting a ginseng shop, I had a panic attack.”
Frowning, he snapped the gloves onto his big hands. “Tell me about it.”
“I—I got suddenly claustrophobic, even though I’d been really looking forward to visiting such a shop. I couldn’t breathe, the smells got to me and I almost threw up. I’ve never had anything like that happen before,” she said as he hefted the box and bounced it once to get a better grasp.
“And?” he prompted. “Tell me the rest.”
“I thought—felt—someone was chasing me, when that was ridiculous. I ran back to the hotel and collapsed for hours—then your call woke me. The time zones are hard to figure, but I’m thinking that would have been around sunset here, the night she went missing.”
She walked ahead of him into the kitchen where he put the box on the table. He straightened, turned and put his gloved hands on her shoulders. Grateful, needful, she lifted her hands to grip his wrists, encased in the thin latex.
“So you’re thinking it was some kind of ESP from Mariah?” he asked. “Like she was in some kind of trouble right then? You’ve never had the mountain woman sixth sense, have you?”
“Never. I don’t really believe in it, even though my mother said her mother had that gift. I didn’t mean to sound crazy—I know we need hard facts.”
“I’m glad you told me,” he said, letting her go and pulling out a ladder-backed chair at the table for her. “If there’s anything else like that, let me know. But right now, let’s see if we can find something to really go on. I’d like us to check some of her deepest forest spots in a couple of hours, but I think it’s worth it to go through this stuff first. If you come across anything that seems even vaguely useful, tell me and I’ll write it down. Go ahead, Jess, okay?” he added when he saw her hesitate.
Why did she feel so afraid? She felt almost closed in again, as if a big, black box were shutting around her. Or a coffin with the thud, thud of soil hitting its lid. With a shudder, she dug into the jumble of papers and photos.
6
“I never would have found this back road,” Tyler Finch told Cassie as they bounced along a rutted track in her old Ford truck.
“No offense, Mr. Finch, but even if you would have found it, that compact rental car wouldn’t get you back in where we’re going.”
“I’d like it if you’d call me Tyler.”
Pearl, squeezed in between them, piped up, “Finch is better ‘cause it’s a real pretty bird. It crunches seeds in its pow-ful beak.”
“Pearl’s getting to be quite a reader,” Cassie said. “All right, I’ll call you Tyler and you call me Cassie, but Pearl has to mind her manners and call you Mr. Finch.”
“And I promise I won’t crunch any seeds,” he said.
Pearl found that funny. Her girl was warming up to this stranger fast, a good reminder for her mother to keep her distance. Poor Pearl, with no daddy—not one she knew, anyway. Shy as she was, she took to most men once she knew them. Pearl’s loss was even greater than her own, and another reason a certain man deserved to die.
“What’s this mountain ahead of us called?” Tyler asked.
“Big Blue, but the place we’re going for your first shots is right by Shrieking Peak.”
“Sounds haunted. Does a story go with that?”
“Not that I know of. When the wind blows, which is most of the time, it sounds like a woman screaming.”
“Your friend’s mother you were telling me about—”
“Mariah Lockwood.”
“Yes. Could she have wandered up into this area?”
“That’s one of the good things about working for you, Mr.—Tyler. We’re going to keep a good eye out for signs of her, as well as for pretty places for your photos. Mariah Lockwood wandered far and wide, that’s why it’s been so hellfire hard to find her. Oh, sorry for the cussing. Pearl, you just forget you heard that now.”
She parked the truck where the thick stands of oak and basswood began, and they hiked up toward the place she knew would not only suit Tyler Finch but awe him. Their pace was slow, because he didn’t seem used to the rough terrain and Pearl’s legs were still so short. Besides, might as well treasure their time together—the extra money, that is, ‘cause he said he’d pay her each and every day.
“So,”