When we reached Violet’s cottage, it looked the same as it had. A thought struck me—something I’d done before and gotten Chase pissed out of his mind at me for, but too bad. It was a way to find out what we needed to find out and the only way anybody could bitch at us was if they found out.
I headed to the mailbox. Camille stared at me, a faint grin on her face, as I yanked it open and pulled out the stack of mail. It was obvious that it hadn’t been picked up for a while. I tucked it into the car, Camille locked the doors, and we headed into Violet’s backyard.
Interlaken Park was only a few yards behind the cottage, and a metal fence divided the two. But the fence was low and easy to step over. It would have been just as easy to break down, too.
I swung over it with no problem and so did Shade. But Camille, in her skirt and corset, eyed it with hesitation. It really wasn’t that tall, but she could easily catch any number of laces or hems, or one of those teetering heels on it. Shade laughed and leaned back over the fence, picking her up as easily as he might pick up a feather. He quickly deposited her on the ground next to me.
Camille laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t even think about a fence without a gate. Okay, let’s have a look around. Where’s her bedroom?” She shaded her eyes and gazed back at the cottage. I followed suit.
There—there it was, to the far left corner. And not all that far from here. It wouldn’t be hard at all to see what was going on inside the bedroom if the lights were on and the curtains open. Or if someone had night vision.
I glanced around. “You take that patch over there. Shade, go back a little farther. And I’ll look here. Check under ferns, under bushes, at the base of the trees. Look for footprints, debris—cigarette butts, food wrappers, cups, and the like. Anything that might give us a clue as to whether Violet was being spied on. If she had a stalker, she might have been abducted. And she might have been abducted at home, although Albert thinks her purse is missing.”
“If anybody wanted to rob her via her ATM cards and kidnapped her from home, they would have probably stolen other stuff too. Though her laptop is missing.” Camille shrugged. “Let’s get busy.”
As we combed the area, rain beat steadily down. Camille shrugged her capelet tightly around her shoulders and I turned up my collar. The trees offered some protection, but the drops still filtered through.
The cedars creaked in the wind, and the firs followed suit. The sky was getting progressively darker, even though it was barely past noon. The clouds banked up thick, and looming, and though the rain had been steadily pouring, thunder rumbled through the air. The ground shook with the echo of the clap, as a streak of lightning bolted through the sky, flashing so bright it blinded me for a second. I blinked, shading my eyes, and then began to hunt around. We were relatively safe here, out of the open, and if the storm got worse, we could always leave.
On the west coast of Washington State, the ground is wet most of the year. There’s almost always a layer of moisture trapped in the fallen leaves and needles that turns the trails and soil in forests to a rich mulch-like consistency, which makes—if you’re off trail—twisting an ankle fairly easy. It also creates a thick layer of loose detritus, and if you drop something, half the time it will disappear into the compost. And if you happen to drop something and not notice it . . . well . . . that’s what we were looking for.
The ground here was covered with the usual mixture of sodden leaves, dead fir, and cedar needles that had dropped to make way for new growth next spring, and a plush layer of brilliant green moss. Mushrooms were everywhere—toadstools mostly, but I recognized a chanterelle here and there. Expensive taste treats, but we weren’t here to collect wildcraft edibles.
I knelt down and began pushing the leaves aside, sifting through the mass of debris. The usual mixture of fungi, insects, and banana slugs. The latter were both cool and freaky: six-inch-long funky town mollusks that made their home up and down the west coast, eating plants, leaving a trail of slime.
A spider scuttled across my hand and I shook it away. Ever since my ordeal with the Hunters Moon Clan—a group of hobo werespiders—I tended to err on the side of caution around the eight-legged beasties, but then, before I could dwell on it, something caught my eye. A tamped-out cigarette. I had learned enough from Chase so that I didn’t immediately pick it up, but instead pulled out a plastic baggie and used that to cover my hand as I lifted the butt. No lipstick, but that didn’t mean it had to be a man. I dropped it in a second baggie, and held it up.
“Someone was here. These things don’t just put themselves out. Comb this area thoroughly.” I went back to scavenging and came up with a candy wrapper. Not for a candy bar, but for one of those expensive truffles. I added that to the bag. Then Camille let out a shout and both Shade and I hurried over.
She pointed to a footprint. It was caught in the moist dirt beneath a tree, shaded from the rain. While it was mildly eroded, it hadn’t been washed away. I knelt down, examining it and looking around the nearby area. There was another partial print right near it, half in, half out of the foliage. Enough of it showed to tell me it was the matching print, the other foot.
I frowned. “We should take a cast, I suppose.”
Camille joined me, cautiously squatting down in the mud. “What about calling Chase? He could send out a man to do that and it would be professionally done.”
I glanced at her. “We can’t. Chase would have to open an official file if we called him in and I promised Tad and Albert we wouldn’t do that. Not yet. But if I get enough quick dry cement, we can make our own.”
“I don’t know if that’s going to work—” She broke off as I pursed my lips and cocked my head. “Fine. But if we ruin the results, don’t blame me.”
Shrugging, I looked up at Shade. “I need you to run out and get us some quick dry cement. Hurry back.”
He stared at the two of us, and it was impossible to read what his thoughts were, but the next moment, he was gone and we were alone. I marked out the corners of the prints with large enough rocks to keep us from plowing through them by mistake, then Camille and I withdrew beneath the trees, trying to avoid the downpour. It was silly, we were both soaked to the bone, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
As we stood there, the park grew quiet, and I began to feel an odd sense that we were being watched. I glanced up and found myself staring toward Violet’s bedroom window. It was an easy gander from here, but then . . . how easy was here to get to from the main park trail? Could someone just out for a stroll have dropped that cigarette?
“Come on, let’s try to track his path.” The his was automatic, even though we’d faced more than one female adversary.
I looked around. The undergrowth was so thick it would be hard going except for one direction, where it looked like the fern fronds on both sides had been crushed, as if somebody had walked between them. As I followed the line of trampled fronds, with Camille behind me, it led out into an open area that looked like it was used for picnics. Beyond that, a path looked like it wound through the rest of the park. We stopped, the pelting rain soaking us even further. Camille frowned looking back.
“You can’t see her house from here,” she said.
“What?” I was busy scouting out the area, trying to assess where the voyeur may have come from.
“You can’t see her house from here. Unless somebody just happened to trample that path through the ferns, they couldn’t see Violet’s cottage from here. So either it was someone who stumbled on the area behind her house by mistake, or it was somebody who knew where she lived in relation to this area of the park.” She smiled as I realized what she was saying.