Capitan cutting into the morning, she knew that she, too, wanted it to be over, wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, wanted to get on with her life. Maybe to find again some of the peace she'd felt in Rogelio's Mexico.
Just before ten o'clock, she pulled the Rambler into the employee parking lot behind the Administration building. There was only one slot left. Every vehicle in the park was jammed into the usually half-empty lot. Sensing bad news, she tried to rub the grit of nine hundred miles out of her eyes. It crossed her mind to go home, face whatever it was after a bath and some sleep. But she was already here. And she wanted her mail. Taking comfort in the fact that if it were a wildland fire-and the Southwest was ablaze from the drought and dry lightning-her collarbone would prevent Paul from sending her out with one of the crews to fight it, she climbed stiffly from the car.
Christina was not at her desk. Marta looked up when Anna walked into the office. She was dressed up, almost as if for a special occasion, and she'd had her hair done. A carefully arranged look of tragedy composed her features. Anna guessed she was dying to tell the bad news. Fear dragged her quickly back into the hall. Whatever it was she didn't want to hear it from Marta Freeman.
'You've got a phone message,' Marta called after her. Anna went in, took it, shoved it in her pocket without reading it, and scurried out again without apology.
Head bent over a sheaf of papers, Christina Walters walked out of the copy room almost into Anna's arms. Relief rocked Anna back on her heels, and she realized she'd been afraid for her friend. 'Chris,' she croaked.
Christina looked up. She looked strained, tired around the eyes, but her smile was warm and welcoming.
'What's happened?' Anna was whispering. Two doors down was the conference room. The door was shut. Most of the staff was probably closeted behind it. 'What is going on?'
'Come on,' Christina whispered back. She walked down the carpeted hall. Anna followed into the small employee lunchroom and closed the door.
'Welcome home,' Christina said.
Anna sat down at the white Formica table and waited while the other woman poured two cups of coffee, gave her one, and sat down in the chair opposite. 'Big safety meeting,' Christina said. 'There's been another accident, they think.'
'Who?'
'Maybe Craig.'
Equal parts relief and guilt washed over Anna. 'What happened?'
'Remember that space alien hunt he was going to go on?'
Anna nodded.
'Well, he went. The moon had to be full for these creatures to visit or something. He went five days ago-took all his snake stuff with him. He was going to kill two birds with one stone, I guess. Anyway, he never came back. Nobody even knew he was missing till today. Yesterday and the day before were his lieu days. What with the two accidents, Corinne's afraid Region's going to land on her with both feet so she's called a safety meeting. From what Marta and I've been hearing through her office door, we're going to have to wear full body armor to type up purchase orders from now on. Everything's going to be safety first. If something's happened to Craig it'll be the third accident. Three is too many.'
'Three? Who else?'
'You.'
'Oh. Yeah.' Anna drank the coffee Christina had poured. There was already so much caffeine in her system, she doubted it would keep her awake, just add to her indigestion.
Christina eyed her narrowly. 'What? You don't think he's lost? Hurt by accident?'
Anna said nothing. Tomorrow, when she'd had some sleep, she'd think about it. The search for Craig wouldn't begin for another twenty-four hours, the usual time allotted for adults to wander back of their own accord.
'My ex is here,' Christina said suddenly. 'Erik came five days after you left. He's staying two weeks.
Anna closed her eyes, the light made them hurt. She felt a gentle touch: fingertips on the back of her wrist.
'I'm so glad you're home.'
For the first time since she'd driven in, Anna was too.
She let herself out the fire exit. If she tried the front again, she might be seen and roped into the meeting. Corinne Mathers's meetings weren't known for their brevity. With the Regional Office breathing down her neck they could become interminable. Corinne had wanted to keep the Drury case low-key, uncontroversial. Since Craig's disappearance had set the alarm bells off, Anna was willing to bet she'd change tactics, make a noisy show of taking command of the situation. For a while the name of the game at Guadalupe Mountains would be Cover Your Ass.
Home in her tiny apartment, spread catty-corner on the Murphy bed, Anna relaxed into the waiting darkness of unconsciousness. Piedmont, too warm to sleep on her, was stretched out nearby, his head on the pillow. As she drifted, Anna marveled at how much better she rested when she slept with a cat than when she slept with a man. Cats' purring was a powerful soporific.
Four hours' sleep and a shower put her back on her feet with a clear head. The afternoon would be spent nesting, settling in. So abruptly had she fled Guadalupe, dishes were still in the sink and garbage in the pail. She'd not even bothered to unpack the cardboard box of ripped and bloody clothes the hospital had sent home with her.
The hiking shorts were salvageable. The shirt was not. Her name tag was gone. Anna rescued the badge and dropped the rest into the trash. Socks went into the laundry. The boots were scraped nearly white but after a polish would be good as ever. They were tossed in the general direction of the closet.
A stone from the sole of one of the boots clung to the palm of her hand. Alison's magic rock, Anna thought. Then she remembered the little girl carefully sticking her rock to the footboard of the hospital bed. It was doubtful the Carlsbad Hospital was so meticulous about patients' belongings that they'd restuck a bit of gravel to her boot sole.
Anna plucked the stone from her palm and looked it over. It was an ordinary pebble, the kind the heavy lug of her boots picked up on most trails in the park. But this one had a whitish mark on one side. Alison had said her magic rock tasted like something. Not blessed with a four-year-old's fearless culinary tastes, Anna licked the stone gingerly.
Library paste.
Some things are never forgotten: the smell of Jade East, the feel of a man, the sound of ambulance sirens, the taste of library paste.
Anna pulled the boots out into the light, dug every particle of rock and sand and thorn out of the soles and uppers. Nothing else was out of the ordinary. Just the two magic rocks.
Cross-legged on the carpet, Anna tried to recall her fall. She had been walking down the McKittrick Ridge Trail alone. There had been nothing unusual: no sound, no smell, no movement. Suddenly, she'd stepped into mid-air, overbalanced because of her pack, and fallen. She'd managed to break her slide till a stone, dislodged by her fall, had struck her.
Dislodged by her fall.
A minute, maybe more, had passed before the rock hit her.
Stepped into mid-air. Magic rocks. Library paste. Laboriously, Anna fitted the oddments together as she pulled on the boots, threw some cheese and bread and water into a daypack, kissed an ungrateful cat, and left the apartment in as much of a mess as she had found it.
At Pratt Cabin she liberated a climbing harness and rope from the small Search and Rescue cache kept there. By late afternoon she was above Turtle Rock. Finding where she fell was more difficult than she thought it would be. In memory every foot of rock she'd crawled up was clearly etched. When she'd finally climbed free, she'd evidently relaxed, shut down. The top of the trail was a blur.
When she did find it, there was not a doubt in her mind that she was at the right place. Training binoculars on the stone below she found traces of blood marring the limestone, the iron deposit that had saved her life, and the crack-chimney she had shinnied up.
