Rebel Ridge, Kentucky
Ryal Walker couldn't sleep. He'd fought the bed
until the covers were in a mess before he finally gave up,
thinking maybe a little fresh air would help clear his mind.
It was nearly 2:00 a.m. when he pulled on a pair of
sweatpants, then walked barefoot through the darkened rooms
of his home and out onto the front porch. Upon his arrival,
an owl took flight from a nearby pine.
"Sorry about that," he said softly, aware that
he'd trespassed by disturbing the status quo around the
house.
A slight breeze quickly cooled the sweat from his body as he
sat down on the porch steps and rested his elbows on his
knees. He couldn't figure out what was bugging him. He
hated to admit it, but he knew something bad was going to
happen. He'd had the same feeling ten years ago when he
learned Beth's parents had moved in the night, taking
her away from him. He hadn't understood it then any more
than he understood it now. Up on the mountain, it wasn't
uncommon for distant cousins to marry. Her mother and his
mother had been fourth cousins and not even close friends at
that. And the difference in his and Beth's ages
wasn't uncommon, either. He'd been twenty-five to
her seventeen.
It was weeks later before he learned the move had nothing to
do with their love for each other. Instead, he and Beth had
been the victims of a much larger problem. Once he'd
found out what had happened, he'd tried to contact her,
but all his letters had been returned unopened.
None of the other Venables would talk to him or seemed
willing to interfere with her family's decision to cut
themselves off from Rebel Ridge. Today, people would call
their unrequited love affair collateral damage, but back
then it had been a tragedy, at least for him.
He put the thought of her back in his memory, where she
belonged, as he gazed into the trees surrounding his home.
He wasn't one to dwell on lost causes, but he
couldn't help but wonder what their lives would have
been like if her family had stayed.
Just then something rustled in the bushes beside the house.
He turned to look just as a possum wandered out from beneath
a lilac bush and ambled across the yard. Solitude was a good
thing in daylight, but sometimes at night it could feel
threatening. Tonight was one of those nights.
He kept scanning the tree line, looking for something that
seemed out of place, but saw nothing at which he should feel
alarmed. Still, it wasn't the first time he'd had a
feeling like this, and he'd learned long ago not to
ignore his instincts, so he waited, hoping for an answer.
Sound carried in the mountains, and he could hear someone
running his dogs on the next ridge over. The animals'
barks and yips were high-pitched and frantic, but when they
suddenly shifted to baying howls, he knew they'd just
treed whatever they'd been chasing.
At that moment the skin crawled on the back of his neck.
That was exactly how he felt—treed—which made no
sense. He wasn't trapped—in fact, far from it.
There were few places on this earth more free than the
vastness of the Appalachian Mountains. He liked his life,
even though it was, despite his large extended family,
sometimes a lonely one.
He liked building things, and over the years he had created
a decent business building handcrafted, one-of-a-kind pieces
of furniture. And, despite the persistence of various young
women in the area, he'd never found one to replace the
love he'd had for Beth.
As he listened to the hunting dogs' frenzy, he heard
another sound—more poignant, more frantic. It was the
death screams of the animal they had treed.
Ryal had heard that sound plenty of times over the
thirty-five years of his life, but for some reason, hearing
the creature's death throes in the midst of his
uneasiness seemed like another omen of something bad.
He stood up, eyes carefully sweeping the darkened tree line
around his home, then went back into the house, locking the
door behind him.
Los Angeles, California
Some believe that the fate of every living thing hinges upon
little more than chance.
For twenty-seven-year-old Beth Venable, it began with a gas
leak in her Los Angeles apartment building, followed by a
phone call to her friend Sarah Steinman, asking if she might
spend the night at her place until the all clear was given
for the residents to go back. Pleased to get to spend a
night with her friend, Sarah happily agreed, and Beth's
dilemma was over.
That night, as Beth bedded down on Sarah's living room
sofa, the unfamiliar surroundings and the huge bank of
curtainless windows made it difficult for her to fall
asleep. After tossing and turning for what seemed like
hours, she got up to get a drink. Outside, the moon was
full, the sky cloudless.
The night view of the city pulled her toward the windows
with their bird's-eye view of the steady stream of
traffic on the streets below. She watched the cars weaving
in and out of line without really focusing. She was more
worried about her apartment, hoping they got the leak
repaired before the entire building blew up. Everything she
owned was in it.
She glanced up at the sky, and not without a little bit of
regret. This was definitely not the same view of the night
sky that she remembered from where she'd lived as a
child, although it had been ten years since she'd been
back to Kentucky. There, heaven looked as if it were within
reach—the unending array of stars so clear they looked
like diamonds on black velvet. Here, the only stars anyone
was interested in seeing walked on two legs, and heaven
wasn't on their radar as often as it should have been.
