Dark Mountain (The David Wolf Series Book 10)
DARK
MOUNTAIN
By Jeff Carson
http://jeffcarson.co
jeff@jeffcarson.co
Published by
Cross Atlantic Publishing.
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Also by Jeff Carson
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
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
Also by Jeff Carson
David Wolf novels in order …
Gut Decision (A David Wolf Short Story)—sign up for the new-release newsletter at http://www.jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html and receive a complimentary copy.
Foreign Deceit (Wolf #1)
The Silversmith (Wolf #2)
Alive and Killing (Wolf #3)
Deadly Conditions (Wolf #4)
Cold Lake (Wolf #5)
Smoked Out (Wolf #6)
To the Bone (Wolf #7)
Dire (Wolf #8)
Signature (Wolf #9)
Dark Mountain (Wolf #10)
Sign up for the newsletter and keep up to date about new books and receive a complimentary copy of Gut Decision by clicking here—jeffcarson.co/p/newsletter.html.
CHAPTER 1
“Freaking crazy. The next morning, I was on the ground by the plant in the living room and my pants were around my ankles.” Deputy Thomas Rachette of the Sluice–Byron County Sheriff’s Department adjusted the vent so that the vanilla-scented air fluttered across his closely shaved hair.
Pat Xander laughed and slapped the steering wheel. “Man, I’m telling you, it’s that kind of stuff that made me quit drinking. You should give it a try.”
“You know what? I think you’re right,” Rachette said, meaning zero of the words he’d just said. “I tell you what, though. That plant was the healthiest in my apartment.”
“You talking about that decrepit one that leaned against the wall over by the window?”
“Yeah.”
“Wasn’t that the only plant you had?”
“Yeah, so?”
Smiling wider, Pat shook his head and switched the radio dial to 90.3.
With the local NPR station providing an acoustic instrumental as his soundtrack, Rachette leaned back and let the washboard dirt road massage his body through the passenger seat.
The forest flitted by the window, gilded by a half-moon hovering in a sea of stars. Another flash lit the landscape, coming from the encroaching storm behind them.
“Gonna be a big one,” Rachette said. “You’d better be careful on the way home. Last night, it rained so hard it almost washed away the doghouse.”
“You’re gonna be in the doghouse tonight.”
Rachette smiled and eyed the dash clock, which read 11:10 p.m. “Nah. Char won’t care.”
The truth was, he was proud of himself for cutting short this Thursday-evening trip to the bar. Usually he would’ve downed at least three more, which would’ve put him over the edge. Drinking only seven beers, and not nine or ten, meant he’d sleep well tonight and wake up feeling decent.
He had tomorrow off work, but being hungover for the appointment would’ve been a bad move. Charlotte would’ve been pissed and probably read something too deep into the fact that he was pie-eyed for their latest look at the baby’s progress on ultrasound.
His wife needed to be calm, which was Rachette’s sole mission in life these days. Stress was how miscarriages happened.
“You guys pregnant yet?” Pat asked, apparently a phenom mind-reader.
“No, not yet,” Rachette lied. Because that’s how miscarriages happened, too. You talked about it too early to people and jinxed your luck. He knew that from last time.
Charlotte was past her first trimester, which was usually the go-ahead to start blurting out baby names and posting ultrasound pictures on the internet, but they were playing it safe this time around.
“You still trying?”
Rachette made a noncommittal noise.
“Ahhhh … never mind. I get it.”
Rachette pinched an eye and looked at his designated Thursday-night Uber-driver.
Pat turned up the music a notch and tapped a beat on the gear shift.
The man was more than a driver. He was a likeable, rock-solid guy and Rachette considered him a friend. Since Rachette now lived in the boonies, he paid twenty bucks for the ride. Probably a little overpriced considering it took about thirty minutes, round trip, but Pat was a night owl and never failed to show up, which couldn’t be said for the other flakey bastards who drove in Rocky Points.
“Thanks again for picking me up, brother,” Rachette said.
“Yep.”
Leaning back again, he gazed out the windshield and down the straight road gouged through the virgin forest. Tall mountains cut the east and west sky, striped with snow tendrils glowing in the moonlight.
Since their marriage last year, Rachette and Charlotte had purchased a small place on five acres, northeast of town. Staring at the darkened woods, he smiled to himself with satisfaction at their decision to buy out here, where few others lived.
To move into the sticks was ballsy, but to wake up on his own chunk of raw land every day brought back memories of growing up on the farm in Nebraska. He and his sister had been raised by mother nature as much as their parents, and now he and Charlotte could recreate that experience with their own family.
“What’s happening here?”
Rachette blinked out of his reverie and saw Pat leaned toward the windshield.
A beat-up Ford truck with a raised hood was parked along the right shoulder. A man poked his head out from the engine, then walked out, wiping both his hands on a rag.
