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CHAPTER ONE

She died screaming. It was a muffled, agonizing wail that ended her life. The billiard ball rammed into her open mouth had kept her keening to a cry only he could hear. Her death had been long and agonizing. For him, satisfying and so pleasurable. All his playing, tormenting and waiting for the end had been a release like none other he had ever felt.

He pressed against her spread-eagle body, his chest slick with blood from her open abdominal cavity. The board on which she had been crucified was nailed into the cement wall and she hung limp. Her slimy intestines squeezed out from beneath his own chest like worms wiggling out of a rotting apple. Her last warm breath hissed out of her cracked and dry lips as he slammed one more time into her maidenhood. A hot stream of ejaculate shot out, staining the board beneath her corpse.

Rolling off to her side, he leaned against the wall, panting like a wild animal who had just mated with his entire pack. His fingers stroked down her disfigured chest and stomach, mingling with her blood and tissue that he had attacked with his serrated blade. Coolness was claiming her skin and the last of what had made her human.

Her open abdomen was swelling with gases and the intestines were ballooning from the gaping wound. He had tried to stuff them back into the wound after showing them to the girl, but they just wouldn’t fit. It was curious that what had been in this woman’s body now just wasn’t a part of her. How remarkable the human body was, he thought. It was like trying to fit two jigsaw puzzles together; the picture would never blend to perfection.

He gazed at her open eyes, her pain forever etched in the brown orbs. It was said that they were windows to her soul. Well, if that was true, she was surely in a permanent hell. No, her’s had not been an easy death.

The man shifted his weight and slowly stood erect, unfolding like a store mannequin. His legs felt weak after his orgasm, and he had to slide his shorter leg forward to maintain his balance. His hips always ached from a childhood injury, but he never complained. A little discomfort in life made him more focused and even at peace with who he was and where he was going.

Grabbing the hammer he had used to nail her hands and feet to the sheet of wood, he reversed it and, using the claw, pulled the four long nails from her appendages. Her arms flopped down as if a puppeteer forgot to keep her strings taunt. With the release of her arms, her head also cocked sideways and the billiard ball shifted in her mouth, causing her face to droop as if she’d had a stroke.

Giggling at the skewed looks of this once beautiful girl, he stopped his preparations. Only two weeks before, she had thought herself invincible and the best femininity could offer, but now she looked like a sad clown, its stuffing spilling from a slashed chest. He loved this paradox. It had been so easy to capture this little angel. To bind and chain her, pray with her and to his God. Such an unbelievable sacrifice that brought on erection after erection. No, hers had not been a simple death.

But now it was over. He jerked himself out of his reminiscing, grabbed her arms and lifted her corpse onto his left shoulder, letting her head bob against his back. Fluids leaked right through his sweatshirt and into his black t-shirt, the stench of her voiding in her final seconds clogging his nostrils. Pulling a black bandana over his nose against the foul odor, he started up the short set of stairs that led into the main house. His work would have been better completed in a basement, but in Phoenix, the ground was too hard to even contemplate digging a ten-foot foundation. Huge boulders, hard packed concrete-like dirt and the lack of water made shoveling a nightmare. So, he had instead stifled her pleadings and screaming with a billiard ball. His neighbors were oblivious, locked in their own worlds never suspecting the new renter had held a young girl captive.

Releasing one hand from around the girl’s white legs, he pulled the hood of his sweatshirt up over his head and ducked out into the night. A faint tint on the horizon marked the beginning of a new day, so his steps were hurried as he shrugged the body into the back of his white panel van. His pale blue eyes tracked across the street and then up and down the walkway; no visible movement was to be seen. Everyone in his quiet little neighborhood was still sleeping. Good, he thought, and limped around to the driver’s door.

Keeping within the speed limit, he deftly drove his car toward a small patch of park that tried valiantly to survive in downtown Phoenix. Leaving the body here was a risk, but like a junkie to a drug, he craved the danger. This deposit would frustrate the police. To be so audacious and leave no trace behind as to who had done this horrific crime was all part of the high. He giggled at the dangerous thoughts that roamed through his mind. Oh yes, this had been so much fun.

After stopping at the scrawny spot of grass, he opened the back double doors and pulled his prize from the car. He carried her forward in his arms and dropped her like a bag of cement onto the hard ground. Then he pulled her up and pushed her against the base of a city lamp post. The girl flopped sideways and he had to adjust her position against the post. The day before, he had taken a broom handle and broken the bulb in the light. So now he worked in deep blackness. From his back pocket, he took out a flask of gasoline and poured it over her long brown hair, the smell much better then her aroma of death. Digging into the front of his black jeans, he pulled out a lighter and, with a deft flick of his wrist and thumb, caught the flame.

“We shall hate the whore and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire,” he murmured a verse from Revelations over the dead corpse.

