Chapter 1

"For crying out loud, will you give it a break?" I yelled at the woman sitting next to me in the car. "I'm not happy about it either."

"If you hadn't turned onto this damn road, we'd be back at the motel by now, instead of driving around in the damn woods", she yelled back with as much ferocity.

I said quietly through clenched teeth, "Do I have to remind you that we BOTH agreed to try this road after looking at the map?" That shut her up, finally. God, how I had begun to despise this bitch.

My name is Pete Hotaling. Peter Alan Hotaling, if you want the whole thing, and I'm an Associate Publisher for McCarthy Publishing Inc. The fancy title means that I negotiate to buy the rights to publish books and stories. It sounds better than 'Publisher's Agent' does. The woman beside me in the car is Kara Swenson. She holds the title of Senior Editor with McCarthy.

Why are driving around rural Arkansas, at night, in a torrential rainstorm, with lightning and thunder crashing all around us, you ask? Put simply, we're looking for the home of a reclusive writer who has written a great new story, but has so far delayed signing a contract with our company. Our boss has sent us on this mission to wrap up the deal. I've done this alone for years, and was upset that I had been ordered to drag along this miserable excuse for a woman. My boss had said that she would be helpful in consummating the deal, since the writer was known to have an eye for the ladies. I thought to myself that he would have to be one sorry and desperate son-of-a-bitch to be attracted to Swenson.

As I drove along in the worsening weather, I glanced over at Swenson. She could be attractive if she tried. She could get rid of those ugly eyeglasses and get contacts, or at least get a better eyeglass frame. And those shoulder-pads had to go. They were out of fashion now anyway. The ones that she was wearing rivaled those of the kicker on my college football team. I estimated that she was about 5 foot, 4 inches tall, about 23 or 24 years old, and her long blond hair was tied into a bun. A bun, for Christ's sake. And this was definitely the first time that I had ever seen her wearing a skirt. I hadn't thought that she owned one, because around the company's offices, I had only seen her wearing slacks or jeans. I had to admit that her legs weren't too bad. Neither was the body. Too bad her personality sucked.

She hadn't stopped complaining and whining since we had left New York City. She complained all the way down on the aircraft about the crummy cab driver, slow ticket agents, poor seats, lousy food, dumb flight attendants, etc, etc. etc. When we picked up the car that the company had rented for us, she started in again about choice of car, small trunk, uncomfortable seat belts, etc, etc, etc. Before beginning our hunt for Buck Marshall's log cabin, we had stopped at the motel to put our bags in our rooms. Once back in the car, she started complaining about her motel room. She said the bed was uncomfortable and she would never be able to sleep. She complained that there was no tub in her room, only a shower stall. Etc, etc, etc. I was nearing the end of my patience, so when she started in about the road that we had mutually agreed to try, I put up with it for as long as I could, then yelled at the top of my lungs. My eruption lasted for just one sentence, but I felt better immediately. I had wanted to do that for the last hour, but instead of being intimidated, she had yelled right back at me. My quiet statement about our predicament being half her fault had finally shut her up.

And it really was a predicament. We had been driving on this road for over forty-five minutes. I estimated that we must have driven at least ten miles. We had not seen another vehicle, human, or even a dwelling since we turned onto this road. I didn't think that it was possible to drive this long without seeing something. About a hundred feet in from the highway, the paved road had turned to gravel. Then after a mile, the gravel road had turned to dirt. We decided to turn around at the next crossroad or driveway, but had not encountered either. The rain was coming down in buckets, so I didn't want to risk trying to turn around without sufficient room. I feared that we might get stuck. And forget backing up all the way to the highway, it was way too far, and in the darkness, it would be impossible, so we had just kept driving. The woods on either side of the narrow road had long ago closed in, the potholes were getting worse, and I was getting nervous. The road had stated to resemble a footpath more than a road, but I didn't want to convey my fears to Swenson.

Kara Swenson had leaned back into her chair after Peter Hotaling had yelled at her. She had tried to engage him in conversation ever since they had left New York City. He had said almost nothing until his sudden outburst a few minutes ago. It had completely taken her aback, and in response she had yelled back at him. She knew that their predicament wasn't his fault. She was just unhappy about going on this trip. She didn't understand why her boss had insisted on it. Was he trying to fix her up with Hotaling? It was true that Hotaling was tall, dark, and handsome. He stood about 6 foot, 6 inches tall, and had black, wavy hair. He looked to be about 35 years old and obviously spent a lot of time working on his body and his tan. But he had bedded almost every unmarried woman at McCarthy Publishing, and possibly a few married ones, and she was not about to be added to that long list. Besides, she preferred female companionship, although she had never announced it to anyone at work.

"This isn't looking too good", I said to Swenson. Suddenly a flash of lightning and crack of thunder occurred almost simultaneously. The lightning hit a tree alongside the road and it began falling into the path of the car. I hit the brakes and swerved the car to the right, away from the falling tree, and the car ended up in a ditch as the tree fell across the hood and shattered the windshield. Our seatbelts saved us from injury, but the car was immobile with the tree resting on it, even though it didn't appear too badly damaged to use. I asked Swenson if she was OK. She said that she hadn't been injured, although she was still a bit shaken up from the near miss of the tree. The windshield had collapsed onto the dashboard, and the rain was blowing into the car now and we were getting soaked.