Her Last Breath: A Chilling Psychological Thriller (Wolf Lake Thriller Book 1)

by Dan Padavona

  “Welcome back to Wolf Lake, Thomas. When did you get in?”

  Thomas sank into a cushioned rolling chair and fidgeted, wrapping his ankles around the wheels so the chair wouldn’t glide forward on its own.

  “Five days ago.”

  “Heard you bought Truman’s old house beside the lake. Fine home, and a good place to put down roots.”

  “Ironically, the family who purchased my uncle’s house moved to California. That’s strange, isn’t it?” When the sheriff didn’t respond, Thomas wiped his mouth. “We traded places. I came from California, and they went to…”

  Gray raised his hands.

  “I get it, I get it. “How’s your back healing?”

  Just hearing the sheriff mention the bullet wound forced Thomas to slip a hand around his back.

  “Better. Six months of rehab did wonders.”

  Gray gave Thomas an unconvinced nod and leaned back in his chair, resting his chin on a steeple of fingers.

  “The newspaper said it was a gang shooting.”

  Thomas dug his fingers around the wound. Realizing what he was doing, he set both hands in his lap and clasped them together.

  “It was a matter of wrong place, wrong time. Random chance. Our task force targeted a drug house. The second we stepped out of the vehicle, a rival gang drove past and shot the place up. We got caught in the crossfire, and I took a bullet in the small of my back.”

  The sixty-year-old sheriff winced.

  “These damn gangs don’t give a crap if there’s a police car at the curb. They do whatever they want these days. From what I heard, you got off lucky. Not that taking a bullet is getting off easy.”

  “The bullet missed my spine. Another inch or two to the right, and I’d never walk again. If I survived. So yeah, the percentages prove I got off lucky.”

  Gray’s fingers slid to the khaki hat on the corner of his desk. He touched the rim as he considered his words.

  “Someone looked over you, son. The important thing is you lived to fight another day. They ever catch the bastard who shot you?”

  Thomas bit his lip.

  “The attack happened too fast. Nobody got a look at the shooters.”

  Gray grunted.

  Thomas’s eyes drifted to a framed picture perched on the corner of Gray’s desk. He recognized the sheriff’s late-wife, Lana, in the photograph. The photo depicted a younger Gray and Lana on vacation someplace tropical. She held a margarita in one hand, and a palm tree climbed into a deep blue sky in the background. Gray followed Thomas’s gaze to the photo and rubbed his eyes.

  “I’m sorry about Lana,” said Thomas. “I should have come home for the services.”

  Gray waved a hand.

  “No reason. She wouldn’t have known the difference.”

  Thomas had sent a card and called to express his condolences. Four years ago, Lana Gray lost control of her car on icy roads and slammed into a tree two miles from the lake. Whispered rumors suggested Father Josiah Fowler of St. Mary’s church ran Lana off the road. He was a heavy drinker and had no qualms about getting behind the wheel. One witness claimed Father Fowler’s car swerved over the centerline a mile from the crash site. But the sheriff’s department couldn’t prove Fowler caused the wreck.

  “I’d like to say you came home for the peace and quiet. But thugs are everywhere these days. We’re dealing with two gangs in Harmon. Nothing like that in Wolf Lake, but Harmon is only five miles away. There’s a rumor the gangs use the lake to transport drugs after dark. Since you bought Truman’s place, keep your ears open and your eyes peeled. This isn’t the home you remember, Thomas. ”

  “The only constant is change.”

  Muttering, Gray drew out his desk drawer and found his glasses. After he slipped them on, he opened a manila folder and rattled several papers. Thomas recognized his resume.

  Scanning the documents, Gray said, “Criminology degree from SUNY Cortland, class of 2009. Joined the LAPD in January 2010, made detective in March 2017.”

  Gray licked his fingers and flipped to the next page as Thomas sat in silence, fighting the urge to squirm. Over the papers, the sheriff studied Thomas the way he would a flower sprouting from the center of a January snowbank.

