Chapter 1:

tiber

Duke was a streak of lightning as he ran down the rocky shore of Lake Prophet after the ball. It’d been three months since the murder of the Labrador Retriever’s owner, Mike Bressett, and since Duke and I had helped the sheriff find his killer. Duke was part of my pack now. And on most days, he was a happy dog. But there were times when he would retreat into a ball of yellow-furred sadness, and I could tell he was thinking about Mike.

That was not today. He sent pebbles flying as he skidded to a stop near the ball, snatched it up in his mouth, and raced back towards me, eyes alight.

Gracie, a wolfhound, loped the last few strides with Duke. As inseparable as they were, his energy was too much for her and for Leo, a fifteen-pound mutt who dug around the rocky shore hoping for crumbs left by picnickers, and for Ferdinand, a chunky basset hound who lay on his back, sunbathing, and sometimes even for me. I threw the ball again.

Leo barked.

I glanced over at him. “What did you find? Salami?”

He barked again.

“Well, there probably isn’t anymore, Leo. Someone must have dropped it.”

His yip went higher.

“Yes, they have it at the market. Maybe we’ll get some as a special treat. But processed meats are super bad for your health, you know.”

Leo expressed his opinion with a growl and went back to sniffing around.

It was one of those perfect afternoons you never wanted to end. It was October, and we were having a late summer in this normally wet and overcast part of Washington state. Lake Prophet shimmered blue-green in the golden sunlight, the evergreens and oaks and birch crowding the lakeshore were like a painter’s palette daubed with green and orange and yellow. Fluffy white clouds floated like ice cubes in a deep blue sky. Heaven.

Something caught my peripheral vision and I turned my head to see a crow land on a larger rock on the shore. Another joined it, and a third. All three stared at me.

I eyed them warily. “I hope you’re here for the fish.”

One of them cawed in response.

My cell phone rang. I took it out of my pocket and glanced at it, not intending to answer. But it was a 360 area code—someone local. I accepted the call. “Hello?”

“Hey, is this Tiber?”

“Yes.” I didn’t recognize the man’s voice. For a second, my brain hiccupped, and I thought it was my ex, Jeff. A chill of dread passed over me. Please God, no.

“It’s Sam, over at the riding stables.”

“Oh. Hey! Sam.” My relief was immediate but short-lived. It wasn’t Jeff, because I wasn’t asleep and this wasn’t a nightmare. But why would Sam be calling me?

When I’d first moved to Prophet, I’d opened a customer account at the local trail rides stables up at Thompson Cabins and I’d gone out a dozen times. It had been a big ticket item on the ‘pro’ list when I’d contemplated moving to Prophet, honestly. I’d gotten into horses on the rez in Arizona when I’d stayed with my Navajo grandma during the summers. It was one of the best things to do there, and popular with natives and tourists alike. The red rock landscape had that Old Western movie vibe and that was compounded on horseback. But since I’d taken in Duke, I hadn’t had the extra time or energy to go riding.

As for Sam, who owned the Thompson cabins and the adjacent stables, I didn’t know him well. but I knew he was Gabriel’s brother. Gabriel—the hot sheriff of Prophet. The hot, gay sheriff, and a man I’d put firmly in the friend zone. The thought something had happened to him made my blood run cold. “Is Gabriel okay?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, Gabriel’s fine as far as I know. He’s over in Seattle for some law enforcement training today. I’m really sorry to bother you.” Sam sounded upset. “I just didn’t know who else to call who’s a strong rider. And Gabriel thinks the world of you.”

I looked across at the three crows. Two had jumped off the rock and were now pecking at the ground but one was still eyeing me. Thanks for the heads up.

“Sure. What do you need?”

“It’s Billy.” I heard Sam take a shaky breath. “He took River out this morning about eight a.m., and he hasn’t come back yet.”

I checked my watch. It was almost four. “That’s not good.”

