CHAPTER 2
ON THE FLIGHTS between Washington D.C. and Boise, Idaho, Charlotte finally slept. Her emotional and physical exhaustion left her blissfully unaware of the news story captivating the area she headed toward.
She had snuck away from her burning house amid the hubbub of fire trucks, police, and nosey townspeople, made a quick stop at the bank to clean out her savings account, and then used cash to buy a plane ticket to Idaho. She might have been crazy to go there, but she had nowhere else to turn. Hiding and hoping that somehow, miraculously, this madness ended wasn’t her style. The scum behind this had taken away her home, her sanctuary, and years ago, her husband. She had nothing left to lose.
For a brief moment, in Jerusalem, she remembered how it felt to live, not merely to exist. She remembered how it felt to love, to laugh, to care.
She refused to go back to the emotionless woman she had been, the one filled with bitterness. Bitterness be damned; anger filled her. Despite her exhaustion and fear, doing something to answer unspoken questions buried deep in her soul caused her to feel more alive than she had for the past thirteen years.
As she left the Boise airport, a startling Idaho Statesman headline caught her eye. Professor Lionel Rempart and a group of his students had disappeared.
She bought the newspaper, absorbed every detail of the story, and even then remained stunned by the news.
Dennis had often said if something was too coincidental to be believable, it was no coincidence. Lionel Rempart’s disappearance was no accident, neither was the fact that he had come to Idaho, and that Dennis had learned Idaho was important to all that had happened.
A grim rage spurred her to action. Many phone calls later, she found a car company willing, for a hefty deposit, to rent via cash instead of a credit card. At a local D&B Supply sports outfitter, she bought boots, warm clothes, an extra box of ammo for her Glock, and a map showing the way to the town named headquarters for the search operation.
An all-night drive over winding mountainous roads took her to Telichpah Flat. Only it wasn’t a town. It was no more than a blip on a dirt road north of the Salmon River.
The Telichpah Flat General Store, a white clapboard building with a covered porch at the main entrance, seemed to be the only active business in town. A hand-painted sandwich board read “Temp Search Hqtrs In Back.”
The back of the building also had an outside entrance. A Lemhi County Sheriff Department car and gray Ford F250 were parked beside it, and a large make-shift parking area had been set up. She approached a scene of barely controlled chaos with news trucks, vans, trailers, satellite dishes and communications gear. Beyond that, to the right of the store, she saw a permanently closed bar-restaurant, and a couple of houses. To the left, a trash dump that included two rusted trucks and six wagon wheels. Nothing but darkly forested emptiness surrounded the town.
Welcome to Telichpah Flat. She parked at the edge of the town, lit a cigarette, and watched until the sun came up.
Ancient Echoes
Joanne Pence's books
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)
- Blood, Ash, and Bone
- Bolted (Promise Harbor Wedding)
- Bonnie of Evidence