Free Locked In by Marcia Muller Page A

summer conditions inland, its flow was barely a trickle. Come the rainy season, it would be a torrent.
    All around there were reminders of the 2008 wildfire, sparked by lightning, that had burned more than 160,000 acres in the
     area: blackened sections, redwoods with charred branches, deadfalls. Many residents had lost their homes, even more had been
     evacuated, and the Pacific Coast Highway had been closed to traffic. People in the Big Sur area were strong and resilient,
     though; it had always been subject to floods, mudslides, and avalanches. Often in winter it was cut off from the surrounding
     territory, but no matter how bad the disaster the community clung together and regrouped quickly.
    Craig loved Big Sur, but he and Adah had spent little time there. It was remote, down a very dicey part of the coast highway,
     and there really wasn’t much to do. Better to go to Carmel, with its interesting shops and good restaurants, for a getaway.
     Still, there was something magical about this long stretch of tall trees and rugged sea cliffs; if he were a believer, he’d
     say being here was akin to a religious experience.
    But he wasn’t a believer. His exposure to religion had been limited to Christmas Eve and Easter services at the Methodist
     church in Alexandria, Virginia, where he’d been raised. He never contemplated the existence of a deity or eternal life; it
     simply wasn’t in his makeup. Adah was the same: she’d been reared in the religion of her parents—communism—but she hadn’t
     taken her radical parents’ beliefs too seriously. In fact, when they’d become disillusioned and begun labeling themselves
     as “wild-eyed liberals,” she’d been relieved.
    He thought of Shar: what did she believe? She’d been raised Catholic, but he’d never known her to go to church. And the beliefs
     of her Indian ancestors hadn’t been passed on to her. He hoped if she had any faith at all she was leaning heavily on it now,
     during the toughest battle of her life.
    Nature called. He went into a stand of pines clinging to the clifftop, out of eyeshot of early passing motorists. Returning,
     he looked at his watch. Six-thirty. He’d grab breakfast somewhere, even if it meant driving north, then play tourist till
     around ten, a respectable time to arrive at the Spindrift Lodge for a spontaneous weekend getaway.

RAE KELLEHER
    S he was starting her search for Bill Delaney, the name she’d found in the phone book in Callie O’Leary’s hotel room, when the
     fog showed signs of breaking over the Golden Gate. Delaney’s cellular had been out of service consistently when she’d called
     it last night during breaks in a family evening with Ricky and the girls.
    She was surprised how much she enjoyed the times when Molly and Lisa, their older sister Jamie, and even their troubled brother
     Brian were in residence. The eldest girl, Chris, was a student at Berkeley and dropped in often. So did Mick.
    Family had never played a big part in Rae’s life—unless you counted the people at All Souls and, later, at the agency. Her
     parents had died in an accident when she was just a kid, and she’d been raised by her grandmother in Santa Maria—a cold, begrudging
     woman who had died of a heart attack while trying to murder a perfectly good rosebush.
    Maybe that was why she could put up with the trials and tribulations of the Little Savages: they were so much more of a family
     than Nana, as the old lady had insisted Rae call her.
    Of course, there was Jamie’s abortion last year: Rae had finessed that so Ricky hadn’t made it more stressful than was warranted
     upon his second daughter. And while Brian’s OCD, which had surfaced shortly before Charlene and Ricky divorced, was difficult
     to deal with, he was a sweet-natured boy and lately Rae had become close to him. Brian seemed better all the time; he did
     get manic once in a while, dusting and washing everything in sight, but Rae kind of appeciated that. In