Page 1 of River Wild

CHAPTER ONE

HEHADTHEnightmare again last night. The faceless woman, her mouth opening and closing, the primal sounds a deafening shriek, his fear and pain visceral. He knew it wasn’t real, just a bad dream, yet he couldn’t wake up, as hard as he tried. It was like being caught in an eddy on the river, his fear rising as his thoughts whirled, and the current took him out deeper with only one clear thought.Thistime,you’regoingtodie.

“Still having the nightmares, Stuart?” the psychiatrist asked as she looked up from the notes she’d been taking.

“Nope,” Sheriff Stuart Layton said with a shake of his head. He adjusted his Stetson balanced on his crossed knee and lied. He’d been coming here once a month since the “incident,” as they called it, seven months ago. As an officer of the law who’d fired his weapon, killing a person in the line of duty, he had been required to have counseling until it was determined he could still do his job.

“How would you say you’re dealing with the trauma of the incident?” she asked, pen poised above the paper.

His near-deathincidentwas being attacked by a knife-wielding woman who’d left scars over his arms and torso, and even worse, invisible wounds that made him question his sanity—let alone why he was fighting so hard to keep his job.

Seeing that the doctor was waiting for a reply, he shrugged and said, “As well as can be expected. Life goes on. I have a job to do.” She didn’t like his comment, he noticed at once. “Keeping busy helps. I just had a kidnapping case, a thirteen-year-old.” He didn’t add that ultimately, he hadn’t saved the girl himself. He certainly couldn’t take credit for that. He had saved one life, though, and had done his job to the best of his ability, which he didn’t feel was saying much.

“Do you ever question that you might be in the wrong profession?” the doctor asked.

He almost laughed out loud. When he fought his way out of the same recurring nightmare at three in the morning, he told himself he was done. He couldn’t do this anymore. But with daylight, he could breathe again, forcing the darkness and his fear back for another day on the job—the only job he knew.

His father had been the sheriff before him. He’d grown up with the law living in his house. Going to the police academy out of high school had made sense after living in the small, isolated town of Powder Crossing, Montana, where there weren’t a lot of opportunities. When his father retired, Stuart had stepped into the position that no one else really wanted. It seemed like a no-brainer.

“Who wouldn’t question going into law enforcement?” he said, more to himself than to the doctor. His strict, distant father had used his silver star like a shield, a stoic, hard-nosed hero. Because of that, Stuart had thought he knew what he was getting into. He’d been wrong. “You start off thinking it’s a higher calling only to realize that it’s really just a thankless job—one that can get you killed. Pull over the wrong car, try to break up a domestic argument, step out of your office and look down the barrel of a loaded gun in the hand of someone with a grudge against you.”

He saw her expression and cursed himself. He’d said too much. This wasn’t the way he wanted to go out, failing his psych evaluation. All he’d had to do was get through this last required session of six. It didn’t matter that he’d decided he had no business being sheriff anymore. He just needed her to sign off and let him hang up his star and gun on his own terms. Now he feared that he’d blown it.

“Given all of that, why have you stayed?”

He’d been too honest, so why stop now? “Because it’s what I do to the best of my ability.” Growing up, Stuart had wanted to be just like his father. Now that he had a better idea of who his father really had been, he feared that he had become him.

“Have you been depressed?”

She thought he was merely depressed? “Everyone gets down sometimes,” he said, reminded of those nights alone in the house he’d grown up in, thinking about his life as he cleaned his gun. But then there were the nights when Bailey McKenna would stop by at all hours and, fool that he was, he would happily open his door to her, knowing the danger.

He’d definitely been down in the dumps before she’d started coming by. Often, he was depressed after she left hours later, the two of them having talked over a beer or two. Only talking. That’s all they ever did, sitting out on the porch when it was warm. Otherwise curled up at each end of the couch while a fire crackled in the woodstove in the corner. He knew she wanted something from him, but he had no idea what. He’d just known that whatever it was, it could get him killed.

“Is there anything that might keep you from continuing to do your job, Stuart?”

Boy howdy, he thought. The last woman he’d gotten involved with had tried to kill him, nearly had.So, yes, doctor, I have the unfortunate habit of getting tangled up with dangerous women.It wasn’t like he didn’t know that Bailey was damaged, and yet she drew him like gawkers to a car crash. But how could he admit to the doctor that Bailey McKenna might prove to be the most dangerous of them all, yet he’d never wanted any woman more in his life?

“Actually,” he said to the psychiatrist, “I think this introspection has been good for me. I see things more clearly. Maybe I’m maturing. It’s possible, isn’t it?”

She smiled, and he saw in her smile that she was going to sign his paperwork. He smiled back, pretending he wasn’t worried about anything, not his future, not his growing feelings for Bailey. The last time he saw her, she’d been running scared, confirming what he’d already suspected. Bailey McKenna was in trouble up to her pretty little neck.

He feared what he was going to do about that, especially since things had been too quiet in the Powder River Basin. It gave him an eerie feeling he couldn’t shake, like the lull before the storm. As he headed home, the signed psych evaluation form folded into his shirt pocket, it felt as if the storm clouds were already gathering for what would be one hell of a maelstrom.

This time, you’re going to die.

BAILEYMCKENNAHADN’Trealized it was so late. She looked up from her laptop, surprised to find that some of the library’s lights had already been turned off, leaving pockets of darkness. She loved libraries, their smell, their solitude, the silence as heavy as the books lining the walls. And it wasn’t just the libraries that she loved. She loved the books that opened doors into other worlds, cracked open other people’s lives and shed a blinding and often insightful light on them.

Libraries and books had saved her growing up. Now they still provided her a place to escape. She always found a corner on the least used floor and settled in for hours.

Tonight, though, she’d stayed too long, and now she feared she might have gotten locked in. Closing her laptop, she gathered her things into the large bag she carried everywhere. She didn’t let the bag or laptop out of her sight, not after all the months, years that she’d been working on her secret project.

It didn’t matter that she’d backed up everything on the cloud. She didn’t trust it. She needed to hold her project close. If anyone found out about it, they would try to stop her. She feared it might already be too late.

As she reached the third-floor stairs, she stopped to peer down. Darkness creeped up the steps from the pitch blackness below. What if she was locked in? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d slept in a library since she started this. But lately, she’d felt as if she wasn’t safe anywhere. She couldn’t shake the feeling that she was always being watched. For all she knew, she had been followed here tonight. If so, they understood what she’d been up to.

The real boogeyman was who scared her the most.Hewas out there, had been for a long time. It was just a matter of time before he came for her again. That’s why she’d been working desperately to find him before then. As her heart rate kicked up, she told herself she still had time. He’d waited this long. Why would he make his move now?

Starting down the stairs, though, she wasn’t so sure about that. She stopped on a step to listen. The quiet she usually loved now felt ominous. She couldn’t shake the feeling that while the library appeared empty, she wasn’t alone.

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