Hidden Prey (Lawmen) Read Free Page A

in the shop, she could have loaded everything that was most important to her. But she hadn’t been able to wait for the car. She’d had to get away from Gregory.
    This morning she’d called her best friend, Paula, and had planned to tell her about what Gregory had done, but she’d been too sick over it to tell her friend. So she’d just told Paula she was headed for her parents’ home in Bisbee and would see her when she got back.
    Tori had met Paula in the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, and the other woman was second chair clarinet while Tori was first chair. Tori had several friends she enjoyed meeting up with when Gregory wasn’t harassing her for not spending enough time with him. But she was closest to Paula.
    Sue and Janice were two other good friends who were also in the symphony. Occasionally, Tori, Paula, Sue, and Janice went to a jazz bar for a glass of wine and good music. But not as often as Tori would have liked. It wasn’t easy getting time away from Gregory.
    Her gaze drifted out the window as she fought back tears and the stinging ache behind her eyes slowly dissolved. She could name the homes of old friends and wondered if any of them still lived there or in town.
    On Facebook, she was friends with some of her childhood buddies and acquaintances from Bisbee. Most of the people she had grown up with had moved away from the old mining town, but many had stayed. She couldn’t always keep up with statuses of people she didn’t know well anymore, but when she felt like her brain couldn’t take anything more strenuous than skimming through online social media, she’d catch up on the lives of old friends and acquaintances.
    She sobered as her mind turned to two friends who’d recently been diagnosed with devastating news—one with ovarian cancer and the other with breast cancer. If it weren’t for social media, Tori probably wouldn’t even have known. One was an old friend from college who lived in Chicago, and the other was a woman she’d met years ago at a party in Phoenix and became good friends with. Tori had been observing their brave battles as they went through chemo and other challenges. Both women were warriors. By seeing how strong her friends with cancer were, and admiring their strength, it gave her the courage she needed to make the decision to leave.
    The shuttle traveled down Tombstone Canyon, past St. Patrick’s Church. She’d belonged to the church from childhood until she graduated from high school. She had gone through catechism and had received her first Holy Communion and Confirmation at St. Pat’s.
    Castle Rock was coming up as the shuttle continued to Main Street in Old Bisbee. Victorian and European-style homes clung to the hillsides.
    The shuttle passed the jutting Castle Rock and then they were rounding the bend, continuing down the street between rows of old buildings that had been around since about 1910, rebuilt after a fire had ravaged the town. In the early 1900’s, the town had been home to over twenty thousand people and was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco.
    Now the town had less than fifty-five hundred people. It had once been reduced to an even lower population.
    Bisbee had nearly died in the 1970’s when the mines had closed, but hippies had revived it by restoring old buildings and homes, turning the town into an artists’ community. The history of the place, plus the uniqueness and quaintness of the town, drew tourists from around the world.
    The shuttle driver parked in the lot behind the Bisbee Convention Center, which had once been the old Phelps Dodge Mercantile. The driver had told her he wouldn’t take the van up the steep winding street to her parents’ home, so she was left to climb up on her own. She didn’t mind—she’d been a runner in high school and had kept in shape by jogging regularly. It would give her a chance to collect herself before she made it to her mom and dad’s. She just hoped her dad wasn’t there. She