CHAPTER ONE

As rain pounded on her police hat, Stevie Duncan swallowed hard at the sight of blood and brains splattered across the inside of the SUV’s cracked windshield.

The two victims slumped in the front seats, held in place by their seat belts, bullet entry wounds in the backs of their heads. The fronts of their heads lacked crucial parts due to the destruction of the exiting bullets.

They never saw it coming.

They were well dressed in suits and decent shoes. Completely inappropriate for the storm that’d been raging over southwest Oregon for the last several days. From what she could see of it, both men wore their hair neat and short. A leather strap caught her eye, and she carefully lifted the lapel of the driver’s coat out of the way with a pen. He wore an empty shoulder holster.

Shit.

“Know them?” she asked Walter, a Solitude senior citizen, as he peered over her shoulder.

“Nope. Never seen them before in my life. Clearly they’re not from around these parts.” Walter’s vomit-scented breath blocked out the metallic and sewage smells from the car. The man had called the Solitude Police Department to report that an SUV had blocked the road at the submerged west bridge. And that there were two dead people inside.

Solitude was in a state of emergency. Days of heavy rain had washed out roads and raised the Rogue River to an alarming level. Even at the police station, water had backed up through the drains and into their single holding cell. Neighborhoods had been cut off by water flowing over the roads, and now the river had blocked the last exit out of town. Two feet of a rushing, muddy-colored wash flowed over the bridge, and a large portion of the guardrail had vanished.

Driving over the bridge would be suicide.

Feeling like she had a target on her back, Stevie scanned the area, her hand on her weapon, knowing the shooter could still be near. The two-lane bridge was in the middle of nowhere. To her right was a national forest, and to the left was a swampy pasture that backed up to a curve of the Rogue River. They were two miles out of Solitude.

Where’d our killer go?

“No one wears suits around here unless they’re goin’ to church,” stated Walter solemnly. “And I don’t think that’s where they were headed.” He crossed himself. “Poor buggers.”

A Solitude Police Department SUV parked by her cruiser, and the police chief got out. Zane Duncan was tall, well over six feet. His usual slow smile was missing, but his eyes lit up when he met her gaze.

My husband.

Four months of marriage.

How long before the butterflies in her stomach stopped having a party every time she saw him?

“How are you, Walter?” Zane shook the older man’s hand. “Tell me what happened.”

Walter launched into the same story he’d told Stevie. He’d been headed to Hannon when he drove up behind the SUV stopped at the bridge. He realized there was no crossing the bridge, and one of the SUV’s back doors was wide open. Being a neighborly sort, he went to check on the occupants and promptly threw up his chicken fried steak from breakfast.

“Run the plate?” Zane asked Stevie.

“Not yet. I checked to see if anything could be done first.” She looked away. “I confirmed there wasn’t a pulse on either of them. As you’ll see, there was no hope. They were already cold. And Zane”—she paused—“the driver is missing a weapon from his shoulder holster. I didn’t check the passenger.”

Zane scowled and nodded. “Run the plate while I take a look.”

Stevie slipped into her cruiser and tapped some keys. She blinked at the results. The SUV was a federal government vehicle. “Oh no.” Could it be . . .

She jogged back to the SUV, brushing the rain out of her eyes, and saw Zane take something from one of the bodies. He straightened, a wallet in his hand.

“Zane. The SUV belongs to the government.”

Zane glanced back at Walter, who’d stepped away a respectful distance, his back to the officers, pretending to take interest in the river’s rising water but not quite out of hearing distance. Zane flipped open the wallet and held it up for her to see the ID and badge. “FBI agents. They must be the ones who were taking Liam Pierce home,” he said in a hushed voice.

“The child that was staying with my mother?”

“Yes.” The word was clipped. “The one who was found chained in a basement with two dead bodies upstairs.”

Stevie was stunned. Last night two men had attacked her family at her mother’s home, trying to get six-year-old Liam. One shooter had ended up dead at the hands of her brother-in-law, Seth, and the other was sitting in the county jail. The young boy had been picked up this morning by his uncle Marcus and the two FBI agents who’d spent the last three months searching for the child.

“Where are Liam and his uncle?” Stevie spun in a circle, wondering if she’d missed a sign of them. Both shoulders of the road were pure mud from the days of rain, but there were no footprints. With the amount of water that had fallen every hour, she knew any evidence would have been washed away. “Who would shoot the agents and take the child? And the uncle?”

“Or Liam and Marcus ran,” added Zane. “I know it’s wet, but they could have been out of the vehicle before the shooter killed the agents.”

