CHAPTER ONE
Mackenzie Foster-Shawspotted the cemetery sign at the last minute and squeezed the brakes, spinning out the white Triumph motorcycle in a spray of dirt and gravel. She meant to lean into a sharp, controlled turn, but the back tire lost traction and she almost had to lay the thing down.
Damn. The rocks hadn’t looked that loose.
Irritation at her carelessness momentarily replaced the uncertainty ridingin with her as she sprang from the bike. After examining the chrome for chips and seeing no damage, she felt the hard lump of anticipation return, but she swallowed and tried to ignore it.
She yanked off her helmet and squinted into the shadowed interior of the cemetery. Even in the late afternoon sun, little light penetrated the heavy canopy of fir trees.
“So far, so good.” She tossed her sunglasses on the seat. But she knew better than to get her hopes up too soon. Hope didn’t pay the bills, nor did wishful thinking.
Situated on a forest access road, miles from the main highway, the cemetery was certainly ancient enough. The county register listed it as one of the oldest in the region.
How long had it been since anyone visited this place? Ages ago, probably.
She started to unzip her leather jacket, then hesitated. Like most people in the Pacific Northwest after months of gray skies and the unending wetness of winter, she didn’t need much of an excuse to strip off the layers. But with one glance at the bushes she’d need to traipse through, she zipped it back up. Those vivid green leaves couldn’t camouflage the barb-covered vines, eager to hook anything within reach. Especially bare skin. Besides, it was probably cooler and wetter inside the trees.
She grabbed her camera from the saddlebag and fiddled with the settings. The client was adamant the pictures needed to portray the ambient lighting and convey an oppressive, haunted feeling.
“Hopefully,thislocation will work for them.”
It was the fourth or fifth graveyard she’d visited in the past two weeks. If it didn’t, she was screwed because she was totally out of ideas.
Bear Creek Pioneer Cemetery was etched in once-white paint on a crooked sign at the side of the road. After shooting a few pictures, she scanned the area for a pathway and noticed a slight indentation in the underbrush. She’d do her sketches and take measurements of the road later.
Her boots crunched on the gravel as she slung the camera strap over her shoulder and plunged into the blackberry bushes. Good thing she’d kept her riding leathers on. Both the jacket and the pants. Sharp thorns and stickers grabbed hungrily at her arms and legs, but they weren’t able to gain purchase on the thick hide.
As she stepped into the small clearing, the still, dank air clung to her face. Tufts of tangled grasses crowded around the crumbling headstones in the middle of the cemetery, but at the edge, the bushes covered them completely. Oppressive? Mostdefinitely. Her stomach lurched with excitement, but again, she quickly tamped it down and got to work.
Opening the tripod, she balanced it on the uneven ground next to a stone cross. Something about it made her hesitate. The name was no longer legible, and she paused to run a finger over the weathered, rough surface. Who was buried here, gone and forgotten? A man? A woman? A child?
She must have stared a little too long because her sinuses began to itch. She wrinkled her nose, tried to sniff away the sudden heavy weight pulling at her heart, but it didn’t quite work.
Would someone wonder about her, too? What she looked like. What kind of person she was. How long from now? Months? Years, maybe? If she were lucky. But the thing was, there’d be no body in her grave.
Stop. Just stop it. Quit being so damn morbid.
Normally, she was pretty good at not thinking much about the future. Why worry about something completely out of her control? It had to be all these depressing cemeteries she’d been visiting lately.
She took a deep breath to change the unproductive air in her lungs, snapped the camera in place and exhaled, wrenching her mind back to the present where it needed to stay.
With every satisfying click of the shutter, the outside world became only what she could see through the viewfinder. The gravestones. The trees. The quiet loneliness.
When she finally stopped to examine the results, her pulse jumped like it always did when she captured something magical through the lens. They were good. Really good. Much better than the other locations. When she got to one particular image, she hesitated. The lengthening shadows stretched out over the headstones and mounds of grass like the distorted, torturedlines of Munch’s painting,The Scream,makingher spine prickle.
Or maybe it was the wind.
A slight breeze found its way into the open collar of her jacket, tickling her neck and ears, and stirring the branches of the watchful trees. She shivered and brushed her hair away from the lens.
Zombies? Dead eyes and insatiable cravings? She could totally visualize rotting hands stretching out of their graves here. Would Hollywood think so? That was the fifteen hundred dollar bonus question.
She twisted her hair up, clipped it off her neck, and dropped to the forest floor. Although it hadn’t rained, moisture lingered everywhere, and the ground smelled woodsy beneath her. She rolled over onto her back, again thankful she’d decided to keep the jacket on. A few wispy fronds of grass brushed her cheek, and she batted them away. Twisting the lens to focus on the treetops, she?—
A sound sliced through the silence of the graveyard and she froze.
A cry? A growl?
She patted her jacket pocket and felt the reassuring hard lump of her handgun.
