“How did you find out about Hillvale?” Sam asked Dinah the next morning on the fourth day of her new life. She wiped down the counter as her employer re-filled the pastry shelves. “Is the area well known in circles I don’t belong to?”

Dinah laughed. “The whole point of Hillvale is that no one knows of it except those wealthy enough to stay at the lodge. You tell someone you’re packing up and leaving for New Orleans, they know right where to find you. You tell them you’re going to Hillvale, and it could be anywhere.”

“That’s going to change,” the big blond guy in the tailored suit at the end of the counter corrected.

Grumpy Gump, the real estate mogul. Dinah elbowed her, and Sam remembered no one talked to him. But she needed information.

“Why is that?” Sam asked, taking money from a customer at the register.

“When you have a lot of wealthy people congregating, like in Vail or Jackson Hole, people hear about it. Once we get the condos built and the ski lift in, we’re going to be the next Vail.” Golden Boy wiped his mouth with a napkin.

Dinah snorted and slammed back into the kitchen. Sam could see why. A ski lift in this tranquil town?

“I’ve lived a sheltered life,” she said, closing the register. “Explain why I should know about Vail if I’m not a skier?”

“If you want to make money, you go where the money is,” he said as if to a simpleton.

“Ah, and the people who currently live here do so because they don’t want to make money. They want quiet lives to be themselves in an area they can afford. Got it.” Sam smiled and abandoned the real estate mogul to wait on a customer.

He glared, left his money on the counter, and slammed out the door.

She wasn’t very good at this interrogation bit. She hadn’t learned a thing this morning but managed to irritate a rich customer. She almost looked up in relief when Walker blew in, looking crisp in a fresh uniform, his dark hair recently washed and slicked back.

“Any chance you can get away for an hour or two?” he asked gruffly, studying the breakfast crowd.

Dinah immediately reappeared. “Why you ask?”

Obviously understanding that every ear in the place listened, he leaned on the counter and replied in a low voice. “Because Val has turned banshee, and I need a translator.”

Dinah looked somber and yanked at Sam’s apron strings. “Go, girl. Mariah will come in to take your place.”

“Why can’t Mariah translate? I don’t know Val,” Sam protested.

“’Cause, just ’cause. Go.”

“I think I’m here to be the town stooge,” Sam grumbled as she followed the deputy out. “Everyone knows more than I do. Explain why Mariah can’t do this. What am I supposed to translate? Do I know a foreign language?”

“Mariah sent me to get you.” Walker opened the door of his official vehicle and let her in the passenger seat. “My psychic guessing powers say the Lucys need you for reasons only they understand. Maybe you’re some kind of trigger that makes them logical.”

Sam almost laughed. “That’s not happening. What do you mean about Val turning banshee?”

“She’s way above the Menendez land wailing like a wounded catamount. Her usual tribe is refusing to climb past the skeleton site and demanding that I fetch you. You are the only rational person any of us know, apparently.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Sam watched the cultivated landscape of the resort pass by. Once they drove through the lodge’s parking lot, Walker turned up a gravel road that deteriorated to ruts.

“Old timber road. The Menendez family may own land up here, but they’ve never built any other entry. They’ve apparently claimed some right of way that the Kennedys have paved over. Rather than argue, both families share access. It’s not as if any of them comes up here more than twice a year.”

“So, applying my psychic guessing powers, the Menendez family probably does own the right of way or the Kennedys would have put up gates and locks. I wonder if I’m really this cynical or if not knowing who I am has changed me?”

Walker shot her an admiring glance that tingled her spine and heated her cheeks. Sam glanced out the window so he couldn’t see.

“If you’re smart now, you were smart before. And I don’t think you learned about people in a couple of days at a café. You may be feeling comfortable mouthing off here where no one knows you, but that’s the best I can offer.”

“Stripped of my façade, I’ve become my real self?” she asked with a laugh, until Walker stopped the car and bent to look out the windshield.