  “Collaborated with the DEA on an LA-based drug task force. Various accommodations and too many recognitions to mention.” Gray sighed and dropped the papers on the desk. He scrubbed a hand over his tired face and squinted at Thomas. “One problem—you’re over-qualified. A county deputy? You should have my job, Thomas. Hell, with this resume, you should run for mayor. You sure this is what you want? State police are hiring.”

  Before Thomas could reply, Gray tapped a pen against his desk and met Thomas’s gaze.

  “I shouldn’t question your interest. Truth is, I only have two active deputies, and the three of us can barely cover Nightshade County. But I don’t want you committing to a position and regretting it.”

  “There won’t be any regrets.”

  “You realize starting salary for a sheriff’s deputy is thirty-nine thousand?”

  “Yes. Money isn’t important to me.”

  Gray glanced at the papers fanned across his desk.

  “Given your experience, I can sweeten the pot and offer you forty-five per year. With mortgage payments on a lakeside house, that won’t leave you enough money to eat. But it’s the best I can do.”

  Thomas nodded. He didn’t tell Gray he paid for Uncle Truman’s former house out of pocket, and the previous owner sold at a discount, desperate to escape the slow life of upstate New York.

  “Well,” the sheriff said, clasping his hands in his lap. “If you’re sure, I’ll have Maggie draw up the contract.”

  Thomas straightened.

  “So I have the job?”

  Gray snickered.

  “I could interview a hundred more candidates, and I’d never find one with a quarter of your experience. If this is what you want, the job is yours. Nightshade is fortunate to have you.”

  Thomas rose from his chair, wiped his palm on his shirt, and shook Gray’s hand.

  “Thank you, Sheriff. You won’t regret this.”

  “I’m certain I won’t. When can you start?”

  Thomas shuffled his feet. He hadn’t expected Gray to offer him the job on the spot. Truthfully, he’d taken an enormous risk moving back to Wolf Lake without guaranteed employment. If the deputy position had fallen through, he’d have to accept a position at his father’s firm. Though Thomas saved enough money to afford Uncle Truman’s place, the tax bill alone would bleed Thomas dry without a steady paycheck.

  “I can start today.”

  Gray shook his head.

  “Nah. Take the weekend to acclimate yourself and check out what’s new around the village. I’m sure you have plenty of work to do at the house. How about Monday morning at eight?”

  “I’ll be here at eight o’clock. This opportunity means the world to me.”

  Thomas had a bounce to his step that didn’t exist when he arrived this morning. On his way out, Thomas paused at the door after Maggie called from the filing room.

  “Your papers are ready,” she said. “Sign them now and save yourself another trip this afternoon.”

  “You drew up the contract during the interview?”

  “Was there ever a doubt you’d get the job?”

  Actually, yes, Thomas thought as he scribbled his name.

  And there it was. He was an official deputy for the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department. No turning back now.

  The April sun blinded him on the sidewalk. Returning to the intersection, he pressed the button and searched his pockets for his car keys while he waited for the light to change. The traffic light turned red, and the crosswalk read walk. Looked both ways twice. He hopped off the curb and strode halfway to the centerline before a motor growled and pulled his head up. Thomas lunged back as a red Dodge pickup ran the red light and shot through the intersection. An angry horn assailed him, the driver exte
nding his middle finger out the window.

  Thomas’s breath flew in and out of his chest. Not only because the bumper missed him by inches. He recognized the driver. After all these years, the bully who made Thomas miserable during high school still lived in Wolf Lake.

  Ray Welch.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The cherry wood A-frame grew halfway up the swaying pines. Glass frontage covered both floors, just as Thomas recalled from his childhood, and a weathered deck stretched across the front of the home. A smaller deck in disrepair sat off the back, accessed by a sliding glass door. All this glass and sunlight, Thomas thought as he plopped another box in the entryway. He needed blackout drapes for the bedroom so he could sleep after late shifts. Did they make blackout curtains long enough to cover all that glass?

  Uncle Truman’s A-frame featured an open design on the first floor, the plans drawn up long before open designs became vogue. He crossed the Persian rug in the living room and cut to the kitchen where he opened the refrigerator and removed a bottled water. Wiping sweat off his brow, he guzzled the drink until the plastic crinkled.