Then, with one last hesitation, he turned his head to make sure he was still alone and finally dropped the lighter onto her lap. Before he could even take a breath there was a whoosh and flames were skittering up her naked body. He stepped back and shielded his pale eyes from the sudden brilliance and then whirled away from the growing fire, staggering back to his car.

Once inside, he took a gulping breath and turned to see his masterpiece one final time before setting his car toward home. The fire was bright, making the small park lit like daytime. As he drove, his body felt like a balloon losing air. First, there was the sudden loss of his surging adrenaline and then, creeping like a feral cat, the dark depression that would press onto his soul for days pounced on him. He knew he would need to get home quickly and take a heavy narcotic to allow himself to crash into oblivion. The avalanche of emotions that had kept him manic for weeks would now shatter and he would barely survive the coming days. Only sleep and a surrender to total unconsciousness would allow him to rejuvenate and surface again to decide what was next in his life.

CHAPTER TWO

As always, the call came before the sun had risen from its night sleep. Paige rolled over and grabbed the invading ringing device and shoved it to her ear. She pushed a long strand of light brown hair from her face and mumbled into the offensive phone.

“They’re still going to be dead in two hours.”

“It’s a crispy critter,” the male voice stated.

“Shit, Carlos. I hate burnings.”

“Yeah, this one is especially vile. I’ll text you the address.”

Paige hung up without another word and stared at her phone as if it were the killer. She turned her head toward the window and lay very still, hoping the day would stay dark. A burned homicide victim was always her least favorite type of dead body. They stank, looked heinous in their blackened, rigor-mortis state and were impossible to identify with fingerprints that had been burned off. Many times even dental work disappeared in the flames and any DNA evidence scorched beyond use.

Pushing from her warm cocoon, Paige started dressing in discarded clothes that lay strewn around the room. She smelled the armpits of a t-shirt, scrunching her nose as the smell of her own sweat reached her olfactory nerves and tossed it toward her laundry basket. Finding another shirt hanging in her closet, she shrugged it on and padded into the bathroom, tripping slightly on an errant sneaker that lay in the middle of her path. A splash of water onto her face, a quick brush of her teeth as she emptied her bladder and then off to the crime scene. The shower would come later when the smell of human remains clogged her nostrils and lay like a death shroud over her own body.

Thirty-five minutes after the call, Paige pulled up to a small park, marked off by yellow crime scene tape. The brown Bermuda grass lay in blotches like acne on the face of the brown dirt. A single slide and a box of plastic, stacked, faded boxes were all that distinguished this small patch of earth from the city. To the left of the tiny playground was a lamp post and against this sat the homicide victim.

Paige sat and stared at the scene. Blue and red strobe lights winked at her from the roofs of three police cruisers, and their officers stood to the side in a small circle, sipping coffee and waiting for orders. She pushed open her door and grabbed her jacket that lay on the passenger’s seat. Crisp mornings followed by warm days were usual for February in Phoenix and she always kept a heavy sweatshirt in her car. She zipped it up and grabbed her coffee before setting off toward her fellow officers.

“Any witnesses?” she asked without preamble.

These city cops knew her and she, them. Her job as homicide detective always brought her to a scene that they had discovered. They had been here for over an hour already and were ready to move on with their shift.

“None, Paige,” one middle-aged officer spoke. “Raul and Andy are doing a door to door, but as you can see,” he paused and tossed his head to the surrounding brick walls that encompassed the area, “not much visibility for anyone.”

Paige glanced around at her surroundings. There were seven-foot brick walls on three sides of the tiny park and, behind that, backs of stores and one apartment complex. The windows to the apartments were high off the ground and with little visibility to the lamp post. Paige left the group without another word and stepped closer to the burned corpse. She stopped well short of the crime scene and glanced up at the light. The bulb had been shattered. So darkness had claimed this area when the crime had been committed.

After this cursory glance at the surroundings, Paige shouted over her shoulder, “Tony, you and Mark do a walk around to see if any of the homeless in this area saw anything. The rest of you can go back on patrol. Thanks.” She gave the orders without breaking stride and moved closer to the victim. A car door slammed in the distance and she knew her partner had arrived. Paige didn’t turn around but continued to stare at her new case.

“Lovely,” her partner sighed as he approached.

“Yeah.” Paige glanced at her partner of five years. His eyes looked tired, but he had obviously showered, his short, black hair still damp. “Everything all right?”

“Avery’s having trouble sleeping with the baby doing kung fu inside her which means I’m also awake.”

“It only gets worse.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Paige,” Carlos chuckled and shook his head. He studied his partner with dark eyes and saw the tiredness in her too. “What’s your excuse?”

“Five AM calls.”

“Sure.” Skepticism laced his reply.

Phoenix tossed up vicious murders daily, but they both had been through a long man hunt prior to Christmas that had left Carlos in the hospital for several weeks and Paige on an emotional rollercoaster. The death of their suspect had Carlos and Paige treading in murky waters. Both held secrets close to their chest, like a hand of cards they were not yet ready to reveal. Since then, their friendship had been stilted. It was time to sit down over beers and hash out what had happened. They both knew today would not be that day, though, as they stared at the burned remains.

