The Stone of Shadows. R. A. Finley

had there been another way? Things had happened so quickly, had she not given this enough thought?

      Her mind preoccupied, she took a curve too fast. The wheel shuddered in her grip as the car went wide, its right side tires tracing the edge of the rough track. When it straightened—and the car seemed content to stay on it—she blew out a relieved breath, said a prayer of thanks.

      And shrieked.

      She was about to hit a man.

      Her foot stomped on the brake, mashed the pedal to the floor as she wrenched the wheel to the right. The car shimmied, resisting, then careened off the road and down a grassy slope. The front dropped abruptly into a ditch and the car slammed to an immediate, shocking stop. The seat belt locked, holding Lettie fast as her breath whooshed out and her head whipped forward and back, then forward again. Her teeth clunked together, the hollow sound echoing through her skull.

      It took her a moment or two to pull herself together, to process what had happened and that she was no longer in motion. She bent forward to rest her head on hands that continued to grip the wheel.

      She hurt. Everywhere. Like the dickens.

      The sputtering motor died, and with the ensuing silence came a horrific clarity of thought. The man in the road. She knew him. And she should have run him down.

      Her slowing heartbeat sped again. Surely the postal form and its false trail should’ve kept Cormac occupied longer than this. And how had he tracked her so quickly, in any case?

      Sitting up, she forced her wildly trembling fingers to turn the key in the ignition. He would be furious. Her skills were nothing to his. Her only hope was to evade. She turned the key again.

      Clicking. Grinding and clicking. No matter how hard she cranked the key, no matter how hard she willed it, the motor didn’t catch. Instead, the lights went out. Next, the key jammed, refused to budge. Superior magic at work.

      “Brigid, help me,” she prayed, and scanned the vast field before her. With her blurred vision, she could just make out a cluster of lights on the distant shoreline—the harbor at Tingwall, she realized. Her intended destination. Perhaps she could run.

      “Silly old fool,” she whispered. She couldn’t outrun a normal man. She certainly couldn’t outrun Cormac. Why couldn’t her deception have lasted just a little longer?

      There was nothing for it now. Taking a pained breath, she prepared to leave the car’s illusion of shelter. Her heart raced, her muscles locked, as something deep within screamed in protest.

      She told it to hush.

      Shoving open the door, she eased her legs out over the threshold, felt a sharp twinge in her back when she turned to look up the hillside. The car hadn’t traveled all that far, she was surprised to see. That was the way of frightening events; things became distorted. What had seemed a great distance was only the matter of a dozen or so yards.

      Cormac stood watching from the edge of the road. Even without her glasses, she could see every detail of his face, from the harsh set of his jaw to the triumphant gleam in his dark, cruel gaze. What magic was he employing that enabled her to see so clearly? Such a spell could’ve saved her a fortune in lenses over the years. If she wasn’t so afraid of his present anger, she’d have asked him. They’d long been opponents, but never truly enemies—not until this terrible business.

      And, until tonight, they’d only met once before. He looked the same. Starkly handsome with a lean, athletic body. The sharp planes and angles of his face accented deep set, piercing eyes and an elegant, bitter mouth. His hair was styled differently—short and tousled, in keeping with current fashion. It must’ve cost him a fortune in some trendy salon.

      Something tickled the back of her mind, and she looked more closely at his face. Not exactly the same, she realized. His eyes were wrong. Though moonlight robbed her vision of color, she could tell the irises were too dark—probably brown, when they should have been a striking mixture of gray and blue. As unforgettable as the North Sea in a storm and just as moody. They were beautiful eyes. Why would he change only them?

      And how had he done it? According to the information on file, eye color was the one aspect of his appearance he had no control over. It was part of his nature.

      Lettie nearly groaned at her idiocy. Colored contacts were a dime a dozen these days.

      “Enough,” she told herself, and braced her hands on the door. “No more procrastinating.”

      She began to stand. Her feet sank into the ditch’s foul mud, but she managed to keep her balance as she stepped away from the car and raised her head to meet Cormac’s stare once more.

      A slow smile spread across his face. Cocky bastard, she thought. Anger flared and her mouth opened of its own accord, ready to tell him where he could stick his over-confidence.

      From behind, a woman’s arm wrapped around Lettie’s chest to pin her arms to her ribs. Crushing force pulled her off balance. She couldn’t kick at her attacker, couldn’t even stand. Clawing at the arm, she tried to twist free. Her feet slipped, slid in the mud. Something popped in her chest and she couldn’t breathe.

      She’d been stabbed. The pain of it exploded through her, made her head swim.

      Her pendant, she thought desperately, refusing to believe even as the evidence mounted. Her pendant should have prevented this—should have at least warned of the woman’s approach, not to mention the strike of her blade. It should be acting now in her defense.

      “Not…possible,” she rasped, struggling to breathe. She was going to be sick, even as blood filled her lungs.

      Next to her ear, the woman laughed, and the hilt of the knife pressed harder against Lettie’s back. She couldn’t turn her head, couldn’t see anything of the woman. Cormac’s partner. Lettie had assumed he was working alone. He’d always worked alone.

      How she longed to say something that would wipe that smirk off his face. But she hadn’t enough breath to speak. And what could she say without giving anything away? She’d lost, yes…but he hadn’t won, either, even if he thought he had.

      Her laugh was more of a spasm, but her murderer translated it well enough.

      “Something amuses you?” The woman’s taunting voice, though whisper-soft, rang a bell.

      Understanding dawned, sharp and cold.

      Lettie went numb from it. The implications were too terrible, the situation far worse than she’d dared imagine.

      “Not the eyes,” she said, the words nothing but strangled sounds as blood bubbled in her throat. She coughed, tried to pull in a breath. “The rest of it. Not the eyes.” Blood surged into her mouth, trickled down her chin.

      She would have wept had it not been too late.

      Oh, Thia. Forgive me.

      The arm pulled away and Lettie’s body dropped, sliding off the knife to land facedown in the stagnant muck.

      CHAPTER 2

      Granite Springs, Oregon

      28 October

      The packing tape was gone. Just…gone. Thia rooted around the desktop clutter in bewilderment. This was crazy. She’d just set the roll down a few seconds ago.

      She picked up a folder stuffed with invoices, found two pairs of scissors and a half-eaten candy bar. No tape. She stared at the chocolate a moment, seeing it as another indication of a life fallen inexplicably out of order. Her normal self would never leave milk chocolate with nut-truffle crème lying around.

      Nor would her normal self have workspace this messy, she thought as she slapped the folder down on a stack of catalogs—one of several stacks the office had acquired since her great-aunt had left on a buying trip.

      Thia missed normal. And her great-aunt,