Page 1 of In Cold Blood (High Peaks Murder, Mystery and Crime Thrillers #1)

Adirondack County, Upstate New York

W as he trying to kill her?

Terror shot through her mind every time a loser like him pushed their luck.

Trinity Westwood didn’t wait to find out.

She’d dealt with his kind before. Just because they flashed some green, they thought they could do whatever they pleased.

Her instincts were to knee him in the jewels.

It was effective. It would buy her enough time to fish under the cover and extract the pepper spray.

It was always there. Out of sight but not out of mind.

She’d used that handy device more than once.

But with rent overdue, and her dealer no longer carrying her, she couldn’t afford to lose another customer.

One chance, that’s all he got.

Going against her rules, Trinity gave him the benefit of the doubt .

Behind the haze of heroin used to block out an evening of shame, she pried the john’s fingers away from her throat and forced his hand onto her breast, hoping that would distract him.

It didn’t.

Within seconds his hand snaked back up, claiming her larynx as his nostrils flared above her. A smile danced at the corner of his lips. He was enjoying this, she wasn’t.

“I’m not into that,” she said, slapping his hand away, hoping he would crumble back into the nervous shell he’d arrived in.

After two years of doing this, she liked to think she was pretty good at sizing them up.

If they carried themselves a certain way, drove a particular kind of car, or even dressed in a style unbecoming, she had no qualms about nixing the evening.

But new clients were always a wild card.

Trinity ran her fingers and thumb around his lips, hoping to distract him. He sucked in her thumb like a greedy child then bit down. She screamed, yanking her hand away. It was bleeding.

“Did you not hear me? I said I’m not into the rough stuff.”

“I never asked if you were,” he shot back.

“Get off me!” Speaking with authority could sometimes snap them out of it. It was a last-ditch effort to gain control before she shifted gears.

“Shut the hell up.” A hard slap across her face revealed his true intent.

There was no point screaming — out here, no one would hear, especially after midnight.

New York State Route 73 was a desolate stretch — twenty-seven miles of meandering highway that snaked through a mountainous region of Adirondack Park.

It was only frequented by hikers and the likes of her.

Trinity had parked at her usual spot — Round Pond parking area, one of several entrances to trailheads along the highway.

It was a tradeoff, one problem for another.

She used to frequent nooks around town but patrolling officers became a problem.

But here, there was no fear of that.

Only fear of this.

As the brute bore down on her, one hand around her throat, fumbling at the thong beneath her skirt with the other, he called her all manner of vulgar names. Whore. Slut. Dirty bitch. They were all the same. Unoriginal.

Working off muscle memory, her hand slid under the blanket and latched onto her trusty OC can. Seconds from now the enclosed space in the back of her F-150 was about to become hell on earth but she was prepared for the burn.

He wasn’t.

The way she saw it, it was better that than to suffer what hell he had in store for her.

As the sicko grunted, struggling to maintain control, he released his hand from her throat to pull at the other side of her thong. Trinity blasted a large enough wave of the irritant in his face to lock up his eyes, mouth, throat, and lungs and make his skin feel like it had been doused in flames.

It happened so fast.

Following up, Trinity wielded the can as a weapon. She cracked him in the jaw and shoved him off as he screamed, writhing in agony.

With her eyes and mouth closed, Trinity pushed open the back window on the LEER topper, unlocked the tailgate, and scrambled out, falling to the asphalt and scraping her knees.

Yanking up her panties and coughing hard, she unleashed another heavy spray into the fray as the asshole clambered out, cursing like a madman.

“You bitch, I’m going to…” He lashed out but couldn’t see a damn thing and every attempt to clear his eyes only made it worse.

Experience told her to avoid touching her eyes.

She’d exposed herself to the spray multiple times, learned her lesson, and now knew what to do.

A hard kick to the groin from behind an d he went down, groaning and crying hard.

Trinity skirted around to the driver’s side, hopped in, and fired up the engine, crushing the accelerator as she reversed out into the road.

She didn’t look back to see if he was directly behind.

If her truck had rolled over his sorry ass, it wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world.

He was lucky she didn’t shoot him. Her cheek stung as she floored it.

Bringing down her windows, she reached for a bottle of water and splashed it in her face.

The fumes in the back of the truck would clear soon enough.

Trinity didn’t scan her rearview mirror or sweep the side ones as she knew that slime wouldn’t follow.

A married man, he couldn’t afford that heat.

