The Mortal Falls

by Anna Durand

  He looked up, but his shoulders slumped. "Alas, I don't always do as I should."

  "Don't you feel anything?"

  "This has nothing to do with emotions." He rubbed my hair between his thumb and forefinger, his attention riveted to the lock. "But to answer your question, I do feel. More than I should, in fact."

  I craned my neck to scrutinize him across the six-inch gap in our heights. A tightening around his eyes, coupled with a falter in his smile, led me to believe — or maybe hope — he did feel. He bent his head to peer at me. Those eyes. They smoldered from within. Shades of gold, bronze, and silver swirled inside the irises. No one's eyes swirled. But heaven almighty, his did.

  He dropped my hair. "Have ye lost the power of speech, love?"

  "N-no. Why?"

  His tone rife with amusement, he asked, "Don't ye ever speak a declarative sentence?"

  I snapped my spine straight, glared into his supernatural eyes, and said, "You're an obnoxious twit. How's that for declarative?"

  "You astound me with your charm and slay me with your wit."

  Slay. The word plucked me out of this bizarre conversation and back to the reality of why I'd pursued this man in the first place. Someone was dead. My damn intuition, or whatever it was, refused to let me believe he had killed the shoplifter, but I must get an answer from him. A concrete, rational answer. "Did you kill him?"

  The arrogance flooded out of the stranger's expression. His lips angled downward in a slight frown. "Kill him? Oh, you mean the poor fellow out there."

  He tipped his head back and to the side, indicating the trail through the woods.

  "Yeah," I said. "I mean the guy with his head bashed in. The one lying dead at the scene you fled from — which is a crime, by the way."

  At least I thought it was. I didn't know for sure, but the statement sounded good.

  "I'm not bound by your rules."

  "They aren't my rules. It's the law."

  "Not my law." He jerked his head, glancing past me, past the tree. I listened, but my ears detected nothing except the soft rumble of the falls and the thudding of my own heart. His gaze shifted to the water. "I wish I could assist you, but I'm afraid I must go."

  "You can't. We have to call the police."

  He pushed away from the tree. "Sorry, darlin'. Can't help ye with that."

  "You must've seen something."

  He shrugged, his shoulders flexing. "I saw what you saw, nothing more."

  "You have to stick around and tell the police your story."

  Humor glinted in his eyes and his lips twitched into a half-repressed smirk. "My presence would do nothing to help the situation. Take my word on that."

  Well, he did have a point. A half-naked man with freaky eyes corroborating my story probably wouldn't console the sheriff. Oh hell, given my relationship with the sheriff, he'd slap cuffs on me for being in the vicinity of trees, never mind my stumbling onto a corpse.

  The stranger swung his head to the left, diving his face into my hair, and inhaled deeply. Sniffing my hair? What the hell? I slapped my palms on his chest and shoved. He didn't budge. I pushed harder, but I might as well have wrestled with a giant redwood.

  He lifted his head, eyes clouding with confusion. "How odd. I thought it was your hair, but it isn't. You smell of — I must've imagined it."

  "I don't understand a word you've said."

  He fingered my hair, then withdrew his hand. "At least I succeeded in distracting you from the poor dead fellow."

  The stranger pulled back and opened one palm. A flower appeared there, as if by magic. A daylily, its white petals blushed with pink. His other hand spread open, revealing my gun balanced on his palm. He pressed the derringer into my hand and curled my fingers around it. "Thought ye might like to have this."

  I stared at him. "Uh… yeah."

  He tucked the flower behind my ear, planted a kiss on my forehead, hopped back a step, and vanished.

  A gasp burst out of me. He hadn't scampered away, or even flown up into the sky. He had vanished. Poof. Gone before I could blink. A dream? A hallucination?

  Great. I was insane.

  I tossed the flower on the ground and blazed down the trail, back toward the shop. Where the path forked, heading off into the woods, I halted. A chill sprouted in my chest. It branched out until the tendrils invaded every cell in in body. I swiveled my head — and gasped again.

  The dead man had vanished.

