Page 26 of Mistaken

And oddly, even though he was keeping her on the property against her will, she thought she kind of liked talking with him…when he was willing. There was something old-fashioned and almost charming about the way he spoke, the way he interacted with her. She’d never met anyone like him before.

Well, of course you haven’t,she thought then, her inner voice touched with some irritation.He’s the first djinn you’ve ever encountered.

Still, she thought it might be a little more than that.

But then he said, “It is true that the elders usually are the ones to decide upon these land grants, so to speak. However, I have rendered some invaluable services for them, and that is why they allowed me to select this place as my home. I wanted land around me, and peace and quiet.”

His tone was so neutral as he spoke that it was impossible to tell whether he was throwing some shade on her for intruding on this sanctuary he’d created for himself. Sarah told herself not to be so paranoid, and that if he really hadn’t wanted to interact with her, he could have kept her locked up in her room rather than taking her horseback riding or having lunch on the veranda.

“A thousand acres is definitely a lot of land,” she remarked, and now he chuckled.

“True enough,” he said. “And now that it seems our horses have drunk their fill, perhaps we can continue with our ride.”

Yes, the mare and the stallion had turned away from the creek, although water still dripped from their muzzles and even wetted the ends of their long manes. Sarah wondered how much farther into the hills Abdul intended to take her, then brushed the worry aside. After all, they were utterly alone together whether they were up on a riding trail miles from the highway or back at the house, so what difference did it make?

“Sure,” she replied with a smile. “But first, you need to help me back on that horse.”

Chapter9

“There was absolutelyno sign of Sarah Wolfe?” Miles asked, and Lindsay shook her head.

“None at all. Right, Carson?”

“Right,” he said. His expression was troubled, although Lindsay couldn’t help thinking he was probably more worried about what the town council would say about him leaving his companion behind than fearful that something awful might really have happened to Sarah.

As soon as they’d gotten back to town, Lindsay had picked up her walkie-talkie and contacted her husband, then asked him if he could get in touch with the rest of the council so they could meet at City Hall and decide what to do next. Brent Sutherland must have already been there on some kind of business, because he was waiting in the conference room when she and Carson showed up, and Miles and Shawn and Nora arrived soon afterward.

“I knew this was a bad idea,” Shawn muttered, and Miles frowned at him.

“There was absolutely no reason to believe either Sarah or Carson would run into any trouble in Abiquiu or Ghost Ranch.” He fixed Carson with a piercing look, the kind Lindsay knew meant he wasn’t in the mood for any bullshit. “Did you see anything strange at the lake?”

“No,” Carson replied immediately. Now he looked a little more relaxed, as if he realized he was back on firmer ground here. “I hiked around and stayed in an abandoned RV that first night. Worst thing I saw was a couple of coyotes, but they took off as soon as I shone a flashlight at them.”

“See?” Miles said, although the word was directed at Shawn Gutierrez, and not at the man who’d just spoken. “That sounds perfectly normal to me.”

“Well,somethingmust have happened to Sarah,” Nora put in. “She’s always been very responsible — shows up for her work assignments on time, is always there if you need someone to pitch in for a special project. I can’t believe she’d forget when she was supposed to show up.”

Lindsay had to admit that did sound very out of character for the woman. No, she didn’t know her very well, but on the occasions when Sarah had been assigned to work in the lab, she’d always been there right when she was supposed to be, and had labored over repairing devices or whatever other tasks she’d been given with a good eye for detail and not a lot of idle chitchat with the other people who were working at the same time.

Honestly, she wasn’t sure whether anyone had known Sarah very well.

“We’ll have to go take a look,” Brent said. “Take one of the four-wheel-drives, get up there and see if we can figure out what happened. She could have fallen and broken a leg, or worse.”

That same sort of terrible scenario had entered Lindsay’s mind as well, but she kept hoping the situation might not be quite so dire.

Before she could speak, though, Shawn said, “Or we might still be dealing with djinn here. I don’t know if it’s the best idea for us to go barging in there with a truck and a search party. Yes, we need to find her and get her out of there, but we also should be cautious.”

“Then we’ll send in a drone,” Brent said, and Lindsay blinked at him.

“We have drones?” she demanded. “Since when?”

“One of our gleaning crews found a couple in the basement of a house in Española,” Shawn replied, not looking too put off by her tone. “We’ve been experimenting with them, trying to get used to how they work, since none of us here had ever flown one.”

“And you didn’t think about mentioning this to me?” she returned. “We could have sent drones in to scout that country rather than risking several of our people.”

“Now, Lindsay,” Brent said, his tone doing its best to be consoling, “we just found the things a week or so ago, and we didn’t see the point in bringing them up until we had a better idea of how to work with them. Anyway, these aren’t commercial or military drones — they can’t fly for miles and miles. Even if we use one of the drones to look for Sarah, we’ll have to be nearby and fly it in from the highway, something like that, especially since we’ll need to rely on the drone’s wi-fi to communicate with it since there’s no cell service anymore.”

Some of her annoyance subsided at hearing these limitations.

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