Spirit Flight

CHAPTER 1

Marisa Lacoste doubled over as pain sliced through her side.

Run. Keep running. Run. Run. Run.

The words pounded through her in time to a heart that felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. She panted. Sucking in air while the pain in her side kept her still for a minute.

She had no idea if they were behind her. At this point she had no idea if they even realized she was no longer out sketching impressions of the mountains.

Stupid! She'd been so stupid. So unaware. So naive.

A different kind of pain twisted through her. How could Ethan be involved in this? And for money. He knew the most important thing to her was her art. It was all she'd cared about since she was old enough to hold a crayon.

Tears threatened, from the emotional pain as well as the physical. She tried to quiet her breathing so she'd be able to hear them if they came crashing after her. Tried to force herself to breathe through her nose, realizing as she did so that her throat and lungs were starting to ache from gasping the cold mountain air of the Cascades.

A rumble sounded in the distance. Thunder to go with the darkening sky as the gray clouds were starting to gather.

Tears trickled down her face and Marisa brushed them away impatiently. Tears wouldn't do any good now and she couldn't allow herself the luxury of them.

Maybe later. When she found her way off the mountain. When she flagged down a car or found a call box. When she got back to the last town they'd stopped in. Hohoq-so small it wasn't even on the map.

They'd eaten at a tiny home-style diner there and anyone who'd seen them together would testify they'd been in great spirits. A man and two women. Enjoying themselves the way people do when they're on vacation. Laughing. Teasing. Probably in the area for rock climbing or hiking, or just to camp. She and Ethan resembling each other so closely with their black hair and blue eyes that they were obviously related. Not that Kaitlyn wouldn't have drawn her share of appreciative glances with her blonde, fashion-model looks.

Fresh pain ricocheted in Marisa's chest. They'd played her so well. Not just for the last couple of days, but for months.

The beautiful tabletop books with pictures of the Cascades. Talking her into taking a rock-climbing class. All of it done so this trip wouldn't seem out of character and her accidental death wouldn't seem suspicious.

Stupid! She'd been so thrilled to be included!

But now she could see the exact moment when this thing had been set in motion. When she'd realized that slowly, over the years, she'd begun living only on the proceeds from the sales of her paintings. When she'd casually mentioned that she wanted to put the money she'd inherited from their father, the money her brother had been managing, into a scholarship fund so other artists could «make it» as she had.

She wondered if any of the money was left. If Ethan had been embezzling it all along. Or only since Kaitlyn came into the picture.

Marisa pushed thoughts of her brother and Kaitlyn aside. Forced herself to straighten. The air around her was getting colder and the sky darker.

A different fear gripped her. Its fingers icy dread.

Lost, her skin slick with sweat from running, exposed to the elements overnight with nothing more than the clothing she was wearing, she could as easily die from hypothermia as from a staged fall while rock climbing.

It'd be so easy for them to claim she'd gotten lost while she was hiking. Gotten so absorbed in her surroundings, in the beauty and colors she'd try to pull into her art later, that she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going. They would say she had panicked and run when she finally realized she didn't know where she was or where camp was.

Anyone who'd ever seen her when she became immersed in her work would testify that she could go days without answering the phone or opening the mail, would barely remember to eat. It wouldn't take any great leap of imagination to believe she'd gotten lost.

Marisa shivered. The sweat starting to chill underneath her shirt and jeans.

They'd still want to find her body, just to make sure she hadn't used her art pencils to leave a note behind. A record of what she'd overheard them planning and why she'd run.

The breeze picked up. Bringing with it the scent of impending rain. Distant thunder rumbling in confirmation a storm was on its way. It's threatened arrival turning both the mountain and time into deadly enemies.

She wouldn't last the night if her clothing got wet. She knew it with a certainty that came from being a news addict, not an experienced camper.

Marisa surveyed her surroundings. Took in the vast panorama of rock and pine, brambles and juniper. Breathtaking beauty and terrifying solitude at the same time.

In that moment she would have given every penny she had just to spot smoke curling upward from a cabin tucked away in the landscape. But there was nothing. No indication anyone lived in the area though the presence of the rough dirt road and the No Trespassing signs she'd seen a short time ago had given her hope that she'd find someone to help her.

