Chapter 8

Dinner that night was similarly low-key, so much so that Sarah wondered if she was actually getting used to being here with Abdul. They didn't eat in the courtyard that evening, but rather in the dining room, and they had chicken again, only this time not in a salad, but some of the best cacciatore she'd ever had. He hadn't consulted her about the food, instead seeming to take her comment about not having any real dietary restrictions to heart.

It had been another mostly silent meal, though, with her only making a few comments about the dish and the wine that accompanied it, and then shutting up when the djinn didn't seem inclined to talk. Awkward for sure, but she survived, and thanked him afterward before returning to her room.

Again, she shut the door but didn't lock it. She'd already heard from the other survivors in Los Alamos that door locks didn't matter much to djinn…and neither did most other human inventions.

If Abdul wanted to get into her room, he could.

She didn't get that vibe from him at all, though. If her door was going to be locked, it was because he'd done it to keep her in and not vice versa.

Even though the food had been delicious, anxiety still knotted her stomach. It was one thing to tell herself to be chill about her stay here, that sooner or later the cavalry would come to get her at some point, and quite another to look at the time stamp on the iPad she held and know that in about twelve hours or so, she was supposed to show up at the rendezvous point in La Chuachia.

That definitely wasn't going to happen.

Or at least, she couldn't think of a way she could get out of here.

Unless….

Had Abdul been lying to her when he'd said he could sense her presence, that he'd know if she was no longer somewhere close to the house?

Hard to say. She wracked her brain, trying to recall every single scrap of information or gossip she'd heard about the djinn. There were four kinds, corresponding to the four elements, although the only way to know which power a djinn commanded was to see him or her using it. They lived for what felt like forever, but they could be wounded. Problem was, any injuries they suffered healed in almost no time, which meant they were almost impossible to kill.

Not that she would ever try to hurt Abdul. Yes, he was holding her captive here, but he'd been almost courteous the whole time, and she knew she just didn't have it in her to creep up on him in his sleep and stick a butcher knife in his neck or something.

Even if she was that murderous, she doubted she'd be able to get close enough to indulge in that kind of carnage.

Anyway, as much as she pummeled her brain, she couldn't remember anyone saying anything about djinn having a sixth sense about whether a human was nearby, which didn't help at all. Maybe Abdul was lying…or maybe she'd never heard about that particular djinn gift simply because no one she knew had ever mentioned it.

Either way, she didn't think it was anything she wanted to put to the test.

And that meant all she could do now was try to sleep and see what the next day might bring. For the moment, she had a measure of freedom, and throwing that away on a half-baked plan to escape didn't seem like a very good idea.

Like it or not, she knew she would have to sit tight and wait for the cavalry to arrive.

Sarah appeared composed enough the next morning when she emerged from her room — this time in an outfit of the djinn-style flowing tunics and slim pants he'd provided — but something about her seemed almost subdued, as if a second night spent here had convinced her that her captivity was going to be of some duration.

Good. She needed to face her new reality, however unpleasant it might be.

Then again, he thought it was equally unpleasant for him. He had expected to spend days of quiet solitude here, and not have to worry about the emotional vagaries of some human female. Yes, the current situation was his doing, for quite a few djinn would have simply tossed her over a cliff and been done with her, and he knew he was not quite that bloodthirsty.

At any rate, not on such an individual level.

She ate a little more this morning, though, consuming the vegetable frittata and bowl of fresh fruit he'd conjured for their breakfast. As he watched her — or rather, did his best not to seem as though he was observing her while regarding her from behind the drooping edge of his hood — a sudden thought struck him.

"You said you went riding here when you visited as a child," he said. "Would you be interested in a ride today?"

Her startled gaze met his. Now, after a few days spent in her presence, he knew her eyes weren't precisely hazel, but an odd, deep tone somewhere between green and blue, so dark that good lighting was required to see they were not brown at all. "Horseback riding?" she responded, tone just as hesitant as her expression.

"Yes," he said. "I can summon mounts that would be suitable for both of us. It would allow you to see more of Ghost Ranch."

"More places that you've altered?" she asked, her full mouth quirking a little.

"No," he replied, his tone a bit more severe than he had intended. "I have only touched the more public spaces here at the ranch. There was no need to do anything more than that, for the majority of these lands had been left unspoiled, save for riding and hiking trails."

She appeared cheered by that prospect. "Then that sounds like a great idea, except…."

"Except what?" he asked.

"That ride here at Ghost Ranch when I was eleven was the last time I was on a horse," she replied, expression now somewhat rueful. "I'm not exactly what you could call an expert rider."

"That is fine," he said, and knew it was. He would make sure one of the horses he summoned was gentle and biddable, and safe for an inexperienced horsewoman. Now he smiled a little under his hood, and added, "You have nothing to fear from a horse conjured for you by a djinn."

