Circle of Blood (Forensic Mystery)

felt a flash of exhilaration as she registered this fact. She could catch this girl, if for no other reason than that Mariah was afraid. She would grab her and reclaim the wallet, and her mother would be proud.
    The two of them became like runners in a frieze, with pumping thighs and knifing arms. It was hard pushing through the people. Mariah knocked into a woman, whose cup of hot chocolate flew into the air. "Hey!” the woman yelled, but Mariah kept running. Cameryn, intent on her prey, slammed into a man dressed in biker leathers. She fell so hard to her knees that tears stung her eyes. The next moment she felt the man’s strong arms pull her to her feet. “You okay, kid?”
    “Yeah,” she panted. “Sorry.” Her knees throbbed as she scanned the street. People stood in clusters, their coats and hats as brightly colored as Christmas ornaments, but she saw no girl with a backpack, no long braid of hair undulating. Still searching for blue, Cameryn leaned against the wall until her breathing became even, but she could see only revelers.
    Mariah was gone.

Chapter Four
    IF ONLY SHE hadn’t worn the boots.
    Snow had begun to fall harder. The flakes were powdery, like bits of silk. Cameryn hadn’t been able to gain traction because of the leather soles on her cowboy boots. Why had she worn them today of all days?
    “I want a pair like that, too, now that I’m in the West,” her mother had announced on her second day in Silverton. “It’s a good thing you didn’t inherit my wide feet.”
    Cameryn grimaced at her own A-width boots, feeling a surge of irritation—they’d made her fail just when her mother needed her.
    Ducking around the corner of the Shady Lady, she pulled her BlackBerry from her back jeans pocket and punched in her mother’s number, swallowing hard. It rang only once before she heard, “Did you find it?” Hannah’s voice was high, agitated. In the background Cameryn heard a thumping sound, like a pounding fist. “I know it wasn’t fair for me to send you, but I knew you could run faster than I ever could. Did you find her?” Thump, thump, thump.
    “I’m sorry. I tried but . . . she got away.”
    There was a pause. It stretched out so long Cameryn wondered if Hannah was still on the line. “Mom? Do you want me to call Justin? Or the sheriff?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    The pounding started up again. “Your father will find a way to turn it against me.”
    Cameryn tried to reason with her but it was no use. Patrick, Hannah claimed, would find a way.
    “I should never have picked her up.” Hannah stayed on that loop, chastising herself while Cameryn stood there, unsure of what to do. All the world was frozen: the telephone wires, the whiskey barrels that held summer flowers, the grass, the distant trees. Cameryn began to feel a different kind of chill. There was something off about this conversation. From her forensic psychology books she knew that everyone handled stress differently. Was this all it was—stress? She tried to convince herself, but even as she did, she only half-believed.
    When Hannah finally took a breath, Cameryn broke in and asked, “Where are you?”
    “In my car on Fourteenth.”
    “Okay. Let’s think this through.” As a knot of people crossed by, singing, Cameryn pressed a finger in her ear and turned away. “Did you get Mariah’s last name?”
    “Just Mariah. I’m sure she’s hitched another ride. I’m sure she’s gone.”
    “I can drive up to Ouray and start looking.”
    “No!” Hannah sounded genuinely panicked. “Promise me you won’t go. Promise me! ”
    “Okay, okay, I promise.”
    “I’ll handle this myself. You’re a good daughter. I have to go.” With that, she hung up.
    Cameryn sagged against the wall, the knees of her jeans dark and damp from when she’d fallen. She’d accepted the news calmly that her mother had been institutionalized, because it had been so long ago. But new doubts began to nibble at her mind.
    Stop, she told herself. Think.
    Usually she was able to analyze clinically, sifting and examining evidence as though each fact were a mosaic tile. Line them up in their proper place, and a picture would emerge. But the pieces of her mother made no sense. Elusive, defensive, euphoric, despondent—her mother’s emotions cycled as rapidly as the Colorado weather. Punching redial, she heard Hannah’s voice mail immediately kick in. Cameryn slipped the BlackBerry back into her pocket. There was nothing more she