She put the card by her keys. She’d take it with her in the morning and make the decision once they found the car. It might not even be Martha’s car. Or the cops might have already found it by the time they got there.

  She headed to bed with Killer on her heels. She had an early morning.

  * * * *

  Shirley had a large crossover SUV, and the five of them were crowded inside with coffee and donuts by five after seven the next morning. Kim hadn’t come on the adventure because she’d had to work, but she’d asked Shirley to keep her appraised by text as soon as they found anything. If they did.

  Rarity glanced at Malia, who was sitting shotgun with a map spread across her lap. “Where are we heading?”

  “Devil’s Bridge Trailhead. My friend said he saw an abandoned blue Jeep there yesterday afternoon.” Malia studied the map closely. “If she went hiking, there’s only one trail off there. And maybe we’ll get lucky, and she’ll have bought a trail pass.”

  “If she’s a hiker, she probably has a senior all-access pass like George and I do.” Shirley pointed to her windshield. “It’s a lot cheaper than buying a pass every time you want to go hiking.”

  “Well, that stinks. If she does have one of those, we can’t pinpoint when she even came out here.” Malia leaned back in her seat. “The hike’s only two miles since she parked in the trailhead parking. Can this get up the road, or do we need to park at Dry Creek?”

  “I’ve got four-wheel drive, don’t you worry. Besides, I’ve been up to Devil’s Bridge a few times this spring.” Shirley sipped her coffee. “Just drink your coffee and relax. We’ll be there in about thirty minutes. I felt like a hike this morning, anyway.”

  “If your friend already hiked the trail, wouldn’t he have found”—Rarity paused, not wanting to say ‘a body’—“Martha?”

  “He didn’t see the Jeep until after he came out of the hike. And he only mentioned it to me when we met for coffee last night. He knows I’m looking for one to purchase. I happened to see Martha get in it after the book club, and I was going to talk to her about it on Tuesday, but she never showed. I guess it could be someone else’s, but it has an ‘I love my Yorkie’ sticker on the back window.” Malia studied the map.

  Rarity was impressed. This was the most she’d ever heard the young woman talk since she’d met her. “I’m glad we’re doing this. I wanted to talk to you guys, anyway. Sam was wondering if she could join a book club. Since I only have the one going right now, it’s either our group or nothing.”

  Sam spoke up. “Look, if you don’t want me there, I understand. I was just thinking I could bring in a different viewpoint. As a friend of a survivor.”

  The inside of the crossover was quiet. Finally, Shirley spoke. “We already broke the rules and let Kim in, even though she’s not a survivor—yet. Maybe it would be good to have another member, especially if Martha doesn’t come back.”

  “I don’t care either way,” Malia chimed in.

  Rarity turned to Holly, who was sitting next to her. She was the only one who hadn’t spoken her opinion about adding Sam to the group. “What do you think?”

  “I liked the idea of it being exclusive. I mean, where can you really talk about chemo and radiation and surgery without people getting weird? But since she’s your friend, I’m assuming you two have already had chats like that. So, as long as she’s up for our discussions, I agree with Shirley. It might be nice to have a ‘rational voice’ when we talk.” Holly smiled at Sam, who was sitting next to Rarity.

  “I’m pretty sure we’re all rational,” Rarity said as she smiled back at the younger woman.

  Holly shook her head. “Not anymore. Having cancer makes you rethink a lot of things. Things that normal people take for granted. Like picking up hiking after a certain age.”

  “You’d better not be talking about me and George, missy,” Shirley called from the front seat, meeting Rarity’s gaze in the rearview mirror. Her tone sounded angry, but her eyes were twinkling with humor.

  “I’d never talk about you behind your back. Except, of course, when I’m actually behind your back, like I am now, and you can’t reach around and swat me without hitting Rarity. And we all know you want Rarity to think you’re a nice person.” Holly scooted closer to the door and out of Shirley’s reach. “You have to realize, I was a kid just a few years ago. I still have my moves.”