“No. I’m getting really worried. I thought I’d better do something about it before it gets dark. It’d be good to have someone along, just in case. And with Gabriel away and the fact that Deputy Devin doesn’t ride, I didn’t know who else to ask. But if you’re busy, I totally—”

“No problem. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Sam gave me directions to the trailhead where he wanted to search. I gathered the troops and headed back up the game trail through the woods to my house. The dogs seemed to sense my mood had shifted, and that we were in a hurry. They came along quietly and without their usual reluctance to leave the lake.

I had time enough to worry as we hiked home. Billy Odette was the trail master for the Thompson stables. He was a Makah man in his forties, wiry, strong, and an excellent horseman. He’d grown up in nearby Neah Bay and knew the area well. There was no way he’d be out this long—for the horse’s sake, if not for his own.

I couldn’t help but flash back to the murder we’d had in Prophet just three months ago. Prophet, to all appearances, was a sleepy little town. It was historically an artist’s community. We were separated from the busy towns and cities around Puget Sound—including Seattle—by the Olympic Mountains, one of the densest, wildest, and wettest mountain ranges in the United States. On this side of them, the open land between the mountains and the western seaboard, the population was sparse. As my mom put it, I’d moved to the ass-end of nowhere.

You’d think that would make Prophet a safe place to live. But lately, I’d begun to see the dark side of that isolation. People moved here who didn’t want to be found—myself included. Maybe some of those people weren’t running from an abusive ex, or even themselves, but from the law. It drew people hoping to hide their sins in the deep, shadowed forests of the Olympics.

People who came here to escape the rules were especially angry when the local law tried to enforce them. As Mike Bressett had learned.

I prayed nothing like that had happened to Billy Odette.

When I pulled in at the Clear Creek Falls trailhead, Sam was waiting with his pickup, a horse trailer, and two horses already out of the trailer and ready to ride. Another older red pickup with a small horse trailer was also parked there—probably Billy’s. The sight of it struck a note of fear in my soul. It seemed abandoned, bereft.

“Hey, Tiber,” Sam said as I got out of the car. “Thanks for coming.”

“Sure.”

“This is Conway and Biscuit,” Sam introduced me to a chestnut gelding and yellow mare. “Biscuit can be a bit headstrong, but I thought you could handle her. She’s fast.” 

“No problem.”

I understood why he’d brought her. The horses you could take out on trail rides were rescues—older and slow. And that was fine with me normally. But today we had a purpose.

I took Biscuit’s reins and Sam mounted Conway. I could tell he was in a hurry by the tension in his voice and around his eyes. But I took a moment to feed Biscuit a bit of apple I’d brought with me, and stroke her jaw. I met and held her gaze. “We’re going to search for Billy and River. It’s important that we find them. I know you can help.”

Sam no doubt thought that I was as weird as rumor would have it, talking to animals. But he didn’t say anything as I gave Biscuit a final scratch. She wouldn’t understand my words, but she might pick up a sense this was more than a routine outing, and that would be helpful.

I hopped up into the saddle. “Did Billy tell you where he was going? There’re several trail branches up there.”

Sam shook his head. “He just said he was gonna check out some trails near Clear Creek Falls. He thought it might be a good addition to our roster. I figured we could ride up to the falls and then check out the side trails if we have time.” He checked his watch. “We’ve got almost two hours before sunset.”

“Let’s go.”

It was a steady mile-and-a-half climb to the falls, and Sam led the way. We went as fast as safety allowed, which was pretty fast, maybe five or six miles per hour. I’d hiked this trail a few times so I was familiar with it. But I’d never done it in the fall. The air was already crisp with the promise of a cold night, and the woods were dotted with color. We came across a section of yellow birch that had littered the trail with golden coins. Biscuit seemed to be delighted, her step growing livelier when she saw the leaves ahead and then slowing as we moved through them. She danced sideways, as if she wanted to run, but I sat deeper in my saddle and relaxed my legs, stroking her neck to calm her, and we went on.