  3

  A coppery odor blustered over me on the wind as I crouched over the blood stain. I gagged and coughed, one hand flying up to cover my nose and mouth. My brain refused to process anything I'd experienced since leaving the shop. I squeezed my eyes shut, took long breaths until my ears stopped ringing, and stared at the stain again. The blood proved a corpse had rested here. I hadn't imagined it.

  Well, it proved something bled here.

  I'd touched the body. Now it had vanished, or been moved. Without a witness to corroborate my story, no one would buy it. I had to report it anyway. Suck it up, Lindsey.

  Holstering the derringer inside my waistband, I spotted my phone on the ground where I'd dropped it and snatched it up.

  Sirens wailed, muted as if far away. I knew the woods could swallow sounds, tricking the ear into believing the source lay distant. The cops might've been coming for me, or they might be rushing somewhere else, called out on another matter. I punched 9-1-1 into my phone.

  The crack of a twig snapping reverberated off the trees. Someone was coming.

  My went dry. I pulled in a breath, counting to ten as I released it. A tourist, that's who approached from down the trail. A goofball intent on visiting the vortex.

  The breeze kissed my face. A familiar scent teased my senses. Earth and thunderstorms — and blood.

  I bit down hard on my lower lip. A salty, metallic flavor seeped onto my tongue and I ran my finger across my lip. Blood slicked my fingertip. Great. I really would have blood on my hands when the sheriff arrived. I licked it off, wiped my hands on my jeans, and flipped my phone open.

  Darkness draped over me. I hesitated, my finger hovering over the keys.

  "What the blazes are you doing?"

  The gruff voice arrowed straight into my chest. I jerked my head up, yet even before my eyes met his, I knew whose face I'd see. My heart pounded against my ribs, the air froze in my lungs, and every muscle in my body turned rigid. I clapped the phone shut.

  Sheriff Travis Blackwell towered over me from several feet away, the apex of his shadow engulfing me. The sunlight imbued his dirty blond hair with a harsh glint, like tarnished gold. When he planted his hands on his hips, the dark brown shirt of his uniform stretched taut over his broad shoulders and chest. His tan pants mirrored the color of the dry earth. In one sinewy hand, he held a black box by its handle.

  "Were you planning on calling me?" His Texas drawl reshaped the words.

  I stretched my neck back to meet his gaze. He squinted his slate-gray eyes at me, head listing to the side, lips compressed. Sunlight glanced off his badge, spearing my eyes. My brain struggled to form coherent thoughts, but my words emerged in disjointed clumps. "Yes. I was. Going to report. Uh, what happened."

  "Somebody beat you to it."

  One of his deputies raced up behind him. Kal Ruoho was breathing hard, his face red.

  "Get back to the shop," Travis told him, setting his black box on the ground. "Interview the staff."

  The staff consisted of me, Stan, and Stan's brittle wife who filled in on my days off. Travis knew this, yet he made it sound like his deputy would have a passel of employees to question.

  Kal trotted back toward the shop.

  Travis settled a hand on the gun strapped to his belt. "Who'd you kill this time, Lindsey?"

  Anger seared through me, evaporating my anxiety. Travis must've had magical po
wers, the way he always turned up at the worst moments in my life. But how in the fires of damnation did he hear about the body?

  I heaved myself to my feet and, hands on hips, drummed my fingers. "What are you doing here?"

  His mouth twitched downward. His Texas twang thickened a little when he said, "My oh my, ain't this the highlight of my day. Seeing the sweetheart of Mandan County."

  Though I didn't overlook the sarcasm in his tone, I did let it go this time. After all, I'd torn him away from the rampant crime in the tiny village of Lutin Falls, the county seat ten miles from here, where right now someone was probably stepping on an endangered wildflower. "Why are you here?"

  He slanted his head and rolled his eyes toward the ground. The blood stain. Right. "I assume that's the alleged crime scene."

  "It's not alleged. I saw the body." How he knew about it mystified me. "Who called you?"

  "Anonymous tip. The caller said you killed a man. That true?"

  "Of course not."

  "Not like it'd be the first time."