“Could Marcus have been the shooter?”

“I can’t see it,” said Zane. “Seth said the uncle was sick over the missing boy and relieved to find out he was still alive. We need to start a search for Liam and his uncle,” ordered Zane. “Call county—shit!”

There would be no access to Solitude for the search and rescue team from the county sheriff’s department right now. Solitude was essentially an island surrounded by the river and floodwaters. No one could get in or out.

“They can’t process the scene or take the bodies to the morgue either,” Stevie pointed out. “We’ll have to handle it on our own.”

How are we going to move them?

She’d never appreciated the medical examiner’s crew as much as she did at this exact moment. Tiny Solitude didn’t have the experts to handle the murder of federal agents. They relied on the county or state police.

Zane blanched. “I think we should process the scene the best we can, document everything, and then tow and store the vehicle with the bodies inside. We can make room for them in the storage unit until we get the proper help.”

“No—”

“We’ve got no choice.” His face was stone. “These are murdered federal agents.”

It felt like desecration to Stevie, but Zane was right. As much as she wanted to remove and respect the bodies, they had nowhere to store them, and they needed to keep the scene as intact as possible until expert help could arrive.

“I’ll call for a tow and get Kenny and Carter out here. Our first priority is to search for Liam and his uncle. They could be injured.”

Walter cleared his throat, and both officers turned toward him. “I often join the county SAR team with Whiskey.”

Stevie pictured Walter with a fifth of whiskey in his hand, tramping through the forest. “Oh! Your dog, Whiskey.”

Walter gave a small bow. “Whiskey and I are the best trackers in the southern half of the state. Rain or snow. We’re your team.”

She glanced at Zane, who asked, “How soon can you be ready?”

“I can be back in fifteen minutes. Sounds like we’ve got no time to lose with a child missing.” He darted to his beat-up pickup with a fresh perk in his step.

“What if they caught a ride with someone?” Stevie suggested.

“Don’t you think Marcus would have called the police by now to report the murders?” He exhaled. “Either they’re still running or they were both taken.”

“But by who?”

“The Dodge brothers are still missing,” Zane pointed out. The two Portland elk hunters originally suspected of murdering the young couple found with Liam Pierce had escaped the Solitude police. That theory wasn’t true, of course, because Seth had shot the couple’s killer last night.

The police had come to the conclusion that the Dodge brothers were harmless idiots, but Stevie couldn’t think of anyone in their small town who might have an interest in Liam Pierce. Plus, the Dodge brothers had conveniently vanished . . .

Did they fool us?

“I thought this was over,” Stevie said. “I thought Liam was safe with his uncle and the threat was gone. Instead the boy is missing again.”

“What about his father, Wade Pierce?” Zane asked. “Would he kill two FBI agents to get his son back?”

Wade was wanted for stealing $10 million from his employer, Knight Products. At first it was believed that he’d killed his wife and kidnapped Liam also, but the men who had attacked Stevie’s family last night had done both of those crimes.

“Good question,” said Stevie. “No one’s seen him in three months—since he was accused of his wife’s murder—but now that charge will be dropped.”

“We’ve also got a John Doe at the medical examiner’s office.”

“The body that washed up on the riverbank yesterday.” Stevie was thankful she hadn’t been present at that recovery. Reportedly, the body had been battered and swollen from its time in the rough water. “Is the drowning connected to all of this?” Stevie whispered. Solitude was a small rural town where usually nothing ever happened. It’d been a quiet four months since their wedding, and now they had multiple dead bodies and missing people.

It couldn’t be a coincidence.

“I want to find out what happened to the boy and Marcus.” Zane took a few steps toward the rushing water, his gaze grim. “They couldn’t have gone far—alone or with the killer. Either they followed the road back to town, or they went into the woods. There’s no way they crossed the bridge.”

Stevie eyed the violent, brown water crashing past them. It was strong enough to sweep away and tear apart a heavy vehicle. What would it do to a small boy?

###

A half hour later, Zane surveyed the help he had assembled.

Not a bad crew. I could do a lot worse.

Officer Kenny Fox was taking approximately 2 million photos of the crime scene. He would stay behind and supervise the towing of the vehicle back to the storage unit near the police department. Kenny was a bit forgetful but enthusiastic and eager to please. Zane was confident he could handle the job.

Sorta confident.

