Crazy Mountain Kiss by Keith McCafferty Page A

either. It’s because they sense you’re genuine. No, don’t give me that roll of your eyes. I care about you. I don’t want to see you lose what makes you you.”
    â€œIs that why you’re trying to throw a bone my way, to bring me out of my funk?”
    â€œNo. Because I’m a mother and it could have been my child in that chimney. Because Cindy was special. But that’s only part of it. This one gets to you. You don’t walk away from it the same person. We’ll be there in a few minutes. You’ll understand what I’m trying to say.”
    She took her right hand off the steering wheel and again pressed her first two fingers against Stranahan’s arm. “We okay?”
    â€œSure. We’re okay, Martha.” He moved his arm away.

CHAPTER SIX
Sleeping with the Devil
    A s a boy, Sean Stranahan had befriended a trapper in the Berkshire Mountains who bequeathed him the uncured hide of a red fox. His mother wouldn’t let him bring it into the house, so Sean hung it in a tree until the taxidermy kit his father mail-ordered arrived. The result, his father told him, looked like the Tasmanian devil and smelled to high heaven. The odor inside the cabin recalled the memory. Ettinger left the door standing open and showed Sean the fireplace where the body had fallen onto Harold’s lap.
    â€œShe looked like a Raggedy Ann with her eye buttons missing.” Martha shook her head. “In all my days . . .”
    Stranahan nodded. He could feel it, all right, what she’d talked about earlier. There was death in the room, in this cabin in the woods. A different kind of darkness.
    â€œI didn’t tell you before,” she was saying, “but Cinderella was wearing a Santa hat. When your buddy Gallagher jabbed the poker up the chimney, the hat fell down into the fireplace.” She made a face. “I guess it makes more sense if she had it in a pants pocket. Wilkerson found some strands of Cinderella’s hair on it; it matches hairs she found on the elkskin jacket I told you about. But there were hairs on the hat that weren’t hers, too.”
    â€œOh?”
    â€œDarker.”
    â€œDoes that mean anything to you?”
    â€œJust that someone else had worn the hat.”
    Sean nodded. “I really can’t see Max being mixed up in this,” he said. “He comes across as a rogue, but that’s an act.”
    â€œWrong man, wrong place, wrong time, huh? Yeah, I can’t see him for it, either. Still, he’s covering up. Maybe you can ask him about it. If I call on him he’ll just antebellum up with the charm and turn his head so I’m looking at the pretty side of his face.”
    â€œIs that even a word?”
    â€œYou know what I mean. I told him not to leave the valley.”
    â€œI’ll pay him a visit. What are we looking for, Martha?”
    â€œI wish I knew.” They moved back into the main room and Martha began pulling drawers out of the built-in cupboards and setting them onto the floor. “Nobody ever detail searched this place,” she said, squatting down and shining a flashlight into the dark recesses. “Gigi bagged a lot of fiber evidence—that’s another thing . . .”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œShe found fibers from the girl’s shirt both above and below where she was found. It makes you think she broke into the cabin by shimmying down the chimney, then got stuck trying to climb back up.”
    â€œBut once she was inside, couldn’t she get out by opening the door?”
    â€œNo, the lock’s on the outside. You saw it.”
    â€œHow about climbing out a window?”
    â€œI suppose she could have. If I had all the answers we wouldn’t be here. You can stand around with your thumbs in your pockets or help me look.”
    â€œAnyone check the root cellar?”
    Ettinger shook her head. “You want the honor?”
    â€œNot