Carlos prowled around the edge of the crime scene waiting for the medical examiner to arrive. He stood only an inch or so above Paige, his body compact and muscular. His swarthy, Latino face was handsome, marred only by a slightly crooked nose, broken many years before. He was in his early thirties, a snappy dresser, and awaiting his first child with the love of his life. Planning a wedding and pregnant, his girlfriend Avery Thompson was a little too stressed for his liking and he had found being on the job helped him decompress. But this murder was not what he had wanted.

He glanced over at Paige and watched her take in the scene. She was tall and almost gaunt in stature. He had seen all he wanted of this crime scene and now waited for her to do the same so they could move beyond the smell of the charred flesh. Paige was taking notes, circling all around the lamp post and making mental pictures of the entire area. She was meticulous in her notes and would ask Carlos all kinds of questions as she tried to solve the murder. Carlos on the other hand, waited for the forensic reports and relied on these findings to explore the pool of suspects. Both went about their jobs differently, and together they had a great success record. But right now, they were out of step and one of them needed to shift; make the first move to talk and allow their march to move again in sync.

Carlos lifted his face toward the rising sun and closed his brown eyes. He had almost betrayed Paige only two months before when he was under the torturing skills of a drug lord. His last minute phone call to her had made her arrive too late for the maniacal murderer, but had saved anyone else from being hurt. Carlos had not cared that this evil man had been killed, but he knew Paige was not telling all that she knew about his death. There had been another man involved, of that he was sure. But what had truly happened that night was still a subject that stood like prison bars blocking their friendship.

Carlos shook his head and returned to the present as his partner moved to his side. She walked with confidence and a gentle rolling stride that made her look good. He had never seen her in heels, but was pretty sure they would not be high, since she was already tall. Slender arms and legs, a flat waistline and small breasts made her quick and agile. Light brown hair like a fluffy cloud around her head swirled and bounced as if it was always windblown. She was constantly trying to swipe away a strand of the unruly mass, as if taming a fly that was a constant pest. Her mouth was curvy but rarely smiled, keeping her from being outstandingly pretty. He loved this woman as a sister and had even asked her to be his future baby’s godmother, but their relationship was still strained. Soon, they would have to talk. Soon, but not today.

“ The medical examiner is just pulling up.”

“Good, I’ve already seen enough,” Carlos harrumphed.

“My guess is female, from the stature and few strands of remaining hair, and young, from the slightness of the body,” Paige stated as they both turned and watched an Amazonian woman part the growing crowd of curious bystanders, like Moses opening the Red Sea. “Glad we have Big Barb.”

Carlos chuckled and nodded. The approaching medical examiner was one of the best in the city. Brusque and haughty, she left no findings unexplored or unexamined.

“Crime techs done?” her voice boomed

“Yep, all yours,” Paige answered and stepped back as the six foot woman brushed past.

The detectives stood and watched as the woman set her case down, pulled on a pair of latex gloves and began her minute examination of the victim. She took a metal rod and tried to lift the bowed head, without causing any damage to the blackened flesh. She then knelt down on all fours like a giant mastiff and got within an inch of the charred body. Carlos instinctively brought his hand to his face, wondering how she could stand the overpowering stench from burned human remains.

“Damn crispy critters,” he mumbled.

“My thought exactly,” Paige retorted and stepped further away from the body.

Twenty five minutes after her arrival, the medical examiner known only as Big Barb stood, stripped off her gloves and tossed them in her kit. She moved toward the waiting detectives, face grim and angry.

“Young female, disemboweled prior to death, but burned postmortem.”

Carlos and Paige glanced at each other and then back at the ME. “You sure?” Carlos made the mistake of asking.

The large woman snorted. “It’s my job to know, Sanchez. Anyway, she would have been in a more fetal position if she had been alive during the burning. There is no protective posture in this death. She was dead. One thing interesting, that may help you identify her, is that her mouth has some unburned flesh,” the woman spoke without emotion or any sign that this human had once been a girl.

“How’d the fire not reach her mouth?” Paige interrupted before she could stop herself.

Big Barb paused in her recitation, her stern eyes softening a little as she glanced at the detective. “A billiard ball is jammed in her mouth, Paige. It prevented the flames from scorching the entire fleshy area.”

Paige took a deep breath, hating this death even more. Not only a burn victim, but now one that had been obviously tortured. “Anything else?”

“Not much til I can really examine her, but my guess is she’s been missing for a few weeks. The fire consumed a lot, but what is left is emaciated.”

“Starved?”

The medical examiner nodded a heavy head and then turned on her heel and left without another word. The pair watched her go and then stared at each other.

“I’m already not liking this one, Paige,” Carlos stuffed his hands into his jacket as if cold.

“Yeah, if Big Barb is right, and I have no reason to doubt her, we have a real sadist on our hands. Let’s get back to the station and comb through missing persons for the last several weeks.”

