One Last Scream (Special Agent Ricki James Book 2) Read online

  One Last Scream

  Special Agent Ricki James Book 2

  C.R. Chandler

  Copyright © 2021 by C.R. Chandler

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  For Mom and David. Thank you for all your support. I really appreciate it and you!

  ALSO BY C.R. CHANDLER

  SPECIAL AGENT RICKI JAMES

  (Mystery/Thriller)

  One Final Breath October 2020

  One Last Scream January 2021

  One Life Lost Spring, 2021

  Under Cat Chandler :

  FOOD AND WINE CLUB MYSTERY

  (Cozy Mysteries)

  A Special Blend of Murder 2017

  Dinner, Drinks, and Murder. 2017

  A Burger, Fries, and Murder 2017

  Champagne, Cupcakes, and Murder 2018

  Tea, Dessert, and Murder 2018

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Thank You!

  Note From the Author:

  Prologue

  A soft rain fell on the deserted stretch of pavement, the broken white lines running down its center shimmering under the wet reflection from thin shafts of moonlight. Rain, gray light from overcast skies during the day, and pitch-black nights were a way of life on the upper peninsula of northwest Washington and its land that was home to miles of national forest. Running up its length was a highway, deserted most of the night during this time of the year, as it waited patiently for the tourists to return. But that was still a month off. Right now, when winter and spring overlapped into cool days and colder nights, the empty highway disappeared into a wall of darkness no matter which way you looked.

  A lone figure stepped out of the trees and onto the dirt track leading off from the main road. His hands were buried in the pockets of his jacket and his shoulders were hunched against the cold. He looked at the highway, leading toward something he couldn’t see in the dark, something just beyond his reach. Something he’d never get to, he thought bitterly. Not now. Not ever.

  He was trapped by the forest on one side that ran for seventy-five miles before it was stopped by the Pacific Ocean. The other side was just as unforgiving with the deep, cold waters of the Hood Canal. There was nowhere for him to go. If he ran, and somehow miraculously escaped capture, the forest would kill him. If he tried to swim away, he’d drown before he was halfway across the canal. No. The man he’d come to confront had trapped him with his smug smile and superior attitude. Trapped him here in this place where it all had come crashing down on both of them.

  Resignation latched itself firmly on to his shoulders, weighing them down as he slowly walked back toward the trees where his truck was parked, where the man had been waiting for him to make up his mind.

  “Fight or run, Jimmy,” the man had said, the lazy sneer in his voice leaving no doubt which option he thought would win out. But Jimmy didn’t run, although he had walked away. Eventually.

  The man was still there, but he wasn’t waiting for anything. Jimmy had given his answer, and now it was done.

  When he finally found the courage to look up, the first thing Jimmy saw was the flashy sports car, its white paint and silver chrome gleaming even in the dark. The man had come from money. More money than he’d ever see in his lifetime.

  The first bubble of anger rose in Jimmy’s gut and began a slow march deep into his chest. It wasn’t his fault he was poor. He’d never minded before, but now it was different. Now that man’s money would be used to make sure his life was over. Anger swamped what was left of the crushing regret, and with it came clarity. He needed a way out. He had to find a way out. He deserved to keep everything he wanted, everything that was important to him.

  His hands left the safety and warmth of their cocoon and hung down by his side, slowly curling into tight fists as he stared at that sports car. Through its window, he could see the jacket of a park ranger draped over the back of the seat. It was a symbol of authority, but he didn’t care. It didn’t make any difference. He turned his head and spat into the ground. He’d sure never owned any shirt made from silk, and his boots weren’t ever polished to a high shine. But even though they were caked with a good inch of mud, he wasn’t going to run.

  Driven by a potent combination of anger and hope, he strode to the back of his truck and stood for a long moment, his breath coming in fast bursts. His jaw hardened as he bent over the body of the man who had pushed him past the limits of his temper. The man he had shot.

  Jimmy slid his arms beneath the shoulders of the body lying on the ground, staring with sightless eyes up into the night sky. The once-pristine white shirt was now stained red. The blood still dripped out of the bullet hole, mixing with the rain falling from above and the mud on the ground.

  Shedding the last of his remorse like a snake shed its skin, Jimmy shifted his hands to get a firmer grip on the body and slowly dragged it the rest of the way to his truck.

  Chapter One

  “Be quiet. We have to be quiet.”

