Also from Terry Goodkind
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Nest
The Girl in the Moon
Copyright © 2018 by Terry Goodkind
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-5107-3980-2
Cover design by Rob Anderson
Angela slowly reached under her coat for her gun as she carefully reversed her steps to back away from the corpse of a young woman.
She forced herself not to make any sudden moves, and especially not to run. She gripped the weapon in both hands, locking her aim between the piercing eyes of the predator guarding its meal.
She stole a quick glance around at the silent, snowy woods, looking for any other threat. She saw none, but she knew that in the fading gray light the woods could easily conceal someone, or something, lurking behind expanses of brush and young fir trees.
Although the creature hunched over the corpse looked like it might be a cross between a wolf and a German shepherd, this was not someone’s pet.
There was a hint of coloration beneath the mostly black fur. Its winter coat had long since come in, giving it a thick ruff. Against the white snow it was an intimidating sight.
Angela knew that wolves sometimes made their way down from Canada. She could only assume that along the way a female must have bred with a big shepherd. There was no doubt in her mind that the resulting wolf dog snarling at her was as dangerous as it was powerful.
She checked the surrounding woods for others. This animal appeared to be alone. If there were a pack, she would have seen some of them. They would have wanted in on the meal.
Pack or not, this wolf’s bared fangs told her that it was more than willing to fight to keep its scavenged meal. Or make a meal of her.
There were ligature bruises and lacerations on the dead woman’s neck, so Angela knew that the wolf hadn’t been the one that had killed her. She had been murdered. Angry, red, human bite wounds on the breasts told her this was a killing out of hate and rage. Whoever had done this had likely killed before. Angela knew that this kind of killer would kill again if not stopped.
She was often amazed that she had never ended up like the dead woman. It could easily have happened to her more times than she cared to remember. That gave her a unique empathy with these kinds of victims—women who had not been lucky enough to survive. It also gave her a purpose in life.
The light, fluffy snow had only just begun to cover the ground and trees, gradually turning the forest white, but that snow had only started to accumulate on the hands stretched out over the dead woman’s head. There was still enough warmth in the body to melt the big flakes. This woman had not been dead long.
The wolf had both front paws protectively over the naked corpse, clearly ready to defend its meal. Its muzzle dripped blood and gore. Wisps of steam from the open belly rose into the cold, still air. Wolves were predators that hunted large hoofed mammals like elk, deer, and moose, but they were not above scavenging dead animals for a meal.
It might have been nature’s way, but Angela didn’t like seeing an animal tearing into the body of a freshly dead human. She understood that it wasn’t a malicious act, and she certainly had no desire to kill such a magnificent creature.
She wanted to fire a round to scare the wolf off, but since the woman hadn’t been dead for very long it was possible the killer was still nearby. If so, she didn’t want to tip him off that she was there and give him a chance to ambush her. She didn’t want to be his second kill of the day.
Angela felt a hot wave of emotion igniting at the prospect that the killer might still be nearby and that she might be able to catch him. It had been quite a while since those inner needs had been sated. Now, they were again crackling to life.
Once Angela had backed far enough away, the animal went back to ripping out bloody pieces and gobbling them down. It looked to be starving.
There were a lot of bird tracks around the body from the nearby ravens waiting for their turn at the carrion. Every once in a while one of the ravens would carefully approach the carcass, put one foot forward, then spring back when the wolf snapped at it. Ravens were opportunistic and often followed wolves to have a chance at the scraps.
Angela saw that there were also human tracks, but the snow was light and fluffy, and there wasn’t yet enough of it to make for good identification of the footprints. She saw those footprints and the drag marks going off to her right, toward the highway. The snow was picking up, so she knew that what footprints there were would soon vanish beneath a growing blanket of white.
The wolf guarded its meal as Angela inspected the footprints and drag marks leading off through the trees toward the highway. The woman had apparently been dragged in by her ankles and dropped. That was why her arms were stretched out above her head.
Angela reluctantly left the animal to its meal so she could follow the drag marks, hoping she might be lucky enough to catch the man who had done this. Even with the snow beginning to accumulate, the trail was still easy enough to follow.
She was acutely aware that this was a very recent event, and not wanting to inadvertently become the next victim, she moved cautiously, quietly, keeping an eye on the woods all around and her gun at the ready.
The body had obliterated most of the footprints as it had been dragged through the leaf litter and into the woods to be dumped. There wasn’t enough snow, yet, to make the footprints clearly readable, but she could see enough to tell that the killer had followed the drag marks back to where he had come from.
By the time she reached the highway, there was no sign of the killer. She saw tire marks in the gravel where he had backed off the road a short distance into the woods so his vehicle wouldn’t be easily seen by passing cars.