“You’re on your own this morning, Paige. I have that Internal Affairs debriefing.”

“Shit, Carlos. I forgot. What are you going to say to those pricks?”

“Hey I don’t know much, Paige. I was in the hospital when it all went down.”

“Is that your company line?”

Carlos stopped his walk back to their cars and turned to stare at his partner. “I don’t know what happened that night, Paige. I do know that I warned you. Only you know whether it was in time.”

There was a long silence between the two detectives. A lot had happened that night. Paige knew Carlos had told a dangerous drug lord where he could find a woman he wanted to kill and then had warned Paige that he had been a snitch. She had arrived upon a horrific scene of a man’s revenge on this same drug lord and had done nothing to stop the murder. Filing her reports had become one big lie and allowed a man freedom from prosecution for this murder. Guilt and acceptance blended as the days passed, but she knew she had stepped over a line.

“Carlos, just tell Internal Affairs what you told me. You had just woken up from being stabbed seven times by that animal. You don’t know shit.”

“I hope it’s that easy, partner.” Carlos turned away with a wave.

Paige took a big bracing breath and nodded to herself. Her hazel eyes focused on the paramedics carefully zipping up the body bag and gently lifting the remains of this young woman onto the bed of a stretcher. They would take her to the morgue where Big Barb would mutilate her even more as she sliced, weighed and examined every inch of this poor female. Homicide detectives were trained to handle murder scenes, but Paige was having to pull from her inner strength to face this especially gruesome death. She turned and followed Carlos back to their cars.

CHAPTER THREE

The door slipped open without a sound and a gentle breeze caressed the crispness in the morning. The young man stepped out onto the porch and raised his arms high above his head, stretching the sleeping kinks from his long, muscular body. He remained extended for several seconds and then slowly dropped his arms, taking in a bracing breath of the pine aroma.

It was good to be home, he thought as his face lifted toward the rising sun. Close to six years had been spent away from this house that had seen him come to manhood.

He smiled at this last thought. His initiation into adulthood by Native American standards had really not prepared him for the life that he had so far led. At 16, he had fasted, camped alone out in the woods, taken his spirit journey using peyote and even hunted, all to finish his transition into manhood, but he had been far from ready to set out on his own. His next six years had been about survival. Life on the streets of Phoenix had not been kind to him, and he wore the vivid scars all over his body.

His fingers traced the long, white scar that ran from his eye to the edge of his lower cheek and knew this was more of the roadmap into becoming a man. This scar had sent friends to their death, destroyed love, found betrayal in others and made him fear his own dark thoughts at times. This scar kept him from being content as he stood here now on his porch.

Tall pines surrounded three sides of his log cabin and protected the house from the strong, winter winds that buffeted the valley below. The porch ran all around the house, but only the front had a view. A long valley whose edge was walled by more pine trees was fifty yards in front of him, its start marked by a cliff-like descent. A dirt road ran for miles through the pines and along this cliff before ending to the right of the house. It was only used by his vehicle. No one else even knew it was there. This cabin had been his grandfather’s and now, his. It was far from civilization in the northern tracks of ponderosa pines above Williams, Arizona.

Chase Wolf had once called this home and was again trying to find that feeling. The chore had not been easy. Two months had limped by. Winter snow storms had blanketed the ground with upwards of two feet of snow trapping him inside for days on end. He was restless, anxious and searching for peace. Today, the air was warm and he was going to head into the woods, hunt for game and find his spirit.

“Can I come with you?” his sister touched a gentle hand on his arm.

He had been aware of her presence, as she had come outside, but had yet to acknowledge her. For years, he had searched for her in the bowels of Phoenix. She had been lost to drugs, to the guilt of not standing up to an abusive father and to the shame of being raped by that very man. Her psyche was still fragile and she had only begun to understand the wilderness around her. Her body was clean of drugs, but her brain still craved the high and the escape they had given her. The demons were still there, but so far had been beaten down and conquered before they broke through her walls of recovery.

“I need air, space, time alone,” Chase answered without mincing his words. They were sister and brother, bound by a harrowing past, connected by who they had become.

“I just feel claustrophobic, too.”

Chase turned and his bright green eyes softened as he glanced at his sister. Meadow was petite, with brown hair and deep chocolate eyes that always seemed sad. Her appearance, like his, was a combination of both White and Native American. His hair was black as the night but his eyes green, his face slender and his build tall. She had a slight stature with the rounded face of the Native Americans, yet her hair was light and curly like a Caucasian. They were half-breeds, strung between two worlds like a bridge to nowhere without anchors.

“Can you do your own thing today? Maybe read some of the stuff Tito pushed at you?”

“Oh God, Chase, what is he going to teach me now?” Meadow groused.

“Meadow, you need to learn some old ways.”

“Why? Really, Chase. Why?” she stomped.

“Don’t you want to live here?”

