Fatal Descent
vehicles to the Hite Marina on Lake Powell, their takeout point, and leave the keys in the marina office.
    By seven fifteen, all but one of their clients had arrived, loaded up on breakfast, and found seats in the van. The missing man was Paul Norton. Mandy looked up where he was staying on the roster and called his motel. Reception buzzed his room, but there was no answer. She had just about decided to send the guys in the Subaru to the motel to roust Paul out of his room when he arrived in his car.
    He parked and jogged over to Rob and Mandy. “I’m sorry. I had so much trouble getting to sleep, worrying about Elsa’s reaction to me showing up unannounced, that I slept through the alarm. Thank God I asked for a wake-up call, too, but that came twenty minutes late.”
    “No problem.” Rob clamped a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “Remem ber you’re on vacation now. While you’re stowing your stuff in the back of the truck, I’ll get you some breakfast. How do you take your coffee?”
    Looking relieved, Paul answered, “Black will do.” He ran back to his car.
    Rob winked at Mandy. “There’s always one.”
    She rolled her eyes. While he went inside the building, she helped Paul secure his dry bag in the back of the truck. Paul climbed into the van’s only empty seat, next to his daughter, Tina, in the third row. Elsa Norton, sitting on the other side of Tina, didn’t acknowledge his presence and stared out her window. The Anderson clan filled the last two rows in the back, and the three girlfriends were in the second row.
    Once Rob had returned with Paul’s coffee, donut, and banana, Mandy climbed in the front seat next to Gonzo. Then they were off, heading west, with the rising sun blazing through the rear window. As soon as they were on the way, Gonzo got on his knees, facing the back of the van. He had been reading up on Native American rock art. Since there was a good example along the ride, he was going to brief the clients on it before they stopped to get out and look at the panel.
    “On the way to the put-in,” he shouted, “we’re going to see some awesome petroglyphs right on the side of the road, so get your cameras out. Anyone know the difference between petroglyphs and pictographs?”
    He waited.
    Mandy turned around and saw that Paul Norton’s face had a smug expression, but he wasn’t volunteering what he knew.
    When no one piped up, Gonzo explained, “Pictographs were painted on cliff walls with natural paints made from crushed minerals or plants of different colors mixed with a binder made from fats or blood.”
    He paused. After Tina Norton wrinkled her nose and issued the “Eew” he was waiting for, he added, “Now that’s one way to suffer for your art! But we’re not going to see pictographs today. We’re going to see petroglyphs. They were chipped into the dark desert patina or rock varnish you find on a lot of the sandstone cliffs, exposing the lighter sandstone underneath. The way to remember the difference is that the root words ‘petro’ and ‘glyph’ mean ‘rock’ and ‘carve’ and ‘picto’ and ‘graph’ mean ‘paint’ and ‘write.’”
    Mandy turned around again to make sure everyone was comfortable and could hear. In the back row, the two older Andersons were straining forward, heads cocked. Adding to their difficulty in hearing was the fact that Alice was talking softly, but laughing loudly, to her sister’s husband, Les, sitting next to her in the row in front of her parents.
    Mandy put a hand on Gonzo’s arm to stop him. She shouted over the seat back, “Excuse me. Is anyone having trouble hearing Gonzo?”
    Diana and Hal nodded and raised their hands.
    “Gonzo’s already talking as loudly as he can. Could everyone keep it down so the folks in the back can hear him?”
    She waited, and Les stopped laughing and straightened. The van was silent except for Alice, until the woman sensed everyone’s gaze and stopped. She pursed her lips and crossed her

Similar Books

One Christmas Wish

Sara Richardson

Can't Say No

Jennifer Greene

Summer's Indiscretion

Heather Rainier

The Good Life

Erin McGraw

Dream Man

Linda Howard

Poe

J. Lincoln Fenn

WORTHY, Part 2

Lexie Ray

Shots Fired

C. J. Box

Through the Night

Janelle Denison

The Eighth Witch

Maynard Sims