“Damn,” Rachette said. “Broke down out here in the middle of the night with a storm rolling in. Better stop and see what’s the haps.”
“Yeah, plus this guy might get killed by the crazy people living up here,” Pat said, slowing to a crawl.
“Funny.”
They were nearing Rachette’s house, no more than a few miles up road.
Pat flicked his lights back t
o normal and pulled up behind the truck. It had New Mexico plates and was a mid-eighties model Ford F-150 painted black with a white stripe, speckled with rust and dented more than a few times.
“Wow, who’s this guy?” Rachette asked, unbuckling his seatbelt.
Still holding his hands cocooned in a rag, the man stood motionless in the headlights. His head tilted downward and his glimmering eyes peeked out from under a prominent brow covered with hair.
“Frickin’ Neanderthal looking ...” Rachette opened the door. “I’ll check it out. Stay in here.”
“I’m pretty good with engines,” Pat said.
“Okay. Well, keep your ass in the truck for now.”
Rachette shut the door, hitched up his jeans, and walked around the front of Pat’s car and through dust swirling in the headlights. The night was brisk and the air smelled like pine and the approaching rain.
The guy’s beady eyes tracked Rachette, but the angle of his head remained unmoved, which made the headlights paint a long shadow over his brow.
“How’s it going?” Rachette asked.
Big lips parted and glistened with saliva, but the guy said nothing. His out-of-order expression remained until he flinched as a flash of lightning lit up the sky.
“It’s coming in,” Rachette said. “What’s happening with the truck? Broke down, eh?”
No response.
The man wore jeans and a black zip-up jacket. His sweatshirt-rag was clean, which Rachette thought odd since he’d been digging under the hood. He scanned the man’s waistline and saw no bulges, but decided the jacket was bulky enough to hide a weapon tucked underneath.
Rachette had seven beers pumping in his veins, but buzz or not, he was a cop and had a bad feeling about this guy.
“I asked how it’s going,” Rachette said.
The man closed his lips.
Had he blinked yet? Rachette didn’t think so.
“Well, what happened?” Pat asked out his window. “You broke down?”
The man squinted toward Pat’s voice.
His scalp was shorn close, and Rachette saw a long scar running around his head. Perhaps he’d been injured in one of the wars. Now Rachette felt disgusted with himself for judging this guy.
“Pat, why don’t you get out here and give it a look?”
Pat’s door squeaked open and he walked into the light. “Hey there. I’m Pat. Your name?”
The guy blinked and took a step back from Pat’s outstretched hand.
“Uh … right.” Pat gave Rachette a sidelong glance and made for the truck. “So, can I take a look under the hood?”
The man’s eyes darted towards something behind them.
The uneasy feeling in Rachette boiled up again, and that’s when the silence was shattered by two shotgun slides racking back and forth, followed by a cocking pistol hammer.
His stomach quickened and his muscles tensed.
Flashlight beams danced across Rachette and Pat as crunching footsteps approached behind them.
“Freeze right where you are, gentlemen.” The voice was deep and forceful.
Rachette raised his hands and Pat followed suit.
“What the hell is going on here?” Rachette asked, anger fueling his voice. They’d been duped into this, and now, rather than pity the man who’d flagged them down, he wanted to beat him to a pulp. “Who are you guys? Show yourselves.” He turned to look over his shoulder and in the same instant felt a blow to the back of his head.
CHAPTER 2
“Oh my God.”
The exasperation in the woman’s voice two tables over made Chief Detective David Wolf lower his forkful of eggs and hash browns. Most eyes in the Sunnyside Café swiveled to the windows, so he twisted to the glass next to him and scanned the parking lot for himself.
Outside, two men stood chest to chest, poking one another, each balling a fist by his side.
“Shit.” Wolf dropped his fork and slid off the linoleum booth bench.
“Go get ’em, Dave!” a woman’s voice called after him as he pushed through the entrance door.
“Hey!” he said, marching through the parking lot.
“She came home with me, bro. So why don’t you just get back in your piece-of-shit car and drive away?”
“She’s my girlfriend. Go get your own and get the hell out of here. Crystal! What are you doing?”
Wolf stood between them. “Gentlemen, please. Calm down.”
A woman, a young boy pulled next to her, watched from across the parking lot. She seemed torn between getting back in her car and going into the restaurant.
“Go away, Jed!” a muffled woman’s voice screamed out of an old Saturn sedan. Crystal, apparently.
“Who are you, asshole?” one of the men asked Wolf. “Mind your own business.”
Wolf recognized one man as Matt Whitsom but couldn’t put a name to the guy asking the question. Facing the stranger, he put a hand on the paddle-holstered Glock tucked into the waistband of his jeans. Next to the gun, a Sluice–Byron County SD badge hung from his belt.
