Caitlyn turned to Samantha, fluffed her blonde hair across her forehead, and said, “Here we go with the alien conspiracy theories. You might want to run away from this table while you still can.”
Samantha glanced around for the person she'd arrived with. For the moment, she'd forgotten he was a ghost, and made up the excuse that he was probably in the adjoining room, playing pool with the other men. She relaxed forward, leaning her elbows on the table, and encouraged Toni to go on about her conspiracy theories.
For the next two hours, Samantha enjoyed the utterly normal yet rare experience of making new friends as an adult. She learned about being a local community news reporter, and artfully deflected questions about what she did for a living, as well as why she'd been staying in a lakeside cabin the last few weeks.
She was having such a wonderful time, she all but forgot about Toni being romantically involved with Warren. Besides, even if he had been cheating on her with Samantha, now that he was dead, it was a moot point. The truth could stay buried, along with his body.
The trio laughed and drank and even danced for a few of their own jukebox choices. At the end of the night, the muscular bartender flicked on bright fluorescent lights and barked at them, “You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here!”
Giggling, they stumbled out the door and into a waiting taxi. Samantha noted the location of her car and made a mental note to come back for it the next morning.
They dropped Toni off first, at an apartment building not far from the main streets of town.
Caitlyn's house was the next logical stop, but she insisted on riding with Samantha up to the cabin, saying she wanted to see the lake in the moonlight. “It's a popular spot for kids hooking up in their cars,” Caitlyn said.
Samantha giggled. “But I hardly know you, Caitlyn,” she sputtered.
Even the taxi driver laughed.
When they reached the cabin, Caitlyn walked Samantha up to her door. They stood on the porch in the dark. The taxi driver turned off his headlamps so they could look at the lake in the moonlight.
“I guess it is beautiful,” Samantha said. Something bat-like flapped overhead, and in the distance, an owl hooted.
“I've always loved this place,” Caitlyn said. “Did you know it used to be a summer camp for kids?”
“That would explain the lack of, uh, luxurious amenities. They call it a resort, but it's really just a glorified campground, isn't it?”
With a giggle, Caitlyn said, “What more do you need? You've got trees, walking trails, a boat launch, and enough hot water for a three-minute shower. This place is paradise. It might be heaven.”
Or purgatory, Samantha thought to herself.
After a moment of taking in the moonlit view of the lake, Caitlyn turned to Samantha and said, slurring her words slightly, “Listen, I have to tell you something about Toni. About Toni with an I.”
“She actually told me a lot before you joined us.”
“Toni's nice,” Caitlyn said slowly.
“Yes, and?”
“That's all,” Caitlyn said, drunkenly pretending to zip her lips. “She's nice, and she means well.”
“Sounds like there's something you're not telling me.”
Caitlyn turned and started down the steps. She slipped on the first one and slid the rest of the way down on her bottom.
The taxi driver jumped out to help get her upright.
Caitlyn shook them off like a champion. “It's all good,” she said. “S'all good, man.” She stumbled to the taxi and gave Samantha a wave goodbye that was nearly big enough to knock her over again. “Good night, gorgeous brunette!” she yelled, and she got into the taxi.
A minute later, she rolled down the window and whisper-yelled, “What I told you is a secret!”
“Caitlyn, you didn't tell me anything!”
“Very good,” Caitlyn replied with a note of admiration.
The taxi pulled away, and Samantha let herself into the cabin. She would be puzzling over the mystery of Toni the rest of the night and well into her dreams.
Chapter 4
May 16th
10:16 a.m.
The Cabin
The sun was streaming in around the edges of the curtains when Samantha awoke with a start. She was late for the meeting. She smoothed down her hair, washed her face, and set her laptop on a stack of books on the student-sized desk in the cabin's one bedroom. Despite not wanting to stare directly at the sunny view in her hungover state, she opened the curtains anyway. The strong light would wash out the telltale shadows around her puffy eyes.
