saw the Asian man. An hour north of the city, she called Dafoe, catching him at his computer.
She greeted him warmly, then quickly told him what she’d been experiencing. “I feel silly,” she added sheepishly.
“Trust your feelings,” he responded. “At times like this, that old reptilian brain of ours can protect us from the animals still out there. Sounds like your brain is sending you a warning and then some.”
Words that brought to mind the almost preternatural awareness that she’d once had of a bear in the Colorado Front Range—confirmed when her group’s guide pointed out the critter’s unmistakable scat, and seconds later noted a grizzly across a broad glen.
But this creature had left no trace—except for those recalcitrant hairs.
The train pulled into another station. Four more stops and she’d be with Dafoe. “I’ll feel a whole lot better just seeing you.”
He assured her that he’d be waiting.
She hung up and looked around, then impulsively stepped off the train to see if the Korean followed her, only to find him on the platform, looking quickly away from her.
With a torpedoed stomach, she moved back on board.
“Are you okay?” a conductor asked her.
She nodded before telling herself not to be such a hero. “I think I’m being followed by a Korean man in the car behind us.”
“That guy?” The conductor nodded at the man, who was walking away from the train as purposefully as he had hurried to it only an hour ago. She felt so ridiculous that she blushed. “Sorry. That’s him and he’s clearly got more important things on his mind than me. I’m really sorry.”
“Hey, that’s fine,” the conductor said. “And I like the way you do the weather. Been missing you the last few mornings.”
“Thanks. I’m coming back from a long trip and I think I need to get some sleep.”
The final leg of the train trip felt interminable. Her worry lightened only when she spotted Dafoe on the platform, looking as scrubbed and cheerful as he’d appeared only a few weeks ago. His appearance reminded her of how disheveled she felt from a full day of travel. But she hugged him unabashedly. Then they embraced, and she didn’t care, in their fiercely rekindled passion, that a busybody with a cellphone might be shooting video of her and planning a YouTube entry called “Weather Woman Kisses Up a Storm.”
As their lips separated, she realized, astonished, that Dafoe was “the one.” She’d never felt that way before, not with Rafan, not with anyone. But why would you have, she asked herself, if he’s really “the one”? You had to wait and now he’s here.
He took her suitcase, and as they turned to leave the wooden platform, Jenna spotted another Korean man. Like the guy who’d gotten off the train a few stops earlier, he was dressed in black. Like they’ve got uniforms. She squeezed Dafoe’s hand in panic.
With a glance of his own, Dafoe took note and led her to his pickup. She slid to the middle seat and buckled up, watching the Korean open the rear passenger door of a black Expedition with smoked windows.
Coincidence? she asked herself, and then Dafoe.
“We’ll keep an eye on them. Forensia and Sang-mi might have been followed yesterday by Koreans in a RAV4.”
“I hate even talking like this.” As she spoke, the black SUV pulled away. “And thar she goes,” Jenna said. “Okay, that’s it, I’m just going to chill.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and took a great big breath of him, smiling at the faintly sweet scent of hay and sunshine that rose from his skin and clothes.
“You want to hear the latest on the GreenSpirit case, or do you want to take a break from that, too?” Dafoe asked, checking his side view before driving off.
“No, tell me. What’s up?”
“They arrested a kid for the murder.”
“A kid? Who?”
“A high school senior named Jason Robb. The team quarterback. They got him yesterday.”
“Why do they think he did it? Did they say?”
“He threatened Forensia and the other Pagans on the night that she was initiated. Which was the night before GreenSpirit was murdered.”
“Do you think he did it?”
“The cops do. The sheriff found a bandana of Jason’s with GreenSpirit’s blood on it. The FBI lab confirmed it.” He rested his hand on Jenna’s leg. “I don’t mean to alarm you but that car is behind us now, and it left the station before we did.”
“Don’t go to your place,” she said right away. “It’s too isolated.” She adjusted