She rarely let herself think about those years in Kentucky,
because the memories brought back nothing but pain.
She'd loved Ryal Walker with a passion far beyond her
seventeen years, and when they were abruptly separated,
she'd expected him to follow. For weeks she'd
watched the streets and haunted the mailbox, certain he
would find a way to contact her, but the weeks had turned to
months and the months to a year. By that time she had
learned how to hide her emotions and to live with a broken
heart. Losing Ryal had taught her one thing: to never count
on anyone but herself.
A phalanx of cop cars followed by a fire truck went flying
past on the street below. She said a quiet prayer of
safekeeping for whomever was in danger, then turned away
from the window. As she did, she noticed a telescope in the
corner. It was mounted on a tripod and aimed at the sky. She
knew Sarah was into astrology but had not known that
included stargazing, as well.
Curious, she pulled the telescope out of the corner, dragged
it to the window and aimed it skyward. It took a couple of
moments to adjust the focus to her eyesight, but then she
was pleasantly surprised to discover how clearly she could
see distant objects. After a couple of minutes of scanning
the heavens, she turned the telescope to the view of the
city, then, a couple of minutes later, to the apartment
building directly across the street.
Most of the windows were darkened, like hers—except for
one apartment. Not only were all the lights still on, but
the curtains had also not been drawn. She could see a couple
standing at the windows, and from their expressions, they
were having an argument.
Before she had time to feel guilty for spying, they went
from shouting to physical violence. The man suddenly shoved
the woman against the back of a sofa. She reacted with a
hard, vicious slap to his jaw. Beth saw rage sweep across
his face, and then all of a sudden there was a knife in his
hand. He slit the woman's throat so quickly that, had it
not been for the arterial spray that abruptly splashed
across the window, Beth would have thought she'd
imagined it.
She let out a scream, and then started jumping up and down.
"Oh, my God, oh, my God! Sarah! Sarah! Help!"
Sarah burst into the room carrying a baseball bat, a frantic
expression on her face. When she realized Beth was in the
room alone, she shrieked, "What the hell's wrong?"
Beth was shaking so hard she felt ill. She kept pointing at
the window and shouted, "He killed her. They were
fighting, and then he just slashed her throat."
"What? Where?"
"There, in that apartment across the street—the one
with all the lights still on."
Beth looked back into the telescope just as the man turned
toward the windows. She gasped, then froze, suddenly afraid
he could see her.
"I need lights," Sarah muttered, and reached for the
switch.
"Don't!" Beth screamed. "No lights. Oh, my
God, no lights!"
"Good grief, Beth. Are you sure you weren't
dreaming?"
"I wish," Beth said. "Come here. See for
yourself."
Even though the lights were still off, the man's studied
focus gave her an eerie feeling. She feared he could see her
silhouette at the window but resisted the urge to hide as
she mentally mapped the contours of his features, the sharp
beak of a nose set in a middle-aged face, olive complexion,
low forehead and no hair. His eyes were dark and deep-set,
with equally dark bushy eyebrows.
She watched as he took a handkerchief from his pocket and
methodically wiped the blood spray from his face. As he
turned away, his movement reminded her of the moment's
urgency—that he would be gone before they alerted the
authorities.
"Let me see," Sarah said.
Beth stepped back as Sarah peered through the scope.
"I don't see anyone," Sarah said.
Beth shoved her aside. "Well, I did! Call the police.
Hurry. Hurry! The apartment is on the same floor as this
one, the corner unit."
Beth's anxiety seemed to be catching. Sarah made the
call, her voice shaking as she rattled off the address of
the apartment building where the murder had occurred, then
gave them her name and address. As soon as she hung up, she
ran back to where Beth was standing.
"Is he still there?"
"Yes," Beth said.
"Let me see," Sarah begged, but all she saw was the
back of the man as he walked out the door. "He's
gone!"
Beth groaned. "Maybe he'll come out the front door.
You watch to see if a car comes out of the alley. I'll
watch the front of the building."
Within a couple of minutes they heard sirens, just as a
black sports car came shooting out of the alley beside the
building and turned north, driving away from the approaching
sirens.
Sarah groaned. "If that's him, he's getting
away."
"Get back on the phone and tell the police about the
car," Beth said, as she began pulling on her clothes.
"What are you doing?" Sarah asked.
"I'm getting dressed. You gave the police your name
and address, didn't you?"
"Yes."
Beth reached for her slacks. "Then they'll be coming
to talk to us."
"Oh, Beth, you can't…"
Beth yanked her shirt down over her head. "Sarah! He
killed her. I can't ignore what I saw."
"I know, I know…it's just scary, that's
all," Sarah said.
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