“I said beat it, asshole.” The man stared into Wolf’s eyes with a practiced psychotic glare.
Being a detective, Wolf had no set dress code so he usually donned a pair of jeans and button-up patterned shirt, like he wore now. He also drove an unmarked SUV. The drawback of the first privilege was playing out.
“It is my business,” Wolf said, tilting up his badge. “Now why don’t you lower your voice and stop cussing. There’re kids out here in the parking lot. There’re families watching you guys through the windows of the restaurant.”
The man remained oblivious. “Move it!”
He grabbed for Wolf’s shoulder and Wolf blocked him, connecting hard with the man’s forearm bone.
With lightning speed, the man threw a left jab and hit Wolf’s forehead.
Wolf leaned his head back, seeing stars for an instant, then leveled his gaze on the man.
“Oh, shit.” The man backed away and threw up his hands for mercy. “Sorry, I didn’t see the badge until just now! I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
Wolf fought back the urge to charge. Noticing the alcohol stench in the air for the first time only fueled his fury.
“Hey! That’s the sheriff, you asshole!” Matt Whitsom said behind him, which wasn’t true—Wolf was now chief detective—but the statement had a horrifying effect on the other man. “Aw, you’re screwed!”
An SBCSD siren chirped and a department SUV sped into the lot.
“Sorry, sir! I didn’t know! Please!”
“Yeah, bro! You’re going to get it. This is David Wolf!”
Wolf turned to Matt Whitsom and held up a finger. “Please be—”
Matt had been jumping up and down close behind Wolf, and as Wolf turned, Matt accidentally head-butted him in the temple.
“Ah …” Wolf grabbed his head and bared his teeth. Hot pain spread to the back of his neck.
“Shit … sorry.” Matt backed away with the same mercy gesture but received none as Deputy Nelson parked, flew out of his car, and tackled him to the pavement like an NFL linebacker.
More sounds of flesh and bone bouncing off the parking lot came from behind, and Wolf turned to see the other man face down with Undersheriff Wilson straddling his back.
“You all right?” Wilson asked.
Wolf nodded, regretting the gesture immediately.
“Stay down!” Deputy Nelson pushed Matt Whitsom’s head into the ground.
Without having to turn, Wolf knew that a crowd of cellphone owners had gathered to watch the action.
“Deputy,” he said.
Nelson caught Wolf’s tone and let up. “On your feet.”
“Nearest unit to assist an 11-24 up on County Road 18.” The radios on their hips squawked with the voice of their dispatcher, Tammy Granger, letting them know about an abandoned vehicle.
Wolf watched with a throbbing head as Wilson cuffed the mystery man and Nelson followed suit with Matt Whitsom. A
crowd spilled outside the front door of the Sunnyside.
Wilson looked up at Wolf. “Uh … you want to take that? Or this?”
CHAPTER 3
County Road 18 was a heavily forested gravel road that Wolf was recently familiar with. Months ago, Tom Rachette, Wolf’s detective, had moved into an area along the route known as Ponderosa Gulch, a rare section of the Chautauqua Valley that had yet to be overrun with homes.
Wolf had yet to reach Rachette’s new place when he saw Deputy Yates’s SUV parked on the shoulder. He slowed to a stop behind the vehicle and checked his forehead in the rearview mirror. An angry welt rose above and between his eyebrows as if his skull was birthing a golf ball.
The scent of pine filled his nose as he stepped outside. He heard water rushing somewhere in the trees below. What would normally have been a trickling stream was howling with melt-season runoff from the thirteen-thousand-foot peaks lining the east side of the valley.
He walked around the SUV’s bumper and went to the edge of the shoulder.
Yates stood next to a Chevy sedan in the trees down the slope.
“Hey!” Wolf called down to him.
“Hey!”
The vehicle had done a Price-Is-Right Plinko-chip impression down the side of the mountain, side-swiping trees before slamming head-on into a ponderosa. The tree trunk had snapped at the base and fallen onto the car’s roof, which explained the overpowering pine smell.
“Whatcha got here?” Wolf asked.
Yates shrugged. “Apparently, we got an anonymous call about this thing a couple of hours ago. I just got down here. Watch your step. It’s muddy.”
Studying the scrape marks Yates had left, Wolf took the warning to heart as he stepped over the edge and skidded down on his heels.
After a brisk descent, he entered a cloud of Yate’s cologne.
Deputy Yates was in his mid-forties, fit and muscular from a religious workout ethic. He wore an SBCSD baseball cap shading a nose like a hawk’s beak and bulging blue eyes. He pointed at Wolf. “What happened to you?”
“Zit.”
Yates frowned and studied his head closer.
“Anonymous call, you said?” Wolf steered the attention back to the mangled Chevy sedan.