Haven by Kay Hooper Page A

purposes, vanished. The animals would have gotten to her before the smell of decomp attracted any attention. No, I think she was running, trying to escape, maybe at night, and fell.”
    “No chance it was an accident, a hiker who put a foot wrong?”
    “Take a closer look at the picture.”
    There was a moment of silence, and then Maggie said, “Ah. No sign of equipment. Or clothing.”
    “Yeah. I doubt a naked woman was running through these woods by choice. Even a teenager wouldn’t be that stupid.”
    “I don’t see a skull.”
    “Neither do I. And there’s a clean cut through the spine I’m guessing means he found her here and removed it. Maybe to delay identification through dental records; unless her DNA is registered in one of the national databases, identifying her is going to be a bitch.”
    “Meaning military, medical, law enforcement, government service, criminal—or missing persons.”
    “Those are the choices. And your average tourist or hiker doesn’t fit into any of them.”
    “There was no news locally of anyone missing?”
    “No. I have to say, though, the place is crawling with tourists, which is one reason I’m guessing she was a hiker or somebody elsejust passing through. Down in town, up on the trails hiking and on horseback, pretty much everywhere you look are people who don’t live here. I talked to a couple of hikers not an hour ago who didn’t even go near town, nor planned to. They were just hiking up along the Blue Ridge.” He paused, then added, “It’d be easy as hell for somebody to go missing up here without any media or law enforcement in the area knowing about it.”
    “That,” Maggie said, “is not going to make your job easier. Any other feelings I should know about?”
    “Yeah,” Navarro said. “I could feel it down in town some, but up here…There are some very bad vibes in these mountains. The whole place stinks of death.”
    Something Navarro, of all people, would know. Because when he came hunting, he was hunting the dead.
    SHE HAD TRIED to get his attention, without success. At first it had baffled her, because she recognized what he was and knew he could sense what others could not. He had, after all, left the trail and gone almost directly to all that remained of—
    Of her.
    She kept her gaze averted from all that remained of herself, of her mortal body, because she wasn’t ready to face that. Maybe she never would be.
    Then again, maybe “never” was a useless concept wherever she drifted in between these attempts to break through to the world she had so recently inhabited.
    Why can’t you see me? Feel me?
    He appeared oblivious to everything except what his normal five senses observed. So maybe he couldn’t see or sense her. Maybe this was a wasted effort. Or perhaps it was simpler than that. Perhaps her fight to stay alive had exhausted her spirit to the point that she couldn’t yet gather enough energy to
make
him see her.
    Somehow, without really understanding, she knew that energy was a factor. That she needed it, needed to focus it in order to break through to…the living.
    Frustrated, she watched as he studied the remains, his face showing little emotion. Not unexpected, that; something else she knew without wondering how she knew that he was here searching for a killer, her own killer, and those who hunted monsters tended to be made of very tough stuff indeed.
    But would that make it harder, despite his abilities, for her to reach him? Her energy was all emotion; she knew that. For now, at least. All wild emotion, regret and anger and bitterness for a life cut short, all of it without focus. And worry for those left to face what she had. And if he couldn’t
feel
that, how could he feel her? How could she warn him of the danger?
    How could she warn any of them?
    She hesitated, then concentrated, staring at his face, willing him to look up, look at her. Willing him to see her. But instead of that, she realized he was growing fainter and