Chapter 1
This routine was not the way she’d intended to use her almost-PhD in chemistry, but she knew her current circumstances were temporary. Once the jerk stalking her sister was behind bars where he belonged…
Something moved at the edge of her vision, a fleeting shadow, and she heard a rustling noise behind the store’s trash bin. Jules stumbled to a stop, her heartbeat tripping. A wild animal? A prowler? The wind?
“Hello?” She crept forward cautiously, dreading the necessity to pass the trash can to reach the back door of the store. She was not eager to find out what form of goblin—or rat—was lurking in the shadows. “Who’s there?”
She heard another rustle, like a plastic bag, then swallowed hard as she moved forward, staying several steps back so she could angle a look around the garbage can…
and spotted a black cat. A kitten, really.
She both exhaled in relief and felt her heart twist in sympathy, because the skinny cat, clearly a stray, had a plastic grocery sack stuck around its neck.
“You poor thing!” she cooed, edging closer.
“Have a little problem there, doncha?” She hung her purse and lunch bag straps on the knob of the back door and turned to the kitten that cowered near a corner created by the building walls.
As she inched closer, still cooing softly, the cat hissed and scuttled back until it was trapped by the brick walls. “Easy, fella. I won’t hurt you.”
She crouched low and reached for the bag, but with another loud growl and hiss, the cat bolted past her with the bag flapping behind.
After crossing the dirt lot behind the gift shop, the kitten disappeared into a field of low scrub bushes.
Jules pursued the tiny cat, searching for a hole where it had hidden or a sign of where it had gone.
After several minutes, she’d found nothing. As if the cat had vaporized.
Grumbling her frustration, she turned and went inside. She had work to do before the store opened. She couldn’t spend all day searching for a stray cat that clearly didn’t want to be found.
Once inside, she placed her lunch in the dorm-size refrigerator in the break room and started stocking the display of chips and candy.
She was always surprised how many tourists waited to buy their picnic and snack food at the overpriced gift shop rather than packing their own at home.
Every day, she sold dozens of picnic-size packs of cookies, tiny pop-top cans of tuna, chicken or ham salad and enough bottled soda to float a boat.
As she refolded all the T-shirts on the shelf and sorted them by size, she couldn’t stop thinking about the cat. Would the bag choke the poor thing to death if she didn’t help? And the kitten was so thin, you could see the starving animal’s ribs.
Sympathy plucked at her as she moved to the office and retrieved the cash for the register.
While she vacuumed the thin carpet and mopped the bathroom, her gaze drifted to the back door again and again.
Finally, exasperated with herself, she took a can of tuna from the shelf, marched outside and popped the top. “Here, kitty kitty!”
Nothing. No sign of the critter. With a grunt, she set the can on the ground and went back inside.
She could already hear automobiles on the highway and the crunch of tires on the parking lot as she turned on the neon Open sign in the front window.
The bell over the door jingled before she’d made it behind the counter.
She opened her mouth to call a greeting, but instead, the tall man who led his family inside the shop grumbled, “About time! The sign says you open at seven. It’s seven oh six. Where were you? On coffee break? Some of us value other people’s time!”
Her muscles instantly tensed. Wow. The grumps and whiners were out early this morning. A number of stinging retorts flashed through her mind, but she shoved them down, opting for a sour smile and a churlish tone. “My apologies, sir. Please forgive me.”
The man’s wife, decked out in a Grand Canyon T-shirt, Bermuda shorts and a straw sun visor, sent Jules a glare as she moved into the shop, mumbling, “So rude.”
The family’s children played with every toy in the shop, pulled the spinner off a pinwheel they didn’t buy and loudly demanded their parents buy them candy for breakfast. The wife unfolded at least a dozen shirts, looking for her size, even though the stacks were clearly marked, and Mr. Time Police griped about the price of every item he picked up.
Finally, after what seemed an eon, the family paid and left with their booty of knickknacks, trinkets and sugary treats.
Jules had no time to gather her wits and once again question why she was working with the public before a young couple, their hands clasped, entered the store.
“Good morning,” she called to the new arrivals. They ignored her.
Jules rolled her eyes and set to work refolding the T-shirts.
Sure, she could save the constant straightening in the wake of shoppers for Bonnie, her teenaged summer helper, but the busywork helped her pass the time.
As she collected the broken pinwheel left discarded on the floor, she heard what sounded like a scream outside.
The terror in the sound sent a chill down her spine, but she shook it off.
The gift shop, located a stone’s throw from Geese in Flight, the first sculpture along North Dakota’s famous Enchanted Highway, was privy to all manner of noises throughout the day, from screeching children and shouting parents, to honking horns and raucous laughter. Tourists were nothing if not noisy.
After moving back behind the checkout counter, Jules lifted her phone to check the time. Seven thirty-eight. She goggled. She felt like she’d already been in the shop for hours, but her day had barely begun.
The shop bell jangled loudly as the door was thrust open. Mr. Time Police charged into the store, his whimpering family on his heels. “Call the police! Hurry!”
Jules straightened her spine and arched an eyebrow. Before she could catch the snark, she asked, “Why? Did somebody hurt your feelings?”
“No, smart-ass!” the woman screeched, her hands flapping toward the door. “There’s a body under the sculpture! I think the man is dead!”
A frisson of alarm snaked through Jules, but she was determined not to panic until she’d confirmed the couple’s theory that the person under the sculpture was dead.
She’d heard from locals who drifted through the shop from time to time that Geese in Flight was a popular spot for teenagers to hang out and drink late at night.
She hoped what this tourist family had discovered was simply someone sleeping off a night of excessive partying.
Jules headed out to the sculpture with the squawking woman trailing behind her.
“You don’t need to look! You need to call the damn police!” the woman shouted. “We tried to call, but our phones don’t get reception out here in this miserable, godforsaken tundra!”
Jules stopped and turned to face the loud woman. “If it’s so miserable in this godforsaken tundra, why did you come here for your vacation?”
The woman blinked, puffed up with indignation, and sputtered, “Wh— I—”
Without waiting for a reply, Jules marched the final distance to the sculpture.
Her steps slowed as she neared the iconic art installation.
She could see that there was, indeed, someone sprawled at the base.
With each step, as the rising sun brightened the landscape and shone on the prostrate figure, she became acutely aware of two things.
The man’s ghostly white skin and fixed, cloudy-eyed stare left no doubt that he was dead.
And Jules had seen the man before.