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

  Lambert moved toward the guest house. He ran the light over a series of impressions leading back to the house.

  “This you?” Lambert asked Thomas.

  “Yes. I’m fixing up the guest house.”

  “Let me know when you finish. I’ll move in. This place is sweet.”

  Darren worked toward the ridge while Thomas concentrated his search near the trees. As Thomas bent to examine a muddy impression, Darren called out from the shore. Gray led the deputies to the ranger’s position. Between the grass and water, brush hunched over as though someone had stomped through. Two streaks cut into the mud.

  “Someone dragged a skiff through here,” Darren said, pointing at the markings. “You have a boat, Deputy Shepherd?”

  “A kayak, but I haven’t taken it onto the water yet.”

  Had the killer entered the lake from Thomas’s yard?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Thomas arrived at the station Tuesday morning, sporting a headache. A half-hour later he returned to the lake. While Gray and Aguilar drove to the county morgue, Thomas directed his cruiser to the state park. He sipped from his coffee, the caffeine cutting through the haze. If he’d slept more than an hour last night, he couldn’t recall. Every time sleep dragged him under, his eyes snapped open to a noise outside—branches rustling, banging shutters. He needed eight hours per night to think clearly, four to function.

  Darren waited for Thomas at the park entrance. The ranger appeared as tired as Thomas while he leaned in the doorway.

  “Are you up for an early morning hike, Deputy?”

  “I can’t wait,” Thomas said, rubbing his eyes.

  Sunlight waged war with the persistent clouds. Orange shafts penetrated the gray canopy and painted a checkerboard across the distant hills. Frost melted off the flora, and dew wet their pant cuffs as he pushed through the grass.

  “Two trails run through Wolf Lake State Park,” Darren said, pointing at a large map encased behind glass. “We’ll take the ridge trail down to the lake trail. That’s where I heard activity last week. It seems like a lot of work for your killer to canvass the lake. Keep in mind the lake is 320 feet deep at the center. It’s a great place to dump a body.”

  Thomas nodded.

  “You still think LeVar Hopkins came down these trails?”

  “Can’t prove anything. As I told you, I spotted his Chrysler Limited cruising your end of the lake. No reason for a Harmon gangster to be here unless he’s running drugs.”

  “Why murder an eighteen-year-old girl?”

  “Simple. She belongs to the Royals, and LeVar’s gang wants to destroy their prostitution ring.”

  They pushed past a tree limb growing over the trail. The sun broke through the canopy, and for the first time since Thomas returned home, spring seemed near.

  “Here we go,” Darren said, pulling up.

  Footprints trailed down a steep incline. Someone had come through in recent days, and the muddy grounds held the evidence.

  “You’re sure those aren’t from your shoes?”

  Darren placed his shoe beside the print.

  “Not even close. This guy is two or more shoe sizes larger.” He pulled back on another branch and opened a view to the water. “That’s where he boarded the skiff.”

  Thomas cupped a hand over his eye to block the glare. Darren was correct. Someone moved along this trail and boarded a skiff he’d dragged to the shoreline. Thomas’s property gave the killer direct access. Grass and weeds grew thick south of the lake. If the killer backed a truck to the shore, he’d find tire tracks.

  “He must have carried the watercraft.”

  “Either he owns a lightweight skiff, or we’re looking for a powerful guy.”

  “Considering he carried a dead woman to the water, I’d lean toward the latter. Next question. What was he doing on the trail? Seems counterproductive. Why drag the skiff to the lake, dump the body, then move up the trail?”

  “If LeVar was heading toward the school—”

  “The school is east of the lake. This guy went due north and doubled back. What’s at the north end of this trail?”

  “Just the cabins.”

  Thomas fixed Darren with a glare.

  “Your cabin.”

  The implication was clear. What if the killer stalked Darren and watched him inside the cabin? Getting rid of the ranger would make it easier to dump a body unnoticed.

  “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Do you have a security system?”

  “It’s a log cabin in the middle of a state park. Not a hot spot for criminal activity.”