I kept an eye out for any signs of disturbance on the trail, but didn’t see anything amiss. We passed fresh horse droppings and paused. I hopped down to examine them. They weren’t baked dry but neither were they still warm.

“Might be from this morning,” I said. “I haven’t seen a lot of horses on this trail.”

Sam nodded. “Billy came this way then.”

We went on.

We passed several trail junctions. There were two main loops you could make that included this trail—one went up on a ridgeline and another to a small mountain lake. But we ignored the offshoots and continued on up to the falls.

We reached the bridge. It stood over a deep ravine where Clear Creek ran cold and bitter over the long drop of Clear Creek Falls. It sounded like a locomotive passing below. The horses were breathing hard from the climb and we dismounted. Sam tied his horse to a nearby tree, so I did the same. We walked over to the bridge to look around.

The bridge was a worry in and of itself. But seeing at it with fresh eyes, I knew they couldn’t have gone over the side. It had a wooden guardrail as high as my chest, and it showed no damage. Besides, an experienced horseman like Billy would have walked his horse across, taking care she didn’t get startled. There were no droppings on the bridge, either, but that didn’t mean anything.

We walked back to where the horses were tethered. Sam put his hands on his hips, his expression frustrated. “Crap. I know it’s unlikely it’d be this easy, but I’d hoped….”

“Yeah.” I pushed my long hair back. “He likely did come this way. Maybe he was doing a loop.” I pointed across the bridge. “There’s a trail junction about a mile over that way. It takes you down to a lake and the you can—”

Biscuit’s high whinny got my attention. She was dancing on the tether, anxious. She sensed something, but she didn’t strike me as fearful, more anticipatory. I watched her closely.

“What is it?” Sam asked.

I held up a hand to quiet him.

Biscuit tossed her head, straining towards the north where the trail reentered the woods, heading up to a ridgeline. She whinnied again and I heard it echoed, faintly.

I walked as silently as I could to where the trail disappeared into the trees and looked down the path. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was there. 

I clicked my tongue. “River. C’mere, girl. Come, River. It’s okay.” I dug out another slice of apple and offered it on my palm. It wasn’t a very impressive offering, and if River was hurt she couldn’t come or wouldn’t come. But I waited and listened.

Sam came up behind me, but he didn’t speak.

After several long minutes, a horse appeared a ways down the trail. She trotted closer and stopped a good fifty feet away. She was a black mare, saddled, her reins hanging. Foam flecked her mouth. Her eyes were wide with fear as she considered us. Then she turned and bolted away again.

“Shit,” Sam breathed in my ear, and there was a hiccup in the word.

Yeah. Not good.

“Where’s Billy?” he asked, but it was rhetorical.

“Wait here.” I snuck forward.

It took a while to get River to let me close—time, soft words, the slice of apple, and  radiating what I hoped was calm and reassurance. But I finally got hold of her reins. With more soothing words, and strokes of her lathered neck, I managed to lead her down the trail toward the bridge. I didn’t attempt to ride her. She was too distraught.

When River saw Biscuit and Conway, she pulled the reins from my hands, frantic to reach them. I let her go, knowing she’d stick by her friends. They greeted each other with head bobs and neck nibbles. River gave them a few fearful-sounding whinnies, maybe telling them in horse language what had happened to her. But Sam and I were none the wiser.

“Where is he, Tiber?” Sam asked. “Could he have had a heart attack? Or fell and was injured? We have to find him.”

“We do.” 

It was then I saw the blood. With River’s black coat, it hadn’t been immediately apparent. I moved closer, Sam following me.

On River’s right flank was a large patch of reddish wetness. I traced my fingers through it and held them up to the fading light. Blood.

“Oh my God,” Sam said. “Is it hers? Or—”

“Take her reins.”

He held her steady while I checked her flanks and her underbelly. “It’s not hers,” I decided, heart sinking.

“Crap. What happened to him, Tiber?” Sam’s voice shook and his eyes were damp. I felt his pain in my heart.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think we’d better call Gabriel.”

THE lake prophet mysteries page