Myths, Murder & Love

Chapter 6

The flight from Chicago to Saint George should have been long enough for Thallia to sleep.

Her body was exhausted. Her mind refused to follow.

She settled against the window and closed her eyes, but every time she started to drift, the last few days came rushing back.

Trevor and Bianca had blown apart the life she thought she had. Trevor's drunken rage that morning had ended with her climbing down seven floors to get away from him.

Then there was Evalyn, who had left her a stone house in a Utah canyon, seven point eight million dollars, and a connection to Olympia Springs. A town Thallia still wasn't entirely convinced existed.

Thallia opened her eyes and stared through the window.

She muttered under her breath, "Sure, perfectly normal week."

The woman sitting beside her glanced over.

Thallia smiled politely. "Long story."

The woman smiled back and returned to her book.

Thallia accepted a diet Coke when the flight attendant passed through the cabin and gave up on sleeping.

Several hours later, the world beneath the plane began to change.

The green fields and tightly packed cities disappeared. Roads stretched farther between towns. Mountains rose from wide open land, and the colors shifted from summer green to brown, gold, rust, and red.

Thallia leaned closer to the window.

She had spent time in Utah with Grandma Evalyn when she was younger, but seeing the desert from the air reminded her how different the American Southwest could look from anything around Chicago.

There were places below where the earth appeared almost bare.

Long ridges folded across the landscape. Red cliffs rose beside pale stone. Dry washes twisted through the desert like empty rivers, while scattered shrubs and juniper trees survived against all reason across miles of country that looked too harsh to support anything.

Then came the red rock.

Thallia leaned closer to the window as broad bands of sandstone appeared below, their rust-red faces broken by pale streaks of stone.

Something in her chest loosened.

She hadn't realized how much she'd missed this.

The sight pulled her back to a summer evening with Evalyn when she was sixteen. Her great-grandmother had stopped their truck beside a lonely Utah highway and made her get out.

Thallia had complained about the heat.

Evalyn had simply pointed toward the cliffs, her attention still on the changing light. "Wait."

So Thallia waited.

As the sun dropped, the sandstone shifted from orange to scarlet before the shadows changed everything again.

Evalyn had smiled at her. "Some places make you work before they'll show you what they are."

At sixteen, Thallia had thought that sounded terribly dramatic.

Now the memory brought an unexpected ache with it.

Evalyn was gone, but Thallia was flying back into the country she'd loved, chasing a secret she'd left behind.

Looking down at the red landscape, Thallia finally understood what her great-grandmother had meant.

The plane banked toward Saint George.

Red mesas and low desert mountains surrounded the city, broken by neighborhoods, roads, and patches of green that looked almost startling against the stone.

By the time the wheels touched the runway, Thallia was wide awake.

She stepped through the terminal doors less than half an hour later and stopped.

Heat rolled over her.

It was nothing like Chicago. There was no heavy humidity clinging to her skin or threatening her hair.

This heat was dry and immediate, carrying the faint smell of dust, hot pavement, and desert plants.

Beyond the airport, red hills rose beneath an enormous blue sky.

Thallia stood there for a moment and let herself take it in.

Chicago suddenly felt very far away.

The thought should have frightened her. Instead, a small rush of excitement slipped through the exhaustion.

Here, nobody was demanding anything from her or deciding what happened next. The next choice belonged entirely to Thallia.

Thallia pushed her sunglasses into place, tightened her grip on the suitcase handle, and faced the red hills with a smile.

"Okay, Utah. Show me what you've got."

Buying a vehicle had not originally been part of her life plan.

Neither had inheriting millions of dollars.

Thallia decided the two problems could cancel each other out.

She took a rideshare from the airport to a Ford dealership and spent twenty minutes walking through rows of vehicles before stopping in front of a pearl-white Bronco.

The salesman appeared beside her. "Good choice."

Thallia glanced at him. “I haven't chosen it yet.”

He smiled. "You stopped walking."

Thallia looked at him.

He lifted both hands. "Occupational observation."

She turned back toward the Bronco.

Four-wheel drive with plenty of cargo space. High enough off the ground to handle roads that might turn questionable.

And white. She had always liked white vehicles.

Against the red Utah landscape, this one looked even better. "I want that one."

The salesman blinked. "Would you like to test drive it?"

Thallia nodded. “Yes, I sure would.”

A half hour later, Thallia pulled back into the dealership and parked. She climbed out with a smile. “I'll take it.”

His eyebrows lifted.

Thallia caught his expression. “What? I know what I like.”

The salesman chuckled. “You don't waste much time.”

Thallia's smile faded slightly. “Not anymore.”

He considered her for a moment. “Bad breakup?”

Thallia let out a short laugh. “You have no idea.”

He nodded with the solemn understanding of a man wise enough not to request details.

Thallia added the tow package, roof rack, and all-terrain tires.

