Page 2 of Sour Layer

Chapter 2

The warmth from the Styrofoam coffee cup seeped into my gloved hands. Lifting it to my mouth, I sipped in the warm brew before breathing out and watching my breath in the freezing air. This landscape was as frozen as my heart. The snow-plowed streets were empty of residents. The once white snow now mixed with dirt in the ditches. The Mountain View airport was small. A one-room building serviced one airline whose fleet consisted of the small pond-jumping plane I’d arrived on.

I might have picked Mountain View, Colorado, as a tourist for the privacy and lack of residents, if not for the frigid temperatures. The empty streets and sidewalks were a dream to a girl like me. No one to accidentally bump into while out and about. No contact meant no death to deal with. No worries of seeing the how my neighbors would die with a single touch, and definitely no worries of accidently electrocuting anyone.

Snow covered the mountaintops jutting up into the bright blue sky behind the town. My winter jacket wasn’t big enough. The fur around the hood did little to keep me warm, neither did the wool leggings beneath my jeans. I was a southern girl out of my comfort zone.

The cold reached all the way down to my bones. I shivered uncontrollably wishing I’d thought to wear even more layers.

Still, I was in the right place, no matter how wrong it was for me.

My phone vibrated, and I struggled to reach it beneath my layers. I pulled it out and swiped several times in an attempt to answer with my glove-tipped finger until it connected.

“Yeah,” I said by way of hello.

“Mercy Bennett, we haven’t met, but I’m Paisley Monroe, a realtor in town. I understand you’re in the market to sell your house.”

I glanced at the caller ID. “No. I’m not.”

“There’s a for-sale sign in your yard.”

Who in the hell had put a sign in my yard? I pinched the bridge of my nose and squeezed my eyes shut. The sound of thunder rolling in the distance had me snapping my eyes open again. I inhaled a calming breath.

“This is just a misunderstanding. A minor annoyance,” I whispered to myself. There was a fine line between annoyance and anger. In my case, that line might as well be buried underground like a fault line ready to shift. Only, the danger I produced was visible to anyone checking out the sky. The last thing I needed was lightning to hit the mountain and cause an avalanche. The snow would bury us all, and my sister would kill me for missing her wedding. Nope, not happening during this trip.Keep my hands to myself and my emotions in check.

“How did you know the sign was there? Did you just drive by?” I didn’t live on a main street in town. Quite the opposite. I lived on a cul-de-sac just outside of town. I owned my place, but I was hardly ever home.

“No, actually your neighbors pointed it out. They thought you might need help. I apologize, we must have gotten our wires crossed.”

You think?Someone got their wires crossed, but it wasn’t the realtor. “Thanks for calling. I’ll deal with that when I get home.”

I hung up. That explained the fifteen calls and emails I’d gotten about listing and selling my house in the last two days I’d been out of town.

I didn’t have time to deal with it. Not until I finished this freezing mission trip for my sisters. I’d drawn the short stick, and for once, I didn’t mind leaving the others to deal with Faith’s wedding preparations.

A truck pulled up beside me. A handsome guy got out and smiled in that way that reminded me they didn’t have many women in these parts. “You must be Mercy Bennett.”

“I am.”

“Great.” He grabbed my bags and tossed them into the back of the truck before thrusting out his hand. “I’m Clark Weller.”

I glanced at his outstretched hand. Not wanting to tempt fate that I’d get a death notice even though I was wearing gloves. “No offense, but I’m a germaphobe,” I lied.

It was the easier this way. To most people, it made me weird, and I was okay with that. The less touching, I had to do, the lighter my conscience. I’d found that people didn’t actually want to know how or when they were going to die, and one touch would produce that secret as if I were tapped into the Grim Reaper’s playbook.

“I’m confused. I thought I was meeting Jerimiah Weller,” I said.

“That’s my dad. He liked to greet all the tourists, but you’ll have to settle for me.” Clark dropped his hand and rounded the truck, opening the door. I slid inside the heated interior and held my gloved hands over the vents as he climbed in the other side.

“So, tell me, Mercy, what brings you to these parts?”

“A family mystery. I’m looking for someone.”

“Oh well, I can help you with that. There are only 800 residents in a fifty-mile radius, and I’ve had the pleasure of meeting them all.”

“You know all your neighbors?” I asked, wondering why he would bother when I knew exactly two of mine, and one was apparently trying to run me out of my hood.

“Of course. Don’t you?”

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