The girl was dead.

Detective Lorenzo Craigen looked down at what remained of her and hoped to hell he was wrong. But in his gut he knew he wasn’t.
Sael was back.

And there was no damn reason the son of a bitch should be.

“What do you see?” one of the locals asked him.

Craigen didn’t answer. He tuned the young man out and looked around at the blood soaked ground.

His gut tightened. This should have been a sacred place and was, once upon a time, long ago, forgotten by most. Too damn peaceful of a place to have killed her, or should have been. Where the water ran off the mountains. He took a deep breath. The strong scent of pine and clear air was muffled and wrapped in the smell of death.
Cool New Mexico winds blew down off the Sangre de Cristos and he zipped his jacket against the autumn air.

“Chief Neilson said we should call you in,” the young officer continued.

Craigen looked over his shoulder at the earnest and worried face. The name tag read White.

They seemed to get younger, smarter in some ways and completely naïve in others. It was in the still soft features of the officer’s face, in the still-bright ‘I’ll change the world’ eyes.

“This your first?” he asked White, turning back to study the ground around what remained of the victim.

“Y--yeah.”

Craigen studied the break in the branches and weeds along the ground, all around the victim as if she’d been circled. The grasses flat, the twigs of bushes broken until about thigh high on him.

He stood. “You tell the ME where you tossed your breakfast so we don’t waste time or money running tests on your puke?”

“Yeah.” An edge of belligerence to hide shame.

Craigen walked around the clearing, heard the stream gurgling. Not too far from Sipapu, or any of the many little tourist rest stops along the way. But then, that was probably the point. Took a chance didn’t he? Or rather they. God, they’d all but shredded her. Hair, once blond, was streaked dark with blood. Her body was broken and ripped, brutally so. Hell of a thing to see first thing in the morning. No wonder the kid lost his breakfast.

He nodded to White.

“Good. My captain reamed my ass for not doing that on my first. It was in a meeting that I remembered that what they were listing was what I’d had for breakfast. Smarter than I was starting out.” He stopped and looked over at White. “How the hell did you find her?”
White’s blond brows beetled. He looked like he should be on a poster ad for some designer underwear or some such shit. Kid looked out of place in the black uniform of Taos Police Department.
“Got a call into the station, said there was a body out here near this mile marker by the stream.”

“Man or woman.”

“Hell if I know, Janice, the Chief’s secretary answered it.” He shrugged. “I live out here and Chief called me to ask me to check it out. I called him, apparently, he called you.”

“No, he called my boss and my boss called me.”

Craigen was sure the local Chief would be here shortly. Neilson would want this wrapped up quickly, and he had no qualms turning a murder investigation over to the state boys. Fine with Craigen. Neilson had enough to keep him busy by keeping the mayor of a tourist economized town happy.

“You did good securing the scene, White.”

“Thanks.”

Craigen walked towards the gurgling brook, watched as the sunlight shot white streams of light off the ripples. Should have peaceful here.
He took a deep breath, and caught the faint whiff he thought to never smell again.

Nothing would be peaceful until Sael was caught. And the bastard was supposed to be dead.

*~*~*~*~

Reya hurried into Horizons. “What? What is going on?” She flipped a strand of her long, straight black hair behind her shoulder and dropped her bag by the register area.

Mica sat crying on the stool behind the counter. Charlie leaned over from a display case and whispered, “Her friend was killed.”

She started to say, “Oh is that all?” But thankfully thought better of it. The way Mica had blubbered all over the phone, she’d thought someone had been found dead here in the gallery, or maybe everything had gotten stolen, or perhaps something had happened to Mica herself.

Not to seem insensitive, but live as long as Reya lived and deaths came and went. She’d lost too many in her life to be truly effected by the inevitable.

However, she could say none of those things. Once, in a time forgotten, Reya would have felt Mica’s pain. Instead, she walked to the girl and pulled her close. “I’m sorry, Mica. Is there anything I can do?”
Mica shook her head, the short mess spiked and tousled from Mica’s hands running through it. It was the ever popular bedhead look that Reya would never understand nor like, not that hair styles mattered at present.

“It was her roommate at the Institute,” Charlie whispered.

“Oh, honey.” She awkwardly patted the young girl’s back. She wasn’t the best person in these sorts of situations. “Why don’t you take the day off? Tomorrow too, and the next day. As much time as you need.”
Charlie nodded. “Yeah, you don’t need to be here.”

“But I--I just can’t go back to the dorms. Everyone is so upset and they all want to ask me questions, like I know anything. And the policeman said they’d stop by and talk. I’d probably have to answer some more questions.” She shuddered.

Reya studied the girl, stepped back and went to get her a cup of coffee. When she returned, Charlie, bedecked in his normal Docker pants and pullover, was cleaning the display cases.

