HE SAID I IMAGINED THE BODY

"Mommy, look, that man's planting flowers." I looked down, and there was a man pushing a body wrapped in pink plastic into a hole in the ground.

My fiveyearold said it on the gondola ride down, pointing at the hollow below. I clapped my hands over her eyes.

A second later the killer looked up, and across the valley his eyes met mine. Chapter 1 The gondola came down the mountain slowly as a cradle about to tip.

It was Nell's first time on one.

Her legs swung with excitement, the toes of her shoes knocking against the metal rail in front of her. "Mommy, look." She pointed down with one small finger. "That man's planting flowers.

A really big one." I glanced down without much interest. We were passing over a hollow. Below us was a scrap of wild slope, the brush thick, dark green leaves crowded together.

A man stood on the slope in dark blue clothes, bent at the waist, dragging something bright and crumpled and pink. It looked like a piece of clothing.

It looked like an enormous garbage bag.

It looked like a person… He pushed the pink plastic bag into a hole in the ground, and it rolled a few times, and the shape of a shoulder, a hip, a leg showed through. Murder?

A body dumped? Something jolted in my chest. Then he looked up. Across the valley, his eyes met mine.

I turned my face away fast and pulled Nell's head against me. "Don't look." "Why?" She squirmed. "Just don't look.

We're going home right now." The gondola kept moving and the slope fell farther behind. I looked back once more. The man in blue was gone. So was the pink body.

When the gondola finally reached the bottom, I took Nell's hand and ran for the parking lot. I called Marcus on the way. Three times, and three times I got a busy signal.

I gave up on him and got Nell into her car seat in the back.

It took me two tries to get the buckle to click. "Mommy, where are we going?" Nell asked. "Home." "We're not waiting for Daddy?" "Not today." I started the car, cranked the wheel, and hit the gas.

In the rearview mirror, the gates of the preserve shrank away fast. The drive normally took forty minutes. I made it in under thirty.

At home I deadbolted the door and slid the chain on, and only then noticed the back of my shirt was soaked.

The mirror above the entryway cabinet showed me my own face, white as paper. That was when Marcus called back. "Babe, what's wrong?

I just got out of a meeting." "Marcus, I took Nell up to the preserve today.

I was going to wait and drive home with you, and then on the gondola I saw a man burying a body down in one of the hollows." "A body? Did you get a clear look?

We run a tight operation up there. Nobody could get a body up that mountain without somebody knowing." The question stopped me cold. He was right.

The preserve had rare plants and animals in it. To get in you scanned a ticket through the turnstile at the base station, and a vehicle had to clear two more gates on top of that.

I started to waver. "I'm not sure either.

It could have been a big pink bag… it was too far, I couldn't see clearly, but it felt like a person." The man's eyes flashed through my head again. "No — no, Marcus, he saw me.

Even if it wasn't a body being dumped, it wasn't anything good.

The way he looked at me was vicious." "Where are you right now?" "I just got home." "I'll check the cameras and come straight back.

Lock the door and wait for me." "Okay." By the time Marcus got home I had already put Nell to sleep.

Chapter 2 She had been unusually sleepy all day, asleep the whole drive, and when we got home she only shifted, curled up on the bed, and slept on, her breathing light and even. "I checked the cameras," he said. "There's no body on that mountain." "That's not possible." I looked up at him. "I saw it with my own eyes." "I know." His voice softened a little. "Stan was out that way this afternoon clearing some dead feral cats.

That's probably what you saw." "Cats?" "It gets cold in the fall. Feral cats freeze to death up there.

Stan clears them out on a schedule." "But I thought the shape of it was a person." "Did you see a face?" "No." "Honey, you've been holding this whole house together by yourself and you're worn out, and the gondola was swinging.

Maybe you just saw it wrong." He sounded a little apologetic. "I'm sorry. Just hang on a bit longer. This is the last month of the season.

If the traffic and revenue numbers come in, the operations supervisor job is mine, and then I can be home with you two more." Marcus had been working late for the better part of a year to get that job.

If someone really had dumped a body up there, attendance would fall off a cliff and all of it would be for nothing. Besides, he'd already checked the cameras.

A rumor gets halfway around town before the truth has its shoes on. Better to leave it alone than start something.

Marcus kissed me and straightened the blanket over me. "Let it go, babe. I'll take Nell tonight. You get some real sleep." "Okay." Marcus was a good man, really.

I'm a light sleeper, and he always said he didn't want Nell disturbing me, so unless he was working late, Nell slept with him.

It was only in the last six months, with him pushing for his numbers, that she'd been with me more.

I lay alone in the big bed in the master bedroom, rain ticking outside, and for once slept the whole night through.

I woke up feeling much better, and the whole workday went unusually smoothly. Maybe I really had just been tired. I picked Nell up that evening.

She chattered the whole way home about preschool, stomped on two dead leaves, and squatted at the curb for a while watching ants.

Holding her hand in the wind, I felt like that ride down the mountain had been a dream.

At home, unlocking the door, I caught something out of the corner of my eye, low on the wall beside it: a black X, drawn about eight inches below the door handle.

I asked Nell, "Did you draw that?" She shook her head. "Not me." I remembered posts I'd scrolled past about crews that scout buildings ahead of time and leave marks.

If the mark stayed there, it meant nobody was living in the unit, and they'd break in. But there on the mat outside our door sat three pairs of shoes, one for each of us.

I sanded the mark off. The next day, bringing Nell home, I slowed my steps on purpose, and when we got to the door I checked the wall first. This time it was a crooked circle.

I rubbed it with my hand and it smeared. The line was fresh. The ink was still wet. "Mommy, what's wrong?" Nell had noticed. Cold sweat came up my back in waves.

