Her head touched the pillows, and a presence brushed her mind.
She bolted upright, heart pounding. Deb, are you here? Talk to me!
When no one answered, Ludie May’s references to Cherokee ghosts flooded her thoughts, and her eyes searched the shadows cast by the moonlight streaming through the balcony doors.
Trish saw no one, but the presence in her mind remained.
Who are you? she insisted, shivering with uneasiness.
No one replied.
She shook her head in a futile attempt to throw off the intrusion into her thoughts. Her racing pulse ratcheted up several notches and her breathing quickened.
It’s this place, she thought. It’s doing a number on my imagination.
I am not your imagination, a male voice that sounded ancient, wise and weary spoke in her head. Do not be afraid. I am a friend.
Who are you? Trish repeated.
But the presence was gone, and the only sound left in the room was the soft keening of the wind beneath the eaves.
Chapter Four
O’Neill was up before dawn after only a few hours of sleep. He took a quick shower, pulled on jeans, hiking boots and a sweater, and stepped outside onto the porch of the manager’s cottage. In the valley that stretched along the north side of the ridge, low clouds, remnants of yesterday’s rain, streamed like blown scarves. The cold, clear autumn air carried the pungent tang of wood smoke, and the mouthwatering aroma of baking cinnamon buns wafted from the resort’s kitchen.
He left the porch, climbed the trail that led from the cluster of staff residences, which had been built below the ridgeline to hide them from the main building’s view, and trudged toward the wide swath of now-ruined lawn. The sheriff’s department, which was coordinating the hunt for Debra Devlin, had erected a command tent at the edge of the drive. The search, judging from the number of empty vehicles parked nearby, was ongoing.
O’Neill stepped inside the tent and was pleased to find his staff had followed his instructions from the night before. A serving table had been set, complete with thermal jugs of hot coffee and tea, cold orange juice, baskets of fresh fruit and an enormous platter of pastries, bagels and granola bars.
Captain Metcalf, the uniformed officer monitoring radio communications at a nearby desk, nodded in greeting. Short and powerfully built, his middle-aged face had the weathered look of a man who’d spent most of his life outdoors. If he was typical of many of the locals O’Neill had met, he’d rather be bear hunting now than searching for a lost reporter.
“Any sign of her?” O’Neill asked.
The officer, who’d been on duty when O’Neill left the tent last night, shook his head. “We’ve done a grid search with the chopper, working outward from the resort. Nothing’s shown up on our thermal sensors but small nocturnal animals and one large hit that turned out to be a bear.”
“What about the teams on the ground? Have they found anything?”
His eyes tired, Metcalf shook his head again. “A bloodhound picked up a scent on the trail where the cell phone was found, but lost it in less than a mile. The rains have washed away most traces.” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s about time to call in the cadaver dogs.”
“You think she’s dead?” The bad news hit O’Neill hard. As manager of the resort, he felt a responsibility for his missing guest. As a human being, he mourned the loss of an attractive, vibrant young woman who’d been a breath of fresh air among the usual pompous clientele.
Metcalf shrugged. “The local television stations have been broadcasting her photo and asking anyone who’s seen her to give them a call.”
“No response?”
“Oh, we’ve had calls, all right. Somebody spotted her in Weaverville.”
“Did you check it out?”
Metcalf smiled for the first time, adding even more wrinkles to the lines of his face. “She was seen at a convenience store in a pink Cadillac. With Elvis.” His expression sobered. “None of the other reports panned out, either. My guess is the woman wandered deep into the wilderness and either became lost or fell at one of the overlooks. Either way, between yesterday’s heavy rains and last night’s drop in temperature, if she’s out in the open, her chances for survival don’t look good.”
“Any reason to expect foul play?” O’Neill asked with reluctance. “I have other guests whose safety is my responsibility.”
Metcalf rose, stretched and poured himself a cup of coffee. “At this point, we can’t rule out anything. Your guests should use caution. Travel in pairs if they’re hiking. Better still, take a guide if they’re wandering far from the resort.”
“Has her family been notified?”
“The Tampa FBI office is keeping them informed of our progress. Or, I should say, lack of it.”
“Anything else you need here?”
“Luck, and lots of it. We’re looking for a needle in a haystack.”
On that grim note, O’Neill left the command tent, crossed the dew-slick lawn in the thin gray light and entered the dining room from the terrace. Five of the guests, including Victoria Westbrook and Chad Englewood, were having breakfast before starting out on their white-water rafting expedition. Judd Raye would drive them to their starting point on the East Pigeon River, then pick them up downstream later in the day.
O’Neill nodded in greeting, poured himself a mug of coffee at the buffet table and headed toward his office. Inside, he raised the blinds, and the first rays of morning light flooded his desk. He settled into his chair and turned his thoughts from Debra Devlin to the woman who’d kept him awake most of the night.
He’d been caught off guard by the effect Erin Fairchild had had on him, and he’d lain sleepless, attempting to analyze her impact. After Alicia’s treachery and several years at Endless Sky, O’Neill had thought himself immune to the beautiful, rich women who moved in and out of his life like the tides of the ocean. But Erin Fairchild had caught him up like a rip current that wouldn’t let go.
