by Linda Berry
The killer is ruthless, and plans each murder to the smallest detail. The only clue found at the crime scene is an origami butterfly planted on the victim. Inside is a handwritten, meaningless verse.
To outwit a killer more cunning than any she’s faced before, Sidney must decode his cryptic message and lure him into the open—before he strikes again.
CHAPTER ONE
BAILEY’S LOW, INSISTENT growls woke Ann from a dreamless sleep. She found herself sprawled on the overstuffed easy chair in the living room, feet propped on the ottoman, drool trickling down her chin. Half opening one eye, she peered at the antique clock on the mantle: 11:00 p.m.
She heard Bailey sniffing at the front door, and then the clicks of his claws traveled to the open window in the living room. She opened her other eye. The sable hound stood sifting the breeze through his muzzle with a sense of urgency. Ann knew what was coming next. Sure enough, Bailey trotted back to the front door and whimpered, gazing expectantly over one shoulder. Damn those big brown eyes.
Normally Ann would be in bed by now, but she had passed out after dinner, exhausted from carting her boxes of organic products to town at sunrise and standing for hours in her stall at the farmers market. By the time she loaded her truck and headed home, the pain in her calves had spread up her legs to her back and shoulders, and she felt every one of her forty-five years.
Bailey whined without let up. He knew how to play her. Ann looked longingly toward her bedroom before returning to the hound’s pleading eyes. This was more urgent than a potty break.
No doubt, he had caught the scent of a deer or rabbit and wanted desperately to assail it with ferocious barking to assert his dominance over her small farm. Then he’d settle in for the night.
Since an unsolved murder rocked her town three years ago, Ann resisted going out late after dark. Still, she felt a pang of guilt. She and Bailey had missed their usual after dinner walk. If the spirited hound didn’t exhaust his combustible energy, he’d be circling her bed at dawn, demanding that she rise.
“Okay, Bailey, you win.” Ann heard the weariness in her voice as she heaved herself from the chair. Fatigue had settled into every part of her body and her limbs felt as heavy as flour sacks. “Only a half-mile up the highway and back.”
Bailey sat at attention, tail vigorously thumping the floor.
Still dressed in jeans, a turtleneck sweater, and sturdy hiking shoes, Ann grabbed her Gor-Tex jacket from the coat rack, wrestled her arms through the sleeves, pulled Bailey’s leash from a pocket, and snapped it onto his collar. The boards creaked softly as they stepped onto the covered front porch into the damp autumn chill. The moist air held the promise of the season’s first frost. Her flashlight beam found the stone walkway, then the gravel driveway leading to the highway. A good rain had barreled through while she slept, and a strong wind unleashed the pungent fragrance of lavender and rosemary from her garden. Silvered in the moonlight, furrowed fields of tomatoes, herbs, and flowers sloped down to the shoreline of Lake Kalapuya, where her Tri-hull motorboat dipped and bobbed by the dock. A half-mile across the lurching waves, the lights of Garnerville shimmered through a tattered mist on the opposite shore.
Following the hound’s tug on the leash, Ann picked up her pace, breathing deeply, her mind sharpening, muscles loosening. Steam rose off the asphalt. Scattered puddles reflected moonlight like pieces of glass. The thick forest of Douglas fir, red cedar, and big leaf maple engulfed both sides of the highway, surrendering to the occasional farm or ranch. Treetops swayed, branches dipped and waved, whispered and creaked. The night was alive with the sounds of frogs croaking and water dripping. The smell of apples perfumed the air as she trekked past her nearest neighbor’s orchards. Miko’s two-story clapboard farmhouse floated on a shallow sea of mist, windows black, yellow porch light fingering the darkness.
Ann didn’t mingle with her neighbors, few as they were, and she took special pains to avoid Miko, whose wife had been the victim of the brutal murder in the woods adjacent to his property. The killer was never found, but an air of suspicion hovered over Miko ever since. Ann detested gossip and ignored it. She had her own reasons for avoiding Miko—and all other men, for that matter.
When they reached the narrow dirt road where they habitually turned to hike into the woods, Bailey froze, nose twitching, locked on a scent. He tugged hard at the leash, wanting her to follow.
“No,” she said firmly, peering into the black mouth of the forest—a light-spangled paradise by day—black, damp, and ominous by night. “Let’s go home.”
Bailey trembled in his stance, growled with unusual intensity, and tugged harder. The hound had latched onto a rivulet of odor he wanted desperately to explore.
Ann jerked the leash. “Bailey, home!”
Normally obedient, Bailey ignored her. Using his seventy pounds of muscle as leverage, he yanked two, three times until the leash ripped from her fingers. Off he bounded, swallowed instantly by the darkness crouching beyond her feeble cone of light.
“Bailey! Come!”
No sound, just the incessant drip of water. Ann’s beam probed the woods, jerking to the left, then the right. “Bailey!” She heard a steady, muffled, distant bark.
He’s found what he’s looking for. Bailey’s barking abruptly ceased. Good. He’s on his way back. She waited. No movement. No appearance of Bailey’s big sable head emerging through the pitch.
Ann trembled as fear took possession of her senses. She bolted recklessly into the woods, her light beam bouncing along a trail that looked utterly foreign in the dark. Her feet crushed wet leaves and sloshed through puddles. Her left arm protected her face from the errant branch crossing her path. A second too late she saw the gnarled tree-root which seemed to jump out and snag her foot. She fell headlong, left hand breaking the fall, flashlight skidding beneath a carpet of leaves and pine needles. Blackness enveloped her. Shakily, she pulled herself to her feet, left wrist throbbing, trying to delineate shapes in the darkness, the moist scent of decay suffocating.
The forest was deathly still, seeming to hold its breath.
Soft rustling.
Silence.
Rustling again.
Something moved quietly and steadily through the underbrush. Adrenaline shot up her arms like electric shocks. Ann swept her hands beneath mounds of wet leaves, grasping roots and cones until her fingers closed around the shaft of her flashlight. She thumbed the switch and cut a slow swath from left to right, her light splintering between trees. Her beam froze on a hooded figure moving backward through the brush dragging a woman, her bare feet bumping through the tangled debris.
The man kept his face completely motionless, eyes fixed on hers in a chilling stare. The world became soaked in a hideous and wondrous slowness. He lowered the woman to the ground and hung his long arms at his side. He was quiet; so was Ann. He radiated stillness. The stillness of a tree. It was hypnotic.
Ann felt paralyzed. Tongue dry. Thoughts sluggish. Then threads of white-hot terror ripped through her chest and propelled her like a fired missile into motion. Switching off the beam, she turned and sprinted like a frightened doe back along the trail.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Linda’s love of literature and the visuals arts led her to a twenty-five-year career as an award-winning copywriter and art director. Now retired, Linda writes fast-paced mystery & thrillers. She currently lives in Oregon with her husband and toy poodle.
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