“Mommy, where are the fishies?”
“Hey, be careful, buddy. Don’t slip off the rock.” Heart lurching, Alicia Duncan grabbed her son, Charlie, by the back of his green life vest. If he leaned over any farther, he would go headlong into Wyoming’s Blackthorn River. His fishing pole clattered against the outcropping of smooth rocks, where they’d plopped down to fish. The exact place she’d fished from as a kid and teen. “Hang on to your pole, sweetie.”
Heat bounced off the stones and reflected off the river water from the unseasonably warm April morning sun, making perspiration break out at her nape beneath her long dark hair. It was a beautiful spring day for spending time outdoors with her son in the middle of Wyoming’s northwestern mountain range. The clear, smog-free air smelled sweet with the scent of ponderosa pines. So different from city life. A welcome change.
Alicia had always loved the river. About five miles downstream, the lazy flow of water cut a path through the rural town of Settler’s Valley, where she’d grown up. There was something soothing, comforting even, about the way the mountain runoff filled the riverbed.
Especially in this particular area, where the river pooled into a deep canyon with high cliffs across the bank and more cliffs a little ways upstream. The water was deep enough here that she and her friends would jump off the cliffs into the river. Those had been the days when her husband had been her boyfriend and had promised her the world.
She sighed wistfully, as the bittersweet memories washed over her.
The summer after high school she’d married local football hero Jeff Duncan. She’d believed his promise. She’d believed him.
How innocent she’d been...
She and Jeff had escaped their small-town life for the city of Tacoma, Washington. He’d been her hero, both personally, as the love of her life and the father of her child, and professionally, as a highly decorated police officer. But nothing had been as it seemed.
Now eight years later, she was back home in Wyoming. A widow, raising her son and caring for her elderly father.
Oh, and let’s not forget, licking her wounds. She hadn’t even known until after the funeral that her marriage had been a sham. That Jeff hadn’t been the man she thought he was.
Never again would she fall for charm and slick promises.
She shook her hands as if somehow the motion would relieve the restlessness that seemed to plague her these days.
“But I want to catch a fish,” Charlie grumbled. Sunlight reflected off the water and lightened the blue of his eyes, shaped exactly like his father’s. She could see Jeff in the jut of Charlie’s chin as well. Only on Charlie it looked good, not arrogant, the way it had on Jeff.
Okay, she was being uncharitable. There’d been a time when she’d loved her late husband. When he’d been everything to her. But that was before.
Alicia sighed and ruffled Charlie’s thick dark hair, which he got from her gene pool. They’d been out fishing for over an hour without even a nibble. In the world of fishing, an hour was nothing, but with a three-year-old it was more than enough. So much for trout for dinner tonight. “I know, sweetie. They don’t seem to be biting today.”
She reeled in the lure on the fishing rod she’d borrowed from her father’s collection. A fat worm still dangled from the hook. “How about we call it a day and treat ourselves to rainbow sherbet?”
“Yay! Sherbet.” Charlie swung his legs in anticipation. His rubber boots slapped against the rock. She helped her little boy to his feet. He stood with his back to the water. She kept a hand on his shoulder in case he took a step backward.
The sound of a powerboat echoed off the walls of the stone cliffs rising up on the far side of the river. A boat, traveling downstream, rounded the bend into the mouth of the canyon. Alicia didn’t pay the noise any attention as she gathered their fishing gear.
The motor sputtered to a halt. Silence echoed off the walls of stone. She glanced up to see a sleek, fiberglass sport boat floating in the middle of the river.
That was a little odd. The boat looked more like one used for waterskiing, not fishing.
A large man lifted a slim woman into his arms. Her head fell back, her long red hair cascaded in loose waves over the side of the boat and her arms hung limp at her sides. Was she asleep?
At this distance, about the length of a football field, Alicia couldn’t tell. She frowned as her pulse sped up. What was he doing with the woman?
Without hesitation the man tossed the woman into the water. Her body splashed and then disappeared beneath the surface.
Alicia gasped and held her breath. Unwilling to believe what she’d just seen, she prayed the woman would come bursting to the surface. She didn’t.
Shock punched Alicia in the stomach. She took a deep breath, and then another. She’d just witnessed a murder. Or rather, the woman was probably already dead and the man was disposing of her body.
A cold shiver of fear slithered down Alicia’s spine. She glanced at Charlie, who studied a bug crawling on a nearby rock, and was grateful to realize he hadn’t witnessed the horrifying scene.
When she returned her gaze to the boat, the killer shaded his eyes and locked his gaze on hers.
“Oh, no,” Alicia breathed out in a panic.
The powerboat’s engine roared to life, spurring Alicia into action. Her and Charlie’s only chance was to get to the shelter of the forest along the riverbank and make their way to the marina, about a half mile away. She knew this part of the river like the back of her hand. She and her school friends had spent almost every summer day along the shores of the Blackthorn River.
“Charlie, we need to go,” she urged. “Now.”
“Why, Mommy?”
This was one time she couldn’t explain her rationale. She hated when parents of the kids she taught gave their kids commands without explaining the reasons why the child needed to comply. “Because I said so” wasn’t an acceptable form of communication in Alicia’s book.
But right now she didn’t have the mental or emotional wherewithal to use her words, let alone explain that she’d just witnessed a man dump a woman into the river and now said man was coming after them. She needed Charlie to do as she asked. “Charlie, please, do as I ask. Get up.”
She glanced over her shoulder. The sport boat was closing the distance. Was that a gun the man held in his hand?
Terror fastened around her throat like a noose. Please, Lord, protect us!
She hooked her hobo bag with one hand, slipped the strap over her shoulder to hang across her body and grabbed Charlie around the waist with her other arm and drew him to her chest, using her own body as a shield against the man with the gun.
“Mommy!” Charlie protested. “Too tight.”
“Sorry, honey,” she muttered but didn’t lessen her hold as she stepped carefully off the rock, leaving behind the fishing gear. Dad would be irritated, but she didn’t have the time to grab the poles and tackle box. She’d have to come back later, when it was safe.
She slipped slightly in the soft dirt along the shore, but the bottoms of her boots dug in and kept her upright. She was thankful she’d worn her hiking boats instead of the deck shoes she’d almost put on this morning. With the roar of the powerboat drawing closer, she ran into the woods and headed south. There wasn’t a clear trail, but she didn’t hesitate. She knew her way around these woods and just hoped whoever was on the boat didn’t.
The sudden