Somewhere out of sight a pair of eyes was on me, the same eyes that had met mine from the gondola. "I left the keys in the car.

Let's go get them together." I picked Nell up, made my steps look steady, and watched everything around us. Killer or burglary crew, someone had picked us out.

There was nowhere safer than the sheriff's station. I ran the whole way with Nell in my arms, and drove to the nearest sheriff's station. The deputy who took us was in his twenties.

Chapter 3 I told him everything that had happened. He frowned, his face grave. "Ma'am, a murder and a body dump is a very serious thing.

Is all of this accurate?" I thought about what Marcus had said, and hesitated. "I'm not sure it was a body being dumped.

It could have been an employee dealing with feral cats. "But the marks on the wall outside my door are real. "I didn't wipe this one off.

Come with me and you should still be able to see it." The young deputy finished the report and stepped out for a while.

When he came back he said they'd split up: one team going up the mountain to search right away, the other driving Nell and me home.

The cruiser parked downstairs made me feel a little safer. But when we got to our door, the circle on the wall was gone. Clean wall, reflecting the light from the hallway.

Just where I'd sanded the day before, there were a few faint scratches.

The deputy crouched down and looked, ran his fingers over the pale patch, and when he stood up he gave me a long look, told me to be careful, and left.

I locked the door and only felt more afraid. Whoever was out there had watched Nell and me leave, and then, in the time it took me to get to the station, wiped it off?

Early the next morning the station called and asked me to come in to go over things.

Someone different met me this time, a veteran detective in his forties named Trask, the three chevrons of a sergeant on the sleeve of his uniform, his gaze steady and hard to hide from.

He poured me a cup of water and sat down across from me. "After you came in yesterday we put a search team on the mountain overnight.

We turned that hollow you described inside out, twice.

No body, no blood." He paused, watching how I took it. "So… what I saw was somebody dealing with dead cats?" "A little after three that afternoon, a preserve employee in a dark blue uniform was in fact disposing of cat carcasses.

Three coworkers can confirm it." For a moment I didn't know whether I was supposed to be relieved. "As for the marks outside your door, we did go to the management office in your building and pulled the footage from the lobby entry camera.

So far nothing out of the ordinary." They'd looked at the cameras too? "Are there blind spots?" "Everyone coming in and out of that lobby is perfectly clear," he said. "We understand a mother's caution, and we'll have the patrol car swing through your area a couple of extra times.

Try not to worry too much." It was all very polite, but I couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't entirely believe me. "I didn't make a false report…" He nodded. "I'm not suggesting you did.

As police, we take every report from the people who live here seriously. So if anything else comes up, you can contact me." That settled me a little.

Out in the lobby I walked straight into Marcus.

His hair was messy and his eyes were faintly red, like he'd been up all night. "Sweetheart." He came over quickly and took my hands. "Are you all right?

I figured last night that it was you who called it in. Detective Trask said somebody marked our door. You must have been terrified." His palms were hot.

My fingers were ice. "I'm sorry. I've made trouble for you." "No, no, it's fine." Marcus turned to Detective Trask. "Thank you for your time, Detective.

Could I have a word?" Detective Trask nodded. The two of them went to the other end of the room, and Marcus said something, his voice pushed low.

Chapter 4 All I caught were a few words. "Postpartum." "Never really got better." "Sometimes she does." "She's exhausted." "Some of it's on me too." It was enough for me to understand.

Detective Trask nodded, turned his head and looked at me, with sympathy, with understanding, and with a careful little edge of wariness.

Marcus came back with his voice as soft as if he were coaxing a child. "Sweetheart, let's head home, all right? Nell must be missing you." "What did you just say to him?" "Nothing.

Just explaining that you've been under a lot of stress and not sleeping." He squeezed my hand. "Don't read into it.

Come on." For the few days after the station, Marcus was extraordinarily attentive.

Home on time every day, Nell's bath, a glass of water for me, his voice even softer than usual. "Honey, if you're too tired, take a couple of days off." "I'm fine." "You haven't seemed like yourself lately.

Is the insomnia back? Maybe you should go see Dr. Calloway." Dr. Calloway. The psychiatrist who treated me when I had postpartum depression.

I looked at his face, the mild eyes, the small smile, as if this weren't the same man who had stood in the sheriff's station telling them I was crazy. "I don't need to." Two days later, in the middle of dinner, Nell tugged my sleeve. "Mommy, let's go look at the stars!" "The stars?" "Daddy says there's so many stars in the mountains.

More than in the sky!" She spread her arms as wide as they would go. "And we can sleep in a tent, and the tent has a window on top, and you look up and you can see them!" I glanced at Marcus.

He smiled. "I read her a picture book last week with a camping part in it and she hasn't stopped talking about it. The weather's good.

I thought I'd get you both out of the house for some air. You've been wound so tight." "Where?" "There's a campground south of Thornhill. River, trees, hardly anybody.

One night, back tomorrow." I hesitated. I didn't much want to leave the house.

But Nell hung on my sleeve and swung it. "Come on, Mommy, come on, Mommy…" "All right." Some air couldn't hurt. Lately I really had been jumping at my own shadow.

We left in the afternoon and drove almost two hours. It was nearly dark when we got there. The site was a small clearing by the river.

Across the water was a slope grown over with scrub trees, and behind that, higher mountains. Marcus set up the tent. Nell picked up rocks at the water's edge.

I stood there watching them, and felt, for the first time in two weeks, something in my shoulders let go.

The slope across the river was pitch black, the crowns pressed into one mass, no telling one tree from another.

Once it was fully dark Marcus built a fire, and Nell roasted two hot dogs on a stick and got grease all over her face. I took her down to the river to wash her hands.

Then, all at once, Nell pointed across the water. "Mommy, there's a man over there." I looked up