Chapparal, so dense in places you couldn’t make your way through it, surrounded their little house off Kanan Dume Road.
Cecile and Caroline were out back smoking Marlboros.
“The longer you look at it the more patterns you see,” said Cecile.
“And the colors,” said Caroline. “You could sit here all day watching shades change.”
Woody chapparal dressed in thick leaves of leather walled them in, old growth which had been around for more than a century.
Clusters of sage also grew in the stony soil of the steep slopes which surrounded them.
Cecile felt the back of her belt to make sure her Glock 26 subcompact was still there.