His other officer, Carter, stood ready to search, well equipped in rainproof gear and shouldering a backpack of supplies. He was an avid hiker and camper, rain or shine. Stevie was talking with her two brothers, both of whom had volunteered to join the tracking team. Her younger brother, Bruce, was a county deputy but was off duty for a few days; otherwise he would have been stuck on the other side of the bridge. Her older brother, James, was the mayor of Solitude. Zane had never pictured James as an outdoor kind of guy, but he had on good boots and the right coat, and he projected a resolute attitude. He had two sons close to Liam’s age. The determined look in his eyes said he took the hunt personally.

Zane had married into a big family. Stevie’s mother; her sister, Carly; her sister-in-law, Debra; and her brother-in-law, Seth, were the only adult members not present. All except Debra were recovering, exhausted from the shooting at Stevie’s mother’s home last night. They’d wanted to join the search, but Zane had overruled them. “I’ll call you if we need more eyes and ears. We’ve got a good number at the moment.”

Bruce had also been at the shooting, but Zane had accepted his help because Patsy said he’d been pacing the house and driving her nuts. Bruce’s training officer had been badly injured last night. Luckily, he’d been taken to the hospital before the bridge was impassable.

What if we have another medical emergency?

Zane didn’t want to think about it. He could handle small medical problems but a life-and-death situation? He made a mental list of people with medical knowledge in town. Stevie’s mother, Patsy, was pretty sharp about medical treatment. And there was a new psychiatrist in town . . . Dean something. He would have medical experience.

After Seth had informed Zane that the dead agents were from Seattle, Zane had immediately called the office. The Seattle Special Agent in Charge (SAC) was shocked and was sending more agents to investigate, hoping that Solitude would be accessible by the time they arrived.

The SAC had his own piece of news for Zane. Yesterday, Wade Pierce had been traced to a motel in Coos Bay on the Oregon coast, confirming the theory that the father was in the immediate area. “There’s only one reason he can be down there,” the SAC said to Zane. “He wants his boy back.”

Zane agreed, remembering Seth had told him yesterday that he and Senior Deputy Gabe Rogers had found evidence that someone had been in an unoccupied cabin at the resort outside of town. Had it been Wade? “Do you think he would kill to get his son?

“I’ve got two dead agents that make that a distinct possibility.”

“But what about Liam’s uncle? What could his involvement be?”

“Marcus is Wade’s brother-in-law, not his brother. I don’t know how far his family loyalties extend, but since Wade hasn’t contacted Marcus in three months, I imagine their relationship isn’t the best.”

“Are you certain Wade hasn’t contacted Marcus?” asked Zane.

The line was silent for a long moment. “It’s possible. But why wouldn’t Marcus tell us?”

“I can think of ten million reasons,” Zane pointed out, reminding the agent of the money Wade stole.

Their call ended, and Zane turned in a slow circle, studying his wet surroundings, half expecting to spot Wade Pierce. Is Wade trapped in Solitude with the rest of us?

Wade Pierce might have two federal murders on his hands. A lot of men would kill to get their child back. Was Wade one of them?

Is Marcus working with him?

But why wouldn’t Marcus meet up with Wade after returning safely home with Liam?

None of it was making sense. Whatever the answer was, there was a killer somewhere in Solitude, boxed in by the flooding.

Waiting with the rest of the search and rescue crew, Whiskey caught Zane’s attention as the dog jumped up and left dirty paw prints on Walter’s jacket. Walter had a gleam in his eyes, indicating he was pumped for the hunt. Zane had doubted his stamina when he first saw Walter on the scene, but now he seemed twenty years younger. He stood straighter and exuded an aura of command. A totally different person than the guy Zane had once thrown in his holding cell for being drunk and pissing on a tourist’s car bumper.

Walter led Whiskey to the open back door of the vehicle and let him sniff, but he kept the muddy-pawed dog from jumping in. The canine and his handler circled the SUV, Whiskey sniffing at every little thing. The four-legged searcher appeared to be a blend of German shepherd and something big.

“Probably part Bernese mountain dog,” Stevie had guessed earlier.

Gorgeous animal.

“He’s not officially trained,” Walter had admitted. “I’d noticed he could sniff out anything, did some reading up on the subject, and then worked with him the best I could. He’s pretty good as long as a rabbit or squirrel doesn’t run by. We’ve found five lost campers and hikers in the last few years.”

Sounded good to Zane.

After circling the vehicle a second time, Whiskey barked and pulled on his leash, heading across the road toward the woods. “That means he’s on a trail!” Walter hollered over his shoulder.

That shakes up the theories that Liam and Marcus were picked up or walked the road back to town.

“Hold up a minute,” Zane yelled back as his cell phone vibrated.

