by Dan Padavona
Contents
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CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
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CHAPTER ONE
Sunday, August 9th
9:20 p.m.
The headlamps of Thomas Shepherd’s F-150 illuminated the sign welcoming guests to Wolf Lake State Park. He pulled onto the shoulder beside a scenic overlook and descended the gorge trail. A flashlight pierced the darkness. The man in the gorge was state park ranger Darren Holt, his friend and neighbor. The ranger’s blue Silverado parked a hundred feet down the dirt access road from Thomas’s truck.
“Down here, Sheriff,” Darren called from the gorge.
Thomas was still getting used to the sheriff moniker. Technically, he was interim sheriff of Nightshade County, a collection of sleepy villages around the Finger Lakes in upstate New York. Less than a month ago, his mentor, Stewart Gray, stepped down as sheriff at sixty. Thomas once served as an intern under Gray for the County Sheriff’s Department during high school.
He pushed aside a tangle of brush and squeezed between the trees, his own flashlight cutting through the gloom. Night sounds sang to the starlit sky as his boots slogged across soggy ground. Brushing the unruly, sand-colored hair out of his eyes, he felt out of sorts. The evening before a day shift, he always finished working around the house before eight, settled down with a book for ninety minutes, then climbed into bed at precisely nine-thirty. Breaking the pattern made him skittish, a trait common to people with Asperger’s.
The phone call had pulled Thomas away from the new Rachel Caine novel at eight-fifty. Someone discovered human bones on state park land. The park butted up against Thomas’s lakeside property.
The falls roared to his left, though he couldn’t see the water through the trees. He leaped over an embankment and landed beside the water. Spray from the waterfall soaked his face and chilled his flesh, despite the humid summer night.
Darren Holt stood a head taller than Thomas. A former Syracuse police officer, the dark-haired ranger had retired from the daily grind and accepted the state park position. Darren lived on state park grounds in a log cabin, a fifteen-minute hike from the A-Frame Thomas owned.
“It looks like I pulled you out of bed,” said Darren.
“Not quite. An hour later, and I’d have fallen asleep.”
“No rest for the weary when you’re the big cheese.”
“So I’m the big cheese now? Coming from the lord emperor of state parks, that’s saying something.”
“How’s the sheriff life treating you?”
Thomas glanced at Darren from the corner of his eye.
“Interim sheriff.”
After Sheriff Gray put in a good word for Thomas, the county commissioner had appointed Thomas as interim sheriff to fill the vacant position.
“As if you won’t win the election.”
“Never count your chickens before they hatch.”
“The election is in November, and you’re running unopposed.”
“So far. Anyhow, where are these human remains?”
The ranger scratched at day-old scruff and pointed toward the creek bed, the stars dancing across the water.
“A hiker descended the gorge trail and followed the creek bed for a quarter-mile,” Darren said, swatting a mosquito with his baseball cap. “Hikers aren’t allowed this far off the trail, because the creek floods after we get a heavy rain.”
“It thundered like hell Friday night.”
“The water came up fast and flooded the gorge, and the flow strengthened enough to scour the creek bed. Forty-eight hours later, our hiker got the bright idea to check out the damage and came across bones embedded in the mud.”
“You’re certain they’re human?”
“They’re human, all right. There’s a skull buried in the dirt about fifty feet from where he found the bone.”
Two more flashlights cut down the trail.
“That must be Virgil.”
Virgil Harbough was the Nightshade County Medical Examiner. At sixty-two, the frail and grayed medical examiner had become a familiar face in Thomas’s life. It seemed a dead body surfaced every month, as if part of some strange ritual. Virgil struggled through the brush. Supporting Virgil by the elbow was a russet-haired woman fresh out of medical school. Claire Brookins had joined the coroner’s office three weeks ago.
“Sheriff,” Virgil said, shrugging Claire off his elbow. “Good evening, Ranger Holt.”
“Thanks for coming out, Virgil.”
“We need to stop meeting under these circumstances.” Virgil caught his breath. “You said something about human remains.”
“Over here,” Darren said, motioning them forward.
Thomas settled his light on the pale bone jutting out of the earth as Virgil knelt down for closer inspection. Claire pulled a brush out of her kit before Virgil stopped her.
“Don’t touch anything. Let’s get an idea of what we’re dealing with first.”
“It’s human, right?” Darren asked.
“Oh, it’s definitely human.” Virgil rose on rickety legs and surveyed the land. “The question is, how long has this bone been here. Sometimes people find skeletal remains because they’re standing on an abandoned cemetery. It’s amazing how many forgotten people are buried under our feet. But nobody in their right mind would dig a graveyard along the river.” He made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “This whole area is a flood plain. In rainy seasons, the river expands to the base of the ridge. That’s why trees can’t get a foothold until you move up the hill.”
