Finders, Keepers by Christine Pope

Author:Christine Pope [Pope, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dark Valentine Press

Back at the house, I got some more work done, even though I kept looking out the window each time a car came down the street. I had to hope that sooner or later, I’d stop jumping at every little sound, but it didn’t seem as though that was going to happen any time soon.

I took a break in the late afternoon and decided to shoot Joy a text. So much had been happening that I’d fallen out of touch, and I knew she was busy enough on set that she probably didn’t have time to stop and wonder why I’d been incommunicado.

But since it seemed safe enough for me to wander around downtown Santa Fe, I thought I’d drop her a note and see if she wanted to come up for lunch and a movie or some gallery browsing or shopping on Saturday. I still didn’t feel safe going to Albuquerque, which would have been easier on her, but I could always try to sweeten the deal by making the outing my treat.

She didn’t respond right away, and I hadn’t expected her to. When she was on set, it might take hours before she had a break and could stop to look at her phone.

However, a message did come in about an hour and a half later, right around the time the crew would be taking their late afternoon break.

Love to, she wrote back, but we’re heading out tomorrow to do some location shooting in Cimarron. We won’t be back in ABQ until the middle of next week.

Cimarron. The name conjured impressions of the old black and white cowboy movies my grandfather used to watch, but I didn’t know anything about the place other than that.

Cimarron? I wrote back. Where’s that?

Up in the northern part of the state, northeast of Taos, she replied.

I didn’t know why, but that description of Cimarron’s location made a little shimmer of unease move down my spine. It had to be a coincidence that it was in the same part of the state as Taos, but….

Because I didn’t know why I’d reacted to the name the way I had, I didn’t pass on any of my misgivings to Joy.

Oh, that sounds fun, I wrote. Well, maybe we can get together when you get back to town.

Sounds like a plan, she replied. But I need to go — break’s almost over.

Talk to you soon, I sent back, and she replied with a thumbs-up.

Well, so much for that.

I wasn’t going to ignore that uneasy feeling, though. No, I opened a Safari browser on my phone and then went to Wikipedia so I could do a little research.

When I got to the “History” section of the entry I’d pulled up, my heart skipped a beat.

“Cimarron was officially chartered in 1859 and was named for the Spanish word used to describe a mustang, meaning ‘wild’ or ‘unbroken.’”

I am unbroken.

It couldn’t be a coincidence. It just couldn’t…especially when I’d gotten that creepy feeling as soon as I heard the name of the town and didn’t yet know anything about the place.

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