  He locked his burly arms over his chest, tilting forward just enough to project menace. I stiffened. Tried not to, but this man had a way of triggering my fight-or-flight instinct. My stomach churned and the sourness of bile rose into my mouth. Dammit. I'd sworn Travis would never intimidate me again.

  Yeah. How many times had I vowed that? Ten, twenty, a million?

  "The better question," he said, "is why didn't you call it in?"

  He shifted his weight. The .40-caliber Sig Sauer strapped to his hip bounced. I scratched my arm and stared at the white bark peeling away from a birch tree, but my gaze drifted back to the sheriff.

  Travis cleared his throat, scowling. "Well? What's your excuse this time, Porter?"

  I ground my teeth. Travis had used my last name, like he was interrogating a damn suspect. I cranked my face into a glower of my own. "I don't need an excuse. As usual, I've done nothing wrong." I jabbed a finger toward the blood stain. "I found a dead body there."

  He quirked an eyebrow. "An invisible dead body?"

  "No. Someone took it."

  "Who? The corpse fairy?" His lips contorted, as if he struggled not to laugh. "How much cash you get for tucking a dead body under your pillow?"

  Jackass. I choked down the word and said, "I left for a minute and when I came back, it was gone."

  "Where in tarnation did you go?"

  Aw hell. I ransacked my brain for an explanation, because no way could I tell him the truth. I hugged myself and fixated on the birch tree again.

  "Spit it out," he said.

  "Um, I… " Took off after a half-naked man I thought might've been the murderer, but he vanished, and then he came back and sniffed my hair. You understand, right? Sure, I'd say that. A straitjacket might flatter my figure. "I thought I saw someone fleeing the scene."

  Good. That almost made sense.

  He scrutinized me, squinting again. "Hmmm."

  I dropped my arms and huffed a breath out my nose. "What do you mean hmmm?"

  "Your story sounds like a load of horse shit." He narrowed his eyes. "Ain't like this is the first time I found you standing over a blood stain yammering about a disappearing victim."

  My nerves bristled, as if he'd scraped a stiff brush up my spine. "There was a body, goddammit."

  His expression blanked. His eyes widened, though only for a second. My glacial tone had shocked me too. Though he tried to frown, his eyes crinkled with a repressed smile. "The ice princess returns. Or maybe she never left, huh?"

  The wind rustled the trees and the aspen leaves sizzled with a phantom fire. My hair feathered across my face, tickling my nose. I sneezed.

  "Gesundheit," Travis said.

  "Thanks." Why on earth was he being polite, I wondered, but discarded the thought. "Can I go, please? I have a job, you know."

  He lodged one hand on his cocked hip. "I see a dark patch over there that might be trace evidence. I got a tip there was a murder committed and I find you admiring the crime scene."

  A viscous chill oozed over my skin. I can't go through this again, please no.

  "Listen up, Porter. Things'll go a lot easier on you if you tell me what you did with the body."

  "You really think I could drag a body off by myself?"

  He shrugged one shoulder. "Maybe you got an accomplice. Or maybe you planted some fake blood here and called in the tip yourself, just to rile me up. The caller had a funny voice that coulda been a man or a woman."

  "Don't be ridiculous. There was a body."

  "Nobody but you saw the alleged victim."

  I clenched my teeth so hard pangs jolted through my jaw. "The body was real. I can't help that no one else noticed the man bleeding to death on the trail."

  Travis blew out a breath, his cheeks swelling and deflating. "That's all you got for me?"

  "Yes."

  "All right then." He whipped a pair of handcuffs from his belt. "I'm taking you in for questioning."

  I shuffled backward two steps, checking left and right for an escape route. The trail led to the falls or back to the shop, and tearing off into the woods without a map or GPS terrified me more than a jail cell.

  "I got no choice," Travis said, and sounded almost sorry about it. "See, I know you're not telling me everything. There's been a report of a death, so I gotta take some action."

  The handcuffs glittered in the sunlight.

  I flicked a finger toward them. "Are the cuffs necessary?"

  "No, but it's more fun for me this way."

  "You're a bastard."

