He pulls open the door and steps outside into the cool, crisp wind.
The warmth of the sun beams down. The air sparkles like crystal. He can hear the gentle lapping of waves in the glistening lake. On the peaked hills, snow is melting and the grass is miraculously green under the white.
He turns and walks the path, breathing the sweetness of mountain air, feeling an energy he hadn’t realized he’d lost.
At the trailhead, several paths branch out. He stands at the crossroads, surrounded by the peaks of more glacial mountains than he can count. Seeing hundreds of miles into the horizon. Smelling the trees and grass and a promise of wildflowers. Feeling the beauty.
And a sense of presence.
Feminine presence.
“You are not alone. And you are loved.”
He steps onto the path and into the wilderness.
THE END
Author’s Note
Before I was a full-time screenwriter and author, I worked as a teacher in the Los Angeles County juvenile court system. I have not in any way exaggerated the plight of children and teens in the Social Services and justice systems and the prevalence of child sex trafficking. All the predators and crimes in the Huntress books are reflective of real-life predators and real-world events.
Lasting change will never happen until we all make it our responsibility to educate ourselves about what’s really going on in our own communities, and to open our eyes to the presence of sexual predators in all walks of life—those hiding in the family next door and those flaunting their abuses in high office.
If you’d like to learn more about organizations in your country, state and community, and how to stand against sexual predators of every kind, I have links to places you can start on my website, http://alexandrasokoloff.com.
Acknowledgments
A million thanks to:
My agents, Scott Miller, Kristin Cipolla, Frank Wuliger and Lee Keele.
My producing team: Tucker Tooley, Jason Barhydt, Al Munteanu, Claudia Schorr, Ingrid Pittana, David Scharfenberg, Hannah Grossmann, Christian Parent and Gregoire Gensollen.
My fantastic editor, Pat Verducci, who miraculously made sense of it all.
Lee Lofland and his Writers Police Academy trainers/instructors: Dave Pauly, Dr. Katherine Ramsland, Corporal Dee Jackson, Andy Russell, Marco Conelli, Lieutenant Randy Shepard, and Robert Skiff, for forensics, investigative, and tactical help.
R.C. Bray for his terrific narrative interpretations of the books.
The team at Thomas & Mercer, past and present, who have continued to support and enrich this series: Alan Turkus, Jacque Ben-Zekry, Ahn Schluep, Megha Parekh, Grace Doyle, Sarah Shaw.
The WriterSpace and Spark Creative Partners teams for brilliant publicity support.
Robert Gregory Browne, for the series cover concept.
The initial inspiration for the Huntress from Val McDermid, Denise Mina, and Lee Child, at the San Francisco Bouchercon.
My writing group, the Weymouth Seven: Margaret Maron, Mary Kay Andrews, Diane Chamberlain, Sarah Shaber, Brenda Witchger and Katy Munger.
Website designer extraordinaire Madeira James, at Xuni.com.
Tracy Fenton, Helen Boyce, Teresa Nikolic, and the administrators and readers of THE Book Club, who’ve been so supportive on the other side of the pond.
My husband and family for putting up with all this angst.
For Shadow Moon I am especially grateful to:
- Mom and Dad, for dragging us to every national park in the country, every summer of our childhood.
- R.C. Bray, Rinelle Harkin, and Blue Heron Audio for this extra special audiobook.
- Cissy Hartley, for the Shadow Moon cover.
- Ellen Margolis, for decades of friendship, creative inspiration, and that hugely helpful Portland visit!
- Siegrid Rickenbach, the knower of roads.
- And the singing staff of Many Glacier Hotel, my musical and hiking compadres that magical summer.
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I love to hear from readers! Visit my website at http://alexandrasokoloff.com to contact me and find me on social media.
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About the Author
Photo © Israel David Groveman
Alexandra Sokoloff has won the Thriller Award and been nominated for the Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Black Quill Awards for her supernatural thrillers The Harrowing, The Price, The Unseen, Book of Shadows, The Shifters, and The Space Between. She has also earned a second Thriller Award nomination for her Huntress/FBI Thrillers series (Huntress Moon, Blood Moon, Cold Moon, Bitter Moon, and Hunger Moon). The series is in development for television with Sokoloff as executive producer. The New York Times Book Review has called her a “daughter of Mary Shelley” and declared her books “some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.”
As a screenwriter, she has written original screenplays and novel adaptations for numerous Hollywood studios, and is the author of the nonfiction Screenwriting Tricks for Authors writing workbooks: Stealing Hollywood and Writing Love. She also writes the acclaimed blog www.ScreenwritingTricks.com, based on her writing workshops and books, and has penned erotic paranormal fiction, including The Shifters, Book 2 of The Keepers trilogy, and Keeper of the Shadows, from The Keepers L.A. She lives in Los Angeles and in Scotland with crime author Craig Robertson.
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