Another rumble sounded, this one sending adrenaline and terror coursing through her. All doubt as to whether or not they'd realized she was missing answered by the sound of the off-road motorcycle.

There was a grove of pine and oak ahead but she wasn't sure she could get to it before being seen. And even if she did, the trees and undergrowth might slow her down and trap her instead of offering her shelter and protection.

She'd returned to camp earlier than expected and overheard them deciding to find her and kill her now, when the storm would work to their advantage. But despite the pain and panic and fear she'd experienced since that horrible moment, Marisa had tried to keep her wits. She'd stuck to roads leading downward, though early on she knew she wasn't on the one they'd taken to get to the remote campsite. It had become too narrow, too overgrown, barely more than a footpath in places before opening on a harsher, wider track.

Where it had become a wider track again was where she'd seen the No Trespassing signs and a short distance beyond those, the totem poles. So exquisitely carved that she knew she was looking at something created by a master craftsman. The animal figures carved in detail, the thunderbirds on the top of each pole ferocious, magnificent, the epitome of raw power and the primal acknowledgment of forces greater than man. Even in her flight to reach safety she couldn't go past the totem poles without stopping long enough to run her fingers over the designs etched into the wood, her artist's spirit aching to linger, to try and capture on paper the essence of what was in front of her. The image of the great thunderbirds-their wings outspread, their attention focused outward, claiming everything for as far as the eye could see-filling her with profound emotion.

The rumble of the motorcycle grew louder and for the first time since she fled the camp, she left the road and confronted the mountain directly. Scrambled over rock, grabbing with her hands and trying to gain purchase with her feet while pebbles tumbled like small slides down the steep incline.

She was trying to get out of sight from the road. Praying that whoever was on the bike was simply following a possible escape route rather than tracking her specifically. Her only intention was to find a place where she could cling safely until the bike had passed and then passed again, returning to camp.

But as the bike drew near, its engine roaring, echoing in the canyon, the rock under Marisa's hands and feet gave way and sent her hurtling downward, clawing desperately, each wild grab dislodging more rock and earth so that a tide of it heralded her descent.

For the first few seconds there was only wild panic, a desperate awareness of speed and motion, of being momentarily airborne. But then came pain. Legs, ribs, arms, back as she landed hard on an outcropping, the debris in her wake striking her face and arms and torso before bouncing and continuing the journey downward.

When the last of it had passed and the sound of the slide faded, only the purr of an engine remained. Marisa opened her eyes and watched as the motorcycle stopped far above her and the rider slid the helmet off to get a better view-or maybe it was a gloating show of victory. Either way, for long moments Kaitlyn looked down at where Marisa lay, and then with a wave, she put the helmet back on and drove away.

There was nothing but pain afterward. Emotional. Physical.

Bleeding, killing wounds inflicted to heart and soul.

Breaking, tearing wounds done to bone and flesh.

Marisa faded in and out of consciousness. Aware on some level of the darkening sky, the rapidly approaching storm, the feel of cold rain pelting against her exposed skin when it finally arrived. The wetness of her clothes. Their sodden mass a heavy weight on a frame barely able to sustain life.

The thunder was directly overhead now. Lightning flashed, its brilliance flickering against Marisa's eyelids.

She forced them open, knowing she was dying and yet choosing to see the beauty around her. The magnificence of the storm. Far more powerful and real than anything she'd ever been able to capture in her art-though sometimes she came close, and those were the paintings she treasured.

A crash sounded, followed by lightning. Jagged streaks illuminated the sky and Marisa gasped, her pain forgotten as the thunderbird image from on top of the totem pole hovered above her.

His powerful wings beat the air with such force that clouds swirled around and under him. The bright colors of his feathers reflected off gray rock, painting it red and white with splashes of yellow and blue woven in. His beak open in a soundless scream as lightning sparked from coal black eyes.

Marisa knew she was hallucinating and yet she embraced the hallucination, even managed a small laugh of sheer joy as she felt herself floating upward, toward the thunderbird, the wind catching the sound of her pleasure and carrying it away.

But then the great bird turned its eyes on her and swooped. Its dive sending the clouds scattering and rushing away, driving Marisa's awareness back to her body. To pain and cold. And finally-nothingness.