by Kylie Brant
“I suspect some local nut job tipped them off. It’s the legend again.” Mark’s face was shiny with perspiration, but Ramsey was chilled. She would be until they stepped back out into the daylight again. “Every two or three decades there’s this red mist phenomena, and a couple times in the past there’s been a death ’round the same time. The two circumstances get linked, and all of a sudden we have people jabberin’ ’bout secret spells and century-old curses and what have you.”
She made a noncommittal sound. Part of her attention was keeping a wary eye out for those copperheads he’d mentioned so matter-of-factly. But despite her impatience with idle chitchat, she was interested in all the details that would be missing from the case file. Evidence was in short supply. It was people who would solve this case. People who’d seen something. Knew something. The tiniest bit of information could end up being key to solving the homicide. And with no murder weapon and no suspects and little trace evidence, she’d take all the information she could get.
“Have you eliminated each of the kids as the possible killer?”
“Shoot, Ramsey they’re no more than sixteen, seventeen years old!”
When she merely looked at him, brows raised, he had the grace to look abashed. “Yeah, I know what you’ve seen in your career. I’ve seen the same. But ’round here we don’t have kids with the conscience of wild dogs. They all alibi each other for up to thirty minutes before the body’s discovery. Witnesses place the lot of them at Sody’s parking lot for the same time. Pretty unlikely a couple hightailed it into the woods, committed murder, and dumped the body knowin’ more kids would be traipsin’ in any minute.”
Unlikely, yes. Impossible, no. But Ramsey kept her thoughts to herself. She was anxious to hear what Agents Powell and Matthews had to say on the subject.
There was a rustle in the underbrush to her right, but it didn’t get her blood racing. No, that feat was accomplished by the trees themselves, looming like sinister sentinels above her. Hemming her in with their close proximity. She rubbed at her arms, where gooseflesh prickled, and shoved at the mental door of her mind to lock those memories away.
Some would have found the scene charming, with the sun dappling the forest floor and brilliant slants of light spearing through the shadow. They wouldn’t look at the scene and see danger behind every tree trunk. Wouldn’t feel terror lurking behind. Horror ahead.
The trail narrowed, forcing her to follow Rollins single file. “Whose property are we on?”
“Most of it belongs to the county. We’ve got little parcels that butt up against the land of property owners, but we’re standin’ on county ground right now.” They walked in silence another fifteen minutes, and Ramsey wondered anew at any kids foolish enough to make this trek at night.
Sixteen or seventeen, Mark had said they were. She knew firsthand just how naïve kids that age could be. How easily fooled. And how quickly things could go very wrong.
One moment they were deep in the forest. The next they walked out into a clearing with a large pond. It was ringed with towering pines and massive oaks, their branches dripping with Spanish moss and curling vines. The land looked rocky on three sides, but it was boggy at the water’s edge closest to them, with clumps of rushes and wild grasses interspersed between the trees.
Ramsey’s gaze was drawn immediately to the crime scene tape still fluttering from the wooden stakes hammered into the ground. A plastic evidence marker poked partway out of the trampled weeds near the pond, overlooked by the investigators when they’d packed up.
And in the center of that tape, crouched in front of the pond, a man repeatedly dunked something into the water and then held it up to examine it before repeating the action yet again. A few yards away, a jumble of equipment was piled on the ground.
She eyed Rollins. “One of yours?”
Looking uncomfortable, the sheriff shook his head. “Now, Ramsey,” he started, as she turned toward the stranger. “Better let me handle this.”
But she was already striding away. “Hey. Hey!”
The man raised a hand in a lazy salute, but it was clear he was much more interested in the reading on the instrument he held than he was in her. Ramsey waited while he lowered the tool to jot a notation down in the notebook open on his lap then looked up and shot her a lazy grin. “Afternoon, ma’am.”
“Interesting thing about that yellow tape all around you,” she said with mock politeness. “It’s actually meant to keep people out of a crime scene, not invite them inside it.”
The sun at her back had the stranger squinting a bit at her, but the smile never left his face. And it was, for a man, an extraordinarily attractive face. His jaw was long and lean, his eyes a bright laser blue. The golden shade of his hair was usually found only on the very young or the very determined. Someone had broken his nose for him, and the slight bump in it was the only imperfection in a demeanor that was otherwise almost too flawless. Ramsey disliked him on sight just on principal.
“Well, fact is, ma’am, this isn’t an active crime scene anymore. Hey, Mark.” He called a friendly greeting to the man behind her. “Kendra May know you’re out walking pretty girls ’round the woods?”
“Dev. Thought you’d be finished up here by now.”
Ramsey caught the sheepish note in Rollins’s voice and arched a brow at him. The sheriff intercepted it and followed up with an introduction. “Ramsey Clark, this is my cousin, Devlin Stryker. He’s uh . . . just running some tests.”
“Your cousin,” she repeated carefully. “And does your cousin work for the department? If so, in what capacity?”
Rollins’s face reddened a little. “No. He’s a . . . well, he’s sort of a scientist, you could say.”
Stryker rose in one lithe motion and made his way carefully back to the rest of his belongings, which included, Ramsey noted, a large duffel bag with unfamiliar-looking instruments strewn around it, along with a couple cameras, a night vision light source, and—she blinked once—a neatly rolled up sleeping bag.
“Odd place to go camping.”
“Can’t say I used the sleepin’ bag much last night.” He unzipped the duffel and began placing his things inside it. “Too worried about snakes. I thought I’d stick around a while to compare last night’s readings with some from today.”
With quick neat movements, he placed everything but the sleeping bag in the duffle and zipped it, standing up to sling its strap over his shoulder. “I’m done here for now, though.”
“Done with what, exactly?”
Devlin sent her an easy smile that carried just enough charm to have her defenses slamming firmly into place. “Well, let’s see. I used a thermal scanner to measure temperature changes. An EMF meter to gauge electromagnetic fields. An ion detector to calculate the presence of negative ions. Then there’s the gaussometer, which . . .”
Comprehension warring with disbelief, Ramsey swung back to face Rollins, her voice incredulous. “A ghost hunter? Are you kidding me? You let some paranormal quack compromise the crime scene?”
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Teaser chapter
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