37 AndreaA breeze tickled Andrea’s bare arm. The air carried the smells of wet reeds and sundried mud.
She was a hundred yards from the south fork of the Palouse River.
The dirt road in front of her wound through a stand of leafy aspen and cottonwood trees that blocked any view of water.
Pale blue lupines, yellow desert parsley, and wild violets bloomed in the bunchgrass edging the road. Dense thickets of spiny elderberry bushes and purple-flowered sagebrush crowded up behind the grass.
A pungent flowery scent hung in the air and half a dozen bumblebees buzzed among the blossoms.
She’d parked the Washington State Patrol vehicle in the middle of the road.
She and her colleagues were working Kent’s theory.
Chad Dillon might be camping by the river. It wasn’t yet noon and he might be a