The tread marks weren’t distinct enough to be identifiable. There were smears in the snow where the body had been thrown on the ground and then dragged off into the woods like a sack of garbage.
Angela looked up and down the empty highway, then finally relaxed a little. The killer was gone. Frustration took over at missing her chance to have him. She had been so close, and now she had no idea who he was or where he had gone.
But if she ever got the chance to look into his eyes, she would know him and know what he had done.
Angela pulled out her phone. She was too far out of Milford Falls for the police, so she expected her 911 call would go instead to the sheriff’s office.
Angela looked up when she heard a car coming from off around the bend of the lonely road. The snow, along with the wind, was picking up. She saw the flashing lights on the distant wall of snow-crusted trees. Not wanting a sheriff’s deputy to see that she had a gun, Angela put her Glock back in the holster at the small of her back.
She usually carried a Walther P22 in her truck, but when she went hiking for the day she carried a 9 mm Glock. The .22 was like a scalpel, wit
h virtually no worry about overpenetration. The Glock was like a hatchet. In the woods, where she might encounter a bear, she didn’t care about overpenetration, so she carried the Glock. Either way, she didn’t want the police to see her with a gun.
As a rule she always did her best to avoid talking to police, but this time it was necessary. Angela didn’t like the thought of the woman’s remains being left out in these woods all alone for animals to feed on. She should be taken back and put to rest with respect. Since the authorities would likely never find the body on their own, Angela had to show them where it was, and to do that she had to talk to law enforcement.
When the white sheriff’s car with red stripes came around the curve, lights flashing, she stepped out on the edge of the road and held up an arm so the deputy would see her. The car slowed as it pulled over, tires crunching to a stop in the snowy gravel.
The deputy put on a black Stetson hat as he unfolded himself out of his car. His uniform was black, and he wore a black leather jacket. He was tall, with creased, sunken cheeks and the kind of eyes that said everyone was guilty of something. He looked to be about twenty years older than Angela, maybe in his early to middle forties.
His steely gaze locked on her as he closed the door and strode purposefully to the front of his car.
“You the one who called us?”
“Yes.” Angela pointed up into the woods. “I found the body of a dead woman up there.”
Not turning to look where she pointed, he instead continued to stare at her. “And what were you doing up there?”
“It’s my day off. I was going for a hike.”
“A hike. In the preserve.” There was nothing illegal about that, but he made it sound somehow criminal. “Day off from what?”
“I have a courier service. And I tend bar.”
“Uh-huh.” He regarded her as if she might be the killer. “What’s your name?”
“Angela Constantine.”
His gold name tag, with A. NOLAN in black letters, stood out against his black shirt. He looked professional. Hard-ass professional. And dangerous. She was already regretting having placed the call.
His glare took in her platinum-blond, red-tipped hair, the earrings down the back of her ear, finally settling on the tattoo across her throat.
“Let me see your ID.”
She wanted to ask him why, but she had a rule never to argue with authorities. She wanted to always remain above suspicion and to never be regarded as trouble. She pulled her driver’s license out of her pocket and handed it to him, trying to look friendly and cooperative.
He took it without a word and went back to his car to run her name through their system. In a few minutes he came back, she thought looking a little disappointed that she didn’t turn up as being wanted for murder.
“Constantine,” he said to himself as he stood before her carefully looking over her license. He looked up. “Your hair is blue on your license.”
Angela shrugged. “I like to dye my hair different colors.”
He nodded his dissatisfaction to himself as his eyes narrowed. “I know a Constantine residence—in the trailer park in Milford Falls.”
“That’s my mother’s place,” Angela volunteered before he could accuse her of living there, or of her mother’s sins.
He was looking at her like he was beginning to suspect she must have drugs on her. “I’ve been there a few times. You had to still be living there when I pulled people with warrants out of there. Along with lots of drugs.”
Angela wanted to say she didn’t do drugs, but she knew that would make it sound like she did, so she kept her mouth shut.
“Nothing but lowlifes living there,” he said, “doing drugs day and night. Drinking, fighting, fencing stolen goods.”
He did indeed know the place. Angela had grown up in the midst of all that. Because of all the meth, heroin, and booze continually in her mother’s system when she had been pregnant, Angela had been born different from other people. She knew she could never be normal. She was a freak.
“I’m sure I remember arresting your mother along with some scumbag drug dealers at that trailer.”
“Probably,” was all Angela said.
“Your mother is a tweaker. Every time I saw her she was flying on crystal meth.”
“Yeah, well, that’s why I moved out.”
He idly tapped her license on the knuckles of his other hand. “Who’s your father?”
