Within a half hour, Lee was disturbed, uncomfortable and completely engrossed. She’d have been angry with the author for drawing her in if she hadn’t been so busy turning pages. He’d put an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation and done it with such skill that Lee was already relating to the teacher who’d found himself caught up in a small town with a dark secret.

The prose flowed and the dialogue was so natural she could hear the voices. He filled the town with so many recognizable things, she could have sworn she’d been there herself. She knew the story was going to give her more than one bad moment in the dark, but she had to go on. That was the magic of a major storyteller. Cursing him, she read on, so tense that when the phone rang beside her, the book flew out of her hands. Lee swore again, at herself, and lifted the receiver.

Her annoyance at being disturbed didn’t last. Grabbing a pencil, she began to scrawl on the pad beside the phone. With her tongue caught between her teeth, she set down the pencil and smiled. She owed the contact in New York an enormous favor, but she’d pay off when the time came, as she always did. For now, Lee thought, running her hand over Hunter’s book, she had to make arrangements to attend a small writers’ conference in Flagstaff, Arizona.

She had to admit the country was impressive. As was her habit, Lee had spent the time during the flight from L.A. to Phoenix working, but once she’d changed to the small commuter plane for the trip to Flagstaff, her work had been forgotten. She’d flown through thin clouds over a vastness almost impossible to conceive after the skyscrapers and traffic of Los Angeles. She’d looked down on the peaks and dips and castlelike rocks of Oak Creek Canyon, feeling a drumming excitement that was rare in a woman who wasn’t easily impressed. If she’d had more time …

Lee sighed as she stepped off the plane. There was never time enough.

The tiny airport boasted a one-room lobby with a choice of concession stand or soda and candy machines. No loudspeaker announced incoming and outgoing flights. No skycap bustled up to her to relieve her of her bags. There wasn’t a line of cabs waiting outside to compete for the handful of people who’d disembarked. With her garment bag slung over her shoulder, she frowned at the inconvenience. Patience wasn’t one of her virtues.

Tired, hungry and inwardly a little frazzled by the shaky commuter flight, she stepped up to one of the counters. “I need to arrange for a car to take me to town.”