“And that explains why nobody found the bones until now,” Thomas said. “The water dug them out. Any way to determine how long they’ve been here?”
“I know someone who can,” Claire said, drawing their attention. With everyone
staring at her, she fidgeted and cleared her throat. “Doctor Stone, from SUNY Oswego.”
“Never heard of him,” said Virgil.
“Well, he’s a she, to begin with.” Virgil clamped his mouth shut. “Dr. Astrid Stone is a forensic anthropologist with a doctorate from Mercyhurst. She teaches as an adjunct professor at Oswego. If you want answers about this skeleton and how long it’s been in the ground, she’ll give them to you.”
Thomas moved closer to Claire.
“How soon can we get Dr. Stone to Wolf Lake?”
“I’ll make a call,” Claire said, glancing at Virgil for approval. He nodded. “If she’s in Oswego for the summer, we can have her here by morning.”
While Virgil and Claire photographed the remains, Thomas set evidence markers along the creek. The water rushed a few steps away. If another storm came through, the creek would swallow the shallow grave. He stopped beside the skull and glanced over Virgil’s shoulder. It was a partial skull, half the head sticking out of the dirt as though the person died screaming. Bits of fractured bone gleamed under the flashlight. He could tell from the size and shape this wasn’t a child. But whether the skull belonged to a male or female, teenager or senior, he didn’t know. Studying skeletal structure in a lab or textbook was one thing. Identifying victims in the field was quite another.
Thomas noticed Darren staring at him from the trail. While Virgil and Claire worked, Thomas climbed the embankment.
“What’s on your mind?”
Darren folded his arms.
“Remember last spring when I told you the Harmon Kings were using the state park to transport drugs?”
“You pinned the trafficking on LeVar.”
Darren had blamed LeVar Hopkins, the former enforcer for the Harmon Kings gang, for murdering a teenage prostitute. After Darren asked out LeVar’s sister, Raven, Darren and LeVar became friends. Now LeVar lived in the lakeside guest house behind Thomas’s A-Frame. Raven worked as a private investigator in the village.
“And I still feel guilty about accusing LeVar. But I was right about the Kings moving drugs through the state park. I’m positive they use the lake and the trails after dark.”
“You think the Kings had something to do with these bones?”
“The creek bed and lake are great places to dump bodies. Had it not been for the storm and the hiker moving off trail, we wouldn’t have found the remains.”
Thomas glanced at Virgil and Claire. They hunched over the unearthed grave, the bones scattered along the creek bed where the flood swept them downstream. Thomas had already dealt with two serial killers since returning from Los Angeles. He’d worked as a detective with the LAPD before a gunshot sidelined him. The idea of another murderer stalking Nightshade County twisted his insides into a knot. Since spring, everyone in the village locked their doors and windows at night, the residents walking on a razor’s edge of panic. It seemed inconceivable ghastly events like these occurred inside the idyllic lake community. Thomas removed his hat, wondering if he’d ever get used to wearing the sheriff’s badge. He cleared the sweat from his eyes.
“What do you intend to do?”
“I was poking around on the internet last night and found those automatic cameras hunters and scientists use to photograph wildlife. If I place them on the trails, maybe I’ll figure out who keeps sneaking around the park after dark.”
Thomas hoped Darren’s plan would work. Nightshade County couldn’t stomach another killer.
But a more troubling thought floated inside his head. He was good with numbers and committed significant dates to memory. Since he returned from Los Angeles to join the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department, he’d memorized the missing persons database for the entire county, going back ten years. Six years ago, seventeen-year-old Skye Feron vanished during the summer before her senior year at Wolf Lake High. Her parents never gave up the search. Every year, the local newspaper wrote a story about the missing girl and fished for answers to the six-year mystery.
Did these bones belong to Skye Feron?
CHAPTER TWO
Monday, August 9th
6:45 a.m.
The red sky bled through the canopy like a silent warning. Thomas sipped coffee from his thermos and watched a large-boned woman with slate-gray hair and a strong chin lead a team of graduate students into the creek bed. He hadn’t met Dr. Astrid Stone yet, and by the way she barked orders at her students, he felt it was wise to give the crew space and stay out of her way.
Deeper in the gorge, Darren searched the trail with the careful precision of a former police officer. Deputy Tristan Lambert, who stood a hair taller than Darren, watched Stone’s crew from beside the creek. Lambert grew up in Minnesota and joined the army before accepting the deputy’s position in Nightshade County. In Thomas’s opinion, Lambert had all the makings of a fine sheriff. But the deputy showed no interest in running.