  “Or so you figured.”

  A vein pulsed in Darren’s neck. He raised binoculars to his eyes, scanned the shore, then handed them to Thomas.

  “He must have spent a long time on the water. Remember how strong the winds were over the weekend?”

  “Straight out of the north.”

  “Right. So he sets the woman inside the skiff and rows toward the deep waters. Trouble is, the waves fight him and drag the boat toward the shore. No way he rowed out of the shallows in a few minutes.”

  “Someone might have seen him.”

  “He dumped the girl under the cover of night. Nobody would have seen a light. Not on a small skiff.”

  Thomas raised the binoculars and followed the matted bramble along the shore. Across the water, a dilapidated boathouse sat on the west side of the lake. Smoke curled from a vent. The scent of a wood stove rode the air.

  “Who lives in the boathouse across the way? Maybe the owner saw something.”

  Darren led Thomas to the parking lot and climbed into the passenger seat of the deputy’s cruiser. They followed the road past the A-frame and the Mourning’s residence. One eye on the road, Thomas couldn’t look away from the Kimble residence. What was more horrifying than finding a headless woman floating in the water outside your home?

  A dirt driveway curled down a hill to the broken down boathouse. The cruiser’s tires slipped in the mud before Thomas shifted the vehicle into sport mode. A rusty pickup truck stood beside the house. A skull and crossbones bumper sticker adorned the back of the truck, and a confederate flag waved in the breeze behind the cab. Darren raised an eyebrow.

  Thomas banged on the door. A dog the size of a grizzly barked inside. Cursing followed as a man told Buster to shut the hell up. The man who opened the door had a scruffy red beard. His belly hung over his jeans, and a cap with a bald eagle topped his head. He stood a hair taller than Thomas and Darren.

  “What the hell do you want?”

  The man blocked the entryway with his body to keep the dog back. Thomas sensed the man was more interested in keeping them out.

  “Are you the home owner, sir?”

  “Yeah, my name is Buck Benson. If you’d taken five seconds to look at the mailbox, you coulda figured that out for yourself. Why are you on my property? I paid my taxes.”

  “Mr. Benson, I’m Deputy Shepherd with the Nightshade County Sheriff’s Department, and this is Darren Holt, the ranger at Wolf Lake State Park. I’m investigating a murder.”

  “I heard your emergency vehicles. You kept me up half the night with your damn lights and sirens.”

  “Did you see anyone on the lake Sunday night around ten o’clock?”

  Benson rubbed his beard and narrowed his eyes.

  “It’s too dark over the water that time of night. But I saw a guy hanging around the shore.”

  Thomas perked up.

  “Can you describe the man?”

  “Sure as hell can. Black as the ace of spades, if you know what I mean. He wears them damn curls down his shoulders.”

  “Curls?”

  “You know. Like those druggie reggae types.”

  “Dreadlocks.”

  “I don’t know what the hell they’re called. All I can say is we don’t have nobody like that in my neighborhood.”

  “What else can you tell me about this man?”

  Benson shrugged. The
dog lunged at the door, and he kicked it back. The dog retreated with a yelp.

  “Big guy, lots of muscles. Probably did prison time.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of the tats up and down his arms. Plus, you don’t have time to build muscle like that unless you’re in prison. Then you have all the time in the world, and hardworking folks like me pay for your room and board.”

  Thomas shared a glance with Darren. He doubted Buck Benson had a bone in his body that wasn’t tainted with racism. But the man had described LeVar Hopkins.

  “Ever see this guy before?”

  “I seen him around. Scumbag drives a big black car. Always moving slow, like he’s scoping for a place to rob. Figure he’s from Harmon. That’s where all the welfare degenerates come from.” He tilted his head toward a gray one-story with blue shutters up the road. “We got another blacky over there. A woman. Bet they’re friends.”

  “What was this guy doing Sunday night?”