He looked up and rubbed the back of his hand over his short goatee.
Reya handed a cup of coffee to Mica. “I thought you didn’t like your roommate. Is this the same one? Or was it another?”

September was just around the corner and school had been on for a few weeks. Mica had complained about the new roommate at the Art Institute, but Reya didn’t know if that one had been replaced or not. Last year, Mica went through three.

She shook her head. “No, this one was new. Just moved in last week after Holly moved out.”

“Oh.”

“Her name was Tanna.” Mica wiped her eyes again, her face crumpling.

“She was really great and we’d already gotten really close, ya know?

Same interests and classes. Her mom called here a bit ago and was crying.”

Reya took a deep breath. “Tell ya what. If you don’t want to go back to the dorms, then why not go through the boxes of inventory in the back? See what all we need and check the emails for any interesting queries or photos that Horizons might be interested in, or if you don’t feel like doing that, just go rest in the office..”

Mica nodded and slid off the stool. Her sandals slapped against the hardwood floors, echoing in the shop.

Charlie huffed out a breath. “She’s been like that since the phone rang earlier. I guess it was the mother’s call that set her off.”

“Understandable.” Reya bent and picked up her purse, briefcase and bag. “Anything interesting as of yet?”

Charlie shook his head and went to the next display case. “Nope. But then, technically, we’re not open yet, so who knows what else the day may bring.”

“If we’re lucky, hopefully, nothing.”

“Funny thing about expectations and days and what fate deals out. They rarely all work together as we’d like them too.”

Charlie had the annoying habit of spouting off sage advice as if he memorized little Confucius quotes.

And Reya hardly needed Charlie to let her in on that little secret. She’d been around plenty, long enough to know that life, or in her case, lives were never what was expected. Filled with twists and turns and unexpected surprises.

Her motto—expect the unexpected.

She worked through another half an hour, rearranging things, setting things as she wanted them, then rearranging them again. She needed to change the bedding in the window display case to something lighter. The sun had already faded the black material to gray in places… Then again…

Something shimmered along her nerves. She glanced out the window, scanning the street, but nothing alerted her.

“What is up with you? Is it this thing with Mica?”

Reya pulled herself back and rolled her eyes. “You’re such a sympathetic soul, Charles.”

He hated his proper name. Which was why she wasn’t surprised to see his frown. “I am sympathetic. I just meant…”

“I know and no that’s not…. At least…” She shrugged. She couldn’t explain it to Charlie. He was…. She tilted her head. Normal, as far as the locals went.

The man had worked for her for three years since she bought the property from him. He’d leased the spot as an art gallery, but she’d wanted more, a shop, a jewelry boutique. But she had liked that he was settled and somewhat established even if he was tired of the day to day and wanted something else.

Strange. He’s just sort of stayed on.

He was the same height as she, had that distinguished, gray-templed-dark-hair and character-lined male face that could fall anywhere between forty and sixty. His eyes were sharp hazel.
If she were guessing, she’d have to say almost fifty. Maybe a couple years older.

“What?” His salt and peppered brows beetled.
“Oh, um...” Reya shook her head. “You look nice today.”

He flashed her a smile full of charm and the hint of the devil. “Black and beige are my color, I’ve always said.”

“How old are you?”

“Is that a come on?”

“Charles.”

“Fifty-two.” He straightened one of the black velvet busts that held a strand of citrine and topaz, wrapped and linked in bronze. He licked his lips. “Care to go out to dinner with a fifty-two-year-old?”

If she were what she appeared, the man was old enough to be her father. But then things were never what they appeared to be.
She grinned and ran a hand down her tunic jacket. “I’ll think about it.”
The bell above the door chimed and energy tingled along her skin. She knew without turning around who stood there. Like a bolt of lightning, electricity arced through her, shooting from her head, swimming along her nerves, twisting her gut to pool at the base of her spine.
Reya swayed and closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. And she smelt him.

Slowly, she turned. He stood there in his starched Wrangler jeans, boots and button down, a gun clipped to his belt along with a badge. His black hair a bit longer than most, just grazing the top of his collar. His face was still the same, not too narrow, nor wide or blunted. It was a strong face, chiseled with sharp angles and lines. The dark of his eyes shimmered beneath harsh slashes of brows as his gaze met hers, and she couldn’t help running a look down the long, lean lines of him. His corded neck, tanned and swarthy as always peaked out at her from his collar. His chest was as wide as she remembered and those hands, those hands. She wiped her damp palms on her thighs. Long fingered and deceptively elegant, she remembered how his fingers had grazed over her body. Her eyes rose back to his, noticed everything about him was the same, even the way one brow seemed to arch more than the other.

She sighed again.

“Hello, Reya.”