Meadow stopped her outburst as she saw the hurt in her brother’s green eyes. She was bored. And with boredom came the pull of drugs that had held her captive for six years. There was nothing here. All around her were woods, rocks, cliffs, space. No people, no shops, no restaurants. Just nature. Chase was trying to teach her all the lore along with the skills of living in the wilds of Arizona, the Native American stories and history of their ancestors, but she was an impatient, unwilling student. He had set Tito, their grandfather’s mate of twenty years, to help him teach her, but here the language barrier had held her back. Tito spoke little when he was at the cabin and when he did, it was in Spanish. Chase was fluent, but Meadow just didn’t see the necessity of learning a language to talk to a man who only knew the woods. She wasn’t going to stay here for long. The world was calling to her and this wildness was not where she wanted to be.

“No, Chase, I don’t want to live here!” Meadow finally said quietly, bowing her head to keep from seeing her brother’s crestfallen face.

Chase did not say anything. He moved to the railing and leaned against it, folding his arms across his chest, closing his eyes and taking in several deep breaths. His sister had been clean for three months and already he could feel her being pulled back toward the city. She was like a wild filly, refusing to be broken and yet having no future in the mountains.

“Can you at least try and get your GED and explore your options.”

“You mean: What I want to be when I grow up, little brother?”

“Yeah, Meadow...When you grow up,” Chase bit out at his sister’s sarcasm.

“Out of the mouth of Mr. Drug Dealer himself.”

Chase inhaled sharply and turned his back on his sister. He had spent five years peddling drugs to survive on the street while searching for his lost sister. She was right and yet the truth stung. Those years had not been as his mother nor his grandfather had envisioned for either Chase or Meadow, but it was the past and it was not going to be what defined him. Was it going to define Meadow, though?

“I’m sorry, Chase,” her voice was soft and she sounded shaken. “I’m just so bored and with it comes that craving for escape into the drugs. It’s my addiction that makes me hurt you.”

“I know,” he paused and gathered his thoughts. “I know, Meadow, but if you go back now, you’ll be on the streets in days. Please give yourself time to heal, to find out who you are and what you want to do.” Chase turned back around and took his sister in a bear hug, laying his head on hers.

“I’ll try, Chase,” her voice was muffled in his broad shoulders.

He stepped back and grabbed her arms, peering down into her beautiful face. “We have the satellite now and internet, get your GED on- line and then start Googling colleges. It’s not too late to start again, Meadow. I’ll lay off the folklore and wilderness survival shit if you’ll at least lay out a plan for yourself.”

Meadow smiled and nodded. “Okay, deal on that,” she laughed and extended her petite hand.

He grasped it and they shook on her precarious future. “Now, can I go take a hike?”

“What about you?”

“What about me? What?” Chase retorted, knowing that his sister was wandering close to an area where he didn’t want to go.

“This is not your future.” Her statement was definitive and she grabbed his right hand, lifting up the glove that covered an oval burn on his palm. “You have a gift. What are you going to do with this?”

He pulled his hand from her grip and rubbed it unconsciously on his jeans. “Don’t start, Meadow.”

“Go hike and find yourself, Chase. I’m not going to get into another argument with you, but if I’m going to search out my future, then so are you.” Meadow turned and then left her brother standing alone on the porch.

Chase watched her go inside and slam the door. He lifted his black, gloved hand in front of his face and stared at it as if it was an alien being. The burn that the glove hid had given him feelings and visions of other’s personal lives. He hated it. Any time he touched someone with his ungloved hand, he could see into their very soul, feel their most naked thoughts and feelings, taste their fear, hear their wails of pain. He slammed his hand against the wooden beam supporting the porch and sagged heavily onto the railing. He knew his sister was right. His denial of these empathic abilities had not worked. At every turn of his life, he had used them for good and bad. Not always proud of his decisions, Chase had learned the hard way that the sight his mother and grandfather had bestowed on him must be used positively. He was just not sure how to go about it. For today, it was to be forgotten. Into the woods to find fresh meat was his best escape from the demons that played games with his soul.

CHAPTER FOUR

His hike had turned into a struggling march through heavy snow as he went higher into the mountains. He was probably at eight thousand feet and winter had a firm grip on this land. His handmade snow shoes worked well, but through the drifts it was tough going. Chase stopped to suck a sip of water from the tube running out of the top of his backpack and attached to the bladder of water inside. He glanced around. There were a few chirps from birds high in the trees and a soft rustling of a ground squirrel searching for forgotten nuts, but nothing else. Even the wind held the trees quiet.

He took in a lungful of air and rotated his head to both sides, relaxing the muscles that he had held taut since his morning discussion with his sister. She was right. He was harping on her to find a life and here he was escaping his own. They both needed to stop retreating and start bracing for their future. If it was only that easy.

