Angel Fire - Lisa Unger [72]
She felt another momentary pang of guilt as she got into her Kompressor. You should at least bring a uniformed officer with you, she thought. But instead, she checked the Glock in her glove compartment to make sure it was loaded, raced out of the parking lot, and headed up Highway 64 toward Eagle Nest Lake alone.
She took the turnoff onto Black Canyon Road—though “road” was a vast overstatement for what basically consisted of a wide dirt trail. Heavily wooded by towering aspen on either side, the road was so dark, Lydia had to turn on her headlights to see the inconspicuous numbers on the widely spaced mailboxes. She was familiar with the road from her property search and she knew that each private drive led to the beautiful custom log “cabins” that were common in the resort area. Most of them had spectacular views of Eagle’s Nest Lake and were wildly expensive. She went back and forth up the road looking for number 124 and eventually ascertained that it must be the only turnoff without a number and a mailbox.
She made a right off Black Canyon Road and took the steep, winding drive up until the trees parted and she reached a clearing where the drive ended. It was an empty lot. She took the Glock out of her glove compartment where she had put it as they left the house that morning, placed it in her bag, and got out of the car.
It was so quiet she could hear the sound of her engine cooling. She turned when she heard a quiet rustling and saw a doe staring at her, wide-eyed and poised for flight. The sky was moody, scattered with clouds, and the air hinted of cooler temperatures on the way. She smelled pine and the scent of burning wood as she looked down into the valley, onto Eagle’s Nest Lake surrounded by the Touch-Me-Not Mountains. It was a spectacular view and it dawned on Lydia slowly that she had seen it before—had, in fact, been at this very lot.
The real estate agent she had spoken to had shown her this property, thinking Lydia might want to design and build her own house, since Lydia’s ideas about what she wanted were so “particular,” as the real estate agent haltingly phrased it. And though it was a beautiful piece of property, Lydia hadn’t liked that she could see other people’s homes from the lot.
Her mind began to race. She looked at the piece of paper in her hand at the name written there. Vince A. Gemiennes … There was something about the name, something off and something familiar at the same time. It was too big a coincidence that the address she had found was an empty lot she herself had almost purchased. But if she had been led here, then this man had constructed all of his planning to do that, and it would mean he had been watching her for years. She wasn’t sure which of those two possibilities was more far-fetched. Had the killer somehow known she would become involved in the solving of his crimes? Had she somehow been part of his design all along? The thought chilled her as she mentally retraced her visits to New Mexico.
She had first visited the Santa Fe and Angel Fire areas nearly three years ago when she had come to Albuquerque for a book signing. As soon as she first stepped foot off the plane, she felt like she had come home. It was something about the way the air smelled, about the sky and the stars that seemed to wrap around her like a blanket. It was something about the buildings—how they were small and warm, how there was a coziness, a womblike comfort to their interiors. And then there was the terrain, the gorgeous mountains, the hot springs, the trees in the highlands, the desert. It just felt like heaven to her and after she had left, she’d kept longing to return, so much so that she’d bought property here.
The book signing had been held at a Barnes and Noble in Albuquerque. She tried to remember now if there had been anyone there who’d imprinted on her memory as especially odd, but there had been so many book signings between now and then in so many Barnes and Nobles across the country. And there were always