No, he’d learned the hard way. No doubt he would return to his wife with some sob story of being attacked and that would be the last time he paid for sex.

Trinity on the other hand would have to return, tempting fate again.

As the rusted-out white F-150 snaked southeast through the boreal forest heading for the hamlet of Underwood, Trinity felt a wave of emotion hit her.

She wanted out of this putrid life but with no family to help or prospects of a job that didn’t mean slaving away for scraps, she’d accepted that this was her lot in life.

Hedged in by a steep rocky hill on the right and a boreal forest of tall spruce, hemlock, beech, and pine on her left, it felt like dark walls closing in on her.

Bright headlights blinded her as a van passed heading in the opposite direction.

A thick mist had settled, making it feel even more ominous.

Glimpses of the moon through the tendrils offered some illumination.

She hated coming out here and tonight’s attack had only given her another reason to leave it behind.

Not letting up off the gas, Trinity accelerated close to eighty, putting as much distance as she could between her and the past.

Reaching over to calm her nerves, she switched on the radio and tuned into some classic rock station. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

As her truck rounded a bend and straightened out, Trinity eased off the gas at the sight of pulsating police lights up ahead.

Blue and red drove her stomach into her throat.

She didn’t have time to turn around. She’d been seen.

Experience had taught her that was the last thing to do out here at this time of night.

Any sudden change in direction would look suspicious.

No, stay calm, she thought, willing her heartbeat to slow.

She scanned her appearance in the mirror.

Her eyelids were raw from the pepper spray even though there was hardly any that went in her eyes. Great. Now she would look as if she was stoned.

Relax.

Keep to the speed limit and hope to God the cop is too busy dealing with…

There was something unusual about the two-lane highway.

Up ahead the lone cruiser was parked at an angle with the driver’s side door open.

Trinity eased off the gas and for a second considered again whether to turn her truck, but fear of being arrested made her cautious. Besides, going back the other way would add another hour onto her night, and force her to pass that creep.

At least with a cop, she was relatively safe.

With her truck brought to a halt, Trinity stared out.

Nothing. No movement.

Cautiously, she climbed out. “Hello?”

No answer. She glanced off to her left and right.

Her hands trembled, adrenaline still pumping through her system.

As Trinity moved, glass crunched beneath her shoes.

She looked down. It was scattered across the road.

Had there been a vehicle collision? As her gaze followed the ground, she noted the silhouette of a body lying face down in the middle of the road.

A knot formed in her stomach.

On closer inspection, she noticed the uniform.

What the…?

Human instinct kicked in. Trinity hurried over, stopping only for a second to soak in the horror. She reeled back. Nerves taking over. She glanced down the road. No headlights. No one was coming. “Hey, mister?”

No response. No. Not here. Not now, she thought. Crouching over him, she did what anyone might, she placed two fingers on his neck to check for a pulse.

Nothing.

He was cold to the touch.

Fear spiked; her gaze roamed the darkened woods. Who had done this?

Were they still out there? Was it a traffic stop gone wrong? She’d seen numerous videos of officers being shot while performing their duties. She couldn’t say it was common but it was likely.

Frantically, she pushed him ever so slightly to reach the radio attached to his chest. She’d seen them speak into it enough times.

Trinity pressed the side button and brought it up to her lips.

“Hello. Anyone there?” She released her thumb. The radio squawked, and she pressed again. “Officer down. Officer down. I’ve got an officer down on a highway. I repeat, officer down in the middle of the road.”

The radio crackled.

Dispatch replied. “What’s the location?”

“What?”

“I need a location. ”

“State Route 73. Maybe ten minutes west of Underwood.” Static came over. “I was driving toward town. I don’t know what’s happened.”

“Is he conscious?”

“No. The blood is cold. He's dead.”

“Ma’am, who are you?”

Trinity hesitated to reply. A series of worrisome thoughts went through her mind.

The repercussions. The questions. This didn’t look good.

A dead officer. A remote highway. One in the morning.

A cut lip, a bruised face, red eyes, and heroin flowing through her system.

No matter what she said, she envisioned it only ending one way, with her in a jail cell. No one would believe her.

“Ma’am, I need a name,” the dispatch asked again.

Panic overwhelmed her.

Trinity dropped the radio. It landed with a clatter on the asphalt as she broke away, racing back to her truck.

Behind her, the dispatch continued to ask for a name.

Damn it. “Why here? Why me?” she spat through gritted teeth.

This night couldn’t get any worse. Although driving away was not good, right now, it was the only option.