The Amulet. Joanna Wayne

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      “No, but if you watch for her, you’ll see her again.”

      “What’s her last name?”

      “Katrina is all I know.”

      “Is she here with someone.”

      “No. She is always alone.”

      He heard voices on the path just beyond the garden. He checked his watch. Ten before six. The first of the day crew were arriving. The restaurant opened at seven, but room service ran all night, and the silver urn in the foyer was filled with hot coffee at exactly six-thirty every morning.

      When he turned around again, the old woman was gone. But at least now he had a name for the mysterious woman. “Katrina.” He said the name out loud, liking the sound of it as it rolled off his tongue.

      Katrina. Beautiful. Elusive. And much too enchanting to spend her nights all alone.

      CARRIE PUSHED UP the sleeve of her uniform and glanced at her watch. Only eight-thirty, and Rich was already getting on her nerves. It was the third day into the partnership, and she was still desperately searching for a sign it might actually work.

      “I’ve already questioned half these people,” she said, tossing the list of names he’d just handed her to the top of his desk. The same way she’d already questioned Elora Nicholas’s husband, but Rich had spent the past two days putting the poor guy through an intensive interrogation.

      “So, we’ll talk to them again.”

      Her hands flew to her hips in spite of her determination not to butt heads with him today. “So what’s the problem? Do you think I don’t know how to handle a few questions?”

      “I didn’t say that.”

      “Then what makes you think we need to redo everything I’ve done for the past month.”

      “The case isn’t solved, and we’ve got a killer out there threatening to strike again.”

      Like she needed him to point that out to her.

      Rich picked up his coffee mug, an ugly green one with the logo of a Seattle pharmacy emblazoned across it in black. He took a long sip, then pushed back from his desk and grabbed his jacket. “You got a better idea for how to spend the day, Fransen, or do you just want to sit around here and jaw about it?”

      “Jaw about it?”

      “Okay.” He gave a mock bow. “Is it your wish, Deputy Fransen, that we remain at the office and discuss this matter further?”

      “It’s my wish that we not waste time backtracking.”

      “So, what do you have in mind?”

      “I know the hotel owners won’t like it, but I think it’s time to start tracking down all the guests who were staying at the hotel that night.”

      “According to your notes, you already ruled them out.”

      “I did cursory background checks on all of them,” she said, “but I think we should interrogate some of them further.”

      “For what purpose? The only red flags you reported were James Fox from Portland, a one-time shoplifting charge from twenty years ago, and Bailey Ledlow who did time for embezzlement.”

      So he had at least read her notes. Which meant he knew she’d talked personally to both of those men and was reasonably sure they weren’t involved in the abduction. Ledlow was seventy years old and in poor health. He probably couldn’t have made the hike through the woods alone, much less dragging a woman. James Fox and his wife had argued that weekend and checked out of the hotel early. They’d been back in Portland by the time Elora Nicholas had been abducted. Besides, neither of their prior crimes made them suspects in a murder case.

      Rich walked to the door. “You going with me, or not?”

      “Partners usually discuss their day.”

      “I thought that’s what we just did.”

      He would. She started to point out that he was a jerk, then decided against it. Even if she argued and won her point, he was probably right. The killer was probably still here on the scene. Why else would they have received the note?

      So they’d do this his way today. She’d just take advantage of this opportunity to sit back and watch McFarland in action, see if he had anything on her when it came to questioning the locals.

      “Come on,” Rich said. “I’ll buy you breakfast.”

      “At the hotel?”

      “At ten dollars an egg? Dream on.”

      She stopped at her office to grab her parka and to stick the copies of old police records from the campground slaughter into a manila folder. They were another dead end. The transient who’d killed himself was the likely killer and there had been no similar crimes in the area since then.

      Rich was already running down the two flights of stairs to the ground floor by the time she reached the hallway. She took the elevator, hoping she’d beat him down. It was the principle of the thing. She didn’t. So much for principles.

      CARRIE HAD BEEN to the area many times since signing on as deputy two years ago. She’d never been to or even seen the wind-and-weather mangled sign that said Maizie’s Café. In fact, she’d never known this road existed. From the highway, it looked more like a dirt trail leading to someone’s barn.

      Turned out there were half a dozen or more houses and at least that many mobile homes tucked back in the trees along the dirt road that dead-ended at Maizie’s. The sign and the array of mud-encrusted pickup trucks parked in a square of gravel where the yard should have been were the only indication this wasn’t just another residence.

      The house was a one-story, wood cottage that needed a paint job. A big gray cat was perched in a squeaking porch swing.

      “How did you ever find this place?” Carrie asked, friendlier now that breakfast was beaconing.

      “The third house on the left after you leave the highway is where my grandparents lived.”

      “I didn’t notice. You’ll have to point it out as we leave.”

      “Not much to see. Just an old house, about like this one.”

      “Who lives there now?”

      “No one.” He put the patrol car in Park, then climbed from behind the wheel. She followed, enticed by mouthwatering odors wafting on the slight breeze. He waited until she reached the porch before opening the restaurant door.

      Once inside, she was hit with a new wave of the tantalizing odors she’d smelled from outside. She shrugged out of her parka and hung it over one of the hooks by the door while a chorus of gravelly voiced how-you-been’s greeted Rich.

      Okay, so he did know his way around the area. She’d give him that one. She looked for an empty table. There wasn’t one, so she waited while Rich stopped at a couple of tables to jaw.

      “You СКАЧАТЬ