Walter told the dog to sit and it promptly sat, but it wiggled its butt, eager to rocket into the dark, wet forest.

“Duncan,” he said into his phone.

“Hank here. I have a question about the floater from yesterday.”

An image of the Santa-esque medical examiner’s bushy eyebrows immediately popped into Zane’s head. The brows had a life of their own, with wirelike hairs that nearly climbed up Hank’s forehead.

“What is it?”

“He’s got a tattoo. Wondered if it might ring a bell. It’s an anchor on his right deltoid. Poor quality.”

Zane figured Hank had seen enough tattoos in his career to be a decent judge of quality. “I can’t say that sounds familiar, but I’ll ask around. We’re lucky we got that body to you in time. We lost the west bridge a few hours ago, so Solitude is now completely cut off from the rest of the world.”

“Sounds like utopia to me.”

“Except that I’ve got two more customers for you,” added Zane. “Two FBI agents were shot in their heads this morning.”

Zane jerked the phone away from his ear as Hank swore like a cheated drug dealer.

“Since county can’t get here,” Zane continued. “I’ll have the vehicle towed without removing the bodies. I know that’s not ideal, but I can’t think of a better solution to preserve the scene.”

“That’s the best we can expect in an emergency situation like this,” agreed Hank. “If an ark appears later today, use that to ship them to me.”

“I’ll keep a lookout.” Zane ended the call.

He gestured for his team to close in. “Keep your eyes open and be ready. Wade Pierce was spotted less than fifty miles from here, but whoever shot those agents is in Solitude somewhere and will probably shoot again if threatened.” Everyone was armed except James, who Zane told to stay in the middle of the group.

He prayed they weren’t walking into an ambush and gave Walter a thumbs-up. The dog handler gave his dog a command and nearly had his arm yanked off as Whiskey leaped forward.

The four other team members fell into line behind Zane, Carter bringing up the rear as they followed the dog.

Whiskey set a good pace, keeping everyone at a fast walk. The ground in the woods was rough with exposed roots, rocks, and ferns. Multiple wet branches slapped Zane in the face as they pushed through the brush. He kept watch for any sign that someone else had followed the same path—broken branches or footprints. But he spotted nothing due to Whiskey’s speed, so he had to trust the dog’s sense of smell.

Behind him, Stevie swore, and Zane turned around to see her yank her boot out of a deep mudhole. She gave him a rueful grin and kept moving.

The terrain started to slope downward and the crashing rush of the river grew louder.

Shit.

Don’t be in the water.

The Rogue River had risen several feet over the last few days. It was eating away at the banks and eroding the ground-holding roots of tall firs, sweeping them downstream. The water was a muddy, churned-up brown instead of its usual semiclear blue or green. Zane typically thought of it as a friendly river, but now it was deadly.

Not always friendly.

Lives were lost every year to the river. He shoved aside a memory that swarmed to the front of his brain and concentrated on his foot placement instead, not wanting to slip and land on his ass.

He glanced back at the sound of an exclamation and saw that Bruce had done exactly that. James helped haul him up, but the deputy’s pants and gloves were covered in mud. Bruce stared at his filthy gloves for a long second, shrugged, and pressed on.

Good man.

Stevie’s brother had been struggling for several years, living in his mother’s basement, floating from dead-end job to nonpaying job, determined to make a living from his music. The death of his girlfriend and a life-threatening injury had brought him to his lowest point, but he’d turned himself around, surprising everyone by attending the state’s police academy. He’d emerged dependable and mature. Two words Zane had never associated with Bruce.

Between the trees, Zane caught glimpses of the angry river. The terrain abruptly dropped, and everyone stepped sideways down the slope in the direction of the water. A fir tree sped through the water, a deadly battering ram to anything in its way. Zane pictured it crashing into Solitude’s west bridge. Which would shatter, the tree or the bridge?

“Don’t get too close to the water!” Zane cupped his hands around his mouth to be heard. The din from the river drowned out the possibility of conversation. Walter raised a hand in acknowledgment. Whiskey had slowed about fifteen feet from the bank, pacing in a circle with his nose to the ground. He lunged to the right, moving upstream, parallel to the rapids.

The team clumsily climbed over rocks and tree stumps, keeping one eye on the dog and the other on the water. Whiskey charged ahead, making Walter scramble up and over a large fallen fir. They vanished on the other side of the trunk, and Zane’s heart stopped for a split second. He climbed up the rotting bark and looked down. Below him, Whiskey sat on the muddy bank, his head held proudly as Walter scratched his ears. Walter looked up at Zane, his gaze defeated.