She did the same. Up on a rock formation taller than the vehicle was a familiar scarecrow draped in black rags. Someone needed to buy Val some new clothes. Might be hard to replace the long black veil though.

Her mournful operatic cry had silenced even the crows.

“I trust I’m not supposed to translate wailing?” Sam asked dubiously.

“When the Lucys told me she was up here, I tried talking with her. She rattled on about crows and gravestones and the past returning to haunt us.” Walker looked more concerned than angry at Val’s descent into madness. They both knew she could speak normally when she chose.

“I doubt I can translate symbolism either. Why don’t you go back down and pick up whichever Lucys are most lucid? If they don’t want to make that climb up to Val, I can. I’ll see what I can get, then come back down and maybe they can translate.”

“Tried that,” Walker said gloomily. “They refuse to walk on evil. You want to start with translating that?”

“Not touching it,” Sam said fervently. “I haven’t defined evil yet either. So okay, that’s why Mariah isn’t up here. The Lucys find something about this area evil and are fearful of polluting their so-called powers with it. I can almost understand that.”

“That’s more than I can do. Want me to help you up there?”

“I have no idea. Unless I led a really secluded life, though, I’m guessing I spent a good amount of time scrambling around rocks. What else is there to do in Utah?” Sam got out without waiting for Walker to open the door. “I don’t like snakes,” she added, watching for slithery creatures in the rocks. Apparently primal fears were more memorable than whether she took cream in her coffee.

As she located footholds in the craggy boulders, Walker got out to keep an eye on her. She hoped his radio signal worked so he could call an ambulance if needed. She was wearing well-padded athletic shoes, but they weren’t boots by any means.

She didn’t feel comfortable on this side of the valley, as she had over by the cemetery. The morning fog still lingered, making it damp and cool. And the earth. . . just didn’t feel as welcoming. There was a sharp—oily?—quality that made her think of clammy caves and old bones. Was that weird? Maybe not, if the Lucys sensed it.

Val’s keening lessened as Sam climbed. She could almost talk over the racket once she got close.

“Are you in pain?” Sam asked, taking a seat on a flat rock near Val’s feet.

“The universe cries in pain at the injustice,” Val keened in a wail that at least contained words.

“That’s not news. What injustice brought you up here today?” The rock was cold, and Uneasiness quivered in her middle. She didn’t much like this setting. At this early hour, chilly wind blew in from the coast, lifting the hair off the back of her neck.

“They kill, they kill without punishment! They litter the mountain with bodies, and the gods cry out for justice. Look at the crows—five! First there were four, now there are five! The mountain weeps.”

“So, the new crow means someone died out here last night?” Sam asked, using her wildly imaginative psychic power of guessing.

“Evil seeks evil,” Val said mournfully.

“Is the evil nearby?” So much for psychic guessing. She was starting to feel as if she were the insane person, sitting here tempting snakes while talking to a banshee.

Sam glanced down at Walker. He leaned against the hood of the car, arms crossed, keeping a sharp eye on them. She hoped he wasn’t expecting Val to attack her.

Val pointed a long bony finger. “There. They dumped him there. The animals have already found him.”

Sam’s blood curdled. She followed the direction of Val’s finger, but she saw nothing but rocks and scrub trees. No animals, no body, not even crows. Another skeleton?

“Did they do it last night?” she asked cautiously. For all she knew, Val could be remembering her childhood.

“That’s when the spirit rose,” Val said with a definite nod. “You heard him. We all heard him. He howled his anguish.”

Remembering the cry that had woken her, Sam really got spooked. “Did you see what happened?”

“The world sees,” Val cried, gesturing dramatically at their surroundings. “The stars, the moon, the birds in the trees—they all know when a life is taken. He must be mourned and his spirit laid to rest.”

If Sam was translating correctly, someone had died last night, and been dumped up here in these rocks.

She hastily scrambled down off her perch, to the safety of Deputy Walker—who was already striding toward her, ready to catch her if she fell.