Lindsay Odekirk looked at the clock on her Volvo's dashboard and frowned. While she knew it was asking a lot to expect Carson and Sarah to have been here right on the dot, they'd all agreed to be back here as close to the time when she'd dropped them off two days ago as they could. That had been around ten in the morning, and now it was past eleven.

Worry crept up in her, adding an extra layer of unease to the overall queasiness she'd been battling for the past week. She and Miles hadn't said anything to anyone yet — well, except Ellen O'Dell, the nurse practitioner who'd helped her through her pregnancy with Dylan — because she was still barely ten weeks along, but as far as Lindsay could tell, everything seemed pretty normal. Maybe a little more morning sickness than she'd had last time, although nothing she could call incapacitating.

It also hadn't helped that Miles didn't want her coming out here at all, arguing that she could send someone else and she shouldn't be taking any unnecessary risks. She'd brushed off his objections, telling him she'd driven to the drop-off point several days ago and everything had gone like clockwork.

Except it definitely wasn't clockwork today, not with her two volunteers more than an hour late.

Hers was the kind of brain that liked to manufacture worst-case scenarios, and the current situation was no different. What if one of them had fallen and sprained an ankle or broken a leg? What if they'd been attacked by wild animals? What if there really were still rogue djinn out there, and Sarah and Carson had been taken and killed?

All right, that last scenario was probably a bit far-fetched. The three al-Qadir brothers had been the last of the reavers, and since they were now all happily settled down with mortal women, it didn't seem as if the djinn threat was anything she needed to worry about.

Besides, both Sarah and Carson had a device with them. Even if a few bloodthirsty djinn whose only desire was to wipe all humanity off the map still existed, they wouldn't have been able to get within a quarter-mile of the two explorers without having all their powers erased as if they had never been.

Lindsay settled against the seatback and let out a breath, then reached for the tumbler of water she'd brought with her and took a long sip. Some pregnant women couldn't stand the taste of water, but it had always helped settle her stomach.

And wait — was that movement far up ahead, just around the curve in the highway?

She returned the tumbler to its cupholder and lowered her sunglasses to get a better look.

Yes, that was definitely Carson Mailer, now looking a little more disheveled than he had when he first set out a couple of days ago. Not, as he got closer, that it seemed as if he'd suffered any kind of injury, but only that his hair wasn't nearly as perfect, and stubble darkened his chin and jaw.

Her brows pulled together. Where was Sarah? The plan had been for the two of them to meet up after they'd individually explored Lake Abiquiu and Ghost Ranch, and yet it seemed pretty obvious that Sarah Wolfe was nowhere to be seen.

Lindsay fumbled for the door handle and then pushed it open so she could climb out of the Volvo. As soon as Carson was a few yards away, she said, "Where's Sarah?"

He pushed a lock of hair away from his forehead. On most people, Lindsay would have thought that wayward piece of hair was nothing more than that — something overgrown because he hadn't gotten it cut lately. With Carson, though, she got the feeling he wore it that way on purpose so he could draw attention to himself by continually shoving it back.

"I don't know," he replied. To be fair, he actually sounded worried. "I waited and waited for her at the spot where we were supposed to meet, but she never showed up. Then I walked about a mile up the highway, just in case I'd gotten confused about the actual location. But I didn't see any sign of her, and I knew if I kept going all the way to Ghost Ranch, then I'd never make it back here on time."

None of this sounded very good. "And you tried contacting her with the walkie-talkie?"

Now Carson's expression grew pained, as if he couldn't believe she'd asked him such a stupid question. "Of course I did. She never answered. But if she was still up at Ghost Ranch somewhere, then she would have been out of range anyway."

True. The walkies were there more to facilitate their meet-up and not to maintain communications, since they would have been too far apart for that to work.

Lindsay set her hands on her hips and gazed at the highway ahead of them, gauging all the various cracks and potholes, and trying to figure out whether her Volvo could handle such rough terrain. It had all-wheel-drive, but that was intended for maintaining traction on icy surfaces, not white-knuckling it across country roads that had never been that well-kept in the first place and certainly hadn't improved after nearly five years of neglect.

Miles, she thought, would kill her if she tried to take the little SUV crossover all the way to Ghost Ranch, even if she had Carson Mailer's dubious assistance and wouldn't be going alone.

Should they wait a while longer? Yes, the original meet-up time had come and gone more than an hour earlier, but Lindsay knew she'd hate herself if she learned later on that Sarah had turned up only a few minutes or even a half hour after she and Carson had headed back to Los Alamos.

On the other hand, it wasn't as if she planned to simply let this go. No, she was going to head home, tell Miles and everyone else on the town council what had happened, and then immediately organize a search party, one that was armed and driving one of their four-wheel-drive vehicles so they could go wherever they needed to go. The worst that would happen was that Sarah would have to wait a couple of hours while they got themselves together. She'd been given food for five days and there was a river full of fresh-flowing water only a hundred yards away, so she should be fine on that front.