Taking a step forward, Chase stopped again. Something was off. He cocked his head and listened. Sniffed the air with flared nostrils like a frightened animal. Nothing. He continued to stand still, waiting for the feeling to pass or present itself. Minutes passed. Nothing. He stepped forward again and felt the same tingling up his spine. Dropping to one knee, he placed his right, gloved hand on the snow and just held it there. No answer would come. The glove was like a weightlifters glove; fingers bare but palm covered. He now pulled each finger free, peeled the glove off, and placed his bare palm on the cold snow. Nothing. He stayed still for several seconds before shrugging with confusion and lifting his now freezing hand from the white crystals. Something had made him pause, but he didn’t feel or see anything amiss.

Standing back up, Chase shifted his backpack and took another drink. There was a shadow moving through the forest and it was not from the trees and sun. It was something ominous that slithered up his spine.

The young man moved forward again but could not shake the feeling that he was missing something. Just then, his eyes caught an anomaly in the snow and he stopped, immediately crouching low as he studied the snow field before him. The ground was disturbed about fifty yards ahead of him. There was bright red blood covering a large area of the snow as if a shawl had been thrown over the arms of the earth. He studied the mess carefully and then, staying very low to the ground, crept forward to study the markings better.

Chase had been taught by the best to read the signs. His grandfather had lived in the past, surviving on the land as had his ancestors. Now, he used these skills and read the signs. He came upon the first drops of blood at the very edge of the scene. Bright red and a large spatter. Arterial spray from a wound. It didn’t bode well for the victim. He moved into the blanket of red, as if walking on a red goose down comforter, the white puffs of snow sticking out of its seams. His green eyes surveyed the ground with quick precision. At the edge of his field of vision he saw the metal jaws, snapped shut in anger.

“Shit,” he whispered and approached the large, rusty bear trap. Its huge, razor sharp teeth were clenched tightly on the lower third of a hind leg bone. The body of its victim gone.

Chase searched the ground and saw the path that led away from the steel trap. His brain registered and filed away the death scene as he tried to swipe away his emotions. A large wolf had happened upon the trap and, as it grabbed at the meat left on the ground, the metal jaws caught the hind leg and severed it. Looking at the remains on the ground, the wolf had yanked his leg from the trap and sent arterial spray in all directions. Although the trap was rusty, the meat had been fresh. This was a recent setting, and anger moved through the young man in waves. This was his land and someone had invaded it like a cankerous virus inflicting horrible pain on an animal. He would have to follow the trail to make sure the wolf was out of its agony.

Chase moved along the trail of blood, expecting to find the wolf only yards from the trap. Over each knoll he hiked and was amazed at the stamina the injured animal showed. Finally, after over three hundred yards he saw the poor beast. It had dropped in its tracks, head resting on its front paws as if still trying to move forward even in its death.

Chase knelt down and buried his hands into the thick ruff of silver and black hair. Immediately, the agonizing pain that she had felt as the steel jaws bit into her leg seared his soul. He yanked his hands back so quickly he lost his balance and sat with a plunk on a mound of snow. He had felt her. Seen her leg trapped. Known her pain. Realized she was a mother and trying to reach her litter. How? This magnificent canine that was his spirit animal was dead and yet, he had read her. Staring at his round reddened scar on his right hand, he shook his head in disbelief. This was a dead animal. How had he felt her? His own name had been given to him after his mother had seen a wolf during his birth. He knew this spirit animal intimately. In his dreams he ran with the wolf and in his sights he felt its presence. People scoffed if he talked about his beliefs and his inner abilities, but he knew what he saw was true and believed in the dreams that connected him to his dead mother and grandfather.

He pushed at the huge animal and, as it rolled onto its side, Chase stared at the engorged tits of the female wolf. What he had felt through his scar was true. This wolf had a litter somewhere. Her stamina had not been for herself but for her babies. A mother, trying to give one last meal of survival. Chase glanced behind him and saw the trail the canine had followed. His sharp eyes followed it forward and immediately saw the rounded mound of leaves, sticks, and mud against a gray cliff wall that the wolf had found as her lair. At this altitude, it was too early in the season for her to have pups, but he had seen no sign of another wolf and knew she had come into estrus and been impregnated by another solitary male. Although wolves roamed in packs, sometimes one was ostracized from the group and had to survive or die on its own. For whatever reason, this female was alone, trying to raise pups, and had died scavenging for food to survive.

He scrambled up the incline that led to the small cave, not questioning his need to find the pups. They were probably already dead, but he felt he needed to be sure. His nostrils quivered at the wild animal smell permeating the air around the indentation against the wall of the cliff. Laying down on his stomach, he stretched his arm into the lair and felt the cold furry body of a dead pup. As he started to pull it out, a sharp, needle- like pain struck one of his fingers, and he yanked his hand back with a yelp.

“Well, I’ll be damn,” he whispered.

Blood drops sparkled on three small puncture marks on his first two fingers, and he brought them into his mouth to ease the sting. Chase shrugged out of his backpack and opened the front pocket, pulling out a small flashlight. He clicked it on and pointed it back into the darkness of the lair. The body of one pup partially blocked his view at first, but then his light glanced off golden eyes that stared back at him.