  “Standing along the shore a quarter-mile up the road. Up to no good, I can tell you that. I would have called you guys, but he disappeared after I grabbed my shotgun.” Benson glared at Thomas in challenge. “I got a permit, not that I should need one in a free country.”

  Thomas dug into his wallet and handed Benson a card.

  “If you see him again, or you think of anything else, I want you to call the number on the card.”

  Benson raised the card to his eyes and squinted.

  “Yeah, I’ll do that. But if he shows his face on my property, I’ll deal with him my way.”

  “Just call the department, Mr. Benson.”

  Benson grinned before he slammed the door in their faces.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After Thomas dropped Darren at the ranger’s cabin, he circled past his house and grabbed a coffee from the Broken Yolk. His radio buzzed with activity when he climbed into the cruiser. Something about a video of Erika Windrow’s murder posted to the internet.

  He pressed the gas and raced back to the department. When he arrived, Aguilar sat before a computer with a hand over her mouth. Gray stood behind, ashen-faced.

  “You have to watch this,” Aguilar said, looking back at Thomas.

  He took a knee beside the female deputy and peered at the screen while she moved the time marker back to the beginning. The video, titled A Death in Wolf Lake, appeared shot from a camera set on a dashboard. Darkness cloaked the vehicle’s interior, and the focus kept pulsing in and out as the camera struggled to find a subject. Enough grainy light existed for Thomas to see a woman on the passenger side of the vehicle. Two hands curled around her neck, the killer’s body off camera. Her bare feet kicked up and pressed against the dashboard for purchase. She pushed off, but he was too strong. For three excruciating minutes, he strangled the woman until her struggles slowed and became lethargic. Now and then, the automatic exposure increased, adding noise to the picture as it drew out her features. She was young. A teenager. The picture was too distorted to identify the woman, but this had to be Erika Windrow. They needed to send this video to a lab. A technician would clean up the video and help them identify the victim, possibly pick out a key piece of evidence inside the vehicle.

  “Copy the video before it disappears,” Thomas said. “Murders captured on camera vanish quickly on the internet.”

  “Wait,” Aguilar said. “There’s more to the footage.”

  She glared at Thomas as if to ask him if he was ready. His stomach curled in on itself. Could the video become more disturbing?

  The woman went slack in the seat. She appeared dead, but it took several minutes to murder someone by strangulation. More likely she was unconscious and hanging on by a thread. The killer’s hands disappeared from the frame. When one hand returned, it held a serrated knife.

  “Jesus,” Gray said, turning away.

  Willing the woman to wake up and escape, Thomas stared at the screen as the knife swept across the her throat. Black blood spilled from the gash as the murderer sawed through her neck.

  “He’s beheading her on camera,” Aguilar said. “What kind of sicko would murder a woman and upload the evidence?”

  Thomas narrowed his eyes and studied the shadowed body leaning into the frame. The man faced away from the camera, his body a black silhouette that blotted out two-thirds of the picture. His body pulsed with energy, muscles rippling his shoulders and neck. This guy was strong. It explained how he carried the skiff to the shore and rowed into the lake against a stiff current.

  The woman’s head lolled to one side before the video cut off. A dead silence fell over the room. Maggie broke the quiet and strolled down the hall with a folder in her hand. Thomas blocked her from approaching.

  “I’ll take that,” he said, giving her a meaningful glare.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You don’t want to know, Maggie. Please return to your desk.”

  She craned her head to see past him. Aguilar and Gray stood in front of the screen until the secretary retreated to her desk. Thank God Maggie hadn’t seen.

  “Shut that door,” Gray said, pointing at the door dividing the hallway.

  Thomas removed the stopper and let the door swing shut. After a glance from the sheriff, he twisted the lock so Maggie couldn’t barge in on their conversation. The sheriff removed his hat and scrubbed a hand through his hair.

  “This guy is taunting us. He murders a prostitute and uploads the video so everyone can see. How do we catch this guy? Talk.”

  Aguilar glanced at Thomas.

