“What’s wrong?” the girl cried. “What is it?”
“Get out of the water!” the boy screamed, his moonlit face twisted in horror as he beat the water with his arms and legs, swimming madly for the shore and what he foolishly thought would be safety.
The sound of an engine grew louder. Someone was coming up the lake road. Lights flickered erratically through the dark branches just before a pickup burst out into the open, stopping at the edge of the water.
“Oh God, it’s my dad!” the girl gulped. She was still yards from shore and her clothing—trapped and naked as sin.
The unforgiving moon illuminated her as she sunk, neck deep in the water, neck deep in trouble. But she would never know just how much trouble she’d really been in—before her father had showed up.
He slammed out of his pickup, a shotgun in his beefy hands and guttural curses spewing from his wide mouth like bullets.
But the boy didn’t seem to notice the gun or his own nakedness as he lurched from the water, choking out something about a car in the middle of the lake—and a body.
In the dark shadows of the pines, the knife blade glittered for only an instant before disappearing back into its sheath. By morning the sheriff’s department would have dragged the car from the lake and found what was left of the body strapped behind the wheel. Nothing to be done about that now.
Chapter One
October 8
The headlights drilled a hole through the dark, exposing what finally looked like a place to pull over.
Augustus T. Riley braked and swung the rental car into the narrow patch of dirt on the right side of the highway. He hadn’t seen a car in hours—just miles of nothing but old two-lane blacktop banked by towering pines now etched ebony against the moonless sky.
Once stopped, he sat for a moment, the dark night closing in around him, the headlights doing little to ward it off. He’d never known such darkness, certainly not where he was from. And certainly not this early—just a little after seven. Over the murmur of the car engine, he heard the whoop whoop of wings an instant before something flew through the pale path of the headlamps and disappeared into the woods.
Damn, this country was desolate.
Turning on the dome light, he checked the map. He couldn’t be more than a few miles from the town. The drive had been long and gruelling, and not surprisingly, he was hungry and tired.
Once he got there, he’d have little to go on. Little more than a name and a phone number. But he’d gotten by with far less in the past.
Refolding the map, he shoved it into his briefcase out of sight and, leaving the engine running, climbed out. The night air was colder than he’d anticipated and cut through his lightweight jacket, sending a chill skittering across his skin. He caught the rank smell of something dead and decomposing. Roadkill. Fortunately, he couldn’t see what was lying in the tall weeds where the putrid odor emanated. Didn’t want to. Probably a wild animal. A coyote. Or a deer.
Whatever it was, it had been dead for some time.
He shivered as he went to the front of the car, popped the hood and leaned in.
From the darkness came a hushed moan that made him jerk up in surprise, banging his head on the sharp metal edge of the hood. He swore, then fell silent, listening for it over the thud of his heart.
There it was again. He looked up to see the wind move through the tops of the pines in a low, sensual moan, not unlike a woman’s.
He almost laughed. He hadn’t realized how nervous he was. How anxious. Still, it was a damn eerie sound, and as foreign to him as this landscape.
All those miles without seeing another living soul— He felt as disconnected from civilization as if deployed into space. What he wouldn’t give right now to see the golden arches of a McDonald’s restaurant. Or an interstate. Even a 7-Eleven gas station would perk him up.
He ducked under the car’s hood again and quickly made a few adjustments until the engine ran so rough it barely ran at all. Satisfied, he slammed the hood.
Just a few more miles.
As he moved back along the side of the car, he became painfully aware of the darkness just beyond the glow of his headlights. This far north it got dark early and with no lights anywhere other than his headlamps… His step quickened only slightly, just enough to amuse him as he opened the car door and slid in, closing it firmly behind him. He actually thought about locking his door. This made him laugh.
But it was a short laugh; an oddly sad sound inside the rental car on this lonely stretch of highway just short of hell.
He started to pull back onto the highway. Something caught in his headlights, no bird this time. He threw the car into Reverse, the lights arcing back across the pines, coming to rest on a weathered-white sign standing at a skewed angle in the weeds just yards from where he’d pulled off. Freeze Out Lake. Five miles.
His breath caught as his startled gaze followed the partially obscured dirt tracks in his headlights to the point where the lake road disappeared into the black forest of pines. Not far up there was where the bodies had been found. The gruesome grizzly-bear attack years ago that had made all of the papers. He would never forget the photo of the tent where the grizzly had gone through to drag out the campers inside.
And just last week, Josh Whitaker’s car and body had been dragged from the same lake.
His hand actually shook as he shifted into first gear again. If a place could be cursed, it would be this one. The car engine tried to die. His pulse took off like a shot. For a moment he thought he’d overdone it under the hood, but the car moved forward, the engine still running. Just barely.
Once back on the pavement, he turned on the heater, as if mere heat could chase away the chill. Not a half mile up the highway, it began to rain. Giant, wet drops fell like buckshot, ricocheting off the hood, splattering against the windshield, making the already dark night even blacker.
The next sign he caught in his headlights was: Utopia, Montana.
Home of Charlie Larkin.
He’d expected the town to be small, but not just a few run-down buildings out in the middle of nowhere. If this was their idea of Utopia—
Through the curtain of rain, he spotted the garage first. Could hardly miss anything that big. Or that ugly. Plus, it sat right on the edge of town. And town, what there was of it, was perched on the edge of the highway as if pushed out there by the pines.
The once-red words Larkin & Sons Gas and Garage had faded on the side of the gray metal building. Not exactly an imaginative name, but definitely descriptive. Two ancient-looking gas pumps sat under an overhanging roof next to the gunmetal-gray garage. Several jalopies, stripped clean of parts, rusted under the encroaching trees.
He pulled in under the roof next to a pump. The rain pelted the metal roof loud as a drum. The hand-printed notice on the closest pump read Last Gas for Thirty Miles. He turned off the engine and looked expectantly toward the gas station office, wondering which of the Larkins were working tonight.
Unlike the lamps glowing over the pumps, no light shone in the office. It was empty—and dark—except for the round golden glow of a clock on the wall. Seven-thirty-six.
He hadn’t even considered the place might be closed. Not on a Friday night. Especially if it was the last gas for thirty miles.
He looked down the main drag through the rain. A few splashes of neon blurred in the wet darkness. Past that, he could see nothing but more highway and trees.
Swearing under his breath, he turned the key to start the car again,