Page 165 (1/2)

Chapter One

The woman looked completely out of place in her pristine white blouse and tailored ivory pants Long, coffee-dark hair cascaded over her shoulders in thick waves, not a single strand disturbed by thetall elegant heels, which hadn't see up a wooded path that had the other hikers around her huffing in the humid July heat

At the crest of the steep incline, she waited in the shade of a bulky,as half a dozen tourists passed her by, so pictures of the overlook beyond They didn't notice her But then, most people couldn't see the dead

Dylan Alexander didn't want to see her either

She hadn't encountered a dead woman since she elve years old That she would see one noenty years later and in theShe tried to ignore the apparition, but as Dylan and her three traveling companions made their way up the path, the woman's dark eyes found her and rooted on her

You see me

Dylan pretended not to hear the static-filled whisper that ca lips She didn't want to acknowledge the connection She'd gone so long without one of these weird encounters that she'd all but forgotten what it was like

Dylan had never understood her strange ability to see the dead She'd never been able to trust it or control it She could stand in the , then suddenly find herself up close and personal with one of the departed, as she was here in the ue

The ghosts were always fe and vibrant, like the one who stared at her noith an unaze

You must hear me

The stateed with a rich, Hispanic accent, the tone pleading

"Hey, Dylan Coet a picture of you next to this rock"

The sound of a true, earthly voice jolted Dylan's attention away fro in the nearby arch of weathered sandstone Janet, a friend of Dylan'sinto her backpack and pulled out a camera The summer tour to Europe was Sharon's idea; it would have been her last great adventure, but the cancer came back in March and the final round of cheo had left her too weak to travel More recently, Sharon had been in and out of the hospital with pneumonia, and at her insistence Dylan had taken the trip in her place

"Gotcha," Janet said, clicking off a shot of Dylan and the towering pillars of rock in the wooded valley below "Your ?"

Dylan nodded "We'll e-et back to the hotel"