Read Online The Salt Maiden by Colleen Thompson - Free Book Online

different from the one she had imagined when she’d first heard about the salt-dome project. At the time Dana had figured that Angie’s potential interference was the reason no one was too eager to find her sister. Though the specter of Angie’s death had since crept into Dana’s thinking, the suspicion had seemed almost as unreal as the thought of someone putting a live snake in her car. Until Jay Eversole admitted he shared her fear, Dana had been able to hold on to the idea that this was simply another false alarm, one of the countless rehearsals for grief that Angie had put her family through over the years.
    “I promise you”—his blue gaze never wavered—“I’m going to find out what happened. And if there’s any way—any possibility whatsoever—that your sister’s alive somewhere in Rimrock County, I will personally escort her back to Houston so she can get her marrow tested. You can count on that, Dana.”
    Since he’d be working in a county where nepotism was a way of life, where infighting was the only organized sport, and the name Vanover appeared to be a curse word, she would have to be an idiot to buy what he’d just said. Maybe she was, or maybe hearing him call her by her first name had kick-started dormant hormones, because she did believe him.
    But then, she had believed in Alex Hilliard, too, right until the moment his damned text message lit up her cell phone’s screen.

Chapter Six
    I think I saw her last night, her white hair gleaming in the starlight as she strode across the flats. The Salt Woman, wandering the desert, looking for a home among those worthy of her gift.
    More likely she was just another hallucination, a parting gift from the DTs—as if the puking and the shaking haven’t been enough. But I can tell you this much: before I saw her I was hell-bent on jumping in the beater and hauling ass to Pecos for a bottle. Afterward the craving lifted, and I stood staring in the direction of the salt domes as the rarest peace rained down from the night sky.
    —Entry four, March 2
Angie’s sobriety journal
    Saturday, June 30, 6:36 P.M.
    101 Degrees Fahrenheit
    The vehicle’s progress could be seen for miles as it churned up dust that stood out against the stark blue like a signal fire’s smoke plume. The Hunter lowered the binoculars and wiped sweat off the eyepieces with a shirtsleeve.
    Foolish woman had come back to the desert. Not only to the desert, but to the perfect isolation of the dilapidated ranch house out near Lost Lake. She should have gone back to her fancy family to reclaim her fancy life. Should have taken the fluke that had saved her and run with it like a jackrabbit.
    She’d been given a sporting chance the first time. An opportunity to learn from her mistakes and mend her ways.
    But the Hunter did not believe in second chances, not with so very much at stake. Besides that, natural selection was less forgiving in Rimrock County than most places, andif there was one thing to be respected, it was the ancient order of this most ancient land.
    “Out here it’s survival of the fittest,” came the parched whisper, a rasping hiss barely tempered by a swig from the canteen. “And you’ve already proven, by returning, that the fittest isn’t you.”
    Jay had just stopped by his office when the phone on his desk started ringing. With a sigh he reached for the receiver, though he’d been on his way home from another long day spent rechecking quadrants where others had supposedly looked for Angie Vanover. As much as Jay wanted to believe in both his deputy and his volunteers, he wasn’t taking any chances, especially after this morning’s phone conversation with Special Agent Tomlin from the FBI. Just thinking of it tempted him to pin his star to the corkboard and skip town before the proverbial shit hit the fan.
    “Dennis Riggins,” the caller identified himself so loudly Jay moved the receiver six inches from his ear. Though he couldn’t be much older than his