The Amulet. Joanna Wayne

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