Cypress Lake

by Graysen Morgen

  Cypress

  Lake

  By

  Graysen Morgen

  Cypress Lake © 2014 Graysen Morgen

  Triplicity Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form without permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events of any kind, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition – 2014

  Cover Design: Triplicity Publishing, LLC

  Interior Design: Triplicity Publishing, LLC

  Also by Graysen Morgen

  Bridesmaid of Honor

  Crashing Waves

  Falling Snow

  Fast Pitch

  Fate vs. Destiny

  In Love, at War

  Just Me

  Love, Loss, Revenge

  Natural Instinct

  Secluded Heart

  Submerged

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to CJ, my eagle eyes down under for catching my mistakes and never being afraid to give it to me straight. Tu mi tieni sulle mie dita dei piedi, amico.

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to the woman who is my partner in life, my wife in marriage, and the mother of my child. Without her, none of what I do every day would be possible. Ti amo e vorrei andare fino agli estremi confini della Terra per proteggere voi.

  Prologue

  Cypress Lake was a small town, surrounding a large lake that spanned five miles wide and two miles deep, with a population of a little over a thousand. The overnight 911 operator received a break-in call in the middle of the night for one of the rented lakeside houses. She put the call into the computer and radioed one of the two sheriff's deputies on duty.

  Deputy Vince Wagner arrived at the two story house a little after three a.m. with the lights flashing on his patrol car. He got out of the car, shinning his flashlight at all of the windows as he stepped onto the walkway.

  "Cypress Lake Sheriff's Office," he said, pulling the screen door back and knocking loudly.

  A woman pulled the front door open. She was dressed in a bathrobe and her hair was pulled haphazardly up in a clip, with strands hanging down here and there. She looked at the young red-haired man standing on the other side of the screen.

  "Did you call about a break-in?" he asked.

  "Yes. Someone was trying to get into the back of the house. I think your lights scared them off," she replied shakily.

  "I'm going to walk around and take a look."

  He moved around the side of the house to the patio, his flashlight casting a soft glow over the back of the house and across the yard. Satisfied that the intruder hadn't left any evidence behind, he walked back to the front door, knocking again.

  "I don't see anything, except a few scratches on the door jam. These rented lake houses are broken into often, but it's usually when they're in between renters. Whoever it was, probably thought the place was vacant," he informed her.

  "I've been here for a couple of weeks," she replied, pulling her robe tighter around her naked body.

  "Make sure all of your windows are closed and locked and you might want to call the owner about putting deadbolts on the doors. He probably won't come back, but call us if he does."

  Chapter 1

  Chief Deputy Dani Ricketts' computer chimed, signaling a new call had come in. She ignored the readout on the screen, and was about to pull into the parking lot of Papa's Smokehouse to feed her growling stomach when her radio crackled.

  "What's your twenty?" the man in dispatch asked.

  Dani pulled her white Chevy Trailblazer with Cypress Lake Sheriff's Office written on the side in green, yellow and silver, into a parking space. She grabbed the microphone attached to the side of the computer.

  "Papa's. Do you want me to bring you something?" she answered, clicking the button at the bottom of the screen to bring up the open call list.

  The bold red letters at the top of the page for the call that she'd ignored, grabbed her attention. She immediately threw the truck into drive, flipped the switch for the lights and siren, and stomped the gas pedal, peeling out onto the two lane road.

  "We have a report of a body in the water out on Lake Drive," dispatch radioed.

  "Copy. I'm 10-86. ETA five minutes. Who's on scene?" Dani asked, speeding through town.

  A dead body was high priority in Cypress Lake. They were a small town with a population of just over a thousand people, and although they had their fair share of minor offenses, they rarely had any major crime. It had been a couple of years since they'd had a potential homicide and Dani's heartbeat raced a little with excitement, however she had a feeling this was probably another drowning. Those types of calls happened occasionally, mostly because the town's residents surrounded the large. Each year a few of their older residents had heart attacks while swimming and subsequently drowned.

