Santa Maria, a city that boasted a very healthy population, rose up out of the desert scrub like a sprawling oasis, blotting out the horizon for miles in any direction. The city itself was something of an eclectic mish-mash of architecture, some of the oldest structures, dating back to the Mexican-American War, now intermingled with towering, modern glass and steel monstrosities, offering up a rather stunning juxtaposition. And the socio-economic landscape was just as varied, made up of working class folks, broke college kids, white collar suburban families, and of course, a handful of upper crust, old money families, most of whom had made their fortunes in either ranching or oil.

Driving through the morning traffic, taking in the vast array of buildings and businesses, she found herself relaxing into her surroundings. Santa Maria was a dry, dusty desert town, with only a glimpse of man-made green spaces here or there, but cruising through the streets just near the outskirts of the downtown area, she could admit there was a certain rugged charm to the place.

This particular part of the city was older and more sparsely developed, boasting ornately constructed brick buildings, a couple of adobe churches sitting behind low stone walls, and old fashioned iron lamp posts dotting the wide streets. Traffic was thinner on this end of Santa Maria, so she took her time, rolling her windows down and letting the heated wind whip through the Wagoneer, enjoying the open sky that had not a cloud in sight and the view of the craggy mountains that were so far in the distance, they were just smears separating the earth from the sky.

Here, the land was so flat and open that it felt as if it must go on forever. And with nothing at all to blot out the sky, to buffer the sheer scope of it, she could almost imagine that it was closer to the ground than it should have been. In fact, it almost felt as if she could just...reach up and touch it.

Just coming from the mountains of Montana, the wide open space, the never ending expanse of arid earth and unhindered sky, felt slightly overwhelming. It also left her with the feeling of being rather exposed, as if there was nothing she could hide behind, nothing to shield her from whatever might be lurking out there among all the scrub, peering back at her.

Braking to a stop at a four-way intersection, she waited her turn and took a left onto Castillo Street, immediately spotting the hazy outline of a massive building jutting upwards, looming there a couple of miles ahead. Seeing the structure, which was the Harris County Sheriff's Office, according to the GPS on her cell, she felt her insides clench.

She'd walked into so many police stations and sheriff's offices and government buildings during her tenure in law enforcement that she couldn't begin to count them. And every single time, she felt herself battling a case of nerves. Not because she was worried she might not get the job done, nor because she wasn't confident in her abilities. No. It was due to something for ethereal.

She hated being the new kid.

Really, that was how it always felt. It was just like being the new kid coming into school in the middle of the year, no friends, no knowledge of how to navigate the hallways without getting lost, the judgmental eyes of all the other students watching her every move. It was a stressful situation. At least, at first. She eventually settled into things and found her way and the local boys eventually thawed out toward her. It was just the beginning stages that she found irksome.

She wished she was already past that part, with her legs steadily beneath her and her feet already pounding the pavement. But, that wasn't how it worked. There were no shortcuts. She had to begin at the beginning, as her mamaw always used to say. And today, the beginning was a meeting with Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, District Attorney Lonnie Eckhart, and Senator Richard Whitmore, who was on Congressional recess for the month of August, which allowed him to come and speak with her personally.

Lucky her.

Passing by several buildings that had old-timey false fronts, and noting the foot traffic on the sidewalks as people came and went from the businesses housed there, she finally began gaining on her destination, which began to appear larger and larger before her. In the back of her mind, she took a second to recognize the notion that a mile in the desert seemed a lot longer than the same mile anywhere else.

With the businesses and the scattered pinyon pines zipping past, she at last reached the sheriff's office, which actually took up an entire block and stood five stories high. There was a massive parking lot across the street from the red brick building, which also housed the D.A.'s offices as well as serving as the county courthouse and lock up, and she whipped the Wagoneer through the lot entrance, somehow managing to find a parking spot within a few seconds. Cutting the engine, she dropped her keyring into her messenger bag, rolled up her window and slid to the ground, slamming the door closed behind her...and feeling a sheen of perspiration almost instantly breaking out on her forehead.

It wasn't even eleven o'clock and already, the parking lot was shimmering with heat, the undulating waves rising up from the parked vehicles like a translucent fog. She always wanted to present herself as a professional law enforcement agent, which meant looking the part by being respectably well-kept. However, in this instance, she feared she was going to go into her meeting looking damp, red in the face, and sporting sweat rings under her breasts and armpits.

It wasn't quite the first impression she wanted to make.

As it was, though, little could be done, so she pulled her Glock from her messenger bag, which suddenly felt as light as a feather with only the weight of her micro compact Smith and Wesson BUG left behind, and holstered it at her side, going for her badge next and clipping it to the waistband of her jeans. Straightening her grey tee shirt, which was clinging to her in a very uncomfortable way, she pointed herself toward the building across the street.

The front entrance was up a sweeping flight of brick steps and beneath a large sign reading H.G. Autry Municipal Building. Though there didn't seem to be very much coming and going on the outside, once she pushed through the glass doors and stepped into a cavernous space with marble floors and walls, it felt as if the place was fairly teeming.

She was greeted not only by a rush of blissfully cold air washing over her, but also by the din of voices and a jumble of people scurrying this way and that. Spotting a desk sitting in the very center of the floor, manned by an officer in uniform, she strode in that direction, her sneakers squeaking on the gleaming marble as she wove her way through the bustle of folks. As she reached the desk, the young officer—A. Smythe, according to his name badge—glanced up at her, his gaze instantly sweeping over her, taking in her weapon and shield even before looking at her face.

"Can I help you?" he questioned, curiosity filling his round blue eyes.

