Faith Walker stared through the scope of the rifle at the man snowshoeing up the hill toward her cabin. The gun wasn’t loaded, not that she would have used it if it had been, even on someone as unwelcome as Vince DeLucca. She leaned back against the work table and lowered the weapon. His parka and the blowing snow obscured DeLucca’s face, but she knew what his gaze felt like from touching his letter—hypnotic gray eyes under furrowed brows. And she knew what he sought.
She picked up the photo he’d sent of Elizabeth leaning against a palm tree and was about to toss it into the fire, but something screamed, Don’t, and she drew her hand back. So Elizabeth had handled this picture and had feared the pain of being burned. Fear was an awful thing to read. It crept into you and took possession. She dropped the photo back on her desk.
Faith raised the scope toward the red-tailed hawk that had been hunching on the limb of the walnut tree all day. He was going to starve if he didn’t make a kill soon. If he expected her bird feeder to attract a meal for him, he was out of luck. She didn’t do that anymore, didn’t awake any expectations even of the cardinals. She never knew when she might be called away. And no matter how much she tried, sometimes she couldn’t say no. But she must find a way to refuse this man, no matter how much money he had.
Native Americans say the hawk is always the messenger, that his cry should make you heed the message. She envied the hawk, because he could see more than she could and no one asked anything of him. The hawk launched himself and Faith saw his prey, a rabbit just emerging into the approaching dusk. She sucked in a desperate breath of fear, wanting to shout a warning but knowing her interference could buy one life at the price of another. They say the rabbit is the fear caller. Through his fear he calls his death to him.
A glide, a snatch, silent as the falling snow, and the hawk settled to the ground, planting his talons to make sure his meal could not get away. Faith let out a slow breath, trying to expel the fear. It stole her focus and made her less than she could be, even though she didn’t want to be what she was. She watched the unmaking of the rabbit. As a forensic pathologist, she had done as much to human bodies on the dissecting table. She knew each muscle, tendon and organ, but she had never found the seat of the soul—and she knew why. Death only freed it.
DeLucca had paused to watch too. Then he shook his head and kept coming, as relentless as the snow or death. Was he the message? As the fear drained from her body, it was replaced by the calm pulsing of her blood that came after almost dying and by the slow inhalation of air to feed her fatigued muscles. Perhaps it didn’t matter if his message was death.