Kiss of Midnight_ A Midnight Breed Novel - Lara Adrian [416]
“Gotcha,” Janet said, clicking off a shot of Dylan and the towering pillars of rock in the wooded valley below. “Your mom sure would love this place, honey. Isn’t it breathtaking?”
Dylan nodded. “We’ll e-mail her the pictures tonight when we get back to the hostel.”
She led her group away from the rock, eager to leave the whispering otherworldly presence behind. They walked down a sloping ridge, into a stand of thin-trunked pines growing in tight formation. Russet leaves and conifer needles crushed on the damp path underfoot. It had rained that morning, topped off with a sweltering heat that kept many of the area’s tourists away.
The forest was quiet, peaceful…except for the awareness of ghostly eyes following Dylan’s every step deeper into the woods.
“I’m so glad your boss let you have the time off to come with us,” said one of the women from behind her on the path. “I know how hard you work at the paper, making up all those stories—”
“She doesn’t make them up, Marie,” Janet chided gently. “There’s got to be some truth in Dylan’s articles or they couldn’t print them. Isn’t that right, honey?”
Dylan scoffed. “Well, considering that our front page usually runs at least one alien abduction or demonic possession story, we don’t tend to let facts get in the way of a good story. We publish entertainment pieces, not hard-hitting journalism.”
“Your mom says you’re going to be a famous reporter one day,” Marie said. “A budding Woodward or Bernstein, that’s what she says.”
“That’s right,” Janet put in. “You know, she showed me an article you wrote during your first newspaper job, fresh out of college—you were covering some nasty murder case upstate. You remember, don’t you, honey?”
“Yeah,” Dylan said, navigating them toward another massive cluster of soaring sandstone towers that rose out of the trees. “I remember. But that was a long time ago.”
“Well, no matter what you do, I know that your mom is very proud of you,” Marie said. “You’ve brought a lot of joy into her life.”
Dylan nodded, struggling to find her voice. “Thanks.”
Both Janet and Marie worked with her mother at the women’s center in Brooklyn. Nancy, the other member of their travel group, had been Sharon’s best friend since high school. All three of the women had become like extended family to Dylan in the past few months. Three extra pairs of comforting arms, which she was really going to need if she ever lost her mom.
In her heart, Dylan knew it was more a matter of when than if. The relapse had come on fast, the cancer proving even more relentless than the first time.
Nancy came up and gave Dylan a warm, if sad, smile. “It means the world to Sharon that you would experience the trip for her. You’re living it for her, you know?”
“I know. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”
Dylan hadn’t told her travel companions—or her mother—that taking off for two weeks on such short notice was probably going to cost her her job. Part of her didn’t really care. She hated working for the cut-rate tabloid anyway. She’d attempted to sell her boss on the idea that she was sure to return from Europe with some decent material—maybe a Bohemian bigfoot story, or a Dracula sighting out of Romania.
But selling bullshit to a guy who peddled it for a living was no easy task. Her boss had been pretty clear about his expectations: If Dylan left on this trip, she’d better come back with something big, or she didn’t need to come back at all.
“Whoo, it’s hot up here,” Janet said, sweeping her baseball cap off her short silver curls and running her palm over her brow. “Am I the only wimp in this crowd, or would anyone else like to rest for a little bit?”
“I could use a break,” Nancy agreed.
She shrugged off her backpack and set it down on the ground beneath a tall pine tree. Marie joined them, moving off