Page 1 of Snow River

1

One weekago

The dead womanstood over Lila’s bed.“Wake up, lazybones.Time to get moving.”

“Noooo,” Lila muttered as she turned on her side and pulled a pillow over her head.“Go away.”

“I will not go away until you get your butt out of bed.”

“You can’t tell me what to do.You’re dead.”Even though Lila was still mostly asleep, she knew she was dreaming.But she saw no reason not to play along.

“Do you have to rub it in?”The dream dead-woman looked perfectly normal in her faded blue flower-patterned housedress, the kind you wore over your regular clothes.People didn’t wear that style anymore, which was one of the reasons Lila knew she was dead.

“Were you always this rude or were you nicer when you were alive?”

“I was always rude.Why do you think I came out here to Fangtooth?I couldn’t hack it in the lower forty-eight.Now move it, kid.”

“But why?What’s so important?Just let me be, why don’t you?”Lila could see that it was still dark outside.She’d worked until two in the morning at The Fang last night, and had no intention of waking up any time before ten.

“Hey, I didn’t invite you to move into my house.I was minding my own business.”

“You should keep that up.Why change what’s working?”

“Because we have a problem.And you’re the only one who can do anything about it.I can’t.I’m dead, as you pointed out yourself.”

“And I’m sleeping.”

“Not anymore you aren’t.”

A crash jolted Lila wide awake.She sat up, blinking in the dimness, her heart galloping.It was still night.The rooster at Ben McGee’s place hadn’t even crowed yet.No dead woman was looming next to her bed.

Of course not.She rubbed the heel of her hand into her chest to get her heart to slow down.It was just a dream.She’d known it was a dreamduring the dream.Which was why she’d been irritated by the woman instead of scared.She often had extremely vivid dreams; they seemed to go along with her intuitive abilities.

But ever since she’d moved to Firelight Ridge, all of that had died down.She still had the occasional moment of premonition, but so much less frequently than before.That was one of the reasons she loved living here.

Fangtooth, the dead woman had called it.

Lila shivered.Fangtooth Gulch was the original name for this tiny town, which came into being to support the miners back in the 1930s, when a thriving copper mine had dominated the local economy.Recently, the name had been changed to draw a different sort of visitor—tourists.

No surprise that the dream woman had used that name, Lila told herself.Her dreaming mind knew the original name of the town just as well as her conscious mind.It had pulled that fact into her dream because that was what the unconscious did.

She remembered the noise that woke her up.That definitely hadn’t been part of her dream.Biting her lip, she debated whether it would be safer to stay where she was or check out the sound.Chances were that a raccoon had gotten into the house again.It had happened before.

But so had humans; a few months ago someone had searched it for a document she hadn’t even known existed.

She held her breath and listened for any more sounds coming from the living room.Her place had been the hardware store back in the mining days, and the couple who ran it had lived in the back, right here in what was now her bedroom.The store area, complete with glass storefront, was now the living room.All was quiet out there, the quiet that came with no electric appliances and no street traffic—the vast quiet of the Alaskan wilderness.

She picked up her phone from her nightstand.Service came and went here; at odd times suddenly a single bar would appear.If she did have a connection, she could call one of her friends.Molly was with Sam at his house, and Ani was staying with Gil McGowan at his brother’s place.Charlie and Nick were about to leave town, a fact that made her very sad.

But she probably wouldn’t call any of them.She’d call Bear.Her boss at The Fang would be here in a flash if she reached out to him.Based on how he dealt with misbehaving customers at the bar, any threat would be eliminated in no time.

But no bars at all appeared on her phone.She was on her own.

Lila didn’t consider herself to be the bravest person around.She tended to act on instinct—what some would call “whims.”They weren’t whims, just strong feelings, and sometimes they were based on fear.A sense of dread or impending doom would come over her, and she’d have to leave that apartment, or that job, or that city.

It’s probably a raccoon.

She repeated that mantra as she swung her legs over the side of the bed.In her pajamas, soft flannel with a pattern of clouds and sheep that she found comforting, she tiptoed toward the door of her bedroom.The tongue-and-groove planks of the floor were cool under her feet.Fall was here, temperatures were dropping, and pretty soon she’d have to make up her mind about whether to stay here for the winter or not.

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