LITMIR.BIZ

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their new hiking trail along this ridge, and even though he wasn’t crazy about all the disimprovements those people were making, he liked this trail. It was the only smart move they’d made, in spite of the difficulties with zoning laws and purchase of the land. Their efforts would help draw the business they would need to fill that ten-story condominium eyesore under construction at the east edge of town.

      He might even use that trail himself, from time to time. One thing he missed about his job at the Grand Canyon—one of the only things—was the hiking.

      As the echo of hammers, saws and the rumble of the crane drifted up to the cliffs from the construction site, Taylor climbed out of the truck, taking his coffee with him. He glanced at the ashtray and considered, for just a moment, pulling a cigarette from the pack he kept stashed there. But he was trying hard to quit. He’d managed to do it three times already in the past year. Amazing how hard it was for a guy to live healthy when there were times that he saw the futility of living at all.

      Gravel crunched beneath the soles of his boots as he strolled to the edge of the pavement to gaze down on the village of Hideaway. Settled comfortably on a small peninsula along the shore of the Table Rock Lake, the tiny town with a population of barely over a thousand always held him spellbound. He came to this spot often to remind himself why he’d requested the transfer to the Ozarks. The contrast between this view and the view from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon often made him feel as if he had traveled to a different planet.

      Of course, he loved the starkly angled vistas of one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. He couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t gaze in awe across the shadowed gorges from the South Rim to the North Rim and marvel at God’s artwork. Part of his heart would always belong to the Canyon. But he no longer wanted to live with the memories the place continued to evoke.

      Here in Missouri, he’d made no memories except those from childhood, when he had traveled historic Route 66 with his parents on vacation, and they’d made a detour south to this place.

      The beauty of this area began with the lush June green of an abundant Ozark Garden of Eden, brilliant with flowers that dotted the grass and trees like enormous jewels. Generously proportioned gazebos dotted the broad lawn that reached into the lake on a peninsula down below. The Victorian angles and gingerbread trim of those gazebos blended with the bright yellow, green, blue and pink cottages of the Lakeside along the shore at the west edge of town.

      Okay, so a guy could live without the pink, but the overall effect wasn’t bad.

      A large new dock, crowded with boats, extended from the shore, and it appeared as if construction had begun on still another dock to the east—another project of Beaufont. Across the lake, a tree-topped cliff—twin to the one on which Taylor stood—embraced the water and held captive vines of honeysuckle and wild roses.

      The village municipal district was a square of connected brick-front buildings facing outward to the street that surrounded it on four sides. Each doorway had a flower box, and each box held red, blue, yellow or purple blooms. From Taylor’s position, he could see nearly everything that went on below, from the dock all the way back to the ancient, abandoned barn directly below him in the shadow of the cliff. The barn was old, constructed of weathered gray board, old corrugated aluminum roof, loft door broken, barely hanging, old hay spilling out. A dilapidated wood fence caged nothing more than a herd of wildly tangled weeds in the corral.

      A movement redirected Taylor’s attention as the front door to the lodge at the Lakeside opened and a woman with curly red hair stepped onto the quaint, wooden front porch. She wore a long white jacket and a pink jumpsuit of some kind, though he couldn’t tell the design from here. He was pretty sure, however, that the woman was Karah Lee Fletcher. She ducked beneath a low-hanging potted plant and descended the steps to the walkway. When she reached the street, she strolled toward town. Except for the new sidewalk that encircled the town square, Hideaway had no paved public walkways.

      Taylor thought about his telephone call to her this morning. He’d obviously awakened Karah Lee, and he felt badly about that. He ordinarily had a little more finesse than to call someone barely past sunrise. After last night’s conversation and this morning’s—during which she’d made clear her eagerness to cut the talk short—he’d decided not to bother her again.

      She frustrated him. Last night she’d shown obvious signs of injury, and yet she’d refused any kind of treatment. Her hostile response to his concern still rankled. His main concern had been her physical safety, and even though she looked perfectly healthy to him now as she walked along the road, last night she had not seemed well.

      Too many people delayed medical care after an accident, and they paid the price for it later. Was he wrong to show a little human compassion this morning, knowing she was alone, with possible brain injury?

      He just needed to keep reminding himself this wasn’t the Grand Canyon, where the hot, dry climate had added a dash of danger to every situation during his shifts. The climate in the rolling hills of these Missouri Ozarks was more forgiving. But this was about an accident, not heatstroke, and on his watch, nobody was going to die from neglect.

      The figure below crossed the street as she reached the square, and Taylor nodded with satisfaction. She was going to the clinic, just as she’d promised.

      Static from the radio on his belt interrupted the rumble of the crane below, and Taylor returned to the truck as he listened to a message about the manhunt—which was actually a woman hunt. The murderer who had killed the Las Vegas businessman and the hotel employee last night in Branson had not yet been apprehended. No surprise there.

      He glanced at the faxed report he’d received this morning and studied the unfocused picture of a sexy blonde in a blue dress. The image had been caught on a security camera as she ran from the scene of the crime last night. The police had lost her trail in a theater-hotel complex a few blocks away when a fire alarm went off. They’d been forced to evacuate the building. Details—and a better picture of the woman—were to follow sometime today.

      Since murders were not a common thing in this area of the country, the press would be all over this. It wouldn’t surprise Taylor if the picture of this woman made the front page of the local and regional papers.

      He took a sip of his coffee and automatically reached for a cigarette. He had it out of the pack and halfway to his mouth before he caught himself and returned it. He hated these things.

      On impulse, he carried the pack to the trash can alongside the trail, squashed the cigarettes as if they were a hand-exercise ball and tossed them in the can. People were murdering each other in Branson, Missouri, the heart of the Bible Belt. He didn’t need any help to put himself in the grave.

      Of course, he knew he’d probably break down and buy another pack tomorrow, but it felt good to make this gesture, expensive as that gesture had become lately.

      He was just about to drive away, when he received another call, this one more typical for Hideaway. A child had bumped his head this morning, and the parents were concerned about a concussion. Taylor answered the call. He could get to their location in five minutes. Seemed as if he was on a roll with the concussion patients lately.

      

      Karah Lee raised her face to the morning light—the sun had not yet appeared over the tall pine trees that stood sentinel over an outward-facing, redbrick town square. The majority of commerce in this thriving little town concentrated itself on a peninsula of land surrounded by the diamond-blue glitter of Table Rock Lake.

      As she stepped across the street from the broad lawn to the sidewalk that encircled the square, she caught sight of the reflection of herself in the front window of the general store next to the brick-front clinic. She grimaced at the same tall woman with flyaway curls of red hair who watched her from the mirror every morning—and whose image she tried to avoid every chance she got.

      She had never taken any delight in her appearance. She not only towered over other women, she was also taller than most men, and many of her male colleagues seemed intimidated by her.

      This was her first job outside the supervision of the hospital or

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