Stormwalker by Allyson James Read Free Book Online Page B

He didn’t smell of skinwalker—I caught a scent of sage and wild grasses.
    The man ducked away at my scream, and I rushed to the window. I saw nothing outside but a coyote trotting off toward the empty railroad bed behind the hotel. No sign of any human except the prints of bare feet in the dust outside the window. Human feet, large and masculine.
    My eyes narrowed as I watched the spot where the coyote disappeared. I’d seen the same coyote hanging around the hotel since I’d moved in. They were scavengers, ready to eat anything humans threw away, or their pet dogs or cats if the animals strayed too far from home.
    I went into the bedroom and opened the window. The early-morning air was cool, and I breathed in the beauty of it. I saw no sign of the coyote, just blue sky blossoming on the eastern horizon. But in the interesting life of Janet Begay, things were never as simple as they seemed.
    “Peeping Tom!” I shouted into the desert. Far off, I heard a yip that sounded suspiciously like laughter, and then silence.

    I fixed a sheet over the curtainless window and took a shower. Because my hotel stood alone two miles north of Magellan, and my bedroom and bathroom faced the back, away from the road and the bar, I’d not felt the need to bother with curtains or blinds. I preferred sleeping where I could wake up and see stars and moon, and the privacy out here was nice. I’d forgotten that there were more things in my world to worry about than nosy neighbors.
    I dressed in clean clothes and walked out the back door to scatter a handful of corn to the rising sun. I had a lot to do today—I planned to go over the Amy McGuire case again and see if anything new jumped out at me. I’d gotten a list of her friends from her mother, young women who hadn’t been asked to give statements for the police file, but they might tell me something useful about where Amy might go, who she might meet. I wanted most of all to question Nash Jones about her, but he was thin ice I had to tread on carefully.
    Even so, I took time to perform my ritual greeting of the morning. I’d done this with my grandmother every day of my young life, and I’d retained the habit into adulthood. I hadn’t always been able to do the ritual during my life on the road, but I’d decided that while I was here, I’d make sure that I gave thanks to the gods for the dawn. I needed all the earth magic I could get out here by the vortexes, and it never hurts to keep the gods happy. Today, no one watched me but a big crow perched on top of a juniper at the edge of the parking lot. It peered at me with a stern black eye, and I got the feeling that it approved of what I did.
    I had no idea where Mick was. His bike was gone, but I knew he wouldn’t have left me unless it was safe to. Even the times he’d disappeared when we lived together, he’d made certain that I was in a safe place, or got to a safe place, to hole up until he got back. Protective, yes, but also suffocating.
    The hotel’s electricity wasn’t on yet, but I’d bought some nonperishables for a makeshift breakfast. The kitchen, like the rest of the hotel, was an empty shell, wires hanging out of holes in the walls like so much spaghetti.
    I ate my cold toaster pastries while reading Amy’s file, and then workers started showing up. Maya Medina, my electrician, got out of her sleek red pickup, wearing her white coverall, her glorious black hair tucked under a cap. She was the only female electrician in town, and from what I’d seen, she was damn good. Not that she acknowledged any praise I gave her. Maya was unfriendly to me to the point of enmity. I had no idea why, but at least she showed up and worked.
    Behind her came carpenters, tile layers, roofers, and glaziers, mostly locals from Magellan, with a few Hopi men down from Second Mesa. They needed the work, and there was a lot to be done here.
    To my surprise, Fremont Hansen pulled in not long after the others. I was standing by the front