Last night at dinner, she’d stunned him, turning his original assessment of her upside down and inside out. After picking Erin up at the airport and having lunch with her, O’Neill had concluded she wasn’t wealthy but more likely someone who’d robbed her savings or hocked her car to come to Endless Sky to escape some major disappointment in her life.
When she’d shown up at dinner, wearing enough diamonds to open her own branch of Cartier and dressed in designer black velvet, he’d had to reevaluate his original conclusions. Desire flooded him at the memory of that dress. With its high neckline that showcased her impressive diamond necklace, long tight sleeves and a hem short enough to reveal amazingly long legs, the dress, in covering her up, had called attention to Erin’s attributes: a waist he could probably span with his hands and perfectly proportioned breasts and hips. Dangling diamond earrings, along with stray curls from her upswept blond hair, had emphasized the slender column of her throat. The woman had been drop-dead gorgeous, all right. No wonder that jerk, Chad Englewood, had practically salivated over her all evening.
But her appearance alone wasn’t all that had changed. At the airport, throughout the ride back and at lunch in her suite, Erin had seemed off-kilter, slightly ditzy, as if having trouble establishing her emotional equilibrium. At dinner, however, she’d seemed perfectly at ease, withstanding even the withering condescension of Violet Avery with poise and grace.
So which woman was the real Erin Fairchild? And why was he spending so much time thinking about her? To avoid the harsh reality of Debra Devlin’s disappearance? That had to be the reason. He’d decided years ago to disengage his emotions where wealthy, pretty women were concerned and saw no reason to break his rule now. Pushing Erin Fairchild from his mind, he shoved back from his desk, grabbed his empty mug and went back to the dining room for a refill.
The rafting party had departed. The only people remaining in the dining room were Henry, the sous-chef, who manned the omelet station at the breakfast buffet—and Erin, who
sat alone at a table by the window, staring outside.
Get your coffee, go back to the office, he told himself, and leave the woman alone.
Ignoring her, try as he might, was impossible. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her expressive hands were wrapped around a mug of steaming coffee and her mournful gaze was fixed on the command tent on the lawn. He wouldn’t have thought it possible, but she looked even more beautiful this morning, despite the aura of sadness that enveloped her.
O’Neill refilled his cup and approached her table, wondering which facet of Erin he’d encounter today—wealthy bombshell, ditzy blonde or some new incarnation? “Mind if I join you?”
Caught by surprise, she flinched and sloshed hot coffee over her hands.
He grabbed a linen napkin from an adjacent place setting, dipped it in her glass of ice water and quickly bathed her hands where the steaming liquid had touched them. She had long, slender fingers and well-manicured, natural nails with pale half-moon crescents at their base. Her skin was soft and warm, and her hands seemed small and fragile in his.
Henry, who’d witnessed the accident, appeared at the table with a hand towel, which he gave O’Neill before returning to the omelet station.
“Let me have a look at those fingers,” O’Neill said.
With a barely concealed grimace, Erin straightened out her fingers. The skin, especially on her right hand, was an angry red. He gently patted her fingers dry with the towel. “Does that hurt?”
“Just a little. But the sting is going away.” Her eyes teared, belying her words.
“I have some burn ointment—”
“Never mind,” Erin said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Ointment will kill the pain.”
“It doesn’t hurt. Really. The ice water did the trick.”
Under the same circumstances, most of his other guests would be indulging in histrionics or threatening to sue. Erin seemed almost apologetic, as if she’d caused the trouble.
O’Neill mopped up the excess coffee and water and handed her half-empty cup and the wet linens to the busboy hovering at his elbow. Following his ingrained training, the teen whisked away the soiled tablecloth and quickly recovered and reset the table.
After the busboy left, O’Neill slid into the chair opposite Erin.
“Impressive,” she said with a smile that did strange things to his insides.
“What?”
“The speed of the service around here.”
He lifted his cup in a salute. “We aim to please.”
A waiter appeared with a fresh mug for Erin. “May I bring you something from the buffet table, ma’am?”
She shook her head. “No, thanks. Just coffee.”
The waiter nodded and withdrew.
“Did you miss the van for the rafting party?” O’Neill asked.
Erin took a tentative sip of her coffee as if testing its heat. “I plan to hike this morning.”
O’Neill noted her clothes. Usually his guests hit the trails looking as if they’d been outfitted by L.L. Bean’s top-of-the-line. Erin wore faded jeans with a matching jacket, a white turtleneck sweater and slightly scuffed running shoes, a complete contradiction to the high-fashion woman who’d graced his table at dinner last night. She’d pulled her blond hair through the expansion hole of her matching denim soft cap, and the result made her appear as young and vulnerable as a teenager.
“Captain Metcalf recommends that no one hike alone,” O’Neill warned.
“I won’t stray from the main trails.”
“It’s better to have an escort, under the circumstances.”
The look she gave him was bleak, and he noted for the first time the smudges of fatigue under her brilliant seawater eyes. “The missing reporter?”
He nodded.
“Did the rescue squad find anything last night?”
