Something Bruce had said that last day had been bothering her. What was it? Something having to do with not dying in vain. She had thought that he meant Reeve. But after the dream, she wasn’t so sure. On impulse, she had requested all of Pete’s published stories. But now that they were here, she felt less sure of what to do with them.
Cassidy pulled the blanket from the easy chair and draped it around her, and then she sat down on the couch with the manila envelope in her lap. The big window looking over her neglected lawn and the single tree extending into the night sky reflected her image. Her long braid draped over her shoulder, the wispy hairs at her forehead loose about her face. What would the papers inside the envelope tell her? She rubbed its yellow surface. The idea of revisiting what had been in Pete’s heart and mind, looking for something she could barely sense let alone understand pulled at her like an intoxicating puzzle.
What if there was a connection between Pete’s work and his death? Cassidy looked away from her image in the window, unable to banish the vision of Mel and Pete engaged in a motorcycle chase on a foggy night. Even though she knew this was impossible, the image had been a frequent visitor in her nightmares. Pete died because he was driving too fast on an unfamiliar road in bad weather, she told herself.
Cassidy put the envelope aside and walked to her desk. Inside her filing cabinet, where she kept records of everything, she pulled out the file marked Costa Rica. After spreading the file open on her desk, she sifted through the receipts and notes she had made while hunting down supplies in San José. There was even a brochure on the Hot Springs Resort near Arenal. Bruce’s card was underneath all of this, a simple phone number, and she pulled it out, the crisp corners poking her fingertips.
If she was going to start this, she couldn’t do it alone. She flipped Bruce’s card over and over in her fingers, thinking about the way he’d looked at her in the SUV in Liberia.
Cassidy returned to the couch with her cell phone, and dialed.
THE END
Meet Me on the Mountain Book 2 in the Cassidy Kincaid Series
Copyright © 2018 by Amy Waeschle. All rights reserved.
Published by: Savage Creek Press
Genre: Adult Women’s Fiction.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. While as in all fiction, the literary perceptions and insights are based on experience, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.
Editor:Melaine Austin
Cover Photograph: Breslavtsev Oleg (top), Janfillem (Bottom)
Cover & Interior Design: Fusion Creative Works
Published by Savage Creek Press
For my brother
One
Mount St. Helens, Washington
October 21, 2014, 5:11 a.m.
Cassidy Kincaid blew on her cold fingers and checked the clock on the dashboard again. I’ll wait four more minutes, she thought. She reviewed her phone conversation with Peter O’Dea, the journalist who had practically begged to volunteer as her field assistant today: yes, he had agreed to meet at 5:00 a.m., yes, he knew the name of the grocery store (the only one in Randall, Washington), and, yes, he understood that with the day’s ambitious to-do list, she couldn’t afford to waste a single minute of daylight.
Even though their meeting was far from anything resembling a date, she couldn’t help but wonder if she was being stood up. It wouldn’t be the first time. No matter how hard she tried to push the thought away, it crept in, settling into her gut. Irritated, she turned the ignition key and the Suburban’s engine roared to life.
Looking back on this day years later, she would be amazed at how easily her beaten-down heart and stubbornness dominated her thinking. If she had left only a moment sooner, she and Pete may have met on different terms. Though whether this idea would soften the blow of the tragedy that befell she would never know.
Just as Cassidy had put the rig in gear, a set of headlight beams approached. A dented, blue Volkswagen Jetta entered the parking lot and coasted to a stop next to her. The window rolled down to reveal a clean-shaven man in his late twenties or early thirties with sandy brown hair. He wore a flannel shirt and navy blue down vest. From a hole in his seat’s upholstery, clumps of yellow stuffing bloomed like fungus.
“Cassidy?” he said.
She gave him a nod.
In the low light she couldn’t determine if his eyes were grey or blue, but the humble, earnest way they connected with hers quelled her frustration in an instant.
“Hi, sorry to keep you waiting. I had—”
“You can park over there,” Cassidy interrupted, indicating a line of empty parking spaces to the left of the store entrance. “We should get going.”
“Sure,” Pete said.
Moments later he had jumped into the University of Washington field vehicle and stored his backpack between his feet. Thankfully, his hiking boots looked seasoned.
“Coffee?” he asked, sliding a thermos from the side pouch of his backpack as Cassidy pulled out of the parking lot.
Cassidy blinked in surprise. “Sure,” she replied.
A moment later he handed her the lid of the thermos filled with steaming coffee. “Thanks again for letting me tag along today,” he said.
Cassidy sipped the coffee, which was wonderfully strong. “You promised to be useful,” she said, raising an eyebrow.
They talked about how her project studying seismic data from several different volcanoes around