  Ray Welch. Thomas had almost forgotten about Ray. Before Thomas grew into his bones, he’d been a gangling boy with a forehead full of acne. The bigger kids caught his scent and bullied him, but no one had been as vicious as Ray. He recalled the boy shoving Thomas inside a locker after gym class and clasping the hinges with a padlock. He’d never forget his humiliation when the gym teacher asked a janitor to cut the lock with bolt cutters. Ray left him alone during their senior year after Thomas returned from summer vacation two inches taller and twenty pounds heavier. The extra pounds were wiry muscle, forged at Uncle Truman’s house. Ray still towered four inches over Thomas and outweighed him by fifty pounds. But there was no greater kryptonite for a bully than the quiet confidence Thomas developed.

  Truman taught Thomas construction and remodeling, and together they erected the guest house in the backyard. Hours of climbing roofs, hauling wood, and installing floorboard worked magic on Thomas’s physique. He liked to work with his hands. It calmed him, kept his mind from leaping to-and-fro.

  Which reminded him. A cursory glance at the guest house during the inspection revealed the previous owner hadn’t cared for the property. Pulling a baseball cap over his head, Thomas descended the back deck and crossed the yard. The guest house seemed to tilt as he neared the structure, as though it feared a berating for not maintaining itself. In the next yard, a young teenage girl in a wheelchair struggled to get the wheels moving. Recent rains left the yards soggy.

  The door opened without issue. Then the mold walloped Thomas’s nostrils. One look at the warped floorboards told him he had a leak on his hands. Following the hallway which branched to a bedroom on the right, a bathroom on the left, and ended at a small sitting area, he lifted his eyes and confirmed the sagging plaster. He made a mental note to add roofing materials to his purchase list at the hardware store. Good thing the A-frame was in tip-top shape. He’d have his work cut out for him once he tackled the guest house.

  The walls echoed with the voices of forgotten ghosts. How many nights did he sleep in the guest house after a fight with his parents? He wrangled a shiver out of his shoulders as he recalled his father screaming at him over the B Thomas pulled on his economics exam. Nothing but A’s would ever do, and even then his father grilled him over missed questions.

  Not that Thomas didn’t love his parents. He did. But they didn’t want the best for Thomas. They wanted what was best for them. According to his father, Thomas would major in business at Union like his parents, then join Dad’s project management firm and take over the business when Dad retired. Except Thomas wanted to help people in ways his parents couldn’t comprehend, and he’d developed a taste for law enforcement after Sheriff Gray brought Thomas aboard as a student intern during high school. Thomas had figured his parents would be proud. The internship earned him three college credits before he attained his high school diploma, and he finally had a focus in his life.

  His father berated him after Thomas applied to a state school and declared his major.

  “You think you’ll make it in the world, working as a deputy in a Podunk county? You don’t appreciate how cruel and unforgiving the world is.”

  Uncle Truman and Aunt Louise took Thomas in as always. Truman was Mom’s brother, and he’d worked as a prison guard in Auburn, New York, though the man’s sleepy eyes and easy going demeanor made him a better fit for a librarian job.

  “Don’t take it to heart,” Uncle Truman had told him, sitting beside Thomas on the twin mattress as Aunt Louise carried an armful of sheets and blankets from the house. “They love you.”

  “They have a funny way of showing it.”

  Truman sighed and patted Thomas’s knee as though he was still in grade school.

  “Your father built a successful business from the ground up. He was never good with his hands, and he couldn’t have built this.” Truman motioned at the ceiling and walls. “One method of building isn’t superior to the other. But he only comprehends one way. When he sees you, he doesn’t understand what you’re becoming, because he can’t picture himself doing anything other than what he’s doing.”

  “I don’t care about project management and software design. It’s boring.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with your father’s path. When the time comes, he’ll understand his son needs to find his own path and not follow his footsteps.”

  Now Thomas’s throat tightened. Despite Uncle Truman’s prediction, his father never changed. Which is why he took a law enforcement job on the other side of the country, as far from Wolf Lake as the map allowed.