  The short and stocky teenager added a wave of his hand to give more weight to his warning as he scanned the overgrown path in front of him. His face beamed a bright red as he leaned over and braced his hands against his knees, trying to catch his breath. Dragging a loaded-up wagon to the top of the hill was harder than it had looked.

  He swiped a sleeve across his forehead to keep the beads of perspiration from dripping down into his eyes before taking a firmer grip on the rope pulled tight over his shoulder. His taller, leaner companion, who was holding on to an identical rope attached to the other side of the wagon, glanced over and laughed.

  “Why, Anson? Who’s going to hear us? There’s nothing around except that old lighthouse, and no one’s been inside it in, like . . .” The lanky boy paused for a brief moment and scrunched his face up as he thought it over. “Well, like forever.”

  “Forever is a long time, Nate.” The third member of their small band was stationed at the back of the wagon. His job was to push from behind, lift the wagon and its forty-pound cargo over any protruding rocks that brought their slow progress to a jarring stop, and keep the carefully wrapped contraption inside it steady.

  The last thing any of them wanted was for the wagon to tip over, catapulting their joint crea
tion down the hill, destroying months of hard work with every bounce it took. Their intricate robot, or “bot” as they usually called it, was not made to survive that kind of punishment.

  Tall, with the solid build of a linebacker that he’d inherited from his former high school football star father, Eddie James had been assigned his job in the back because he’d been deemed their only chance to save the bot should disaster strike. Having celebrated his fourteenth birthday just two days before, he was the youngest in the group. Both Anson and Nate had already passed their fifteenth birthdays, with Nate frequently exercising the bragging rights that came from obtaining an instruction permit to drive. Eddie didn’t mind. It was a milestone in a guy’s life, so he figured Nate was entitled to wave it around every opportunity he got.

  Eddie cast a quick look to the side of the narrow path to be sure they weren’t too close to the edge as his friends began pulling on the ropes again, both of them grunting as the trio slowly wound their way up the hill. The drop-off was steep. If their precious cargo took a tumble that would mean the end of the bot, not to mention inflicting serious injury on the guy unlucky enough to follow it down the slope.

  Which would most likely be him. He didn’t welcome the prospect of being plastered against one of the trees or tall boulders standing between the narrow path and the small town below.

  The early-afternoon sun filtered through the forest, and for once the air was clear without a rain cloud in sight. Unusual for June, especially in the northwest corner of the state of Washington. The regular showers fed the only rain forest within five thousand miles. Olympic National Park, with its rugged mountain range and unique ecosystem, was sprawled across the upper peninsula cut off from the main body of the state by a tangled set of canals, bays, and inlets. Hood Canal flanked the eastern border of the park, slicing its way through the land and gradually narrowing from four miles at its widest point to one mile at its northern tip, where it settled into Dabob Bay.

  The calm, attractive bay drew tourists and fishermen from late spring into the fall. They came to try their luck at catching salmon or trout, and to enjoy the beauty of the primitive forest surrounding the entire length of this spectacular piece of nature’s paradise. The three towns of Brewer, Edington, and Massey hugged the shores sandwiched between the waters of the bay and the national park. Most of the residents made their living from the thousands who flocked to the park during the sunny months. During the winter, the year-round inhabitants were left in peace to enjoy the majestic scenery surrounding them—along with the cold, snow, and rain that fell in a continual drizzle.

  Massey was the northernmost of the three towns, and the smallest, with a population of just over four hundred permanent residents. It swelled to twice that number on summer weekends as the refugees from the much larger city of Seattle fled to their vacation homes that dotted the shoreline all along the bay.

  The rustic retreats were a far cry from the mansions that nestled gracefully in the Hamptons three thousand miles and a whole universe away and catered to the insanely rich. Dabob Bay was an everyman’s place, where a cozy house was still affordable, if you weren’t overly picky about the size and condition, and dock space for an open boat with an outboard motor could be had without needing to take out another mortgage in return.

  The compact town was more comfortable thinking of itself as a village, and thrived mostly on tackle and bait shops, with an equal number of fast-food stands that were only open during the “good weather” months. All in all, there was a hearty, strangely appealing air about the small cluster of stores and eateries that hugged the gentle curve of the shoreline.

  “How much farther?” Anson demanded, breathing heavily between each word. “I thought you said it wasn’t that far.”

  Eddie looked away from his study of the town below and sent his friend a sympathetic look. Anson had crimson streaks running along his cheeks, and his shirt was covered in sweat.

  “Obviously you hadn’t factored in pulling a forty-pound robot up the hill,” Nate chimed in. “And it’s just around that next bend.”

