“Excuse me,” she said. She was startled—and faintly ashamed—by how timid she sounded. It seemed that a minor annoyance deepening into something more sinister had changed everything about her in a very short amount of time.

The man going by her had dreadlocks and a multicolored striped knit toque despite the mid-July heat. He also looked as if he was wearing a skirt instead of pants. But when he stopped and looked at her, she saw he had friendly eyes.

“Where is Anslow?”

“Take the highway that way, around the lake. It’s only fifty-eight kilometers, but it will take you an hour. The road is windy.”

“Is there any other kind of road in British Columbia?” she asked wearily.

“Ah, an Albertan.”

Just like that, without intending to, Angie had revealed things about herself, which Canadian province she lived in. If somebody was following her and came asking... Rationally, she knew the chances of this very same man being stopped and asked about her were slim to none, but her life was not rational, not right now.

“Saskatchewan, actually,” she lied. She was aware the lie filled her with an odd sense of guilt, which she shook off. “Have you ever heard of the Stone House in Anslow?”

“No, but I like the possibilities.”

Given his very Bohemian appearance and the faint, acrid smell of smoke coming from him, Angelica got his meaning and actually smiled. It was the first time she had smiled since coming home a week ago to find the campaign to infiltrate her life had escalated. The doors to her new apartment had still been locked, but a brand-new stuffed panda with a red bow around its neck had been residing jauntily against the pillows on her bed. She was sure her dresser drawers had been opened. This had been the final straw in a string of steadily escalating and upsetting incidents that had been going on for the three months since she had said an innocent yes to that cup of coffee.

The shock—finding the bear on her bed, the red ribbon looking horribly like a cut throat—had sent her pell-mell into flight mode. Still, after a week, it felt that no matter where she went, she wasn’t far enough away yet.

Now, an hour and a half after leaving Nelson—she’d stopped to wolf down a peanut butter sandwich at a picnic area being enjoyed by several families—following instructions she had received in the town of Anslow, she pulled up to a formidable stone-pillared entrance that would not have looked out of place guarding the entrance to a haunted house. She hesitated but the wrought iron gate hung open, and really...? If she was looking for a place where it would be hard to find her, this was certainly it.

She could not see a house, just a long, deeply shaded drive that wound down to a sharp curve, where it disappeared.

She took the road slowly, around the curve, but still no house, just the drive, weaving its way through magnificent old-growth forest. Angelica opened her window, and birdsong and a wonderful smell, sun on fallen pine needles, wrapped around her.

She felt some of the edginess drain from her. It made the feeling of exhaustion intensify.

The road dropped down and down, drawing ever closer to the water. It wove its lazy way through the forest and occasionally broke out into cleared grasslands that allowed her to see the full and enormous expanse of Kootenay Lake. And then she would be back in the deep, cool shadows of the forest, catching only glimpses of the glinting waters of the lake.

Finally, after a good fifteen minutes of driving, the house came into view.

The name had led her to expect she would see a stone house. Instead, Angie saw it was possible the house was named for its location, anchored as it was into a slab of natural gray stone forty or fifty feet above the placid waters of the lake.

The gate and the picture of the curmudgeonly little old man she had been working on had led her to expect a decrepit mansion.

Instead, the house before her was a masterpiece of modern architecture, blending with the elements around it. The house appeared to be constructed of 90 percent glass, the glass reflecting leaves and trees and sky at the same time as making the interior of the house and its contents seem as if it was an oasis that was magically suspended in the outdoors.

The huge expanse of windows made it possible to see right through the house, past a sectional white leather sofa and a stand-alone fireplace, to the deck on the other side of the dwelling. The deck, though huge, seemed to hold a single hammock, positioned in a way that took best advantage of the breathtaking view of the lake.

The setting and the house were stunningly beautiful. Angie imagined if you were inside the house it would feel as if nothing separated you from the forest on one side and the lake on the other.

It was not, to be sure, the house she would have expected a curmudgeonly old man to live in!

She suddenly felt ridiculously vulnerable. She was out here in the middle of nowhere, alone. No one, except the person she had asked for instructions in Anslow, knew she was here.

What if she was jumping from the frying pan into the fire?

“What are the chances,” she asked herself, “that you could meet another deranged man in such a short span of time? None!”

Realistically, her situation—peanut butter and loaf of bread in the backseat not withstanding—couldn’t be more desperate. The past three months had made her steadily more cowardly, but she had to call on what little courage remained in order to do what needed to be done.