John Verdon

Wolf Lake


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      Copyright © 2016 by John Verdon

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

      This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Names: Verdon, John, author.

      Title: Wolf Lake: a novel / John Verdon.

      Description: Berkeley: Counterpoint, [2016]

      Identifiers: LCCN 2016008988

      Subjects: LCSH: Detectives—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. | Serial murder investigation—Fiction. | Psychologists—Fiction. | GSAFD: Suspense fiction. | Mystery fiction.

      Classification: LCC PS3622.E736 W65 2016 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

      LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016008988

      Cover design by Kelly Winton

      Interior design by Domini Dragoone

      COUNTERPOINT

      2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318

      Berkeley, CA 94710

       www.counterpointpress.com

      Distributed by Publishers Group West

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      e-book ISBN 978-1-61902-807-4

      For Naomi

      Contents

       CHAPTER 14

       CHAPTER 15

       CHAPTER 16

       CHAPTER 17

       CHAPTER 18

       CHAPTER 19

       CHAPTER 20

       CHAPTER 21

       CHAPTER 22

       CHAPTER 23

       CHAPTER 24

      PART TWO: THE BODY

       CHAPTER 25

       CHAPTER 26

       CHAPTER 27

       CHAPTER 28

       CHAPTER 29

       CHAPTER 30

       CHAPTER 31

       CHAPTER 32

       CHAPTER 33

       CHAPTER 34

       CHAPTER 35

      PART THREE: THE WOLF AND THE HAWK

       CHAPTER 36

       CHAPTER 37

       CHAPTER 38

       CHAPTER 39

       CHAPTER 40

       CHAPTER 41

       CHAPTER 42

       CHAPTER 43

       CHAPTER 44

       CHAPTER 45

       CHAPTER 46

       CHAPTER 47

       CHAPTER 48

       CHAPTER 49

       CHAPTER 50

       CHAPTER 51

       CHAPTER 52

       CHAPTER 53

       CHAPTER 54

       CHAPTER 55

       CHAPTER 56

       CHAPTER 57

       CHAPTER 58

       CHAPTER 59

       CHAPTER 60

       PART ONE

       DEADLY DREAMS

       PROLOGUE

      She stood shivering in the moonlight between the two giant hemlocks at the end of the frozen lake. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so cold, so frightened. The sight of the full moon above the jagged treetops was giving her gooseflesh. The drooping branches were becoming in her mind deformed arms that might reach down and—

      No! Stop! She shook her head—her real problem was terrifying enough without letting her imagination run wild.

      In the distance she heard the motorcycle approaching—first on the old dirt road, then on the winding trail from the road down to the lake. The closer it came, the tighter the feeling in her chest.

      Finally, with a surge of anxiety, she caught sight of the headlight flickering through the woods, then coming across the clearing that separated the pines from the towering black hemlocks.

      He stopped in front of her and switched off the engine, planting his feet wide on the ground to balance the heavy bike—his big brother’s, which he rode illegally.

      She could just make out a few snowflakes in his wind-tousled hair. She wasn’t sure whether he looked worried or whether she was imagining it because that was the way she’d expected him to look. Her phone call hadn’t been explicit, but she knew her voice had been full of fear and urgency. She was sure, even with his back to the moon, that he was looking at her intently, waiting for her to explain why they were meeting here.

      She could hear him breathing, could even hear his heart beating. But that was impossible. Maybe it was her own heart, her own desperate pulse beating in her ears.

      She’d prepared what she intended to say, rehearsed it a hundred times that very evening; but now, in this forbidding place, her voice failed her.

      “What?” he asked. “What is it?” His voice was sharp, not like she’d ever heard it before.

      She bit her lower lip, took a trembling breath, and forced out the words in a barely audible whisper.

      She heard him take a deep breath, but he said nothing.

      She wondered if he’d heard her—half hoping that he hadn’t.

      A slow-moving cloud began to creep across the moon.

      Sometime after that—she’d lost