A Midnight Clear by Hope Ramsay

come back to haunt his town.
    He snagged his Stetson from the passenger’s seat and dropped it on his head as he left the cruiser. He pulled his heavy-duty flashlight from his utility belt as he cautiously approached the vehicle. He shone the light through the driver’s side window and confirmed that the car was unoccupied.
    The SUV was a late model, clean and fully loaded, with a GPS system and satellite radio in the dashboard. A well-worn canvas bag in army green occupied the cargo area, loaded with what looked like expensive camera equipment. The SUV was locked.
    He turned away from the car and walked up the charred remains of the main walkway. He saw the woman as soon as he turned the corner by the first hole. She sat on the wooden bench at the feet of the resurrected Jesus on hole eighteen, with her head bowed as if deep in prayer. For a brief moment the Savior’s hand seemed to move outward toward the praying woman, as if He were trying to comfort her.
    A shiver inched down Stone’s spine, and he blinked a couple of times. Only then did he realize the deepening dusk had played a trick on him. A little sparrow sat in the hand of Jesus. It turned its head this way and that and gave the appearance of the statue’s hand in motion.
    The woman was as tiny as the bird, with short-cropped dark hair that spiked around her head. She wore jeans and a peacoat. A stiff wind might blow her away.
    She looked up, turning a pair of dark, hollow eyes in his direction. All the breath left his lungs as he found himself caught up in her stare. For an instant, he felt as if he might be looking at a ghost from some forgotten past. Her face was oddly gray in the fading light, the skin beneath her eyes smudged with the purple of exhaustion.
    She looked hopelessly lost, like a small waif or street urchin.
    A hot, tight feeling slammed into his chest. The unexpected intensity of the emotion was tempered by the immediate clanging of alarm bells in his head. She was trouble.
    She had arrived in a car registered to Abe Chaikin—a man who had so upset the balance of things in Last Chance that practically everyone still remembered the incident.
    He couldn’t shake the feeling that the woman was here for the same purpose. This tiny person was going to rend the daily fabric of life in his town, and he couldn’t let that happen.
    She looked up at him, and he recognized his doom right there in her hollow eyes, just as he recognized something about her that he couldn’t even put words to. He had this odd feeling that he had known her for a long, long time.
    *  *  *
    Lark gripped the edge of the bench and stared at the fiberglass Jesus. This had to be the Excedrin headache to end all headaches. Was this Pop’s idea of a joke?
    The sound of boots on gravel drew her attention to the walkway by the Ark. A policeman came into view.
    Holy crap, she was in trouble now.
    “Ma’am,” the cop said. “What part of ‘No Trespassing’ do you not understand? Golfing for God is not in business, and I’d be obliged if you would move on.”
    She stood up, feeling dizzy and disconnected as she focused on the cop’s face. She recognized the green eyes, dimpled chin, and meandering nose. Crap. She was going crazy.
    “Carmine?” she asked. Her throat hurt.
    “Ma’am?” The cop went on alert. His shoulders stiffened, and his body coiled in that ready-for-action pose she’d seen in the marines patrolling the streets of Baghdad.
    She blinked a couple of times, trying to clear her vision. He wasn’t Carmine, of course. And she was not losing her mind. She cleared her dry throat. “I was wondering if you could tell me where I might find Zeke Rhodes. I need to speak with him about something.”
    “Ma’am, Zeke Rhodes has been dead for more than forty years. I would have expected you to know that.”
    “Oh,” Lark said as she fought a wave of disappointment. “More than forty years? Really?”
    “Yes, ma’am. He died the day Abe Chaikin left