Page 29 of Lethal Danger

Real dirt. He had thought it might be concrete or plastic.

He felt the leaf of a plant. Real plants, too. Did that mean the rocks were real and not fake?

He reached the river and stopped. It was wider than he’d expected.

He backed up a step, took a running start, and jumped the water.

He dropped to his knees as he landed on the other bank, trying not to damage the display. There probably was a way the staff accessed this other bank. But he wasn’t long on time at the moment.

He was technically allowed in the Logboat Adventure ride staff areas, thanks to his position as a security guard. But he didn’t relish the thought of explaining to Butch or anyone else why he was wandering around there. Especially now that someone was apparently sabotaging rides. Didn’t need to have anyone suspect him of that.

He looked for the small pine tree, groundcover, and rock configuration from the photographs in the police report copy he’d requested.

There it was. A pine tree short enough to fit under the ceiling that nearly skimmed the top of Hawthorne’s head stood near the river’s edge.

Green groundcover. And a large rock.

The rock where Sam Ackerman had hit his head and died.

At least according to the police report.

Rebekah had said it was impossible.

Sam had been terrified of water. The boy’s father had said the same thing to the press, according to newspaper articles in the days following Sam’s death. He never would have gone on the Logboat Adventure ride.

If that was true, then Sam wouldn’t have been in a boat, riding down the river, goofing off because of the alcohol the autopsy showed was in his system. He wouldn’t have stood up, lost his balance, and toppled out of the boat, head catching the rock that stood at the edge of the water. The conclusions drawn by the police to explain his death wouldn’t be true. It wouldn’t be an accident.

The thriller writer in him wanted to see the holes. To lean toward Rebekah’s claim it wasn’t an accident. And believe it was intentional. A murder.

But he’d been an MP too long to approach an investigation with a preferred or foregone conclusion. And that part of him also knew what murder was like in real life. It wasn’t exciting and entertaining like a murder in the pages of a mystery or in a movie.

It was horrible. Tragic. More so than an accident because it carried malice and the full horror of intentional evil.

Far better for Sam’s death to have been an accident.

The thought was enough to give Hawthorne pause. Should he not have agreed to look into Sam’s death for Rebekah? What if he dragged up more pain than she already had? And more pain for Sam’s family.

But the only way he’d do that would be if he learned the boy’s death was not an accident. And if that were true, he couldn’t let a murderer walk around free and unpunished. No, he had to make sure the original findings were true. For Rebekah. And for the sake of justice.

She was so sure it couldn’t have happened. Not the way the police had concluded from the evidence they’d found.

Sam had been discovered in this spot, dead. His blood on the rock. A contusion in his skull matched the shape of the rock. His positioning was correct for a fall from the boat if he’d stood up during the ride.

No blood marked the rock now. But, of course, they’d have cleaned that off long ago. Everything else looked the same as in the police photos. Except Sam wasn’t in them.

The memory of his still, pale face in the pictures loomed in Hawthorne’s mind. Not the first dead face he’d seen. But he never forgot any of them.

He had to be certain the truth had been found. For Sam and the boy’s family, who couldn’t rest until they knew for sure. Until they could accept it was an accident. Or Hawthorne could find his killer.

Carson leaned over the body, the tragedy of the death wailing in his heart—a soundtrack to spur him on to end the madness.

The victim’s hands were positioned to point to three and fifteen in the clock of the killer’s mind.

Three fifteen. The numbers floated into place, falling in line with the sequence the previous victims had been positioned to indicate.

Carson straightened, the truth hitting him with the force of a bullet from behind.

There was no serial killer.

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