  “Brat.” Shirley focused on the road, but Rarity could see the smile. “So, who’s finished the first book?”

  When they got to the parking lot, Shirley parked as close as she could to the blue Jeep. Then they all got out and studied it. Shirley peeked in the windows. “No one’s in the front. And I’m not sure that’s a purse. It looks more like a tote.”

  “Does anyone recognize it as Martha’s ride?” Malia glanced at each of the group members in turn. “Okay, then, let’s do the hike, and if anyone sees anything unusual, call out, stop, or do something else to get our attention.”

  “Okay.” Rarity couldn’t think of anything else to say, so she followed Malia and Holly to the trailhead.

  “We’ll go first, then Shirley and Sam. Rarity, you bring up the rear.” Malia listed off the order for everyone. “And if someone gets tired, just call out ‘stop’ as well. Then we’ll all gather together.”

  “It’s only a two-mile walk. As long as you two aren’t jogging, we’ll be fine,” Shirley pointed out.

  “There’s a bit of a steep patch at the end.” Malia pointed out the hill, then tucked her map into her pocket. “Let’s go.”

  Shirley followed Malia and Holly onto the trailhead, and Sam hurried to catch up. Rarity took one last glace at the parking lot. Besides the Jeep and Shirley’s car, there were two other cars parked near the edge of the lot. She took out her phone and took a picture, making sure she got their license plates in the shot.

  Then Rarity hurried to follow Sam onto the trail and past the juniper bushes, hoping they wouldn’t find Martha, or if they did, that she’d be okay. Maybe she was just hurt, and dehydrated, but not dead. She kept up the mantra. ‘Just not dead.’ Who said she couldn’t be positive and work with the law of attraction?

  They didn’t find anything on the trail. Holly thought she found a place where it looked like someone had slid down the mountainside, but no one answered when she called Martha’s name. When they finally got to Devil’s Bridge, Rarity took a breath. It had to be fifty or sixty feet down to the bottom. If Martha had been looking for a place to take herself out, this would be lovely—but not a very nice way to die.

  Sam stood next to her. “What do you think?”

  “I think we need to call Drew and get him to verify whether that is actually Martha’s Jeep in the parking lot. Either way, I think they need to get people down there to see if there’s…anything there.” Rarity started back down the trail, and the others followed her.

  She waited until she was in the car and Shirley was driving them back to Sedona to make the call to the police officer.

  He answered on the first ring, his voice gruff with sleep. “Hello?”

  Rarity glanced at her watch. It was almost nine. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

  “I worked graveyard last night. Who is this? And why am I telling you my life story?”

  Rarity could hear a cabinet door open and a cup hit the counter. “Rarity Cole. I have Killer?”

  “Oh, sorry, is something wrong with the dog?” Now he sounded alert, worried.

  “No, Killer’s fine. He’s really cute, and he learns really quickly.” Rarity saw Sam winding her finger around and around. “Sorry, I’m rambling. Look, we think we found Martha’s Jeep out at the Devil’s Bridge Trailhead parking lot. You need to send people down to the bridge to make sure she didn’t fall over the edge. Or that whoever owns the Jeep didn’t fall.”

  “Okay, this is a lot. One, why are you looking for Martha’s car? And two, how did you know it was a Jeep?”

  “One of our book club members saw her driving off in it after the first meeting. And it has a Yorkie sticker on the back.” Rarity looked at Malia and pushed the phone toward her, but Malia shook her head and pointed back at Rarity. “Anyway, she has a friend who saw it at the trailhead yesterday, so we came up this morning to see if we could find Martha.”

  “You went to the trailhead to look for Martha?” There was a loud sigh on the other end of the line. I’m assuming you didn’t find her.”

  Rarity couldn’t tell if Drew was angry or just clarifying what she was saying. “Right. We did the full hike and didn’t find anything, but the bridge at the end, if someone fell there, well, you know.”

