followed.
She just wondered if the warning had to do with madness or sudden death.
Trust no man with your heritage. Your life depends on it.
Shivering, she couldn’t help thinking that the sheriff was wrong, that Lisbeth’s death had been premeditated murder rather than a random violent act. If so, sending out copies to two appraisers who happened to be men was rather like putting raw meat in front of hungry wolves.
Forgery is a dangerous art.
Maybe the pages locked in the storage compartment of her van were extraordinary, elaborate, dangerous lies, lies that had ultimately killed her grandmother. Was the granddaughter now the next in the line of fire? Was that her heritage?
Without realizing it, Serena put her palms against her neck and let the peace of the ancient cloth seep into her. Her rational mind knew she shouldn’t wear the textile, knew that her skin was leaving its traces on the weaving, but she couldn’t bring herself to take it off. She felt naked without it. Vulnerable.
I’m getting as nutty as people thought my grandmother was.
Serena shook herself and forced her thoughts away from danger, murder, madness, death, everything that had haunted her since she had read her grandmother’s note, seen the pages, felt the weaving warm to her touch like something alive. Whatever her heritage might ultimately be, nothing of it survived here in the burned shell of her childhood home.
Abandonment lay like a sooty shadow over everything. Long after the police had left, target shooters had moved in. Someone had tied a piece of crime-scene tape to the charred frame of the pickup truck and used it for shooting practice. The tape had faded to pale yellow and was ragged with wind and bullet holes. Brass cartridges—some tarnished, some bright—dotted the gritty face of the desert. Spent shotgun shells in a rainbow of colors lay scattered like giant confetti around the perimeter of her grandmother’s yard. Obviously the locals had decided that the abandoned cabin was more entertaining for target practice than the place they had been using, which was closer to the graded road.
A pale flash of movement caught the corner of Serena’s eye. She turned toward the dirt track that led to the ruins. Barely a mile away, a light-colored SUV kicked grit and dust into the air.
Instantly she knew the vehicle was headed right for her. There was no other place it could be going. The twin ruts dead-ended at her grandmother’s isolated house.
Trust no man. Your life depends on it.
Without stopping to consider, Serena yanked her keys from her pocket and hit the remote-lock button for her van. Then she turned and sprinted away on a faint trail that went up the steep slope just behind the cabin.
For all their height and bold name, the Joshua trees offered no hiding places for someone her size. Neither did anything else. The brittle shrubs that grew out of the unforgiving earth were little more than waist-high. Their stingy, stunted leaves offered no real chance of concealment.
She didn’t even give the plants a second look. She knew exactly where she was going, just as she knew there were two ways to get there. The shorter way was more difficult, because it involved climbing down the steepest part of a broken cliff. She had learned the hard way that it was easier to climb up rather than down. She had much less control in a descent.
Serena took the long way to her hiding place. Boulders bigger than a man poked out of the loose, rocky soil. She dodged around them and cut back into a narrow ravine. The farther into the ravine she ran, the steeper the trail got. Finally it ended in a fractured, jumbled granite cliff. Three quarters of the way up the uneven wall there was a shallow cave. As a child, she often had gone up there to sit, look out over the empty land, and dream of patterns she would weave on her grandmother’s loom.
Exposure had softened the rough edges of the ragged stone wall until the outer surface crumbled and
She just wondered if the warning had to do with madness or sudden death.
Trust no man with your heritage. Your life depends on it.
Shivering, she couldn’t help thinking that the sheriff was wrong, that Lisbeth’s death had been premeditated murder rather than a random violent act. If so, sending out copies to two appraisers who happened to be men was rather like putting raw meat in front of hungry wolves.
Forgery is a dangerous art.
Maybe the pages locked in the storage compartment of her van were extraordinary, elaborate, dangerous lies, lies that had ultimately killed her grandmother. Was the granddaughter now the next in the line of fire? Was that her heritage?
Without realizing it, Serena put her palms against her neck and let the peace of the ancient cloth seep into her. Her rational mind knew she shouldn’t wear the textile, knew that her skin was leaving its traces on the weaving, but she couldn’t bring herself to take it off. She felt naked without it. Vulnerable.
I’m getting as nutty as people thought my grandmother was.
Serena shook herself and forced her thoughts away from danger, murder, madness, death, everything that had haunted her since she had read her grandmother’s note, seen the pages, felt the weaving warm to her touch like something alive. Whatever her heritage might ultimately be, nothing of it survived here in the burned shell of her childhood home.
Abandonment lay like a sooty shadow over everything. Long after the police had left, target shooters had moved in. Someone had tied a piece of crime-scene tape to the charred frame of the pickup truck and used it for shooting practice. The tape had faded to pale yellow and was ragged with wind and bullet holes. Brass cartridges—some tarnished, some bright—dotted the gritty face of the desert. Spent shotgun shells in a rainbow of colors lay scattered like giant confetti around the perimeter of her grandmother’s yard. Obviously the locals had decided that the abandoned cabin was more entertaining for target practice than the place they had been using, which was closer to the graded road.
A pale flash of movement caught the corner of Serena’s eye. She turned toward the dirt track that led to the ruins. Barely a mile away, a light-colored SUV kicked grit and dust into the air.
Instantly she knew the vehicle was headed right for her. There was no other place it could be going. The twin ruts dead-ended at her grandmother’s isolated house.
Trust no man. Your life depends on it.
Without stopping to consider, Serena yanked her keys from her pocket and hit the remote-lock button for her van. Then she turned and sprinted away on a faint trail that went up the steep slope just behind the cabin.
For all their height and bold name, the Joshua trees offered no hiding places for someone her size. Neither did anything else. The brittle shrubs that grew out of the unforgiving earth were little more than waist-high. Their stingy, stunted leaves offered no real chance of concealment.
She didn’t even give the plants a second look. She knew exactly where she was going, just as she knew there were two ways to get there. The shorter way was more difficult, because it involved climbing down the steepest part of a broken cliff. She had learned the hard way that it was easier to climb up rather than down. She had much less control in a descent.
Serena took the long way to her hiding place. Boulders bigger than a man poked out of the loose, rocky soil. She dodged around them and cut back into a narrow ravine. The farther into the ravine she ran, the steeper the trail got. Finally it ended in a fractured, jumbled granite cliff. Three quarters of the way up the uneven wall there was a shallow cave. As a child, she often had gone up there to sit, look out over the empty land, and dream of patterns she would weave on her grandmother’s loom.
Exposure had softened the rough edges of the ragged stone wall until the outer surface crumbled and
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