O’Neill provided a brief rundown of Metcalf’s report. “You’ll probably be perfectly safe hiking, but, since I planned to spend this morning on the trails anyway, why don’t you come with me?”
She shook her head. “Thanks, but I prefer my own company today.”
He studied her closely, struck by her underlying sadness, laced with a sense of desperation. She shouldn’t be alone on unfamiliar trails in her frame of mind. Distracted by her problems, whatever they were, she might become disoriented and lost, or fall and injure herself. He wasn’t going to lose another guest. Especially not this one, who had touched a chord deep in a place he thought he had locked safely away from all intrusions.
“You don’t want me to lose my job, do you?” he asked.
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
He shrugged. “The sheriff warned me not to let guests hike alone. If anything were to happen to you, it would be my fault, and my boss would have my hide, right before he hands me my walking papers.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” she insisted.
“That’s probably what Debra Devlin thought.”
Erin tilted her head upward so that the steady gaze of her blue-green eyes hit him full force from beneath the bill of her soft cap. She was silent for a long moment. “Okay, you can come with me on one condition.”
He grinned. “You do that a lot?”
“What?”
“Set your own conditions?”
Her expression turned puzzled.
“You wouldn’t let me order your lunch yesterday unless I ate with you,” he reminded her.
“What’s the point of being rich if you can’t set your own rules?” Her delectable lips turned upward in a ghost of a smile.
“So what’s the condition du jour?” Erin had been flirting with him yesterday with her demands. He found himself looking forward to more flirtation, but her response wasn’t what he expected.
“I want to help search for the missing reporter.” Erin’s trace of a smile vanished, and her expression and voice turned solemn. “Can you show me the trail where her cell phone was found?”
“That’s almost a full day’s hike, round-trip.”
O’Neill wasn’t about to divulge that she’d just suggested the route he’d planned to cover on his own. The rescue teams had already searched there, but after five years of living on the mountain and walking its trails, he knew the area better than anyone. It was, after all, his own backyard, and if anything along the trail was amiss, he’d be the one most likely to spot it.
With five of the guests off on a rafting expedition and the others signed up for the trip to Asheville this afternoon, he wouldn’t be needed at the resort for the rest of the day. He’d planned to scour the area where the cell phone had been located and return in time to play his usual role as host at dinner.
“I don’t have any other plans for today,” Erin said. “A full day’s hike is no problem.”
As much as he would enjoy her company, he feared she’d only slow him down. “You’ll miss the festival in Asheville. There’s room for one more in the chopper.”
The color left her face at his suggestion, and he remembered her fear of heights that he’d noted yesterday.
“I don’t like crowds,” she said.
He cast about for another excuse to dissuade her. “You’ll miss lunch.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I saw the lunches the kitchen prepared for the rafting party. Your chef over there could whip up a couple more in minutes.”
O’Neill still couldn’t put a finger on what made this extraordinary woman tick. “Why are you so determined to go hiking?”
“To enjoy the scenery and mountain air.”
He shook his head. “You could do that sitting in a rocker on the porch. Why are you so interested in searching for Debra Devlin?”
A sudden stillness settled over Erin and she was silent for a moment before answering. “If I were lost and alone in these mountains, I’d want everyone possible looking for me. Wouldn’t you?”
She was a constant source of amazement. Most of the guests at Endless Sky were accustomed to hav
ing the world revolve around them, and their huge fortunes were the grease that facilitated that rotation. Erin’s empathy was a pleasant and unexpected change from such self-absorption.
“I’ll have Henry pack our lunches,” he said, “and I’ll meet you on the back terrace in fifteen minutes.”
WAITING FOR O’NEILL, Trish stood on the terrace and tried not to appear too anxious. She’d already raised the resident manager’s suspicions by insist ing on joining the search, so she’d have to proceed with caution. She stretched out her hands where the coffee had burned them, but the angry red splotches had disappeared, along with the pain. All that remained was the memory of O’Neill’s firm, warm touch and the concern in his eyes. Having a handsome man fussing over her had been a new and heady experience.
Forget it. Taking care of the guests is his job. You shouldn’t read anything into it.
She drew in a deep breath of cool air and surveyed her surroundings. In the bright clear light of morning, Endless Sky had lost its brooding aspect, making her believe she must have dreamed the voice that had spoken in her mind the night before. It hadn’t returned, and exhaustion from worrying over Deb and keeping up the charade as a wealthy guest had plunged Trish into a deep, restful sleep. She felt energized this morning. And hopeful. If Deb was out there and Trish could get close enough, the sisters would make psychic contact. Then she could lead the rescue teams to Debra.
Hang on, Deb. I’m coming.
She heard no reply.
“All set?” O’Neill stepped out of the dining room. He slung a rucksack over his back and handed her one of two hefty, carved wooden walk ing sticks. “You’ll need this to steady you on some of the steeper patches.”
He looked askance at her running shoes. His own footwear was a pair of sturdy boots, but she hadn’t had time to purchase proper hiking gear. Her sneakers would have to do.
He pointed in the direction of the sun that had risen just above the eastern mountains. “The trail takes off on the other side of the drive.”
Mystique Page 5
