The Hidden

But she didn’t.

She turned and stared at the man who had materialized by the window near the head of her bed. She thought that he’d been looking out, down at the stables or over to the next mountaintop, even feeling wistful, perhaps.

Maybe wishing that he could feel the cool mountain air on his skin, breathe in the delicious freshness and the scents of fall.

She stared at him in silence.

“Please,” he said simply, looking back at her.

“You’re dead, aren’t you?” she whispered.

“Yeah, sucks, huh?”

“So why are you doing this to me?”

“You’re a descendant. So was I.”

“What?”

He let out an impatient sigh. “I came here after I was fooling around at one of those online ancestry sites. I traced myself back to Nathan Kendall and this place. You know what it’s like when you’re online. I’m from North Carolina, been hiking the Blue Ridge all my life. I couldn’t wait to get out here, see Rocky Mountain National Park and the old homestead. I didn’t even ask my girl or any of my friends to tag along. I wanted to experience it all by myself. Smart, huh?”

“Not very, from the looks of things,” Scarlet said.

He shrugged at that. “A wiseass, huh? Great. I’ve been doing my best to reach you, and you just keep making me go poof. It’s not easy, you know, getting someone to see you, much less managing to touch them. Mostly you’re just kind of...there. No one sees you, no one talks to you. And if they do see you, they get scared and run away.”

“Why don’t you give me your name?” Scarlet asked.

“Dumb-ass cops. They don’t even know that yet.”

“It’s not as if we have a lot to go on. We’ve only just gotten a good likeness of you to send around,” she said. She realized she’d used the word we. Was she becoming one of them?

Or had she always been one with Diego?

“So?” she asked.

“So...what?”

“So what is your name?”

“Daniel. Daniel Kendall.” He grinned. “Nice to meet you—cousin. A zillion times removed, of course.”

“You, too. I guess. Having your name will make it easier for us to help you, at least,” she said. “I’m assuming you want help, of course.”

“I do. Unfortunately, I don’t know who killed me.”

“So you were killed,” Scarlet said, saddened by the information. “But how can you not know who did it?” Scarlet demanded, her frustration showing.

“I didn’t see his face.”

“How were you killed?” she asked. “Do you know that?”

“Yeah, that I know. I was up in the tundra, striding along, amazed at how high up I was, amazed by how blue the sky was in the clear air, and then I felt a rush behind me. I turned, saw him coming, and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground, bleeding to death. Slowly. I didn’t feel the knife. I did feel the dying.”

“So the killer was wearing a ski mask?”

“No, it wasn’t a ski mask. It was odd, like a bag over his head. Not paper. Something like a burlap sack.”

“A burlap sack,” Scarlet repeated. “And neither one of you said anything. He just rushed you from behind, stabbed you—and left you?”

“Oh, he said something,” Daniel told her.

“What?”

“He said, ‘You’re one.’”

“One what?” Scarlet asked.