The salesman looked over the order. “Planning to do some serious off-roading?”

Thallia shook her head. “I have no idea. That's why I'm buying the tires.”

He laughed.

The paperwork took longer than choosing the vehicle, and the extras added another hour.

By the time Thallia loaded her suitcase and camera into the back, the hottest part of the afternoon had settled over Saint George.

She climbed behind the wheel and entered Moab into the navigation system.

More than four hours.

Thallia looked at the map, then at the road ahead. "Let's go."

Saint George disappeared behind her as she headed north on Interstate Fifteen.

For the first stretch of the drive, massive red cliffs dominated the landscape. Their faces rose sharply above the highway, layered in shades of brick, rust, and cream.

The scale was difficult to judge. A cliff that looked close enough to touch might be miles away.

That was the thing she had forgotten about Utah. Distance played tricks here.

The sky seemed larger because almost nothing blocked it.

The land did the same thing. Valleys opened for miles. Mountains appeared on the horizon and stayed there for an hour while the highway gradually approached them.

Thallia watched the landscape unfold through the windshield, already framing photographs in her mind.

Sagebrush covered long stretches of open ground. Juniper trees appeared in clusters across higher elevations, dark green against pale soil.

The road climbed and the temperature dropped. Red cliffs gradually gave way to mountains covered with pine and aspen before opening again into high desert.

Thallia stopped once at an overlook where the highway curved between rust-colored mesas. The Bronco ticked quietly as the engine cooled, and she stepped out with her camera.

No editor had requested photographs, and nobody was expecting a gallery by morning. There was no assignment.

Thallia raised the camera anyway. The shutter clicked as she framed the highway disappearing between distant hills beneath clouds casting enormous shadows across the open land.

She took another.

Then another.

She lowered the camera and smiled.

That felt good.

She returned to the Bronco before she could turn the stop into an hour-long photography session. Moab was still waiting.

By the time she turned east onto Interstate Seventy, the country changed again.

The highway entered the San Rafael Swell, and Thallia slowed as massive formations rose around her.

The landscape looked torn open. Layers of stone had been pushed upward and carved apart by wind and water, leaving cliffs, mesas, narrow canyons, and enormous slabs of exposed rock.

Cream-colored sandstone stood beside deep red walls. In places, the rock looked almost purple beneath the lowering sun. There were few buildings. Few trees.

Sometimes several minutes passed without Thallia seeing anything created by humans except the highway itself.

For readers back in Chicago, she would have described it as another world.

For readers overseas who had only seen the American West in movies, she wasn't sure photographs could explain the scale.

The country did not merely surround the road. It swallowed it.

Thallia found herself thinking about Evalyn again. A woman in her nineties had chosen to live out here. Not merely visit, but live.

That question joined all the others waiting in Thallia's head.

Why Olympia Springs? Why had Evalyn told everyone she lived in Moab? Where had the money come from?

And what exactly had Susan meant when she talked about families having gifts?

Thallia tightened her hands around the steering wheel. She had come to Utah intending to decide what to do with a house. Her reporter instincts were already making other plans.

The navigation system directed her south onto US Highway One Ninety-One. Moab appeared as the sun slipped lower.

Towering red cliffs rose on both sides of the valley. Businesses, hotels, restaurants, outdoor outfitters, and tour companies lined the highway.

Jeeps seemed to be everywhere. So did bicycles.

A group of dusty hikers crossed the street carrying backpacks almost large enough to qualify as additional people.

Thallia laughed. This felt like Evalyn's Utah.

Tourists came here to climb rocks, float rivers, hike canyons, and return home with sunburns and stories.

Olympia Springs was close. Close enough that tomorrow she would see it.

Tonight she wanted food, a shower, and a bed that had never contained Trevor Collins.

The motel she had booked during the flight sat a few blocks from Main Street.

It was small and older, with a single row of rooms beneath a covered walkway. Hanging baskets filled with flowers softened the weathered railing, and every window was spotless.

Thallia liked it immediately.

The woman behind the front desk greeted her with a smile. "Long drive?"

Thallia set her messenger bag on the counter. Her gaze caught the name tag pinned to the woman's shirt. Maria.

Thallia rubbed the back of her neck. "Long couple of days."

Maria nodded thoughtfully. "Those are worse."

Thallia laughed. "They really are."

Maria slid the room key across the counter. "Here for the national parks?"

"Not exactly. I'm heading to Olympia Springs tomorrow."

Maria's hand stopped.

It was only a moment, but Thallia caught it.

Maria looked at her more carefully. "Olympia Springs?"

Thallia leaned against the counter. "You've heard of it?"

Maria glanced toward the lobby windows before meeting Thallia's eyes again. "Most people around here have."

Thallia waited, but Maria didn't elaborate.

"That's interesting," Thallia said. "Because nobody outside Utah seems to have."

Maria's expression changed into something Thallia couldn't quite read. "There's a reason for that."