Murder on the Horizon by M.L. Rowland Page B

“Hello?”
    â€œAhhh!” A man’s voice screamed in Gracie’s ear, sending a shock wave of adrenaline down to her fingertips.
    She slammed down the receiver.

CHAPTER
    11
    W ITH Minnie at her heels, Gracie jogged along the long, flat plateau studded with California juniper and piñon pine, accented with clumps of sage and yellow rabbitbrush, and stretching south from the hill above her cabin over a mile to the community of Pine Knot. The midafternoon air was warm and light, the sky China blue infinity. But, at over seven thousand feet, the Southern California sun scorched Gracie’s bare arms and the top of her head and she mentally chided herself for knowing better than to have gone out for a run without a hat.
    Gracie breathed in, breathed out, keeping time with her footfalls in a rhythm that would carry her for miles.
    At the sound of the man’s scream on the telephone the night before, Gracie had slammed down the receiver, then prowled back and forth in front of the counter, eyes riveted on the telephone, waiting for—daring—it to ring again. But a second call never came.
    Further increasing her frustration and angst, the caller ID had displayed only
Timber Creek, CA
. She told herselfthat the odds were it was a prank call, logically shrugging it off as some idiot teenagers dialing numbers at random for their sick idea of a fun time. But the call had left its mark, obliterating the feeling of contentment from dinner and conversation with Vivian Robinson, piercing her psyche and leaving her more shaken than she would have imagined. She had lain in bed for hours, unable to sleep, the sound of the maniacal voice reverberating inside her head.
    A hair-trigger jumpiness had continued into the next day. Running up on the plateau, she still felt destabilized, vulnerable, afraid.
    And that pissed her off. “Royally,” she said aloud, and ran faster.
    When Gracie jogged, she only occasionally looked around to check that Minnie was running along behind her. In the past several months, the little dog had learned to heel, black nose inches from Gracie’s right foot. When Gracie trotted forward, Minnie trotted forward. When Gracie stopped, Minnie stopped, sitting down at her feet and looking up expectantly. Gracie had experimented with removing the leash to see how the dog acted with acres of rolling hills and woods and not a person in sight. The first time, Minnie had bounded around, tail wagging, running with her nose to the ground after a scent here, swerving after another there. But she had stayed within calling distance. So faithful and predictable was her behavior that Gracie had taken to running with the dog off leash all the time, carrying it along, wound around her own waist, in case it was needed.
    At the perimeter fence of the community high school, Gracie circled around and headed back along the plateau toward home.
    She glanced back over her shoulder.
    No Minnie.
    She thudded to a stop and turned around. “Minnie? Where are you?”
    No dog.
    Visions of coyotes and mountain lions rose in Gracie’s mind. Alarm clutched her throat.
    â€œMinnie!”
    The only sound was the sighing of the wind.
    â€œMinnie!” Gracie yelled again. Louder. Sharper. “Come!”
    A fly shot like a bullet past her right ear.
    Gracie’s eyes darted from tree to bush to tree.
    Then, twenty feet back, Minnie sauntered out from behind a giant piñon pine, its top domed like a massive umbrella.
    Thank God!
Gracie pointed to the ground next to her feet. “Come here,” she commanded, the sternness in her voice belying her relief.
    Minnie trotted up, wagging her tail, pink tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.
    â€œYou scared me, little girl,” Gracie said, reaching down to stroke the black fur, hot from the sun. “Don’t do that.”
    Gracie withdrew her water bottle from its sling and took a long draught, pouring a little into her cupped hand