The doctor’s team fanned out around the bones, Stone’s scoff loud enough to travel halfway up the ridge as she assessed the myriad of footprints moving through the gorge.
“Someone already disturbed the scene,” she said, shooting a glare at Lambert. “It’s as if a shrewdness of apes trampled through. If a single bone is broken because some fat-footed oaf didn’t bother to look where he was stepping, I’ll have his hide.”
Lambert glanced up the ridge at Thomas. The sheriff shrugged back at his deputy. A door slammed from the access road when Virgil and Claire returned. Virgil led the way until he observed Stone snapping at her subordinates. Then he fell in behind Claire. Stone’s face softened when she recognized Virgil’s assistant.
“Ah, Ms. Brookins. Finally, someone who understands how important it is to preserve a dig site.”
“Dr. Stone,” Claire said, high-stepping over the branch of a pricker bush. “I worried you wouldn’t remember my name.”
“Nonsense. I remember all my students. At least the ones who show up for class on time.”
Stone shot a withering glare at a male graduate student with thick glasses and a bucket hat pulled over his head. The boy’s face reddened.
Dr. Stone divided her crew into specific tasks. The pudgy female assisting Stone worked on the remains with a brush, while the two boys carefully dug into the earth and sifted the dirt through a screen. Once the work was underway, Stone’s demeanor lost its edge, though Thomas believed she’d explode if anyone crossed her. Straightening his shoulders, Thomas trudged across the muddy bank and approached the doctor, careful to remain outside her work radius.
“Thank you for coming on short notice, Dr. Stone. I’m Sheriff Shepherd.”
Stone sniffed.
“You may run the county, Sheriff. But I’m judge, jury, and executioner at a dig site. Your team disturbed the evidence. I’ll ask you once to stand aside and let my students work.”
“I wouldn’t dream of interfering.”
Lambert huffed.
“We’re working together. What makes her think she’s important? We’re capable of digging through the mud on our own.”
Stone set her shovel aside and rose.
“Deputy, there are 700,000 active law enforcement officers in the United States and only one-hundred forensic anthropologists. I would never tell you how to do your job. But one of us here is replaceable, and one isn’t. Do the math.”
Lambert opened his mouth, and Thomas shook his head at him. Thomas shuffled closer and knelt for a better look as Stone used a brush to remove dirt from the skull.
“What can you tell me anything about this person?”
“I’ll reconstruct the skull inside the lab. But this appears to be a female.”
Thomas felt his stomach drop. A part of him wished it was male so he could rule out Skye Feron.
“How can you tell?”
“Females have smoother skulls than males. We’re not as hard headed.” She knocked her knuckles against her forehead. “Until I collect the fragments and piece the puzzle together, I won’t know for sure.” She ran the brush
along the brow line. “Males have a more pronounced brow than this specimen displays. I’m missing too much of the jaw to make a determination. But male jaws jut more than female jaws. The female homo sapiens evolved. Which is to say males are closer to apes.” Stone narrowed her brow. “And that explains why my dig site looks trampled. Now, if I may draw your attention to the pelvis my assistants removed from the mud, so your heavy booted deputy wouldn’t crush it, you’ll note this pelvis offers space for the birth canal. Again, preliminary signs point to a female. Have you lost any women in the last several years, Sheriff?”
Thomas shuffled his feet.
“One.”
“For her family’s sake, let’s hope this isn’t her.”
“Any idea how she died?”
“Not yet. She could have fallen into the gorge, drowned in the creek, or electrocuted herself in a storm. There’s no way to make that determination from scattered bones. Please, Sheriff. Allow my team to work. I’ll give you answers after we get her back to the lab. Ms. Brookins? Dr. Harbough? If you’ll kindly lend your assistance.”
Claire and Virgil gave each other a cautious glance and moved to aid the team. Thomas spoke into his radio and raised Deputy Veronica Aguilar at the station. Aguilar was a diminutive, short-haired deputy with a bodybuilder’s physique. Last April, Aguilar accompanied Thomas to the Magnolia Dance, Wolf Lake’s annual spring festival. Before then, Thomas had never seen Aguilar in a dress. He was accustomed to her concocting protein smoothies and making crude jokes, the office blender whirring inside the kitchen.
“Aguilar here.”
“Aguilar, it’s Thomas.”
“How are things at the state park, Sheriff?”
Thomas wished she’d call him by his first name as she had before the county commissioner tagged him as interim sheriff. Since he claimed Gray’s position, Aguilar had become distant. She didn’t fire humorous jabs at him all day like she used to.
“It looks like we’ll be here a while. Preliminary indications are we’re dealing with a female.”
“Age?”
“No determination made yet. I want you to go through the missing persons database. Expand your search to surrounding counties. Give me a list of women who disappeared in the last ten years.”