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CHAPTER1

It was justten o’clock and already he’d cited two guys for fishing without a license and arrested a boater who was obviously impaired?so much so that before he could get out of the boat, he fell in the water and had to be fished out. By the time he got the drunks sorted out at a little after three that afternoon, all he wanted to do was go home.

“This is central dispatch. Any KDFWR units in the vicinity of Cumberland Falls State Park, please respond. Repeat, any KDFWR units in the vicinity of Cumberland Falls State Park, please respond.”

Ugh. I can’t believe this. I’m almost finished with my shift. Hope this doesn’t tie me up.“Central dispatch, this is KDFWR unit two ninety-one responding. ETA of eight minutes. Copy?”

“Roger that, unit two ninety-one. You’ll be met by a Whitley County deputy sheriff there. Copy?”

“Roger, central dispatch. En route. Over.” What the hell was so ridiculously important that a county deputy would be there? God, he hoped somebody hadn’t killed a bear.

The big Ram pickup rolled up into the parking lot and, sure enough, a Whitley County cruiser sat there. Beside it was a big guy, broad shouldered and tall, arms folded across his chest. As soon as he stepped out of the truck, the deputy approached him and stuck out a hand. “Whitley County Deputy AaronFriedman.”

He took the hand and shook it. “Conservation Officer ShawHarrison. What’s up?”

“Office said they needed us to look at some security footage. They called us, but we called you because we aren’t that familiar with the terrain and hoped maybe you were.”

“I’ll do what I can.” Shaw never ceased to appreciate the work of the stone walkways and buildings at the state park. It was beautiful, all hand-hewn beams and stone, originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early part of the twentieth century. It burned a few years later, but was rebuilt, and it was impressive to say the very least.

“Help you gentlemen?” a young woman asked at the front desk.

Aaron nodded. “Yes, ma’am. We got a call from someone named Roxie?”

“She’s our manager. Let me get her.”

The girl disappeared for a minute and came back with a middle-aged woman. “Hi. I’m Roxie. I needed you to look at some camera footage and tell me what you think might be going on. I don’t know if I need to be concerned or not.”

“We’ll do our best, ma’am. I’m Deputy AaronFriedman and this is Conservation Officer ShawHarrison.”

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Shaw threw in.

“And you guys too. Come on in. Want a cup of coffee or something?”

Aaron visibly perked up. “Uh, yeah! That would be great.”

“Sure,” Shaw added. “I’d like that.”

“Hey, Shannon, can you get these gentlemen some coffee? Cream? Sugar?” Both men shook their heads. “Black.” She turned back to the two men standing before her. “There’s a car at the upper parking lot, right at the edge. We didn’t realize it had been there so long, but I started checking video footage and saw that it’s been there for several weeks.”

“Can you tell us when you first noticed it on camera?” Aaron asked as he scribbled on his tablet with a stylus.

“Yeah. March fifth. I checked, and it was cold that day. We had a power outage?”

“Y’all seem to have a lot of those,” Aaron interrupted.

“Yeah, well, this place is falling down. If the state doesn’t do something pretty soon, it’ll be too far gone. But anyway, there was a power outage, so I don’t have the footage of anyone getting out of it. When it shuts off because of the power, it doesn’t automatically come back on. It has to be reset. Yet another thing that’s a dinosaur around here,” she muttered as she paged through the security footage.

Aaron had the top of the stylus resting against his lips when he asked, “So you haven’t seen anyone around it?”

“Oh, no. I’ve seen somebody around it. I just can’t figure out what they’re doing. I made notes. I saw them on shots from March twelfth, March fifteenth, March twenty-fourth, and March thirty-first. And a lot of times since then.”

“And what were they doing?” Shaw asked.

“They came back to the car, put something in, got something out, and disappeared off the edge of the screen there.”

He was a little confused. “And is there a trail there? I sure don’t remember one.” He thought he’d hiked every trail in that park.

“That’s just it. There’s no trail there. Nothing. I have no idea what’s going on.”