  As he exited the guest house, a chainsaw buzzed across the lake. Thomas tried not to stare while the girl fought the soggy lawn. One wheel sank two inches deep into the mud and muck. Sweat glistened his brow.

  He couldn’t watch anymore.

  “Need some help?”

  He waved over his head and prayed the gesture appeared friendly. The girl blew the straight brunette hair off her forehead and pushed her glasses up her nose in frustration.

  “I shouldn’t have come this far after it rained. The wheels get stuck when the ground turns muddy.”

  The girl caught her breath as Thomas’s long strides carried him into the neighbor’s yard. Thomas had yet to meet his new neighbors, and they hadn’t lived here when Uncle Truman owned the A-frame. The neighbor’s house was a white, nondescript two-story with a patio off the back.

  “Where are you trying to get to?”

  The girl lifted her chin toward a stand of trees in the backyard.

  “To the lake. I want to sit by the shore since I can’t see the water from the patio.”

  Thomas estimated the distance at a hundred yards. Too far for the girl to wheel herself through the mud.

  “How about I help you back to the patio?”

  The girl lifted a shoulder.

  “I guess. At least I’ll have a picturesque view of a leafless hemlock tree. I’m Scout, by the way. Scout Mourning.”

  She squinted up at Thomas and offered her hand. He took it.

  “My name is Thomas Shepherd. I just bought the place next door.”

  “The last owners didn’t talk much. I’ve already talked longer with you than I spoke to them last year. Where are you from, Mr. Shepherd?”

  “Right here in Wolf Lake.” He swallowed and gestured at his house. “This was my uncle’s home when I was a kid.”

  “That’s cool that you bought his old place. Where did he move?”

  Thomas shoved his hands in his pockets and scuffed at the dirt with his sneaker.

  “Uncle Truman died eight years ago while I lived in California, and my aunt passed a year later. I never thought about buying his place. Then circumstances changed, and I moved home.” He was talking too much. In his head, he heard his mother’s advice. Let the other person speak. “How about you? Are you from Wolf Lake?”

  He stopped himself
from asking about the wheelchair, not wanting to act insensitive. Better to let her broach the subject.

  “Ithaca originally. We moved to Wolf Lake after the accident.”

  Scout appeared ready to tell him more when the back door opened. The woman edging onto the patio looked like an older version of Scout. She wore faded blue jeans and a heavy gray sweater, her arms wrapped against the April chill. Even with the sun shining, the wind coming off the lake cut through Thomas’s bones. The woman eyed the stranger hovering over her daughter.

  Thomas gave her a disarming nod.

  “I’m Thomas Shepherd, your new neighbor. On my way through the yard, I saw your daughter get stuck. I hope I didn’t frighten you.”

  “You bought the Fleming’s place?” the woman asked, tilting her chin at the A-frame.

  The Fleming’s place. Faces changed, and time refused to stand still. Truman and Louise had been Wolf Lake staples when they lived next door. A decade later, did anyone remember them?

  “Yeah, I bought it from the Flemings.”

  “Just you living there?”

  The pointed question inferred he wasn’t married, and a single guy in his thirties was a bigger threat than a family man. She edged a step closer to her daughter.

  “Just me. I’m a deputy with the county sheriff’s department.”

  The tension drained from the woman’s shoulders. Scout glanced at Thomas as if seeing him for the first time.

  “Cool beans,” the girl said.

  “My daughter loves reading mysteries and watching all those television crime shows. I’m Naomi Mourning, and you already met Scout. Welcome to the neighborhood.” Naomi’s glare moved to her daughter. “And why were you pushing the chair through the mud? You’ll rust it through and tear up the yard.”

  Scout lowered her eyes.

  “Sorry, Mom.”

  “Don’t tell me you were trying to get to the lake again? It’s too dangerous for you to sit beside the water without supervision.”

  Scout’s eyes flicked to Thomas with a combination of embarrassment and frustration.

  “It doesn’t make sense. Who buys a lakeside house with no view of the water?”