  “Yes, as a sworn law enforcement agent of the city, I do know. And I’ll send someone out to check out the Jeep. If we think, in our professional opinion, there is foul play afoot, we’ll call out a search team.” He paused, and Rarity could imagine him sipping some of the coffee she was pretty sure he’d made while they were talking. “Is that all? Or do you want to tell me you found Jimmy Hoffa too?”

  “Funny. You know, most people don’t even know who Jimmy Hoffa is.” Rarity was starting to think this had been a bad idea. “Anyway, we just thought you should know.”

  “Thank you for your interest. I’m sure Martha will be pleased you were worried about her safety.”

  “Wait, you found her?” Rarity asked.

  “Actually, we have a lead on a woman at the Flagstaff hospital. She was found wandering on the road. Our current theory is that someone stole her car and left her out on the road. I’m going up this afternoon to see if it’s her.”

  “Awesome. Just let us know. We are worried about her.”

  “That’s apparent. But you need to let us do our job.” He paused again. “I hope you had a nice hike.”

  “Thanks. I hope that woman is Martha. Maybe Killer will be going back to his home sooner than later.”

  After she’d hung up, she filled everyone in. “So, maybe Martha’s in the hospital.”

  Malia shook her head. “No way, especially if that was her Jeep. Someone would have taken that to either chop it or sell it out of state. They wouldn’t have left it there. Something feels wrong about this whole thing.”

  “Well, hopefully it was just kids out on a joyride. Maybe Martha was out of the car and hit her head. Then the kids took the car,” Shirley theorized.

  “Or maybe she’s not in the hospital and she’s dying somewhere on that mountainside. They need to get out there and look for her.” Malia’s eyes misted over. “Before it’s too late.”

  The rest of the ride into town was quiet. As soon as they parked in front of the coffee shop, Malia hopped out of the car and headed off down the street.

  “I’ll go get her. She’s worried, that’s all.” Holly opened her door and hurried after her friend. She caught up with her before Malia turned a corner, and they both disappeared.

  “Well, at least we got a good workout this morning.” Shirley beamed at Sam and Rarity. “Thanks for coming with us. Those two are fun to be around, but sometimes they have too much energy.”

  “It was our pleasure. I hope Martha’s all right and just in the hospital,” Rarity said as she went out the door. “We’ll see you on Tuesday.”

  “With bells on.” Shirley’s phone buzzed. “There’s Kim. She’s probably on a break and wants to hear about our adventure. She’ll be so excited to hear they might have found Martha.”

  Sam waved as she shut the back door of Shirley’s crossover. She fell in step with Rarity. “Do you want another cup of coffee?”

  “Yes, please. That was a weird morning. Malia seems very invested in finding Martha, don’t you think?” Rarity held open the door to the coffee shop. “Let’s get the coffee to go, and we can walk back to the house so I can get Killer. I hate to have him locked up in the house all day. Especially since it looks like I’ll be giving him up soon.”

  “You don’t know that that woman in the hospital is Martha.” Sam said as she ordered coffee for the two of them.

  “You don’t know it’s not. And it’s the simplest explanation. Why else would she just disappear like that? And really, who would kill her?”

  As Rarity walked home to get Killer, she thought about that question. Who would want to kill Martha? She’d been abrupt at the meeting, but all Rarity knew about the woman was that she was widowed, liked Yorkies, had been diagnosed with cancer at some point in her life, and drove a Jeep. She paused at that thought and redialed Drew’s number.

  “What can I do for you?” He answered the phone with the question.

  “Hey, Drew, it’s Rarity.”

  “Yes, I know. I have your phone number in my contacts just in case you need to get in touch with me about Killer. Is everything okay?”

  “Well, I was just thinking, maybe we should take Killer out to see the Jeep. He might be able to tell us that it’s Martha’s.” She waited for his answer.

  “You mean, like bark and want to get inside?” Drew asked, then continued without letting her answer. “Because I don’t really speak dog. Do you?”