  “Automated crawler,” Eddie corrected. He glanced down at the blanket covering the round object with its long arms that were neatly folded into the sides. “That’s how we entered it into the contest, so we need to get used to calling it that.”

  Over the last year, the threesome had forged a bond over their mutual love of designing and building all kinds of mechanical contraptions, especially remotely powered ones. So when the state science fair had announced the categories for several types of automated machines, they had immediately gone to work assembling their vision of a mechanical crawler designed to retrieve whatever was entered into its programming, from wherever it needed to retrieve it. Which, according to the rules of the category, had to include maneuvering up and down curved stairs.

  The problem was that the three towns along the Bay had a combined population of 2,300, which meant most of the businesses were small, with a noticeable absence of any kind of structure that was more than one story tall, much less one with a curved set of stairs.

  Of course, there was the St. Armand. It was the only resort hotel in the area and had a wide, curving staircase that led from the floor of its grand ballroom up to the surrounding balcony. But after thoroughly discussing it, the boys agreed that the powers that be at the St. Armand would not be keen on subjecting the impressive focal point of their expensive wedding venue to the maneuverings of forty-pound robot. Not to mention the high possibility of it taking a potentially damaging tumble down their set of very expensive stairs.

  Which had left them stumped, until Nate had remembered the old lighthouse. It had occupied the hill overlooking Massey for as long as anyone could remember, and after a few discreet inquiries to their parents and a teacher or two, the teenagers had discovered that no one knew exactly who owned it, or even why it had been built at all for that matter. The far end of the bay didn’t host any big ships or have a lot of dangerous shoals and rocks. But for whatever reason, the lighthouse had been standing sentry, unoccupied, for all of this century, and probably a good chunk of the last one as well. And it was very possible that no one had even stepped foot inside it in decades.

  Until Nate had gone up there exploring two days ago.

  “You’re sure we can get in?” Anson asked.

  “Yep.” Nate pushed his wire-rimmed glasses farther up his nose. “There’s an old lock on the door, but the boards on the windows in the back are really loose. I could probably pull them off with my bare hands. That’s why I brought the hammer and the crate. The window’s pretty big, so once we pry the boards off, we can stand on the crate and lift our crawler through it.”

  “If the lock is that old, we can use the hammer to break it off and just open the door. That way we won’t have to lift the crawler at all,” Anson pointed out. “We’re already hauling it up there, and we’ll have to carry it up the stairs, so why do any more work than we have to?”

  Eddie frowned. He straightened up and pushed a thick strand of dark hair hanging over the top edge of his black-framed glasses to one side. “We can put the boards back when we’re done, but we can’t fix a broken lock. We don’t want to damage anything.”

  Anson huffed out a long breath. “You’re just saying that because your mom is a cop.”

  “Mom is a special investigative agent with the National Park Service,” Eddie said. For some reason Anson always referred to his mom as if she worked for the local police department, when everyone in the Bay knew that Clay Thomas was the chief, and Jules was his deputy, and they were the only two people in the department. “She’s not a cop.”

  “Same diff,” Anson said. “She carries a gun and hunts down murderers.”

  “Not most of the time,” Eddie muttered, but not loud enough that the other two could hear him over their labored breathing. He wished his mom only chased down guys who were trying to grow marijuana on park land or had destroyed park property in some way or another. But it never see
med to work out that way. Instead, she always ended up in the middle of something a lot more dangerous. Something like a serial killer operating inside the park. That was what had drawn her back into law enforcement after she’d sworn off it for more than a year. A year he hadn’t had to worry every night about her making it home still breathing.

  “I don’t want to damage any property either,” Nate declared, turning his head to grin at Eddie. “With our luck, the old lighthouse is sitting on park land and your mom will have to arrest us if we destroy anything.”

  “Yeah, that would be cool. She’s a badass,” Anson put in.

  Before Eddie could decide if he should be defending his mom, Anson let out an excited yelp. “Hey! There it is.”

  Made of stone, with a wide wooden door, the old structure wasn’t particularly large for a lighthouse, but it still stood a good thirty feet high, which meant it would have plenty of stairs to test the crawler out on. The window that Nate had found was on the far side, not visible from the path leading up to the abandoned lighthouse. Eddie’s gaze tracked up the length of the building to the top, where sheets of plywood had taken the place of the glass that used to surround the powerful light that he assumed had disappeared long ago, along with anyone who used to take care of it.