LITMIR.BIZ

       ONE

      Wind River, Northern California

      Victoria “Tori” Peterson glanced over her right shoulder as she rowed in her kayak, enjoying the view of the Wind River as it traversed through the shadow of Mount Shasta in beautiful northern California. Sweat rose on her back and beaded at her temples. Her muscles burned with each row of the double-bladed oar, but she welcomed the pain as the kayak glided on the river.

      The exercise invigorated her. Got her heart pumping and the oxygen flowing.

      It reminded her that she was alive.

      Still, the uncanny sensation that someone was following her clung to her.

      Another glance told her that no one was behind her. No one was on the river as far as she could see in the middle of a Monday afternoon. The weekend was over and summer was ending—students were back in school.

      She was utterly alone out here. Just how she wanted it.

      This stretch of river was calm and slow and perfect for relaxing, contemplating and easing her troubled mind after the tragedy that had brought her all the way from Columbia, South Carolina. And for which she’d taken bereavement leave from her job as a special agent with the FBI.

      She shrugged off the heaviness and focused on the sound of the oar cutting through the gentle flow as the current carried her forward. She needed this moment of solitude to get her through the next few weeks. Before the river became agitated and the current too strong—before Graveyard Falls—she would urge the kayak upstream against the current and back to where she had parked her car.

      Sarah’s car, actually. The thought of her sister brought on a surge of tears.

      Focusing on the environment instead, Tori held them back and guided her bright blue kayak forward. The river twisted through the designated wilderness area and opened up into forests at the base of the mighty mountain—an inactive volcano. Mount Shasta could be seen from nearby Rainey, where she’d grown up.

      The serene setting belied the violence that had taken place along the river only a few days before. Maybe it was the weight of that memory that punctuated the brisk mountain air and the combined scent of pine, hemlock, fish and fresh water with the feeling that someone had followed her.

      Or maybe someone was really there.

      She’d only taken leave last week in order to attend the funeral and hadn’t so quickly forgotten to listen to her instincts. Still, she pushed the fears aside for the moment. Let the memories surface as she floated on the river that would eventually travel through Rainey on its way to empty into the Shasta River.

      Growing up, she and Sarah had

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