Her friend, Hilda, looked surprised to see her on the video call. “Sam!” she exclaimed. More formally, she asked, “To what do I owe the pleasure?” Hilda was American, but she'd been watching a lot of period dramas from the BBC lately. She was two years younger than Samantha, and she looked it today, all fresh faced and glowing in the California sun.
Samantha replied archly, “You forgot our regular weekly meeting?”
“We haven't... I mean... Yes. I suppose I forgot. How are you, hon?” Behind Hilda, a bearded man appeared in the room and asked who was on the screen. It was her husband, Ricky. He'd put on a few pounds and looked older than Samantha remembered. How long had it been since her last visit to L.A.? It felt like about a million years. Hilda said something to him in a hushed tone and shooed him away, but not before he leaned in to say, “Hey, Sammy.” He was gone again before she could call him one of her pet names, such as Rickster or Rickaroonie.
Samantha snuck another book under the laptop to hide the pesky double chin that only appeared during webcam chats.
“How do you feel about salad dressings?” Samantha asked her friend and blogging partner.
Hilda held up both hands to frame her face. “Love,” she enunciated. “Love. Salad dressings. Tell me more.”
“I was thinking of doing a piece that hits all the sweet spots.” She counted off on her fingers. “Diet. Crafts. Gifting. Gardening.”
Hilda didn't look convinced by the pitch so far. “That's what you've been thinking about out there in Colorado?”
“Of course,” she answered. “I took some test shots the other day at a picnic table near the lake. The pictures will be perfect.”
Her friend switched gears. “Speaking of pictures, how are things going with that nature photographer?”
“Great,” she lied. “He took me out last night and introduced me to a couple of locals. Obviously, they were utterly charmed by yours truly, and we're BFFs for life.” As she joked, flashes from the night before came back to her: Toni, talking wistfully about hanging in there for a second chance at true love. Caitlyn, hinting about some great secret she knew about Toni. Warren, looking sad later that night when he tucked her into bed.
“I want to meet him,” Hilda said, leaning left and right, as though she might be able to see more than what was visible on her computer screen. “Haul him over here so I can get a look at the fella.”
“He went out for bagels. Sorry.”
“What's his name again? I think I saw something the other day about a wildlife photographer in Colorado, and the name seemed familiar. Warner something. Or Wayne?”
“Hello?” Samantha tapped her laptop to jiggle it. “Hilda, you're cracking up. There must be a delay on the connection. I gotta hit the washroom, anyway. Talk later! Bye!” She waved at the camera jerkily and quickly shut down the window.
* * *
Four hours later, Samantha was at the picnic table near the edge of the lake, taking photos at different angles. A dozy hornet flew in and hovered over the spinach salad. “Action shot,” she said to herself, and took the photos anyway. The hornet hovered at a photogenic angle, so she took a few more. These pictures wouldn't run with the main article on her and Hilda's lifestyle blog, but Samantha could make a few extra dollars selling them to a stock photo site. “Look at me,” she murmured as she zoomed in on the hornet. “I'm a nature photographer, just like you, Warren.” She hadn't se
en him that day, but had decided he was always around in some form. It beat talking to herself.
From behind her, a female voice came. “Who are you talking to?”
Samantha whirled around, bumping the tripod with her hip and nearly knocking over the pricey camera.
It was redheaded Toni, wearing large sunglasses and a wide-brimmed straw hat to keep the Colorado sunshine off her pale skin.
“I wasn't talking to myself,” Samantha lied. “I was giving instructions to my model, who is a hyper-intelligent spinach salad.”
Toni leaned over the place setting on the red-checked tablecloth. “Looks like a regular salad to me.” She smacked her lips. “And now I'm hungry. Great. I'd try to eat this salad, but I know all about you food-stylist people and your tricks. Those bacon bits are probably chopped-up shoelaces.”
“Close,” Samantha said. “They're soy bits.” She gave the camera a spin to pull it off the tripod, and snapped a candid shot of Toni before she could escape. “If you're hungry, go ahead and eat the salad. I'm done taking photos. Everything's edible, I swear. The only food stylist trick I used is substituting diced red peppers for tomatoes.”
