2:05 a.m.
Thomas wasn’t sure where he was when the call pulled him out of a dream. He rolled over, wiped the sleep from his eyes, and lay upon the empty half of the bed. Chelsey left before midnight, and the bed seemed cavernous without her.
“Hello,” he muttered, coughing into his hand.
His vision cleared when the dispatcher relayed her report. A Kane Grove PD squad car had responded to a complaint of someone screaming. A teenage boy lay dead beside the railroad tracks outside Barton Falls, stabbed multiple times.
Thomas pulled his clothes on, let Jack outside to do his business, then rushed to his silver Ford F-150. No time to swap the truck for his cruiser at the station. The motor fired to life before he turned the truck down the lake road. Halfway to Barton Falls, his dispatcher spoke over the radio.
“Be advised, the ETA on unit two is five minutes. Kane Grove PD will meet you at the scene.”
Unit two was Deputy Veronica Aguilar. Thomas’s lead deputy was scheduled on day shifts. The harsh realities of the job made it impossible to keep a consistent sleep schedule.
Barton Falls was a failed industrial town outside Kane Grove. A graveyard of closed factories and warehouses with boarded windows stretched across Barton Falls in a checkerboard of regret. There was a McDonald’s and a gas station in the town center, and little else beyond a stray newspaper dancing across the road at the whim of the wind. A garbage can rolled on its side, spilling something wet and sticky at the corner of Main and Spruce. A tomcat licked at the muck.
Thomas studied the residences as he passed through town. No cookie cutter upscale developments here. This was once a thriving town with hopes for the future. A computer chip maker purchased property during the early nineties, but pulled out of the contract after the company received a better offer from Buffalo. When Thomas was thirteen, the worst thunderstorm New York had seen in decades tore a hole through Barton Falls and demolished homes, flattening the few thriving businesses on the town’s west side. A curse hung over Barton Falls. Nothing good happened here.
He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and waited for the traffic light to change. Why was a teenage boy at the railroad tracks after midnight on a school night? He thought of one reason—the kid was partying with his friends. Then what? An argument started and someone stabbed the boy? The light flicked green, and Thomas pressed his foot on the gas.
The fog found him when he turned down a dirt and gravel access road. Mist slumbered over the meadow, wisps glowing beneath the moonlight as it ebbed and flowed across the gravel. Emergency lights whirled behind the wall of fog. Cutting off his high beams, he slowed the truck to a crawl, worried an officer might search for evidence along the shoulder.
When he arrived at the railroad tracks, two Kane Grove PD cruisers were on site. He recognized Detective Presley. Presley had responded to the Justine Adkins kidnapping in Kane Grove. Tall and lanky, the detective wore her almond hair in a shaggy bob. Judging by her mussed hair, she hadn’t been awake long.
Thomas stepped down from the truck and met Presley beside the tracks. A thin layer of frost sparkled like fallen stars.
“Sheriff.”
“Detective Presley. What do we have?”
She gestured across the meadow at a row of houses. Most of the windows were dark, but a few poured light into their yards.
“A neighbor reported a scream after midnight. County requested we send a cruiser through the neighborhood. Found nothing on the first sweep. Officer Stanton spotted the body when he took the access road out of Barton Falls.”
“Any idea who the boy is?”
“None. We didn’t find a wallet on him.”
“Not even a driver’s license?”
“Typical teenager. My girl forgets her license on the counter all the time. Can’t convince her to put the wallet in her purse. These kids pay for everything with their phones nowadays.”
Thomas glanced up as Aguilar’s cruiser pulled behind his truck. Stocky and muscular, dark hair cut short, Aguilar barely eclipsed five feet in shoes. Her commanding presence drew eyes and respect. Officer Stanton touched the tip of his cap when Aguilar passed.
Thomas briefed Aguilar and pointed at the houses on the far side of the meadow.
“Go door to door and find a witness. Someone must have seen who did this.”
Presley, dressed in a pantsuit and heels, stepped gingerly across the road and followed Thomas toward the tracks. The heels weren’t optimal for walking through a frosty meadow. The dead teenager had dark brown hair and a youthful face that made him appear younger than he was. Red stains soaked his jacket, and mud plastered his jeans. Blood coagulated beneath his back and fanned out across the ground like wings. His eyes lay open. Lifeless, yet clinging to the last terror he’d witnessed before the blade plunged through his chest. He was a good-looking boy, Thomas thought. The type of kid who wouldn’t have a hard time catching a girl’s eye.
“Multiple stab wounds,” Presley said. “This was personal.”
Thomas grunted in agreement. Guns were the most efficient murder weapons. Bullets cut down fleeing enemies and allowed a murderer to kill a foe without dirtying his hands. Stabbing someone was personal, an act of rage and hatred. Lying in the mist, the boy didn’t seem like anyone who’d engendered hatred. But looks were deceiving.
Shoe prints covered the ground. Which prints belonged to the killer? After studying the boy, Thomas stood and turned. Scattered footprints sank into the soft ground along the road. Sweeping his flashlight across the prints, Thomas followed the trail with Presley beside him. From his evidence kit, he placed yellow markers beside a tire track and two prints.
“The murderer drove after our victim.” Thomas stopped and squinted. “I see one pair of shoe prints until the tire tracks stop along the shoulder. Then a second pair.”
Presley knelt where the tire tracks
