Free A Killer Closet by Paula Paul

door.
    Adelle was incensed. “Closed? How could they? What am I supposed to do?”
    “I’m sure they would have stayed open if they knew you were coming,” Irene said.
    “Don’t be sarcastic, Irene. Take me to the bar across the street.”
    “Are you sure?” Irene had noted the pickup trucks and low-rider cars parked in front. It was definitely not the kind of place Adelle frequented.
    “For heaven’s sake, Irene, do you doubt that I know when I need to pee? Of course I’m sure.”
    As soon as Irene parked the car in the parking lot in front of the bar, Adelle bounded out of the car and hurried toward the front in a mincing trot. “I might as well go, too,” Harriet said.
    Irene was thinking the same thing, but as she got out of the car and was about to close the door to follow the two women, she saw the blue sedan across the street, next to the gas station. The car’s windows were tinted, making it impossible to see if anyone was inside. She stood outside the car, with the door still open, trying to decide what to do. Within a few seconds, she was back inside the car. If anyone got out of the blue sedan, she wanted to get a good look at them.
    After several minutes, she saw Harriet and Adelle exit the bar, escorted by a man who walked them all the way to the car and opened the door for each of them.
    “Bye, Rafael,” Adelle said, and gave him a flirtatious smile.
    The man touched the front of the cap he wore.
“Adios, Señora,”
he said.
    Irene’s attention was diverted away from the blue sedan momentarily as she watched the little drama play out. When she turned her attention back to the sedan, it had moved out of the space it had been occupying and drove away on the road, headed back toward the freeway.
    “I’m surprised you didn’t come in with us.” Adelle’s voice was a bit less frosty than it had been earlier.
    “Be glad you didn’t,” Harriet added.
    “God, Harriet, what is it with you?” Adelle said, settling into the backseat again, while Harriet got into the front.
    “I don’t appreciate being treated like…I don’t know…a piece of meat for sale.” Harriet said stiffly.
    “What do you mean?” Irene asked, taking her eyes off the blue car she was watching in her rearview mirror to look at Harriet.
    Adelle made a dismissive wave with her hand. “It was nothing. They were just flirting. You get used to it.”
    “Well,
I’m
not used to it,” Harriet said.
    “I’m sure you’re not,” Adelle said.
    The motor purred as Irene started the car and backed out of the parking space. “Which way?” she asked Harriet.
    “Straight ahead into the mountains. Just stay on this road that runs through the town until I tell you where to turn.”
    The road narrowed a few miles out of the tiny village, and the forest thickened with tall ponderosa pines on steep rocky mountainsides. The area was popular for families as well as for hunters and fishermen. Campgrounds dotted the area, and a few motor homes shared the road with Irene’s car, along with other cars pulling trailers. Irene was oblivious to the conversation between her mother and Harriet as she watched for the worrisome blue car. So far, however, it was nowhere in sight.
    “Mariposa Landing must be somewhere near here,” Irene said, as they drove past several summer homes of various sizes.
    “No, it’s farther up the mountain,” Harriet said.
    Irene sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.” It had been years since she’d driven in the wilderness, but she remembered how canyons and roads narrowed and became steeper and how mountain streams meandered across the road at times, making fording them difficult. She’d been a teenager the last time she’d driven here, and back then, nothing was impossible.
    “Turn here,” Harriet said, pointing toward a narrow dirt road shrouded in the shadows of tall pines. Irene turned, driving slowly along the rocky, uneven path. A veil of dust swelled and undulated behind them, making it