At Whiskey’s feet was a small boy’s jacket.

Zane checked the immediate area. No child was visible. A chill swept up his spine, and he shuddered as he looked at the river.

Not again.

His locked-down memory exploded out of its shackles.

###

Five years ago

It was a blistering-hot day in July, but the trees provided a cooling shade, making Zane thankful the hunt for the young boy wasn’t taking place in a wheat field. “Big” Bill Taylor led the search party through the woods. Zane had been hired by the Solitude Police Department the month before and had decided he wanted to be like Chief Taylor when he grew up. The man was a true cop: compassionate, honest, sharp, and determined to help his community.

The eight-year-old son of a tourist had been swimming in the Rogue River near a campground when he’d vanished. Chief Taylor had grimly shaken his head when he got the news. “There’s a reason the sign says no swimming in that area. Hidden currents can yank a full-grown man below the surface and keep him down for hours.”

They’d been following the riverbank, moving downstream from the campground for over an hour. Chief Taylor knew the exact location of all the river’s eddies that could harbor a victim, a testament to the many times he’d performed this type of search. Half the team followed on the opposite bank, hoping to sight a flash of skin or the child’s red swimsuit.

Zane knew they’d find the child still alive, but Chief Taylor wasn’t as optimistic.

“Get your heart and mind ready, son,” he told Zane. “You have to be prepared during an event like this. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. You’ll sleep better at night.”

Zane refused to acknowledge that the child might be dead. “I’m all about positive thinking, Chief. It attracts the good in life.”

Bill’s weathered face turned toward him, his brown eyes kind. “I like your attitude, but if you don’t start adjusting your expectations, this job is going to rip your heart out. Solitude may be a small town, but we still see the underbelly of man; it can be ugly and mean. Nature is too. One minute it’s glorious, and the next minute it’s a killer.”

The words were barely out of the chief’s mouth when a shout went up behind them. Bill and Zane reversed direction along the bank, Zane’s heart in his throat.

Behind a huge rock, a whirlpool spun. Zane and the chief had already checked the pool and moved on. But now they saw a small hand caught in underwater vines deep below the surface. The murky water had hidden it the first time. It vanished as they watched.

Sweat broke out on his forehead. Zane pushed through the group and unbuckled his duty belt, shoving it into the hands of another officer. He’d stepped into the water when a big hand clamped down on his shoulder.

“Stand down, son.” Zane looked over his shoulder into sympathetic, dark eyes.

“I’ve got to get him out!”

“It’s too late for the boy. And he’s not going anywhere.”

“You don’t know it’s too late!”

Fingertips dug into his shoulder, holding him in place. “Yes, I do. I’m real sorry it ended this way. We’re going to rope Officer Jacobs and have him go in for the boy. He knows how to handle himself in a whirlpool.”

Zane stared back to the water. Again the tiny hand was swallowed up for a moment and then reappeared, showing skin up to the elbow. It swayed back and forth with the current, giving the impression that the boy was waving for help.

Reality crashed into him, and Zane knew better.

He brushed at a tickle on his cheek and his hand came away wet. “Dammit. God fucking dammit!” He grabbed back his duty belt, and the group parted to let him escape. He blindly walked into the woods, not caring about his direction. A minute later he stopped, leaned one hand against a tree, and cried.

###

“One minute it’s glorious and the next minute it’s a killer.”

“What’d you say?” Stevie asked, startling Zane out of his memory as she reached the top of the rotting downed tree trunk. “Oh no,” she whispered as she spotted the yellow coat.

“I didn’t say anything,” said Zane. He put a hand on her shoulder, and she turned tear-filled eyes toward him.

He’d forgotten she had her father’s eyes.

She reminded him of Bill Taylor in several ways. Tall, rangy, and stubborn but with a compassionate heart of gold. Her brother James joined them on Stevie’s other side, panting and out of breath. He leaned his hands on his thighs and swore quietly at the sight of the coat.

“That was my son’s coat,” James said, rubbing a hand across his mouth. “We loaned Mom some clothes for Liam.” His face had turned a sickly pale shade.

“Are you sure?” asked Zane.

“Positive. I’d know it anywhere. See the Transformers’ Bumblebee on the sleeve?”

Zane realized what he had thought was mud on the coat was the black-and-yellow Autobot.

Now what?

“Can he pick up any other scents?” he hollered at Walter.

The handler led the dog in expanding circles, giving vocal commands that Zane couldn’t quite hear. The dog kept returning to the jacket. He finally sat next to it and refused to circle again, keeping his face turned toward the water.

“Dammit.”