LITMIR.BIZ

      5:35 p.m.

      I awakened with the sense of being watched. I peeled one eye open. Two equine noses hovered inches from my own. Tiara had carried me home.

      Apollo and Blaze nickered. They were both rescues, near death when they came to be with me. Tiara had had the good life until her owners had lost everything. She would have been easy to place in a new home, but I couldn’t bear to let her go. I didn’t rescue her; she’d rescued me with her effervescent spirit.

      I slid off Tiara’s back. She wasn’t all that tall for a horse, but still I cringed when my feet hit the ground. The impact reverberated through my body and sent hot poker jabs through my brain. I hadn’t passed out during a journey in a long time.

      My gift takes a toll on my body. Without the aid of touch, connecting becomes much more difficult. I can use my staff to bridge distances, but the further the distance the higher the price. The closer distances and shorter durations add up as well, and have a cumulative effect with the same results.

      I removed Tiara’s bridle, scratched the itchy spots caused by the brow and nose band, and smoothed out her forelock. I laid a kiss upon the white crown of hair that wrapped around her dainty black ears, and thanked her for her help.

      I threw hay for the horses and gave Tiara an extra helping of the sweet feed she enjoyed, then Sundara and I trudged the well-worn path to the house.

      My home was less than a mile from civilization, but, with the exception of the occasional backfire from cars up on 89A, you could believe you were the last human on the planet. My property was the only remaining, privately owned, twenty acre parcel on Oak Creek. It was nestled within a protective cove of rocks and trees. My neighbors wouldn’t hear me if I screamed my head off. It was a slice of heaven, and from the time I was a child, the only place my heart ever called home.

      Redwood benches and clay pots, waiting to be filled with spring flowers, lined the flagstone entryway. A whistling grunt came from the terracotta chimenea in the corner. A tiny black snout peeked out and wiggled a greeting. The white stripe down the center of his nose made him look a little cross-eyed.

      I whistled back at Chan. I seldom named the animals, only the ones who became family. Chan had made himself family. Once acknowledged, the skunk retreated back into his darkened burrow.

      The original owner of the house had been a master in the art of stained glass. His work trimmed most of the windows in the house, but his opus was the inlay in the front door where lush greenery and wild flowers framed a wolf drinking from a crystal clear creek. It was a rendering of my own backyard. I’d searched for the Native American woman for years, I watched for her still, and often wondered if the stained glass artist had encountered her also.

      I leaned my staff against the antique sideboard just inside the door, and dropped my jacket over the back of the cinnamon leather sofa.

      The fichus tree in the corner had not a single leaf when I’d rescued him from a dumpster years ago. He was now green and proud. The automatic timer clicked, and the strands of twinkle lights woven around his branches lit up and cast a warm glow about the room. It was almost as soothing as a fire in the hearth.

      It was impossible to believe that only ten hours ago I’d been at my father’s grave. It seemed a lifetime ago. I felt disoriented, as if someone had rearranged my furniture while I was gone, but all was as I had left it. The changes were inside me.

      Sundara followed me into the kitchen, her toenails clicked on the hardwood floor. I transferred the SK scented dirt out of the poopie-pick-up bag and poured it into a small plastic zippie. I added a piece of sterile gauze that would help absorb the scent, sealed up the bag, and put it in my pocket. I’d carry it with me until the SK was caught.

      I warmed up Sundara’s dinner, got some aspirin and herbs for myself, and then went to my office.

      My father’s face smiled at me from a framed 5 x 7 that sat at the corner of my desk. I could still smell his cologne. He could have afforded the most expensive, but he’d maintained a fondness for the white bottle with the sailboat on the front. He used to tell my mother it reminded him of his humble roots. I always thought he smelled like a king.

      Dog eared files and a sketch pad sat in a tidy pile in the center of my desk. The files were filled with newspaper articles and copious notes of my own. I opened the top one. The first item was my father’s obituary.

      For the first five years after his death, I’d been condemned to sit and watch events around me unfold, powerless to act because of my young age. I’d thought turning thirteen would grant me a host of freedoms, but I was kept on an even shorter leash. I was never sure if that was due to my mother’s fear of loosing another loved one, or her determination not to allow my father’s death to interfere with her debutante dreams for me. I am sure that my mother would have sold the Sedona house after my dad died, but he had deeded it in my name. I’d moved into it on my eighteenth birthday.

      Scottsdale had grown exponentially during my teenage years, and without access to much wilderness, I hadn’t realized the extent of my gift. Once I was back in Sedona, surrounded by the purity of the land and her animals, my gift began to flourish.

      For the next five years I followed the SK. I structured my life so I could take off on a moment’s notice whenever the SK surfaced. His killing rampages took me all over the western United States. In the times when there were no new scenes to go to, I visited the old scenes that had occurred when I’d been a teenager, but of the few animals that were still alive, none had any recollection of those events from so long ago.

      In the beginning, I’d been delighted if I could receive one memory picture from an animal witness before blacking out. With Gaagii’s help, my gift developed by leaps and bounds, but that didn’t eliminate the obstacles.

      First, I couldn’t get close enough to the place of the crime. I had to wait until the authorities cleared out, and by that time, the scenes were trampled and cold. Then I had to develop relationships of trust and respect with the animal witnesses at each new location. When they’d finally consider talking to me, their memories were distorted by trauma and faded by time. They remembered the hordes of humans, their cars, and their helicopters, because those things were much more threatening than the solitary man who’d moved quietly among them for mere hours.

      I became more adept with using my staff to draw the animals out to me, and that helped with the time factor, but with no idea what the SK looked like, every human they showed me was a suspect. However, over numerous scenes, one lone human figure kept appearing, and the SK began to take shape.

      Armed with a general description, the questioning of the animals started moving much faster. Then the killing stopped, and the SK vanished as if he’d been merely a mirage.

      In the next ten, silent years, I tried to make a life for myself. I opened The Doggie Lama. Sundara came to be with me, and we made a name for ourselves with our search and rescue work. I wrote a novel.

      I would gain some semblance of normalcy, but then March 20th would roll around again, and I’d get derailed in a hopeless cycle of emotions. Every year it got worse. Rage that my father’s killer walked free, guilt that I hadn’t been able to keep my promise, hope because, as my skills built, so did my chances of catching him. I yearned for one more chance at the SK, but with an equal amount of shame because I couldn’t imagine a more reprehensible wish since more clues would require more death.

      My handwriting told its own tale of the twenty year journey. It started round and loopy with the exuberance of youth; it became tighter as hope got smothered by defeat.

      The SK was accredited with forty-nine murders spanning eleven western states. After the results of today’s forensics were collected and processed, that number would be revised to fifty. But that was just the official number, there had to be more. Nobody knew when he started or what other methods of killing he might have used before evolving into his three shot signature.

      The SK killed men and women of all races, ages and demographics. He was brutal, and elusive, and devoid of

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