Eye of the Beholder

shouting at me. It was bad enough that Strood and his officer thought I was hallucinating."
    "They didn't think you were seeing things." Trask glanced over his shoulder. She gave him an ironic look. He forced himself to unclench his jaw. "Not exactly. They just thought you might have been a little shaken up because of Guthrie's accident and overreacted to a shadow."
    "Bull. They think I'm flaky."
    He decided not to argue the point further. She was right. Strood and Officer Clarke had been polite and professional, but the bottom line was that they had discovered no evidence to support her tale of being pursued up the side of Shadow Canyon by a knife-wielding figure in a hooded robe.
    The only indications that anything out of the ordinary had occurred that morning were the dirt stains on Alexa's linen trousers and her scraped knees and torn nails.
    No one doubted that she had made a mad dash through some underbrush, Trask reflected. It was the reason for her wild run that was in question, at least so far as Strood was concerned. The menacing shadow behind a shoji screen had not stood up well to investigation.
    The officer who had responded to Alexa's frantic 911 call had found no sign of an intruder inside Liz Guthrie's home. According to the official report, there had been no evidence of forced entry or foul play. Nothing of value appeared to be missing from the house. An expensive audio system sat untouched in the living room.
    After Alexa had given her statement, the chief had taken Trask quietly aside.
    "She may be having some problems because of Guthrie's accident," Strood had said, not unkindly. "That kind of thing can shake someone up. Cause bad dreams and so on."
    Trask had decided not to mention his own nightmare following Guthrie's accident. "She's not the type to invent bizarre stories out of thin air. Something scared her."
    Strood's heavy features softened. "Look, I've been in this business a long time. I can tell you from experience that people react to a severe shock in unpredictable ways."
    "I know that."
    "Take her home. Make sure she gets some rest. If things get worse, you might want to advise her to get some counseling."
    Trask shoved the memories of the less than satisfying interview with Strood aside. The chief was right. There was no evidence of a crime.
    He rubbed the back of his neck, trying to unknot muscles that had been rigid since he had gotten Alexa's phone call two hours earlier. "Why in hell did you go out to Shadow Canyon ?"
    "I told you, I wanted to talk to Liz Guthrie in person."
    "What did you expect to learn from her? She's not involved in any of this."
    Alexa hesitated. "From all accounts, she and Dean were still lovers."
    That news made him go very still. He swung around to face her. "Are you sure?"
    "That's the rumor." Alexa gripped the mug tightly in both hands. "I thought she might be able to give me some indication of Guthrie's state of mind the night of the accident."
    "Strood says there's every indication that Guthrie's state of mind was seriously stoned, as usual. You heard him. He's not pursuing any other line of inquiry because there's absolutely no reason to believe that the crash was anything other than an accident."
    "But we are pursuing another line of inquiry," Alexa said deliberately. "Aren't we?"
    The prospect of being hoist on his own petard was not pleasant. "Let's get something clear here. I'm the one pursuing it. Not you."
    "We're supposed to be partners in this thing, Trask."
    "I said I'd keep you informed. That is not the same thing as being a team."
    "I'm involved in this just as much as you are, and I've got just as much right to pursue a line of inquiry as you do. If you don't want to work as partners, fine. I'll go my way and you can go yours."
    "The hell you will." He started toward her with no clear objective in mind other than to make her see reason. He stopped halfway across the room as the full impact of what she had just said finally hit him. "Damn. Are you telling me that you think there's something to my conspiracy theory after all?"
    She watched him with intense, shadowed eyes. "I did not invent that intruder in Liz Guthrie's house. I did not imagine being chased up a mountainside by some thug with a big knife. It's possible that what happened to me this morning had nothing whatsoever to do with your conspiracy theory. Maybe I interrupted a burglary in progress."
    He did not move. "Possible."
    "But like you said, coincidences in a situation such