Lina waved someone away without taking her eyes off the screen. “Look, it’s laudable that you’d consider uprooting your life to look after your grandfather.”

“Laudable.”

“Yes. It’s kind and loving and laudable. I’m not stupid, Adrian, and I’m not blind to the circumstances. I know he shouldn’t stay in the house alone. I’d considered trying to convince him to move to New York, but realized that would be a study in frustration for both of us. I’ve been interviewing live-in nurse/companions.”

“Did you mention that to him?”

“No, because he’d reject the idea off the mark. But when I find someone—”

“Stop looking.” Adrian sat on the arm of a couch, reminded herself there was no point in anger. Her mother generally defaulted to throwing money at a problem or inconvenience.

On the plus side, she’d tried to do something.

“He’s not sick, he’s grieving. He doesn’t need a nurse. He needs me. And that street goes both ways. I want to be here, and not just to look after him. I want to be in our family home. Why does it matter to you?”

“I don’t want to see you tap the brakes on your career when it’s still accelerating. You have a gift.”

“And I’m going to keep using it.”

“In an old house outside of Dogpatch?”

“That’s right, and on the porch, on the back patio, in the park, in the town square. I’ve got plenty of ideas. We have the same root in the work, Mom, but we’ve grown it two different ways.”

“New Gen is still under the Yoga Baby umbrella.”

Now Adrian lifted her eyebrows. “It is. If my relocating causes you to rethink that, we can have the lawyers work out a split.”

“Don’t be—” Lina broke off, then looked away from the screen for a moment as Adrian watched her struggle for composure. “I’m trying to point out that this is a business as well as a passion, a lifestyle, and that in business you have to be practical as well as innovative. And you’re not the only one dealing with upheaval. She was my mother.”

After another breath, Lina looked back at the screen. “She was my mother.”

“I know. You’re right.” And she could see grief just as clearly as she herself felt it. “And I should have given you a heads-up, on a personal and a business level. I didn’t think of it. I just didn’t, so I’m sorry for that. Let’s try this. You give me a year, and if this relocation doesn’t work the way I think it will, we’ll reevaluate.”

“By reevaluating you mean actually consulting me, Harry, the rest of the team?”

“Yes.”

“All right.” She looked off-screen again. “Yes, yes, two minutes! I want you to succeed, Adrian.”

“I know you do.”

“I have to go. Tell Dad … tell him I’ll call him soon.”

“I will.”

When she ended the call, Adrian slid down to sit on the couch. She’d made a mistake, she admitted, not telling her mother about her decision. And for the life of her she couldn’t be sure if that had been deliberate on some level or just an oversight.

Done now, she thought. And once she got things moving Lina, and everyone else, would see she’d made the right move at the right time.

So she’d better get busy proving it.

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA

Just another sunrise hiker. Blending was both a skill and personal entertainment. The canyon offered echoing silence—sometimes the cry of a hawk or an eagle.

Predators, and much admired.

She who wouldn’t live to see the sun again hiked here twice a week, three times if she could manage it, but the two were like clockwork.

Her alone time, her commune-with-nature time, her keep-body-and-soul-in-tune time.

Or so she said on Twitter.

The hunting, the planning here had been pure pleasure. Travel, such an innate part of the life led, offered so many opportunities.

New scenes, new sounds. New kills.

And here, like clockwork, she came. Striding along in her hiking boots, a bright pink fielder’s cap on her head with her fake blond hair pulled into a tail through the opening in the back. Sunglasses, cargo shorts.

Alone.

The fake limp, the slight wince caught her attention.

“Are you okay?”

A wave of a hand, a brave, slightly pained smile. And voice breathless, quiet. “Just twisted my ankle a little. Stupid.”

Another step, a little stumble.

And didn’t she reach right out to help?

The knife slid smoothly into her belly. Her mouth opened into a shocked O that might’ve turned into a scream, but the knife made those glorious wet sounds as it pulled out, pushed in.

When she went down, her sunglasses slid off.

Souvenirs! Sunglasses, sports watch, key fob, and of course the now traditional photo.

Her blood soaked the ground; the hawk circled and cried.

With another crossed off the list, the killer strode away. And thought of the new poem even now winging its way to Adrian.

Back to work. Traveling time!

Three days later, Adrian made the errands run again—this time with a full grocery stop, as Teesha and family were heading down. She picked up a handful of mail from the new box she’d listed on her blog, her website, and her social media, hit the florist for fresh flowers.

Dom helped her put groceries away—and she considered that a good sign. They ate Greek salads while she shared the bits of gossip she’d picked up in town.

When he laughed, really laughed, tears, happy ones, rose up in her throat.

She didn’t get to the mail until late in the day. And saw immediately her poet had found her.

Do you think you can hide, do you think you can run?

Oh no, my dear, we’re not nearly done.

Over all these years you think of me.

And with your last breath, my face you’ll see.

 

Postmarked from Baltimore this time, Adrian saw, and thought: Too close.

But the postmark meant nothing, she knew. They’d come from all over the country in the past decade.

But never outside of February.

So the move hadn’t just rattled her mother. It had rattled her poetic stalker. Now she’d have to share it all with the local police—because she had to be sensible. And with Harry and—though she hated it—with her grandfather.

And to be safe, because she had Dom to think of, maybe they should add something to the alarm system.

She had some ideas on that.

CHAPTER NINE

The minute Teesha’s car pulled up in front of the house, Adrian ran out the door. And found herself delighted Dom wasn’t far behind her. She snagged Teesha in a hug, squeezed, squeezed.

“You’re here! Now hand over the boy! Hi, Monroe.”

“Hi yourself, pretty girl.”

Tall and lean and absurdly handsome, he leaned in the back to release Phineas from the car seat.

Phineas’s daddy had skin a couple of shades deeper than his mommy’s, short dreads, sexy chocolate eyes, and a trim little chin beard that suited his angular face.

Adrian ran around to hug him, and get her hands on the baby as Teesha let out a sudden: “Whoa! Is that a bear?”

Adrian stole Phineas, and planted kisses all over his face to make him laugh. “It’s a dog. It’s our dog as of yesterday.”