Toni looked undecided, so Samantha pulled out the colorful charger plate and used the salad fork to split the meal in half. She straddled her way onto the picnic table's bench seat and took a bite. The dressing was spicy, infused with the popular local green chile.
Toni hiked up her all-white, country-girl sundress and took a seat on the other side. She wore pointy-toed western boots in a russet tone, and had a lightweight denim jacket draped over her shoulders. “Green chile,” she said. “Nice touch.”
“It wouldn't be a local dish without it, plus I hear it's a great cure for hangovers.” Samantha added lightly, “Not that two refined ladies such as ourselves would ever imbibe too much and give ourselves hangovers.”
“Of course not,” Toni laughed.
As they ate, Samantha vaguely remembered their conversation the night before, and inviting the redhead to come visit her at the cabin sometime. She hadn't anticipated it would be so soon, but the timing was okay.
“This tastes as good as it looks,” Toni said. “You're a woman of many talents. It's a shame you didn't meet my Warren. He was a wonderful photographer, and the man could talk your ear off about light and shutter speeds.” She pushed her sunglasses up her nose, her eyes hidden behind the dark lenses. “Me, I'm more of a point-and-click sort of gal. Low maintenance.”
Samantha bit her tongue. In her experience, women who claimed to be low maintenance were typically the opposite. People liked to cling to untruths. At her first job, back when she was a naive sixteen, Samantha had worked for a woman who claimed to be easygoing in the same breath she used to yell at the bus boy for dribbling a few ounces of soapy water on the tile floor. That same summer, working at the resort, she'd also observed that people who used the word “just” when ordering—“I just want a plain bagel, no butter.”—always wanted more than they asked for, like for human society to rewind back to another time when people were more mannered, food wasn't so gosh-darned fancy, and children were seen and not heard.
Toni chatted amiably about the salad, futile attempts at dieting, how sunny it was, and how hungover she felt from their sweet sangria the night before. Samantha smiled and nodded, her thoughts pleasantly relaxed and freeform, like formless clouds passing through a blue sky. She liked herself so much more when she wasn't alone, so why did she spend so much of her socializing time looking forward to going home again?
Lunch ended abruptly when Toni took a sip of the red drink and spat it out on the ground with a cough. Samantha lurched forward with a handful of napkins, apologizing.
“That's not juice,” Toni said. “And it's not even cold!” She made a disgusted face and rubbed her hand on the checkered tablecloth. “And why's my hand greasy?”
Samantha dug around in her supplies for a bottle of water, and handed it to Toni. “You'll be fine,” she said. “It's just water with food coloring, all food-safe and edible. The ice cubes are plastic, and the condensation on the outside of the glass is this.” She showed Toni her spray-bottle of WD-40. The household lubricant was commonly used by food photography stylists to create stable, realistic condensation on the outsides of drink glasses. “It should wipe right off.”
Toni shook her head, chuckling, and wiped her palm with the napkins. “I suppose warm water with red food dye is better for me than all those drinks you were pouring down my throat last night.”
Samantha faked an indignant, shocked gasp. “Why, I never!”
“How are you feeling, anyway? Are you up for a hike?”
She searched her mind for an excuse and found nothing except, “I don't have any hiking boots.”
Toni leaned over to look under the picnic table at Samantha's footwear, a pair of sturdy, if not clean or attractive, running shoes. “Those will do just fine,” she said.
The two women cleaned up the picnic table, and chatted for a few minutes with some children staying in one of the other cabins. The kids were catching frogs by the lake and insisted on showing off all of them.
After a quick visit to the cabin to put away the photography equipment and food, the two were on their way up the mountain.
They'd been walking steadily uphill for twenty minutes when Samantha finally asked, “Where are we going? And do we have to go this fast?”
Toni stopped and walked over to the woods. “We can catch our breath here.” She sat on a fallen tree, which was bench height, and took off one red cowboy boot and then the other. “My stupid socks keep riding down and bunching up. If I pull them up to my knees, do you promise not to laugh?”
Samantha gave her head a serious shake. “I'm afraid I can't promise that.”