"Can you point me toward Sheriff Gonzalez's office?" she replied, keeping her gaze level with his.

"Is the sheriff expecting you?" the young man wondered, his fingers poised over the keyboard in front of him.

Tessa gave a nod. "I have an eleven thirty with him. Its Special Detective Tessa Stark."

Upon hearing her name, the young officer pulled his hands back from the keyboard, his eyes going hard as he regarded her...letting her know that the local boys had heard she was coming, and as was sometimes the case, they weren't all that thrilled at the idea.

"Through those doors, ma'am," the young man pointed to the right, toward a set of double doors on the far side of the lobby. "Check in with the Desk Officer. He'll help you."

Offering a nod, she turned and headed in that direction, trying to ignore the nervous anticipation building in her belly. She might be the new kid, but she had a job to do. Officer A. Smythe and his brethren could give her all the hard looks they wanted to, but they were going to have to deal with her, so they might as well get on board.

Through the wooden double doors, she found herself in a small vestibule, facing another set of doors, these made of steel and glass. The loud mechanical sound of a buzzer going off filled the air and the doors swung inward, beckoning her to enter. Just inside that entrance, she paused, taking in a sight that was so familiar to her, it felt like she'd come home.

Stretching out before her was a room filled with a sea of metal desks and cubicles, most of them manned and all of them scattered with papers and folders and necessary paraphernalia. There was an obligatory drop ceiling with florescent lights overhead and a beige tiled floor under foot and the very air tasted of coffee and smelled of pine scented floor cleaner.

She'd walked into umpteen police stations and each and every one of them were almost exactly the same, right down to the surly, grey haired Desk Officer who mostly hated having to pull a turn at being the Desk Officer.

In this particular instance, the front desk and the gruff looking older gentleman, E. Polanksy, sitting behind it, lay only a few feet ahead of her and as she approached, the man's dark, slightly beady eyes narrowed with a measure of suspicion.

"Can you point me to Sheriff Gonzalez's office? He's expecting me," she stated.

"You're his eleven thirty? Detective Stark?" the man questioned in a scratchy, brusque voice as his button-like eyes raked over her.

It was actually Special Detective Stark, but she didn't correct him. "I am. Where can I find him?"

"I'm supposed to take you to conference room one. Follow me," came the command as the officer heaved his sizable frame up out of his chair and walked around the desk, bypassing her and heading toward a glass door off to the left.

Tessa followed along behind the man, becoming aware of several sets of eyes beginning to focus on her. Through the glass doorway lay a long hallway peppered with closed doors and that hallway was intersected by another one that banked to the right. After being led into the bowels of the building a good piece, through a maze of corridors twisting this way and that, they finally arrived at the entrance they were seeking, the trek leaving Tessa, feeling just like a kid wandering unfamiliar high school hallways, pondering how on earth she was going to find her way back out again.

"Wait in here," the Desk Officer said rather unceremoniously, pushing open the door and waving her through. "The sheriff'll be with you shortly. Help yourself to the coffee station."

His job done, Office E. Polansky closed the door to the conference room, leaving Tessa alone in the silence. Huffing out a breath, she took a quick look around, finding all the standard furnishings and accoutrements. A large table surrounded by rolling office chairs, a white board on one wall, a flat screen and a table with computer equipment at the opposite end of the room, drab grey carpet on the floor and a bank of massive windows taking up the wall straight ahead, the windows covered with blinds to keep out the glaring heat from the sun.

Spotting the coffee station that had been set up on a rolling cart off in the corner, and the bottles of water sitting on it, she hied herself in that direction. She felt less damp and sweaty thanks to the full blast air conditioning, but there still seemed to be a bit of heat throbbing in her cheeks, so she picked up a bottle, cracked it open, and took a few hearty swigs of the tepid liquid, hoping it helped.

That much accomplished, and with time left to kill, she removed her messenger bag, placing it and her water bottle on the large table, and then meandered toward the wall of windows, using the pull cord to lift one set of blinds. The first thing she saw was a view of another parking lot stretching out before her, this one filled with police cruisers, white utility vans, as well as an array of personal vehicles.

The second thing she saw was her own transparent, ghost-like reflection in the window glass and for some reason, she jolted. She usually didn't think too much about herself or her appearance. But, after seeing Peyton...it struck her just how much they favored one another. 

 And just how much they both favored Robert Stark.

Peyton had tried her best to change her appearance in any way she could, but she herself...she was the natural, unaltered version of one of Robert Stark's daughters. She had his raven colored hair, his thick brows, his too large eyes, even the same dark freckles scattered across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Had she not inherited some of her mother's traits—the delicate bone structure, full mouth, eyes that were the color of polished amber—she would have been her father's spitting image.

She didn't exactly enjoy the fact that she favored him so much, but if she ignored that aspect, she could admit that she wasn't exactly a mud duck. She was, in fact, rather exotic looking, with her inky black hair and rich, honey toned eyes. Studying her reflection, she suddenly felt that it was a shame that her sister had gone to such lengths to alter her appearance just because of who she was reminded of when she looked in the mirror. Peyton was beautiful, despite the ugliness of the man—and the flagrant weakness of the woman—who'd both helped to create her.

Maybe she should have felt the same. Maybe she should have been more averse to sharing her outward appearance with those people. But, in her mind, those similarities were a near constant reminder of all the things she did not want to be. Those similarities kept her feet firmly planted on a path that went in the exact opposite direction from the path those people had chosen.

Of course, she didn't fault Peyton for wanting to erase any reminder of where she came from. Most anyone in their right mind would want to wipe away any and all evidence that they were the child...of a prolific serial killer.