That seemed to decide things. All the same, Lindsay kind of hated herself for saying, "Okay, let's head back to Los Alamos."

Yes, this had definitely been a good idea. As Abdul had promised, the horse Sarah was riding, a beautiful blood bay with a strikingly long tail, seemed to be utterly calm and ready to follow the big black stallion the djinn had chosen for himself. That horse seemed a lot more strong-willed, but Abdul managed his mount with surprising skill.

The horses had appeared out of nowhere and had been waiting for them when they emerged from the house after breakfast. Sarah had been a bit concerned about riding in these clothes — she could tell as soon as she put them on that they were real silk — but her companion had brushed those worries aside.

"They will be quite comfortable for riding," he told her. "And if you should stain them somehow, that is easy enough to fix."

Yes, she supposed cleaning clothes would only be a finger snap to a djinn. Also, the tunic and slim pants were extremely comfortable, and allowed her to climb up into the saddle without any worries about something being too tight. She'd switched out her sandals for a pair of flats, and Abdul had conjured a hat and a pair of sunglasses for her, so she was about as well-outfitted for the ride as she was going to be, even if the ensemble might have looked a little funny to any onlookers.

But she and Abdul were here alone, so she knew she didn't need to worry about any outside observers.

Now they'd ranged far beyond his house, following a trail that led into the hills and sloped upward, although not at a steep enough angle that the horses seemed to be getting winded. From here, she could see almost all of the ranch, including the dirt road that led in from the highway. She stared off into that distance, wondering if she might be able to catch any sign of Carson coming this way…and what in the world she would do if she did manage to spot him.

However, the highway appeared utterly empty, so it sure didn't look as though he had decided to come and investigate her absence. She wasn't completely sure of the time, but she guessed it had to be past eleven or maybe even a little later, and that meant she was horribly overdue for their meet-up. And, in true Carson Mailer fashion, he hadn't even tried to come and find her, but instead had headed down to La Chuachia to meet with Lindsay.

All right, that wasn't completely fair. While he had one of the devices with him and a knife similar to the one she'd carried, it wasn't as if he was prepared to fight off a bear or a contingent of djinn, or whatever else he might think had delayed her here in Ghost Ranch. Honestly, the smart thing to do would be to regroup and figure out the best way to go looking for her.

"Do you see something?" Abdul asked, and Sarah immediately wrenched her attention away from the road and back to the trail before her…and the djinn who rode only a few yards ahead.

"No," she said hastily. "I guess I was just trying to see if I could figure out how big Ghost Ranch is."

"Well over a thousand acres," he supplied, which surprised her a little. Or maybe not. After all, this was his land, so it seemed logical that he would have learned as much as he could about it. "From this trail to the highway, it is around four miles."

Not an impossibly huge distance under normal circumstances. But when she had no idea how she would even get away from Abdul, let alone cover those four miles on foot before he realized she'd gone, her prospects for escape seemed pretty dismal.

She nodded, then said, "Have you ridden up here a lot?"

"Several times," he replied. "When I came here and saw there were stables, I realized this must be a good place for riding. This horse and I have begun to know one another."

In response, the stallion tossed his mane — not, Sarah thought, because he was fighting against the reins Abdul held, but almost as a way to confirm what the djinn had just said.

"Do you keep the horses in the stables?" she asked, now curious. Her blood bay and the stallion Abdul was riding had appeared out of nowhere, but she supposed they could have been kept somewhere nearby on the property rather than being conjured out of thin air.

"No," he replied. "That is, they roam free on these lands, and I make sure there is ample fodder for them. They are part of a herd that stayed nearby even after the humans who kept them were gone, and when I wish to ride, I summon one of them. I suppose they use the stable from time to time if they wish to shelter from the weather, so I made the necessary repairs to keep it intact. It was beginning to look somewhat ramshackle."

She could imagine. One thing that had fascinated her during these past four-plus years was how quickly buildings and roads could fall into disrepair, and how much effort had to be expended to keep them functional. Sure, back in the day there had always seemed to be road crews and construction crews in various spots around town, working on some project or another, but she hadn't paid a lot of attention to exactly what they were doing.

Now that she'd helped to fill potholes and had been part of a crew that went around Los Alamos and fixed siding and patched stucco, she had a much larger appreciation for the power of entropy.

And she had to admit she was kind of relieved to hear that Abdul had ridden these trails before. True, he was a djinn and therefore could probably get them out of any trouble they might find themselves in, but still, it always helped to have a guide who knew where he was going.

