He’s almost sick on the sidewalk.

When will she stop tormenting him?

Every last one of them looks exactly like her.

21

Gretchen’s hiking boots dug into the red rocks of Camelback Mountain. She’d learned the hard way that early morning climbs were less dangerous than those made later in the day. As an expert climber, she wasn’t worried about proper dress and ways to prevent dehydration. It was the creatures of the desert that bothered her the most. One too many encounters with rattlesnakes and poisonous bugs and she’d rapidly adapted to this exotic land.

The colder the temperature, the better. Not only did she have the popular mountain all to herself, without the influx of tourists and sightseers, but the rattlers were paralyzed by the cool air. Later in the day when the temperature rose, they would be lying on the rocks, sunning themselves. That is, if the sun managed to come out today.

The snakes could appear deceptively immobile, but if warm enough to respond, they could strike like a bolt of lightning.

She shuddered at the thought of thick-skinned, deadly reptiles as she reached the summit and greeted the day. Clouds hovered over her head, giving her the impression she could reach out and touch them. She wore a lightweight waterproof jacket just in case the angrier clouds in the distance reached her before she descended.

How did so many species survive in this hostile environment? Squirrels, birds of every kind, coyotes, bobcats, jackrabbits, wild pigs, all seemed comfortable and at home in the desert.

Gretchen sat and breathed in the fresh air, absorbing the quiet.

Then she climbed back down to the halfway point where an enormous boulder overlooked the city.

Matt was already waiting for her with travel mugs.

“Coffee?” He flashed the smile that had charmed her from the very moment she met him. And he wore the Chrome cologne that she loved so much.

She took the cup he offered and sat down on the boulder beside him.

“You look tired,” she said.

“I have to work twenty-four hours a day to keep you out of trouble. Every time I arrive at a crime scene, there you are.”

“Are you blaming me for all your problems?”

“Absolutely. But you’re worth keeping in spite of the extra effort.”

“Thanks.”

They watched the Phoenix morning unfold below them and sipped coffee. Their relationship had reached a new level. They could be in each other’s company without feeling like they had to talk every minute. Gretchen found it comforting.

She also felt a drop of water.

“It’s starting to rain,” Matt observed, but he didn’t move from beside her.

“You’re in the right field of work, Sherlock,” Gretchen said, teasing, “But you still haven’t learned how to dress to climb mountains. Where’s your rain gear?”

Matt wore khaki shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. “Rain gear in Phoenix?” he said. “We rarely need foul-weather gear.”

“Right.” Gretchen raised her face into the soft rain. “Have you found out anything about the skeleton?”

“The victim was a woman, probably about sixty years old. Dental records aren’t going to be helpful since we don’t have a head to work with, which also rules out our ability to forensically reconstruct the victim’s facial features. Identifying the remains is going to be tricky. Our team worked through the night querying missing person databases and lining up forensics experts. The department doesn’t have its own internal resources to handle the complexity of identifying the corpse without requesting additional assistance. What we really need first is a forensic anthropologist to date the remains.”

“Sounds more complicated than I imagined,” Gretchen said.

“The days of pounding the pavement for information are almost over. I spend most of my time at a keyboard. It’s raining harder by the way.”

Gretchen didn’t move. This moment alone with him on the mountain was too precious to give up willingly. “Finding the skeletal remains of a human didn’t really bother me as much as I thought it would. I’ve seen enough cadavers in textbooks, and I took anatomy in college, so I can even identify most of the bones in a human body.”

“The missing head did it, right?”

Gretchen snuggled a little closer on the boulder. “The lack of a head, yes. And the headless doll body disturbed me as much as the actual headless skeleton.”

She shivered. “It has to be Flora Swilling’s body. Did you see the photograph of the girl holding a doll? It’s the same cloth doll body. I’m sure of it.”

“It could be, but we can’t work from intuition like you do. I have to prove it with concrete facts. Flora Swilling married a man named Berringer. The husband died in the sixties of heart failure. I went through old missing person reports and found something interesting: In 1981, almost twenty years after her husband died, Flora Berringer disappeared. She was never heard from again.”

Gretchen jumped up, excited. Nina had been right all along about the identification of their ghost. “You know we’ve found her!”

“We still need to make a proper identification, but for now, yes, I think you stumbled across what’s left of Flora Berringer.”

Gretchen felt as though she’d accomplished something big, something really worthwhile. She’d put together one more piece of a puzzle, as grisly as it was. Now the police would study Flora’s history, search her background, and catch her killer after all these years.

“I want to help,” Gretchen said as they started down the mountain. “I felt a connection to her from the moment I saw that old photograph.”

“Now you sound like your aunt.”

“If what I saw last night is all that remains of that woman, I want to help catch the person responsible.”

“That’s my job.”

“We can solve a cold case together.”

“Oh, wouldn’t that be fun.”

“I knew that’s what you’d say.”

They had reached the trailhead. Matt’s car was the only one in the parking area. They ducked into it just as the sky gave way. Rain beat on the windshield. Matt didn’t make any attempt to start the car.

“Are you keeping quiet about the words on the headstone?” Gretchen asked.

“Yes, didn’t Caroline tell you?”

“No, she must have forgotten.”

So her mother wouldn’t have told anyone. And Gretchen hadn’t, which meant that the note on her windshield hadn’t been left as a bad practical joke because no one knew about it.

“About the museum, Gretchen. You can’t go back to it,” Matt said.

“Of course I can.”

“Let me rephrase that. The house has been officially sealed until we go through every box in the place and I’m satisfied that there’s nothing left to find.”

“When will you be finished?”

“In a few days. We’re going to move quickly on this one. In the meantime, please be careful. Stay close to your family. Stay out of dark places. Make sure you’re locked in securely at night.”

There the warnings were again. All the rules that women were forced to live by. What must it be like to be a man, to be able to live without all the fear?

“I mean it, Gretchen,” Matt said. “Put the project on hold. Stay home and work on your business.”

He’d never leave her alone if he knew about the note. He’d only worry more. And what could he do about it? But she had to tell him.

Matt reached into the backseat. “I almost forgot. I fished this out of your mother’s car before it was towed. You’ll give it to her?”

Gretchen took the shopping bag and peeked inside. She withdrew a white plastic bag and started to open it.

“Whoa,” Matt said. “You aren’t going to open that, are you? What if it’s, you know?”

“Oh, right.” Gretchen put the plastic bag back inside. “Doll stuff.” He wouldn’t like that.

“So,” she said after a moment, “we aren’t going to be partners?”