Chapter 1:

Gabriel

This was supposed to be a 597.

I’d come home three months ago to this quiet corner of Washington’s Olympic peninsula to reconnect with my family, lick my wounds. Heal. I thought I’d left the dead behind, but somehow, for the first time in ten or more years in the small town of Prophet, death had turned up to mess with my head.

“Fuck,” Devin murmured next to me, bending at the waist to catch his breath, or stop himself from losing his breakfast. Either way, the scene shook him as it did me.

Today had started so normally. I’d woken to rain beating against my window and flooding my porch from a broken gutter, the noisy end to a restless nightmare-filled sleep. I’d collected my usual black coffee from Grounds for Joy, ate the warm homemade muffin that Hen, the office administrator, Dispatch extraordinaire, and town gossip, had left on my desk. While eating said muffin, I’d had a discussion about our new filing system with my rookie, Devin, and then settled back for a morning of checking licenses.

No blood. No murder. No death.

Just coffee, chatting, and muffins.

When the 597 at Sentinel Rock came in, it hadn’t worried me in the slightest—maybe a dog had gotten entangled in undergrowth, or stuck somewhere it shouldn’t have been, or maybe it was a wild animal in distress—those scenarios I could deal with. 

Only, when I rounded the faded National Park information board, Devin right behind me, we saw a scene we wouldn’t forget in a hurry. 

Not an animal at all.

My chest constricted, panic buzzed, my memories created a cityscape in this remote place, where I’d last seen something like this. Where were the sirens? Where was the staring crowd? How come this horror was next to sleepy Prophet in the cold light of day, with a man lying there, utterly alone?

A corpse.

A chill ran down my spine. I’d seen bodies in LA with horrific injuries that haunted me to this day, but there was something so wrong about this man laid bare to the elements, the mist of rain swirling around him, his skin gray as drops of water collected and ran down his muscled stomach. This was a man who looked after himself, built, strong, maybe a hiker, or one of the open water swimmers who loved coming to the lake?

His upper torso was exposed to the elements but navy jogging bottoms, covered the lower, and he wore running shoes and socks. He was on his back between the two upright stones, his arms and legs spread, and his sightless eyes faced us with his head turned our way. There was extensive bruising on his face, darker on one side, running from his cheek up into his hair, but it was so bad that from ten feet away it was impossible to ID him for sure even if the guy was someone I knew. 

“Fuck,” Devin muttered and took an instinctive step forward, but I held out a hand to stop him moving.

 “What about a pulse?” my rookie asked hurriedly. “Shouldn’t we check for that? Procedure for finding an unconscious person?”

“Normally, but it’s clear there’s no pulse.” The victim was unmoving and there was an X scored into the man’s chest, digging deep into his breastbone, and tearing his flesh apart. I could see the purple stain of lividity at the underside of one arm. He was very dead.

I stumbled back a step, shocked at what I was seeing[SL1] . The mark was deliberate, considered. Please don’t let this be a serial killer with a propensity to carving Xs into their victim’s chests.

“…Sheriff?” Devin asked. “What now?”

I shook off the images on fast forward through my thoughts, and I connected to Hen. “Dispatch?”

“Go ahead Sheriff.”

“Dispatch, this is not a 597. I repeat, this is not a 597.” I collected my thoughts. “We have a 10-54, I repeat a 10-54.” A body. A victim. Death. I paused for a moment, my stomach roiling, my mind flashing with images I didn’t want to revisit. Focus. Apart from the body, the scene wasn’t giving us any clues. I sank to a crouch that to Devin might look as if I was examining the murder scene closer. He didn’t have to know that I was fighting ghosts as the rain plastered my hair to my forehead. 

Drugs maybe? A willing sacrifice? 

Breathe. Fuck. 

Clear. Analytical. Focus. 

“Sheriff?” Devin prompted, likely expecting me to give him a rundown on what I thought had happened here, or at least some pointers on what to do next. 

I felt sick. The rain was heavier, not so much a mist but a sudden cloudburst. I pulled up the hood of my Sheriff’s department slicker. Come on, Gabriel, get your act together. 

Devin shuffled at my side, restless and uncertain, and I knew I had to take control instead of standing there as if I didn’t know what to do.

I settled the shock inside me, then pressed the button on my radio. “Sheriff to Dispatch.”

“Go ahead, Sheriff.” Hen’s tone was curious, and I expected her to ask what we’d found, but for once, she waited.

“We need all access blocked to Sentinel Rocks, liaise with park rangers, put someone on the logging gate entrance, call in ISB, ensure they connect with the coroner…”

Hen took all the information, her “copy” was muted, and when it was just me, Devin, and a corpse again, I gestured for him to move back a decent distance, then what else were we going to do except wait?

Sentinel Rocks was inside the Olympic National Park, which bordered Prophet, so it was national park jurisdiction—the ISB Special Agents handled investigative and law enforcement activities for parks and regional offices across the National Park system and they’d need to send someone to deal with a dead person. It wasn’t the sheriff’s jurisdiction and a big part of me was relieved. Of course, the smaller part, the trained cop part, wanted to find who’d done this.

“We’re gonna lose this to the ISB.” Devin sounded bereft that some other investigation agency would come in and steal the scene. It just showed how new he was to all of this, that it excited him to have a real-life murder on his doorstep.

“Yeah, we will.”

