The Hidden

Angus snorted. “Free country.”


“Angus, you don’t think it’s strange that someone who stopped me in the street and said some very weird things just happens to be up here now?” Scarlet asked.

“I think people come to the mountains because they like nature—and being left alone,” Angus said.

“Then he should have left me alone,” Scarlet said.

Diego, Matt and Brett were gone for a long time, but when they came back they announced that they hadn’t found the man or any sign of where he’d gone.

“Wonder where he went,” Meg said.

“One trail up, one trail down,” Angus said. “Couldn’t’a gone anywhere else.”

“I saw him,” Scarlet said firmly.

“Well, he’s gone now,” Diego said, studying her. “Midthirties, you said, right?”

“Midthirties, maybe six feet, not fat and not thin, sandy-blond hair,” Scarlet said.

Everyone except Angus looked at her strangely.

She wondered what was wrong with them. Did they think she was so stressed she was seeing things?

“Is there something I don’t know?” she asked.

Meg shook her head. “No. Whoever was here, he’s gone now. I guess we’ve seen everything there is to see here, so it’s probably time to go back.”

Diego put his arm around Scarlet’s shoulders and started walking toward where the horses were tethered. She felt uneasy again. Was he being protective—or pitying?

The others had gotten ahead of them when he stopped walking suddenly. “That’s a strange plaque—very modern.”

The flat bronze plaque had been set in front of a relatively new wooden cross.

“Rollo Conway,” he said. “So the guy who sold the land to Nathan Kendall is buried here, too?”

“Yes. He died years after Nathan and Jillian,” Scarlet said. “But Jillian’s dad—who lived to ninetysomething—allowed him to be buried here. I think this was pretty much the local cemetery back then, even though it was on ranch land. It was an old Native American burial site back before anyone owned land here. The site is actually on the national historic register. It will always be protected, no matter who owns the property.”

“Anyone else buried here we should know about?” he asked her.

“Not that I’m aware of,” she said. “Thing is, the old records aren’t always complete. And up here, the ground shifts, markers rot away in the elements, people are reburied elsewhere.” She smiled. “Unless we start digging people up and, I don’t know, DNA-testing them, we can only do the best we can with the records available to us.”

“What about Jillian’s father? The United States marshal?” Diego asked. “Where was he buried.”

She pointed across the cemetery to one of the decaying mausoleums. “He was entombed, not buried.”

“And Zachary Kendall?”

“He moved to Los Angeles in his later years and is buried there,” Scarlet said. “When the marshal had the mausoleum built, he probably assumed Zachary and at least some of the children would share it with him. But life—and death—don’t always work out as planned.”

“Apparently not,” Diego said.

“Come on, let’s head back.”

She followed him but stopped again before they reached the horses. “Diego, do you really believe me?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t even know what I’m asking you to believe me about.”

“You never lied to me, so if you’ve said something, I believe you.” He gave her an odd smile, almost wistful.

She looked away. His smile also reminded her of the previous night. It really had been spectacular.

It had taken her away from everything that was going on.

Now it was still daylight and she should have felt safe, but she kept thinking about the man she’d seen leaning against the tree.

She didn’t know why he made her feel so uneasy. The other night he’d mostly seemed obnoxious, even if a little bit weird.