Toni took off her sunglasses and squinted up at Samantha, smiling broadly. In the sunshine, her blue eyes were as bright as the big sky above.
“It's such a relief to laugh,” Toni said. “Especially on a day like today. I'm really glad you could be here with me for this.”
“What exactly are we doing? Besides sweating off last night's sangria?”
Toni's expression grew serious. Her oblong nostrils flared, and she pulled her sunglasses back on in a protective gesture.
“We're going to look at the view,” Toni said flatly. “Warren's last photograph before he died.” She paused, pursing her lips before adding in a soft, vulnerable tone, “When we get to the cliff, promise you won't let me stand too close to the edge.”
“Sure,” Samantha said, and she watched silently as Toni pulled her socks up to her knees, shook out the boots, and pulled them back on.
They were going to see the cliff that killed Warren. Perhaps the man of the hour would even make an appearance.
Chapter 5
The peak of the trail was not the top of the mountain, but it was the highest point they could reach without rock-climbing equipment.
Toni had been quiet for the last thirty minutes when she broke the silence. “That's it?” She sounded disappointed.
Samantha stood next to her and took in the view. As she looked over the lake and the valley, she understood why Toni sounded let down. As far as views went, it was a typical southeastern Colorado vista, but that was all. Just an average view from an average trail. Certainly not worth dying over.
“Imagine the storm rolling in,” Samantha said. “It would have been more spectacular with big, dark clouds, and lightning strikes visible for miles.”
“I guess so,” Toni said glumly. She abruptly crumpled down into a sitting position on the dirt ground and began tugging at her boots. She was very flexible, possibly double-jointed, and in her lack of concern for getting her white dress dirty on the ground, she reminded Samantha of a small child—just a kid, trying to make sense of a confusing world.
Toni yanked off her boots and the knee-high socks, which she stretched out on the ground next to her. She lay back on the dirt and grass and pulled her straw hat over her face. Her
voice muffled by the hat, she said, “You can head back any time if you don't want to wait for me.”
“There's no rush,” Samantha said.
“You're an angel.”
“Well, I'll be here. Take as long as you need.”
Toni thanked her, but the words barely registered over the ones echoing in Samantha's head. I'll be here. Take as long as you need. Who said that? She tried to remember, but found the memory had been painted over, hidden.
I'll be here.
Take as long as you need.
She left Toni to her contemplation, or grieving, or whatever it was. More words echoed in her head. You can get high, or you can get low. I'll be here. Take as long as you need.
She explored the area, kneeling in the grass to take some photos of wildflowers using the camera on her phone. The area where Warren Jameson had spent his last earthly moments looked like most of what she'd seen on her walks—daisies and black-eyed susans dotting the ground between blue spruce, cottonwood, juniper, maple, and aspen. She took more photos, including a few surreptitious shots of Toni, still flat on the ground. Then she tiptoed to the edge and looked down at where Warren might have drawn his final breath.
A dark patch on the ground below caused her to gasp. Blood, her mind screamed. But it was only a shadow, cast by a nearby bush. The cliff face itself formed a boundary at the back of someone's property. To the far left and right were fences. Away from the cliff, the ground was green, lush looking, and kept short by two goats who were currently patrolling the premises. A dog caught her eye as it let out a curious bark. The softness of the bark in the distance startled her—not the noise, but how far away it sounded. The ground was a long way down. Samantha stumbled back, away from the edge.
“What are you doing?” asked Toni. She was standing again, already wearing her socks and boots, and dusting off her ruffled skirt.
“That was the dog who found him,” Samantha said. “It's a collie, or maybe an Australian sheepdog. Hard to tell from here. It's the one who barked and let the property owner know... about the accident.” She wanted to stop talking, but she couldn't keep herself from stating the obvious. “That's the dog who found Warren. It was barking and barking, and finally they came outside, and first they thought it was just upset because of the storm and the lightning, but then they found him.”
Date with a Ghost in Colorado (Cozy Mystery Thriller) (Ghost Mysteries of the Southwest Book 1) Page 3
