Milla and the Piper

Milla's first date with Jason Ward ends in disaster and triggers a whirlwind of events that begin with kidnapping (Jason claims for her protection, but she loses confidence in him after finding herself locked in the cluttered basement of an abandoned pioneer school house) and end, at least in the short term, with a solo cross-country hike through the West Desert, where she encounters a runaway Shoshone kid, a camp of gypsies with a stunning array or four-wheelers, taxidermy, and oriental rugs, and a one-eyed hobo straight out of Homer.

Jason took her up the mountain to the topmost reaches of his dad's most recent housing development to watch the full moon rise over Utah Lake below. But when Milla, impatient for the date's inevitable endgame, finally makes her move, the ground gives way under the front wheels of the car, and they plummet fifty feet through the winter air and into the living room of one of the hundreds of cookie-cutter L. Frank Ward tract homes. Jason's dad, Mr. Ward himself--polished, stylish, articulate, and yet somehow greasy--shows up with all the insurance adjusters and paramedics. Something about the way he takes charge sets Milla on edge and brings to mind some of the strange disappearances from Saratoga Springs, Utah, over the past several years, including that of her own father.