Wolfwraith Read Free Page A

Shadow got the sudden feeling he was being watched. Without being obvious about it, he turned his attention to the duck blind, but even his vision couldn’t pick up anything strange about it. He ignored his intuition and resumed his search of the water.
    When satisfied nothing floated on the open water, he turned his gaze to the shoreline of the cove, where the tall, beige marsh grass and the brown water merged. His eyes quickly found a speck of yellow, far off on his right, near the cove’s mouth. It seemed to be merely a piece of flotsam, a bright yellow piece of shiny fabric billowing with the rippling motion of the waves. Nothing unusual, but he saw something else. A pale forearm and hand stuck out of the bright fabric, which had become snagged by a piece of driftwood. Since the hand hung limp and the rest of the body had to be underwater, he knew he had found his second corpse of the day. This one was human.
    Shadow felt the hair rise on the back of his neck and he stared at the faraway arm for a minute, hoping for some sign of life. When he was sure the arm would never move again, he resumed his scan of the shoreline. Two girls were missing, not to mention two kayaks. If he had found one of the girls, where was the other? He spotted nothing else.
    The swampy shore of the cove would be impossible to traverse on foot. He needed a boat to get to the body. Going back to his truck, he picked up the microphone.
    “False Cape Base, this is False Cape Six, over.”
    After a short delay, there came a response. “Go ahead Six.”
    “Alex, I need someone to bring a boat to the pier at False Cape Landing.”
    “I’m the only one here, but I could come myself if it’s important. Is it something to do with those two girls? Jonesy called in from Little Island. Their SUV is still in the lot.”
    “Yeah, I’ve got something. You’d better come yourself, after you call the Coast Guard and the Back Bay refuge. I believe something happened to the girls while they were on the bay. We’ll need to mount a search.” Shadow didn’t want to spill the beans about the body over the radio since their frequency was shared by several other agencies. Also, anyone with a police-band scanner could monitor the conversation. Since he was fairly new to being a ranger, he decided it would best to keep this quiet until Alex could assess the situation.
    After a two-second hesitation, Alex replied. “Ten-four. Commissioner Barnett is due in the park sometime this morning, but I guess he’ll have to wait. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Call me back if anything else comes up.”
    “Ten-four. Six out.”
    As he waited, still scanning the area for any sign of the other girl, he considered the irony of finding a body in such a tranquil location. It didn’t seem right. After a while, he got a chocolate bar from his stash in the truck, and returned to the pier. Edgy, he nibbled on the candy as he looked about, hoping he wouldn’t see a second corpse.
    This job was supposed to be a piece of cake, and, so far, it had been. The duties of a ranger, while physically demanding, were not particularly stressful, and working in the park was exactly what he needed. The pay wasn’t great, but he was provided with a residence so he could put away most of the money he got from the government, except for the child support he paid, of course.
    His wife, Jessica, had left him shortly after he got out of the Navy hospital. Their twelve-year marriage had always been a rocky road, but Shadow didn’t think that was all of it. Jessica married her attorney so quickly after the divorce that Shadow wondered if they might have been having an affair during his frequent deployments. She now lived with her new husband in Williamsburg, a couple of hours away. Shadow was able to drive up to see his daughter now and then, but Jessica had certainly put the screeching halts on his getting joint custody of Ashley. Then again, Jessica sure didn’t mind gouging him for child