  “The first thing we should do is send the video to a lab,” Thomas said, folding his arms as he leaned against the wall. “Harmon PD has one, but the lab in Syracuse is state-of-the art. I’ll call Darren Holt. He may know someone at Syracuse who can expedite the process.”

  “Good. What else?”

  Aguilar narrowed her eyes at the video.

  “For one thing, we’re looking for a vehicle with a bloody passenger seat. This guy isn’t very subtle. What about bringing in the FBI?”

  “I doubt they’ll come for one murder, but it never hurts to check.”

  “Okay, let’s rattle the bushes in Harmon. Either the Harmon Kings picked off a prostitute to hurt the 315 Royals, or the Royals had this girl murdered. Maybe Erika Windrow ratted out one of their members or threatened to take incriminating evidence to the police.”

  Gray tugged at his mustache.

  “The guy who uploaded the video goes by the name Max Cady. Is that a legitimate name?”

  Thomas shook his head.

  “Max Cady is a character from Cape Fear. In the movie, Cady stalked the family of a lawyer who wronged him. This guy is a fan of thrillers and horror movies.”

  “Not much to go on, is it?”

  “No, but we can search for internet posters using the same name. That’s one way to track him. What if he screwed up along the way and left a breadcrumb?”

  “We need to follow every lead. Aguilar, take Shepherd to Harmon. Someone has to know why this guy murdered Erika Windrow. Shepherd, before you leave, get that video to the Syracuse lab.”

  “I’ll copy the video and send it over now.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The school day lasted forever for Scout.

  She never fell back to sleep after the body washed up on shore a few hundred feet from her house. Mom encouraged her to take the day off and rest. But Scout needed to be around people, even though she drifted without notice like a ghost at school. During lunch, while she sat alone at a corner table in the cafeteria, a ruckus broke out among the popular kids. They passed phones around as Scout listened and picked at a ham sandwich with disinterest.

  The killer had uploaded murder footage to the internet. YouTube and Vimeo removed the videos after they became viral. Less popular hosting sites cast a blind eye, greedy for the traffic. News of the murder reached the major media sites. The sleepy village of Wolf Lake was a household name in places like New York City, Chicago, and L
os Angeles.

  Scout confirmed the stories on her phone. Her next stop was Virtual Searchers, the amateur teen sleuthing forum she frequented. She located the threads as soon as she logged in. The trouble was the media-heavy site bogged down under the slow Wi-Fi. Scout would need to wait until she returned home.

  Her body buzzed with excitement. Paying attention during Spanish class proved challenging. She couldn’t take her mind off the murder and the viral video. Between classes, as she wheeled down the gloomy hallways, her neck hairs prickled. What if the killer targeted her neighbors? Or her mother?

  After the bus dropped her off in front of her house, Scout lied to her mother about the ton of homework she needed to complete before dinner. Then she pushed herself into her bedroom and closed the door. The dark computer screen stared back at her. She hadn’t watched the video yet. Maybe she shouldn’t.

  Entering her password, Scout tapped her fingers beside the mouse as Windows loaded. She opened the browser and clicked on the Virtual Searchers link. Over the three hours since lunch, the number of posts had tripled. The forum buzzed over the news, but she couldn’t read any of it until she entered her user name and password.

  She typed in Rokdablz, and a picture of a young LL Cool J appeared as her profile picture. Like most of the forum members, she used an anonymous name and picture. No one needed to know who she was or whether she was male or female. Besides, she loved hip-hop and rap, especially the old stuff. A private message waited. She clicked on the envelope icon with a red exclamation point drawn through the center. Scout’s friend, Harpy, had written her. Harpy’s profile picture was a fantasy creature with a woman’s body and bird’s wings. Though Scout didn’t reveal her name to Harpy, she entrusted the girl with her location.

  Harpy: I can’t believe it. The murder happened in your village! You must be freaking out.

  Scout typed: I know, right? The sheriff’s department pulled the body from the lake last night. It’s hard to believe something like that happened here.

  Before Scout opened the forum thread about the murder, a reply popped up from Harpy. The girl was online.