  “No, I guess it wasn’t that good of an idea. I just thought that if Killer recognized it, you might be able to use that recognition to get a search party out there to look for Martha. It’s already been a few days.” Rarity paused at her mailbox and resisted the idea of opening it until she finished the conversation. Besides, it was probably still empty. But mail came early here so the carriers could get in and out of the weather.

  “I don’t know about using the dog. I was going to look up the plates and see whom the vehicle is registered to. What do you think about that? Maybe it will work?”

  “You’re teasing me. Okay, I didn’t think about you being able to look up plates.” She opened the mailbox anyway. Bill, bill, and a flyer for a community picnic next week. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

  “It’s not a bother, but Rarity? You need to stay out of investigating things. One, we don’t know whether Martha’s safe or not.” He turned down the stereo in his car. “Hopefully, this woman in the hospital is her and she just has a slight memory problem. Then you’ll lose your new roommate.”

  “Yes, that would be the best outcome,” Rarity agreed. She sighed and focused on the call. “Sorry to bother you.”

  “No worries. I’m not even in town yet. Killer’s doing good?”

  Rarity spent the next ten minutes telling him about the cute tricks the dog knew and the way the dog would watch her doing her daily routines. She startled when she heard Killer barking from inside. “Look, I’ve got to go. Thanks for being so open-minded about this whole thing.”

  “I’ll call you and give you a warning if this is Martha. You’re probably going to have to go into cute puppy detox as soon as she comes and gets the dog.”

  After he hung up, she wondered if he wasn’t right. She loaded Killer’s things into her bag, leaving the second collar at home. She didn’t know if it was for walking or what, but the thing was so heavy, she didn’t want him to have to deal with that and the walk, especially with it being hotter than he was used to when they went to the shop.

  She was definitely going to have to go through detox, because she was in love with this little dog.

  Chapter 7

  She didn’t hear from Drew that night, but as soon as the shop opened Saturday morning, both Holly and Malia were sitting on her couch, waiting for her to finish with a customer. Killer was perched between them, so when one stopped petting him to talk, the other one would pick up the slack. The dog had skills.

  When there were no other customers, Rarity came back to the fireplace and sat down. “What are you two doing up so early?”

  “I found something at the police station about Martha. Her husband didn’t die—he ran off with Madame Zelda’s husband, Charles, ten years ago. They said they were going to work in the North Dakota oil fields, but they never reported to work. They just vanished.” Holly made a poof motion with her hands and then let them fall apart. “Now Martha’s missing. What do you want to bet that Madame Zelda was the one who did her in? She’s always talking about the spirit world. Maybe she knows so many of them because she’s killed so many people?”

  Rarity checked Holly’s body language. The girl actually thought the fortune-teller could have been involved. “Look, let’s not turn this into a witch hunt just because Madame Zelda knew the victim. Maybe one of us should go get a reading and see what she says.”

  Holly nodded like Rarity had suggested she walk on hot coals. “I don’t think I could do it, though. My folks, well, they were pretty strict, so I’m not comfortable with opening myself up to the other side. Besides, if the police department knew I was talking about the old records, I could get in trouble.”

  “Cold cases are open to everyone with a request.” Malia pulled out her phone and made a note. “I’ll ask about the case Monday morning. I can say someone said something about it in passing and I was interested. And I can’t do a reading because I just got one last month. I do one every other month. If I change my routine, she’ll be suspicious.”

  Rarity leaned back in her chair. “I guess I’m getting a reading, then. Her shop is open later than mine. I can see if I can get one tonight.”

  “Call and see if she has openings. She’s very popular.” Malia opened her contact section and rattled off a number. “Make sure you ask for a first-timer’s discount when you call. I think she shortens your time a bit, but it will save you fifty percent.”

  “Okay, then.” Rarity pulled out her cell phone and made the call. A young girl informed her that Madame Zelda wouldn’t be available until Monday night at six thirty. Rarity took the appointment and then hung up. She made note of it on her paper planner. “I guess I’m getting my tea leaves read.”

  Malia shook her head. “No one does that anymore. Madame Zelda uses tarot cards.”