Downpour

around in tiny fury while we ignored her. “Sweetheart, your slings and arrows are always going to be mine, too. It would be that way even if you were just an ordinary person with an ordinary job. I love you, and that goes with the territory. What if it were me? What if it were my crazy job that hurt and raged and flung us against the rocks? Would you want to not know, to not help me get through it?”

“No!” I replied, outraged that he’d even ask.

“It’s safer,” he offered. “It doesn’t hurt so much. . . .”

“I don’t care about that. People have hurt me, knocked me down, dragged me down, torn me up long before I ever met a monster or a ghost or a lake full of magic. I can manage that. I can manage to keep getting up when it’s just me who’s been knocked down. But when it’s you, I—”

He put his fingers across my mouth. “You don’t have to pick me up. I’ll get up on my own. Right next to you. Every time.”

“Every time?”

“Yep.”

“Even if I have trouble getting up? Even if it hurts so bad you don’t even want to?”

“Even if.” He kissed my nose. “Because you’d do the same for me.”

I blinked at him and a tickle of joy expanded inside me, pushing happy tears over my lashes. “Yes, I would,” I replied. “Even if.”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I seem to take liberties with real places. In this case, although Lake Crescent, Lake Sutherland, and the surrounding areas and landmarks do in fact exist exactly as and where I described them in the text, they never were referred to as “Sunset Lakes” or “Blood Lake.” I made up these nicknames to serve my story. And the houses at East Beach and Devil’s Punch Bowl that I described do not—and never have—existed.

The town of Beaver, with its “Tragedy Graveyard,” is real, and so is the fire that destroyed the Sol Duc Hot Springs resort in 1916 while the automatic organ in the ballroom played Beethoven’s Funeral March endlessly until it, too, burned to the ground.

As fantastic as it sounds, the story of Hallie Latham Illingworth and her death and bizarre reappearance is also true. Strangely enough, I discovered that I had a glancing connection to the story of Hallie: Her murderous husband was arrested in Long Beach, California, which is where I attended college and where I first heard about —but dismissed as too weird—the arrest and trial of Monty Illingworth. So you never can tell what will turn out to be of use—save those newspaper clippings!

I culled a lot of my background history from the archives of the Clallam County Historical Society. Alas, some of the most interesting bits of Clallam County history didn’t fit in the tale I was trying to tell—the full story of Anna Petrovna, for instance, or the real-life horrors of Starvation Heights—so I guess I’ll have to save them for another book. I owe the ladies in the archive endless thanks for their time, patience, and tales—including some about the ghostly orbs that are occasionally seen floating through their own haunted school building.

I also took huge liberties with the investigation of crimes on federal park property and with the administrative structure of the park service in the interest of both a better story and a lot less faffing about with details that would make the story needlessly complicated. I hope the park and forestry services will forgive me. On the other hand, Clallam County does have a renowned K-9 investigative unit that has often worked closely with the Canadian authorities. Also, the “floating feet” is a true story. And the rangers at Hurricane Ridge were quite friendly and have no idea how I abused their very nice visitor’s center with bears and demons. If they knew what I was planning, they probably wouldn’t have let me in. If you visit Olympic National Park, be sure to drop in and check out the place.

If you have noticed that some things about this story seem a little familiar, they probably are. I leaned heavily on Dashiell Hammett’s book Red Harvest for the basic plot structure—which he stole from previous authors, so I figured he couldn’t complain, not least of all because he’s been dead for quite a while.

I suspect I got a lot of details about hoodoo, Voodoo, Chinese demons, and geology wrong, since I am not an expert and become a gifted amateur only for a limited time during the writing of these books. I also have used the names of real people with their permission, but the characters I’ve created around them have no relationship to, nor are they meant as reflections or comments on, any real people, living or dead. Whatever I got wrong, wherever I went astray, it was an honest mistake and not an act of malice or the fault of those who gave me help, advice, or coffee.

Also by Kat Richardson

GREYWALKER

POLTERGEIST

UNDERGROUND

VANISHED

LABYRINTH

ANTHOLOGIES

MEAN STREETS

(WITH JIM BUTCHER, SIMON R. GREEN, AND THOMAS E. SNIEGOSKI)