  His scowl slackened into a blank expression, his lips parting. His gaze zeroed in on a sight beyond my shoulder.

  "Perhaps I can be of assistance," a cheerful Irish voice said.

  My heart skipped. Anticipation chased across my skin. Him.

  The stranger who'd sniffed my hair traipsed out of the woods behind me to halt at my side. His hand brushed against my wrist. A tingle coursed up my arm and outward into my body, suffusing me with his warmth. The scent of him enveloped me and every hair on my body prickled with awareness. I resisted the urge to glance at him. My strange, bronzed god.

  Not that he was mine. We weren't… anything to each other. I didn't even like the guy, really. But I itched to peek at him, and so I risked a sideways glimpse. I choked on a breath. Instead of a loincloth, jeans and a cotton dress shirt cloaked his chiseled frame. The sun glistened on his dark hair, swept back into a conservative style. He winked at me.

  Was I still hallucinating? Part of me prayed I was, since that would make the dead body a figment of my mind too.

  The stranger slipped his right arm around my waist. His hand bumped my gun and he ran his middle finger around the outline. His touch teased my skin through the fabric of my shirt. He drew me close, tucking me into the crook of his shoulder. Though I tried to wriggle free, but he kept his arm around me in a hold more supportive than threatening, as if we were intimately familiar with each other.

  I flitted my gaze from the stranger to Travis. Wait a minute. Travis saw the other man. My Tarzan fantasy was real? Relief sluiced through me, but panic swept in behind it. There was, after all, the minor matter of the wayward corpse.

  His fingers moved over my hip in a light circles. Real. I wasn't totally insane, at least.

  Travis eyed my new friend with his best policeman glare. "Who are you?"

  "Nevan. And you?"

  "Sheriff Travis Blackwell. You got a last name, buddy?"

  "I demand to know why you are threatening Lindsey."

  Nevan knew my name? Duh, he must've overheard Travis using it. I poked Nevan with my elbow and muttered under my breath, "Shut up and let me go. I can handle this."

  He ignored me and spoke to Travis. "While you've been harassing my Lindsey, I've been searching for the body."
<
br />   Travis's gaze bored into me for a few seconds, then he squinted at Nevan. "You saw the alleged victim?"

  "Indeed," Nevan said. "I saw the poor dead fellow. Lindsey's telling the truth about that."

  Travis swung his attention back to me. "Is she now."

  "Absolutely," Nevan said.

  "Did you see an individual fleeing the scene?"

  "I did."

  Travis rammed his tongue into his cheek. His gaze never vacillated from me, though he aimed his words at Nevan. "Can you describe the suspect?"

  "Not really. We saw the back of him, nothing more."

  "Uh-huh. And what happened to the body?"

  "Not a clue," Nevan said, his expression overflowing with innocence.

  Travis glowered at him with such ferocity I expected flames to shoot out of the sheriff's eyes. Nevan matched Travis's eye contact with unwavering intensity, yet managed to hold onto his look of utter innocence.

  I waved my hand between the men's faces. When Travis rotated his eyes toward me, I asked, "Are we done here?"

  "Hardly," Travis said. "You're still a suspect."

  "I didn't do anything."

  "Gotta take you in for questioning. None of this adds up and I want some frigging answers. From both of you."

  My mystery man bounced on his heels, jostling me against his firm torso. My stomach fluttered, but I coerced a calm demeanor from my traitorous body. His voice took on a decisive edge, though somehow he imbued his words with politeness. "Lindsey has answered enough of your questions."

  Travis curled his lip at Nevan.

  I jabbed a finger in Nevan's side. He either didn't notice or didn't care. I poked him again and hissed out the side of my mouth, "Cut it out. You're not helping."

  He ignored me. Again.

  Travis crouched beside the blood stain. He cracked open the black box he'd brought, which held plastic bags and other equipment.

  I rose onto tiptoes for a better angle. "What are you doing?"

  "Collecting evidence." He donned a pair of latex gloves and set about his work. When he'd finished gathering a sample of the blood-soaked dirt, he closed up his kit and rose. "No tire tracks or drag marks, no footprints other than yours."