LITMIR.BIZ

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also noted that the man’s clothing wasn’t right. He was wearing a suit beneath a camouflage down jacket but didn’t have any gloves on. He made a mental note of that inconsistency.

      “Looks just like the last one,” J.D. remarked.

      Seth’s gut knotted at the mere suggestion. Jasper, Montana was a small, out-of-the-way town where everyone knew everyone else. Tourists passed through to visit some of the quaint shops and historic markers in the area. To date, none of them had turned out to be serial killers. If he actually had a serial killer on his hands.

      “Anyone know who he is?” Seth asked the half-dozen or so onlookers who had gathered. The victim was on his stomach, but his face was turned to one side.

      “Isn’t that Harvey Whitlock?” one of them asked.

      Seth adjusted his position and tilted his head to get a better look. “It appears so.”

      “He’s only lived here a couple of months,” J.D. said. “I guess that’s long enough to make an enemy.”

      Seth stood as the coroner arrived. He shook hands with Dr. Hall. “Sorry to get you out so early,” Seth offered as he watched the doctor shifting from one foot to the other in an apparent attempt to ward off the cold.

      “I’m getting too old for this,” Hall grumbled. “Isn’t that Harvey Whitlock?”

      Seth nodded. Dr. Hall handed J.D. a camera and instructed him on where and when to take photographs of the victim and the scene.

      The idea that there might me some deranged killer running loose in his town still distracted Seth. He pulled out his notepad and started making some observations and listing possibilities.

      By the time Dr. Hall was ready to have the officers turn the body over, the ambulance crew and at least a dozen more gawkers had arrived. Seth silently hoped his death would be more private. Not some public spectacle like poor Harvey’s.

      J.D. took the feet, the ambulance guys the midsection, and Seth took the head. With practiced precision, they turned Harvey over so that he could be placed on a stretcher, then whisked away from the prying, curious eyes of the crowd.

      “What’s that?” Seth asked, pointing to Harvey’s left palm.

      They all moved in for a closer look. The frigid water from the creek had washed away the writing until it was very faint.

      “Savannah, 9-1-2,” Seth read aloud.

      “Looks like part of a phone number. Maybe an area code?” J.D. theorized, excitedly.

      Seth was puzzled. If he recalled correctly, Harvey was from someplace in the east, which had 200, 300 and 400 area codes. He breathed a little easier. There had been no writing on the hand of the first victim. Maybe the two cases weren’t related.

      “I don’t think that’s a phone number,” came a voice from the crowd.

      Seth turned and looked in the direction of the voice. It was a man in his early thirties. He had the dress and manner of a yuppie tourist. Seth went over to the man.

      “Why not?”

      The yuppie shrugged. “I saw him last night in the bar.”

      “And?” Seth prompted.

      “He was staring at the clock.”

      “When was this?” Seth asked.

      “Maybe ten after nine or so.”

      “And you’re sure it was him?”

      The yuppie insisted that he was.

      “How can you be so sure? You aren’t a local.”

      “I remember him because of the babe who showed up to meet him. I mean, no offense to the dead or anything, but that guy isn’t exactly GQ material, and he managed to snag the prettiest woman in the place.”

      “What did she look like?”

      “Pretty brown hair, incredible green eyes, a body to die for—sorry, poor choice of words—I mean—”

      “Did you happen to hear him call her by name?”

      The yuppie nodded with enthusiasm. “That’s why I don’t think that writing on his hand is a phone number.”

      “Because?” Seth prodded.

      “Because he called the woman Savannah.”

      Seth swallowed, hard. Savannah Wyatt.

      Chapter One

      Savannah Wyatt was armed for a sneak attack. Slowly, cautiously, she tiptoed across the cool wood floor, moving ever closer to her prey. Her victim didn’t flinch. Didn’t turn around in time to see her coming.

      “Gotcha!” she exclaimed as she captured the field mouse between the floor and the box. Its days of stalking her dried goods for the better part of a week were history!

      She could hear the little thing scurrying around under the box, clearly frightened and disoriented. She muttered a guilty curse and blew out a breath. The kitchen, where she had trapped the varmint, was a good twenty feet from the front door. She was less than three feet from the kitchen door, but a five-foot snowdrift blocked it. Silently, she said a few choice words about Montana in the grips of winter, none of them flattering.

      Considering her options, Savannah tried to think of a way to grant the mouse freedom without actually touching it. One of the solutions she considered was barbecue tongs, but that would mean lifting the shoe box edge high enough for the furry little monster to make an escape, so that was abandoned.

      Lifting her foot, she applied pressure, thus leaving her hands free to search for a way out of this mess.

      Catching sight of herself in the stainless steel refrigerator, she decided she looked a tad like a brunette version of the painting of George Washington crossing the Delaware River by Larry Rivers. Shaking her head, Savannah reminded herself that art and fashion were her past. Her present was the very unglamorous job of liberating Mighty Mouse.

      A knock reverberated through the two-room cabin.

      “Enter at your own risk,” Savannah called. She had stopped locking the door of the secluded cabin during the day after her first few desolate weeks in Jasper. Besides, it wasn’t as if she had lots of strangers dropping in.

      She smelled his inexpensive cologne a flash before she turned and saw Junior Baumgartner standing in the foyer, stomping snow from his boots on a rag rug designed to save the finish on the wide pine flooring from potential water damage. His balding head was covered by a navy watch cap, which was the same shade as his down parka. She smiled at him. Frederick—known only as Junior around Jasper—was a kind of friend. She worked part-time for his mother and the two of them sort of came as a package deal, in spite of the fact that Junior had to be pushing forty.

      As was his habit, he kept his eyes downcast when he spoke. “What are you doing?”

      “I was smart enough to trap a mouse but not smart enough to know how to get rid of it once I did,” she replied in a rather self-deprecating tone.

      “Want me to kill it?” Junior offered.

      “Lord, no!” she fairly shouted. “I just want to put him outside to fend for himself. Mice can live outside in this kind of weather, right?”

      Junior was about to respond when another knock sounded at the door. The sound made Junior jump nervously. Not for the first time, Savannah felt pangs of compassion for the man. Though he was a lifelong resident of the tight-knit ranching community, she seemed to be his only friend—unless you counted his sweet but overbearing parent as a friend. Savannah had learned her first day on the job that Olive was Junior’s friend, mentor, and fiercest protector. He spoke with a slight lisp and seemed incapable of making eye contact with anyone. Poor man. She wondered what made him so shy, jumpy and awkward. Possibly his mother—it seemed

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