Page 10 of So Dark

“The victim is Ethan Holloway, forty-two. Divorced, no kids. He was found when an emergency signal from his satellite phone alerted authorities that he hadn’t used the device in twelve hours. I guess that’s a safety feature you can program into some of these phones.”

“How was he killed?”

“Pickaxe.”

Michael grimaced. “Ouch. Was there a struggle?”

“PDs not sure. It looks like this case is a lot like a case from last week where a woman was killed in a cabin in the wilderness with similar injuries.”

“Details?”

“The Boss says local PD will give them to us. I guess he got the call right before he called you. PD’s weirded out by the whole thing. They can’t find a sign of anyone else there but the victim.”

“Suicide?”

“The pickaxe severed his brainstem from above and behind him. So no.”

“Ouch. That’s… creepy.”

“It gets creepier. The scene isn’t actually in the town of Nelchina. It’s in the mountains twelve miles west. Ethan Holloway has a cabin there that’s really hard to get to. Nelchina PD’s going to have to airdrop us in.”

“Airdrop?As in parachute?”

“No, ladder.”

Michael sighed. “Lovely. I no longer like Alaska.”

She rolled her eyes and patted his shoulder. “You’ll be okay.”

“So this second victim. Or first victim, I mean. What do we know about her?”

“Valerie North, thirty-eight. She was found with her head severed by a wire.”

“God. What happened to just shooting or stabbing people?”

“The normal cops handle that stuff. We get the psychos.”

He chuckled. “Yay us. How does someone get her head severed by a wire?”

“It looks like someone rigged a snare in her cabin.”

“A snare?”

“Yeah. It’s… well, it’s basically what I just described. A trip wire that tightens when an animal steps on a trigger. It snaps shut around the animal’s leg, back or neck. It’s a tool used by survivalists to hunt for meat.”

“And someone rigged it in her cabin?”

“That’s what it looks like.”

“So definitely a homicide.”

“Most definitely. Two homicides.”

Michael sighed. “Well, I guess I signed up for this job.”

She grinned. “Oh, come on. It’s an adventure. We’re in the Alaskan wilderness hunting a dangerous hunter, pitting our wits against nature and evil at the same time. It’ll be fun.”

He frowned at her. “What’s gotten into you? You’re never this giddy over a case.”

---