Chase smiled as he turned off the light. He grabbed a pair of heavy winter gloves out of his pack and pulled them on. Without even considering the consequences of his actions, he lay back down and reached into the dark cave. Immediately the teeth gnashed at his gloved hand, but he swatted them away and grabbed the struggling pup up and out of the small indentation. The light grey bundle of fur wiggled for a couple of seconds and then hung limp, its strength quickly waning.

Unbuttoning his jacket, he slid the small pup into the warmth of his chest and hunched forward to allow it to snuggle into him. He took the camelback tube and pinched the mouthpiece together, bringing water out of the opening and saturating his index finger, covered by his leather gloves. With the water dripping from the material, he pushed his finger toward the mouth of the tiny pup. At first, there was no response, but then, after rubbing the wet leather against his muzzle, the pup latched on and started sucking on the gloved finger, drawing out the water. After about ten seconds, he pulled his finger out and wet the next digit and repeated the motion. With his other hand, he reached into a pouch that hung on his belt and ripped off a piece of pemmican that was rich in protein, made from dried meat, berries and fat. He pushed it into his mouth and chewed it into a pulpy mash. Trying not to swallow the juices, he took his finger from the pup’s mouth and swiped it around his own mouth, covering the gloved digit with the masticated food. He squeezed a few drops of water on the mash and then stuck his finger back at the puppy’s muzzle. Immediately the whelp latched onto his finger and sucked greedily at the liquified food. He repeated this feeding three more times, before the little animal tired and snuggled with a contented sigh into his warm embrace.

Chase sat back and chuckled. What the hell had he just done? He had saved a wild animal from sure death and taken on a responsibility that he was definitely not prepared for. Never had he taken care of a pet, and he had no preparation for training a wolf. But how could he not? It was his namesake, his spirit animal, his heritage.

“Did you do this Grandfather?” Chase shook his head as he peaked up at the blue sky where he was sure his grandfather was reprimanding him for his weakness in saving the wolf pup.

“What’d you think I would do?” the young man continued to talk to himself as if his grandfather was at his side. “You put a wolf in my path and I’m not going to follow my ghost animal?” Chase stood carefully and grabbed the shoulder straps of his pack. “It’s like a dog, right? I’ll train it just like that. I can do this.” He held the pup with one arm and slid his other into the arm strap, then switched arms around his sleeping ward and lifted the pack onto his back. “Sure, I can do this,” he mumbled with a lot more confidence than he really felt.

He turned back down the hill and slid through the snow in the same direction he had come. At the female wolf, he stopped for a moment and sent a silent prayer for the dead mother’s spirit. She had led him to her pup, even if she had not lived. And saving her baby was as primal as any need in life.

Chase hiked back through the blood-stained snow and came once again upon the large bear trap. It was over a foot long and weighed at least five pounds. He rocked it back and forth out of the frozen earth and pulled at the heavy chain that was attached to a metal rod pounded into the ground. With several hard yanks, he pulled the pipe from the hard earth and held the trap in the air. This one would not kill another beast, he thought with satisfaction, but his anger still simmered. Someone had trespassed on his land, and the sacrilege of the murder of his spirit animal was not something he would easily let go.

One more glance at his sleeping charge and he started for home, trap swinging at his side like a hangman’s noose. His choice to save the pup had never really been a choice. His grandfather’s voice whispered in his ear, like the soft breeze through the pine needles.

“Remember any decision is fine if you can accept the consequences, Chasing Wolf,” the old voice murmured.

“What else was I going to do, old man?” he scoffed at the woods.

“There were other choices, son. So often, that is your problem. You only see the one in your heart.”

The conversation with his grandfather had been held many years earlier when he had first arrived at the cabin. But now, he heard it in his head as clearly as the sky was blue. And he knew he had not really changed. So often his heart and his emotions led him into the wrong maze of life’s paths. But today he felt rescuing this pup had been right. Raising a wolf was another worry, for another time. He had five miles or more before returning to the cabin, and the sun was already low on the horizon. The day had gotten away from him, but he wasn’t worried about getting home. His worry that niggled at his brain like a little mouse eating cheese was the bundle of fur that was now his new responsibility.

CHAPTER FIVE

Paige dropped her head onto her metal desk as if she were a wilting flower in the hot sun. The coolness of the scratched metal felt good on her aching brain. She sat slumped over for a long minute before lifting her eyes back to her computer screen. Twenty-three names mocked her. Twenty-three runaways or missing females in the greater Phoenix area since Christmas. There were twenty-four municipalities that belonged to Maricopa County, and this was where Paige’s search had centered. It seemed like a lot of missing females for a two-month period, but this was her starting point.