He proved that even more in the next fifteen minutes, because they entered a narrow canyon with a small creek that cut through the center, and soon after that, the soft chatter of the water over its rocky bed turned louder, splashing into the stillness. Sure enough, the canyon terminated in a small waterfall that flowed over the red rocks and down into the streambed, and on its banks, cottonwoods provided welcome shade from the bright nearly noonday sun.

Abdul dismounted and came over to Sarah, then extended a hand to help her down from her horse. She hesitated for a moment — except for that first time when he'd grasped her from the bicep, they had never touched one another — but then she told herself to get over it, that falling while she was trying to climb down from the little mare wouldn't be a very good look.

So she reached over and took his hand, feeling the strength of his fingers as they gripped hers, holding her steady as she got down from her horse. His black stallion had already wandered over to the creek and begun to drink, and the blood bay mare followed as soon as she knew her rider had gotten safely down.

"Thank you," Sarah said. Abdul had let go of her as soon as she stood on solid ground, so it seemed pretty clear that he hadn't been looking for an excuse to touch her.

"You appeared as though you needed the help," he replied. Again, even though she couldn't see his expression, she got the feeling he was smiling as he spoke.

"It's been a long time," she said lightly. "But I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually." She paused there so she could look over at the waterfall, at the way the dancing water caught the sunlight and shimmered like a scatter of diamonds. "This is gorgeous, though. Thank you for bringing me here."

"I am glad you like it," he said. "I discovered this place when I first surveyed this land and thought it a good destination, especially on a warm day such as this one."

Yes, it was warm. Not hot yet, although Sarah thought it might get there later this afternoon. Even so, she was glad of the hat and the sunglasses Abdul had given her, although she guessed they might look a little ridiculous in combination with her blue silk tunic and trousers.

Well, she wasn't here to put on a fashion show. The outfit was more practical than she'd first thought, and it certainly didn't seem as if her companion…her captor…cared what she looked like.

"I suppose you could live here for a thousand years and never get tired of it," she remarked, and his head lifted toward the sky, where a trio of hawks circled high overhead.

"Perhaps," he said. His voice sounded almost doubtful, as though he wasn't quite sure of his answer. "It is a land of many interesting corners and nooks and crannies. That is why I often go riding, even though I have other ways of surveying this part of the world."

Meaning, she supposed, that he could take to the sky and fly like some kind of oversized bird. A raven, she thought, considering he never seemed to wear anything except black from head to toe.

"How long have you been here?" she asked, and his hooded head swiveled toward her.

However, he didn't reply right away, and Sarah wondered if she'd overstepped somehow by asking such a question.

When he spoke, though, his tone sounded friendly enough.

"Not so very long," he said. "Only a week, although I explored this territory before that, just to make sure this was truly the place where I wanted to settle."

A week? She thought of all the changes he'd wrought in the landscape. No human could have accomplished so much in such a short amount of time, but she knew you had to put aside normal measures when you were dealing with djinn and their apparently limitless powers.

Still….

"You chose this place? I thought the elders made the decisions as to who lived where."

Or at least, that was what she had heard. Since she'd gotten all her knowledge secondhand…often thirdhand…she had to admit it probably had some decent-sized holes in it.

Once again, Abdul didn't answer her right away, and she worried all over again that she was asking questions that bordered on rude. Maybe she should have just kept her mouth shut the way she had at breakfast and during dinner the night before, but she couldn't help being curious about him, about why he had come to Ghost Ranch out of all the other locations on the planet.

And oddly, even though he was keeping her on the property against her will, she thought she kind of liked talking with him…when he was willing. There was something old-fashioned and almost charming about the way he spoke, the way he interacted with her. She'd never met anyone like him before.

Well, of course you haven't, she thought then, her inner voice touched with some irritation. He's the first djinn you've ever encountered.

Still, she thought it might be a little more than that.

But then he said, "It is true that the elders usually are the ones to decide upon these land grants, so to speak. However, I have rendered some invaluable services for them, and that is why they allowed me to select this place as my home. I wanted land around me, and peace and quiet."

His tone was so neutral as he spoke that it was impossible to tell whether he was throwing some shade on her for intruding on this sanctuary he'd created for himself. Sarah told herself not to be so paranoid, and that if he really hadn't wanted to interact with her, he could have kept her locked up in her room rather than taking her horseback riding or having lunch on the veranda.

"A thousand acres is definitely a lot of land," she remarked, and now he chuckled.

"True enough," he said. "And now that it seems our horses have drunk their fill, perhaps we can continue with our ride."

Yes, the mare and the stallion had turned away from the creek, although water still dripped from their muzzles and even wetted the ends of their long manes. Sarah wondered how much farther into the hills Abdul intended to take her, then brushed the worry aside. After all, they were utterly alone together whether they were up on a riding trail miles from the highway or back at the house, so what difference did it make?

"Sure," she replied with a smile. "But first, you need to help me back on that horse."