“I don’t have any idea,” Angela said with a shrug.
He had undoubtedly been one of her mother’s dealers or a random tweaker. She was always getting laid by one or the other.
The deputy’s glare looked to have formed permanent creases in his brow. “Everyone in that trailer was trouble. You grew up there. Now you go for a hike, wandering around out in these vast woods, and you just happen to find a dead body.”
“Yes, so I called 911.”
He handed her license back to her. “Let me see your hands. Both of them. Hold them up.”
Angela did as he asked, fingers spread, showing him the fronts and backs of both hands. She knew he was looking for defensive wounds. He wanted to satisfy himself that she hadn’t been in a fight and killed the woman.
He grunted his dissatisfaction that her hands were clean and free of any wounds. “Your mother is trouble. That means you’re the child of trouble.”
Angela looked off down the road. She was just about to tell him to go find the fucking dead body on his own when he gestured toward the woods.
“Come on. Show me what you found.” He put emphasis on the word “found” like he thought she had invented the story.
Without a word, Angela turned and headed into the woods. The fat flakes were falling faster. The drag marks were already mostly covered over, as were her own footprints, but she knew the way.
When they pushed balsam limbs out of their way and came out from the thick brush and trees, they saw the body off in a low area of the clearing.
“Jesus Christ!” Deputy Nolan shouted as he drew his sidearm.
The wolf, still guarding its prize, rose up, snarling and snapping.
Without hesitation Deputy Nolan fired off two quick shots. The second shot went high and just flicked the hackles on the animal’s back. The wolf bolted away. At the sound of the shots the ravens all took to wing, squawking their surprise and displeasure. They scattered in all directions, disappearing into the trees.
The deputy took two steps forward and emptied his gun as fast as he could at the wolf as it raced away, kicking up snow in its wake.
“Why didn’t you tell me about that damn animal feeding on the body!”
“It wasn’t here before,” she lied.
“Well,” he growled as he pulled out the empty magazine and shoved in a full one, “that should keep the filthy beast away. I think I may have hit it.”
Angela didn’t mention that he had pulled down and to the right when he fired the first shot, a common mistake, so that first round hit the murder victim in the rib cage.
Deputy Nolan racked the slide to chamber a round and then holstered the weapon before approaching the corpse. He looked around carefully for tracks. Any that had been there were now covered with snow. His circle got smaller as he closed in on the dead woman. He finally knelt down beside the corpse and pointed at the neck.
“See here? Looks like she’s been strangled.”
Angela wanted to say “No shit,” but she kept her mouth shut. She couldn’t imagine the horror of being strangled to death like that, the terror of not being able to breathe.
Deputy Nolan looked at the many human bite wounds on the breasts but didn’t mention them.
“Looks like maybe her ribs have been broken,” he said as he looked more closely at the marks on her side.
Angela pointed. “Your first shot hit her in the ribs.”
He cast her a sour look but didn’t say anything.
He finally stood and made a call on his radio. He reported what he had foun
d and asked for a crime scene team and the coroner.
Despite not liking having to deal with law enforcement, Angela felt better that someone would finally take proper care of the woman’s body.
When the deputy finished on the radio he turned his attention back to Angela.
“Did you see anyone or anything out of the ordinary—other than this body?”
Angela shook her head. “No, nothing.”
He looked down to study the woman’s face for a moment. “Do you know her?”
Angela had seen the woman in the bar a few times, but not enough to know her name. “I’m afraid not.”
He shook his head once. “She’s a prostitute.”
Angela wasn’t surprised. “How do you know that?”
“Her name is Kristi something.” He considered a moment. “Kristi Green, I think. She’s been arrested for soliciting a number of times. I remember the face. She hung out in the area of the Riley Motel. Whores use the Riley to conduct their business.”
Angela tended bar down the hill from the Riley, so she knew all about it. The prostitutes who used the motel didn’t waste their time coming down to socialize with customers at Barry’s Place, the bar where she worked. Occasionally, though, they would hang out there hoping to pick up a customer. Most of them used the Internet now, rather than invite trouble from police by soliciting in bars or hotels.
“I showed you where I found her. I don’t know anything else,” Angela said. “If it’s okay with you I’d like to get home before it gets too dark. And I’m getting awfully cold just standing around,” she added, trying to elicit some human sympathy from the man.
He appraised her with a look lacking human sympathy. “Where do you live?”
Angela pointed. “I have a place over that way. Next to the preserve.”
“If you wait until help arrives and this business here gets taken care of, I can give you a ride.”
“Well …” Angela drawled as if she were actually considering it. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was get in a cop car with this hard-ass and have him come to her house. “It’s not that long of a walk. I’d like to get home.”