A commotion yanked my focus from the deceased to the tangle of wilderness only a few steps away, and there was rustling and barking. That was all we needed; hikers with their dogs disturbing the scene. The barking continued, frantic, followed by mournful howls, and then silence, but not for long. The dog responsible appeared at the edge of the trees, a Labrador with creamy yellow fur, no collar, kind of scruffy, dirty, wet, and then it vanished.

“Hikers need to keep their dogs on the leash,” I muttered and side-eyed Devin, who wasn’t even listening to me. Shit. I recognized that vacant stare. “Devin?” I bumped his elbow, and he startled and then winced at me before staring back at the body, excited, wide-eyed but totally freaked out. “First time?”

“Huh?” he said, as if he didn’t understand. 

“First time with a victim?” 

“Yeah.”

“What do you see?” May as well make this a teachable exercise and get my head straight before this had to be handed to the ISB. I had a corpse so close to Prophet that it unnerved me, particularly because there was a feel to the scene I didn’t like. This wasn’t someone hiking who’d gotten lost and died of exposure, or some idiot who’d gone swimming and never came back. This was wrong. Whoever had killed him had placed him just so. It was evil, and it sent shivers down my spine. I’m losing my shit. 

The dog started barking again, interspersed with whines. I shot an irritable glance that way in case hikers were in the bushes staring at this. Or murderers if they were still here. I rested a hand on my weapon and loosened the clasp… just in case. 

“Um…” Devin went to a crouch the same as I had, peering at the body. “Male, Caucasian, I’d say six feet. It’s not workable to approximate age given the extensive bruising, but he doesn’t seem old-old.” He stared up at me just as the barking ceased, and we were once again alone with just the sound of the water lapping at the shore of the lake behind us. “No sign of a murder weapon, but given the X in his chest, I would assume this wasn’t a death by natural causes. There’s no wild animal that could make such a deliberate mark. Do we think…” He rose to his feet and brushed off his pants to give himself time to think. “Is this a murder?”

The dog started up again, this time coming out of cover and standing, tail high, barking and yelping and staring straight at us. “Jesus,” I snapped. I couldn’t leave the newbie here alone with the body, but I really wanted to go over and find out who its owners were.

“You want me to grab the dog?” Devin asked helpfully.

Fuck yes. “Please.”

Only as soon as Devin stepped forward, the dog moved back. One step at a time. Then it vanished into the bushes, the barking getting fainter, and that was it. The dog was gone.

“Well, I tried,” Devin muttered, and after a pause, he came to stand next to me.

The dog appeared from another gap in the undergrowth. The barking restarted, and Devin darted over to catch the noisy animal, but it evaded him and disappeared.

“Guys!”

I glanced up to see Rowan, one of the park rangers, sprinting down the path toward us, sliding to a halt a good distance away and on the opposite side of the body to us. He was tall, good-looking, and sue me if I hadn’t thought of asking him for a drink, just as friends, because outside of my brother he was one of the few men in town around my age, and at least Rowan talked to me. Nothing to do with the fact he had a rainbow sticker in his non-work car—go me, Mr. Observant.

“What the fuck?” Rowan asked and stared down at the body. He glanced at me, then Devin, then back at me. “What. The. Actual. Fuck?”

“Murder,” Devin said. 

“Okay,” Rowan said, his eyes wide. “So, umm… shit… I have a message for you, sheriff. Abby said to tell you she’s up at the barrier, and we have a call out to the new guy but he’s not due to start until tomorrow and… shit… Abby sent me here to… I don’t know what? Assist you?” He put his hands on his knees and bent at the waist, settling his breathing. “Jesus, that’s messed up. Is it a ritual sacrifice—I swear that shit is insane? Is it murder wrapped up to look like a ritual sacrifice? Suicide? What about the blood? Did the rain wash it away? Has he been there all night? Fuck.” He muttered the questions one after another, growing paler with each one. 

“Not our scene, and it’s too early to say,” I reassured him.

The three of us stood in silence. I didn’t know how long the body had been here, but yes, it had rained last night, and yes, that would have washed away blood, and no, I didn’t know why someone had taken something very sharp and carved an X into the victim’s chest, nor whether it was pre or postmortem. 

Rowan sighed heavily. “Abby said she was going to call this into ISB.” 

“Yep, but it’s our scene until they arrive, so consider yourself on official duty,” I said, and he nodded as if that made sense. 

Our resident demon dog started up his ruckus, and Rowan jumped a mile as the noise shattered the peace.

“Get that damn dog and find its owners!” I snapped.

Devin sprinted, with Rowan close behind, falling all over each other to catch our canine companion. It would have been funny if this wasn’t a serious-as-death situation. The dog vanished again, but then Rowan stopped dead in his tracks right where the dog had disappeared as if he’d seen something, frozen in place. Then, in a scramble of motion, he spun and ran back to my side, cursing when I reached out to stop him barreling into a crime scene.

“Jesus!” he yelled close to my ear. 

“What?”

“I think… that dog… I think this might be…” He bent at the waist, inhaling sharply and I patted his back, not so much to reassure but for him to cut to the chase. “Oh god, his face… I can’t… that’s Mike. He’s… he’s…” 

“What?” I prompted. 

 “He’s the new guy, Mike Bressett, just transferred in from Montana. He’s one of us.” Rowan stared at me. “He’s a park ranger.” Rowan pointed to where the barking came from. “And that’s his dog!”

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