She lifted her head and grabbed the old phone on her desk. Tapping out the first number to the detective who filed the report, she waited as the voicemail kicked on. A male voice stated his name and then a beep. Pulling the receiver from her ear, she stared at it, deciding not to leave a message and just to call the family of the missing girl. Her finger snapped at the buttons on her phone a second time and she waited as the phone rang, once, twice, three times. Almost ready to hang up, she heard the click of the connection.

“Who this?” the voice almost shouted.

“Ms. Burrows, this is Detective Hanson, Phoenix Police.”

“He done nothin’.”

“Ma’am, I’m calling about Cherese.”

“She done nothin’.”

“She’s not missing?”

“Missin’ from where?”

Paige ground her teeth with frustration and sat back, while taking a breath. “Ms. Burrows, didn’t you report Cherese missing back in December?”

“Well, shit! Don’t ya’ think I woulda called you ‘gin iffn she not been home?”

“Ummmm...” Paige shook her head in confusion. “So she wasn’t missing?”

“Oh she done run away to her man’s crib for a few days, but then came creepin’ back when he two-stepped her.”

“Well, good, I’m glad she’s back home.”

“Oh she home all right. All packed up with a bump in her damn belly. Gonna be a great Momma, that girl. Yep, I so glad she be back home.”

The woman continued to rant about the transgressions of her wayward daughter as Paige hung up. An exasperated sigh blew from her lips as she stared at the computer before her. With a sharp rap on her keyboard, she closed the case and sent it back to the detective with a short email attached that stated Cherese Burrows was no longer missing. This was going to be a long day, Paige decided, as she mused over the next missing female on her list.

She tapped out the next phone number for the lead detective for the third missing girl and was surprised when a smokey male voice answered.

“Detective Wojinski.”

“Hi, detective, this is Detective Paige Hanson with the City of Phoenix Homicide Division. I’m calling about a missing teenage girl you filed on...” she paused as she glanced at the report, “ December 30th, for a Laurie McKenzie.”

There was a long beat of silence and Paige heard a deep cough before the detective spoke. “What’s your question?”

“Ummmm,” she stammered for a second. “Well, what is the status of the girl.”

“I gather she came home.”

“What?” Paige looked at the phone as if it was an alien object. “What do you mean?”

“Look, Detective Hanson, we are a small police force with a large area to cover. I handle everything from vandalism to murder. We have exactly five detectives, and missing persons is low on the list of priorities.”

“But, she could be dead or in real trouble.”

“I doubt it.”

“Again, what?”

“We never heard from the parents again so we assume Laurie McKenzie came home. She’s no longer missing. Case closed.”

“You’re sure?”

“If the parents aren’t breaking our doors down every day since their child went missing, they’ve found the kid and we don’t need to talk to them.”

“Detective Wojinski, can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do most of the small municipalities work on this premise?”

“Yep, between budget cuts and lack of overtime, I’d say 90% make missing persons a low priority. They rarely are truly missing. If you have a missing teen, bypass the detectives and call the parents.”

“Won’t I be pissing off lead detectives?”

“Hell, I doubt it. If you can close our cases, all the better. Anything else?”

“No, thanks. You’ve been a big help. Bye.” With that, Paige hung up and sat back to examine her list.

She crossed off the first three names and then started the slow process of calling parents on their cell numbers. As she worked through the list of parents, she got several voice mails on which she left her name, number and reason for calling. The ones she actually reached laughed off their silly overreaction to a missing teen. Most reported that their daughter had returned within a few hours, and they never thought about calling the cops back. Detective Wojinski had been right. Parents cried wolf before actually searching for their missing child.

On the fourteenth name, Paige did reach a still frantic parent searching for her daughter: Aimlee Murphy, gone missing January 18th, two weeks previously.

“Did you find her?” the woman answered the phone with a high-pitched squeal.

“Ma’am, this is Detective Paige Hanson from Phoenix. Your daughter Aimlee is still missing?”

“Yes...” A tearful catch in woman’s breath. “Yes, she went out on Saturday, January 18th and never came home. She’d never do this. Never. I know my sweet Aim is in trouble. Please, tell me you have news.”

The anguish in the mother’s voice was heartbreaking. Paige swallowed hard and swiped at an errant strand of hair while taking a deep breath.

“Ms. Murphy, may I stop over in a few hours and talk to you?”

“You’ve found her, haven’t you?” The terrible desolation reached across the phone as if a hand was choking Paige’s throat.

“No, ma’am. We are just following up with your missing person’s report.”

“Where is Detective Mallon?”

“I’m sure he is working on finding your daughter, Ms. Murphy. I am working another case and they’ve just crossed.”

“Oh.” There was no more from the woman.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Murphy. But could I stop over later and talk to you?”

“Sure.” The woman hung up without another word.

Paige felt as if she were choking on a piece of food lodged in her throat. This sucked. What was going to be even worse was if Aimlee Murphy was the burned victim and she had to notify this poor woman that her daughter was dead.

Taking a deep breath, she composed herself and went back to her list of missing teens. In her gut, she hoped no other parents were still searching for their child. One Ms. Murphy was enough for the day.