A Body to Die For by Kate White

the Cedar Inn. The sound seemed to have retreated, back into the woods. I kept running, though,
     until the woods grew thinner. A stitch began to throb in my side. I slowed my pace just a little and craned my neck around
     again. There was nothing. And the only sound was the shrill call of a bird, high in the branches.
    By now my lungs felt as if they would burst, and I slowed down even more, into a jog. Finally I burst out of the woods into
     the garden of the inn. I leaned forward, hands on knees, trying to pull in a breath but all the time watching the border of
     the woods. It wasn’t my imagination. Someone had chased me and tried to scare me and possibly wanted to harm me. He’d succeeded
     in scaring me. He had also made me mad.
    I stood in the garden until my breath slowed to normal and the stitch was gone from my side. After letting my eyes sweep one
     more time across the trees, I nearly stumbled back to the inn.
    It was almost time for my massage, and I wondered whether I should just chuck it. I felt too rattled to lie on a table and
     vegetate. But I would simply have to force myself to let go, I decided. I didn’t want to pass up the chance to have a conversation
     with the chatty Cordelia.
    The salon turned out to be a small space at the back of the inn. A girl at the desk was explaining in patronizing tones to
     a tubby woman in a rayon warm-up suit that they had left a message for her this morning, canceling her appointment, and they
     were terribly sorry she had never received it. What about tomorrow morning at eight? She grudgingly agreed, then stormed off.
     Josh, I noticed, was nowhere in sight.
    Considering what a mess everything was, I expected a delay, but there wasn’t one. As soon as I offered my name, I was ushered
     to a small dressing room and given a robe and terrycloth slippers. Cordelia was waiting for me right outside the changing
     room. She was the same blonde I’d spotted heading for the meeting this morning. Up close, I could see that her face was pretty
     and soft, with light blue eyes, almost transparent. Her boobs were humongous—there was no other word for them—and she was
     probably twenty or thirty pounds overweight. But being large boned, she wore it well, kind of Rubenesque. She led me down
     the corridor to the far end of the salon, and we entered a small room with a massage table. She told me that she’d wait outside
     while I disrobed and made myself comfortable on the table.
    It appeared as if I were in a space ordinarily used for storage. In its present incarnation, however, boxes had been shoved
     up against the walls to allow for a massage table. The lights in the room were as low as they could go, obviously to draw
     attention away from the clutter. I laid my robe—with my watch in the pocket this time—over a stool and wiggled down between
     the two sheets on the massage table. The muscles in my neck were hard and tight, but my legs still trembled slightly from
     my frantic run. I let my head sink into the head cradle at the end of the table and tried to relax a little.
    “Comfortable?” Cordelia asked as she stepped back into the room. Her voice was deep and soothing, like a late night DJ’s.
    “Yes,” I muttered to the floor. “Does this work pretty much like a regular massage?” I wanted to signal to her that I was
     open to chitchat.
    “It’s similar, yes,” she said, lowering the sheet to expose my naked back. “Except instead of my hands I use natural river
     stones that I’ve heated. They feel amazing on the body.”
    She stepped over to the side of the room, and I could hear her hands swishing in a tub of water.
    “It must be tough with the spa closed,” I said. “I mean—having to work in a makeshift setup like this.”
    “Not really,” she replied. “You can work with these stones anywhere. Just let me know if they’re too hot. By the way, I’ll
     be using an oil that’s scented with lemongrass. It’s a wonderful stress