  "Deputy Nyman just arrived."

  "Okay, you'd better inform the sheriff. I know he's in a meeting with Mayor Olsen, but this is priority."

  Dani switched her radio to the secure channel that was designated for high-profile calls. She knew the deputy would've immediately changed his radio to that channel once he'd arrived on scene. In a small town, many people had police scanners and radios and if the sheriff's office and fire department didn't use specific channels for special calls, the entire town would show up at the scene.

  "Wilbur, I'm two minutes out. Tape off the area and don't let anyone near the scene," she radioed to him.

  "Yes, ma'am," the part-time deputy answered shakily. This was the first time he'd ever seen a dead body.

  "Start gathering statements," she said, checking the house number as she turned onto Lake Drive. She nearly ran off the road when she saw the number 321. That was a house she had been very familiar with growing up. She hadn't been there since the family that owned it moved away over twelve years ago. It had been rented out to various people ever since.

  *

  The tires on Dani's SUV crunched the gravel as she pulled into the driveway behind a small blue car. The deputy's matching truck was parked on the side of the road slightly in the grass, which was protocol when arriving on a scene.

  Dani typed a note on the computer to dispatch that she'd arrived on scene as she threw the truck into park and climbed out. She reached for the radio microphone attached to her uniform above her right shoulder.

  "Wilbur, what's your twenty? I'm on scene," she radioed.

  "Backyard," he replied.

  Dani looked up at the off-white, two story house. It was about the same size as most of the other three bedroom, two bathroom lake houses. She'd spent most of her childhood running up and down the stairs inside, building sandcastles in the small beach area near the shallow water and jumping off the end of the dock. She shook her head, forcing the memories to fade away as she walked around the side of the house.

  The deputy down by the dock saw her round the corner and headed in her direction as fast as he could walk. He was dressed in a sheriff's uniform similar to hers but his star shaped badge was black, indicating that he was only a part-time deputy. Dani liked him. He had a lot of potential and she'd gone to bat for him recently when the sheriff had wanted to cut him from the part-time roster. So far, he hadn't let her down.

  "What do we have?" she asked.

  "The body's floating face down, but it appears to be male," he said.

  Dani walked with him across the small yard and onto the old wooden dock. The body had washed up against the dock and was
wedged in the rocks. Dani squatted down on the edge, careful not to fall in as she peered over the side. The deceased person had short brown hair and was wearing jeans and a blue and black flannel shirt. She took a few pictures with the camera on her cell phone since it took clearer, high resolution pictures that the cheap camera that had been issued to her.

  "Did you call for Dr. Harper?" she asked.

  "No. I was waiting for you."

  Dani nodded, taking the notepad out of her pocket and making a few notes. "What about the renter? Did you speak to him?"

  "She's the one who found the floater. She said she stepped out onto the second floor balcony from the master bedroom and saw something in the water. She ran down the stairs and outside, but once she saw what it was, she knew it was too late to save the person."

  "Hmm…alright. You told her not to leave, right?"

  "Yes."

  Dani grabbed her cell phone from her pocket and called Dr. Henry Harper. He was the director of the local hospital, which was more like a glorified clinic. He was also a pathologist and doubled as the town medical examiner when they had a suspicious death or needed an autopsy.

  "We need to get it out of the water," she said, looking back at him. The expression on his face made her laugh. "Okay, I guess I need to get it out of the water," she laughed, shaking her head. "Unfold the body bag and lay it out in the grass. I'll go in and pull it up on the sandy embankment over there. You're going to have to help me haul it up and get it in the bag though, so if you need to barf you had better do it now."

  "I'm fine," he said, turning slightly green as he followed her off the dock.

  Dani walked back up to her truck to retrieve a pair of rubber gloves and put on her waders. She returned quickly, wearing the waist high rubber pants, and stepped into the cold water. Spring was only a couple of weeks away, and even though the warm sunny days had begun to arrive, the lake water wouldn't begin to warm up for another month. She walked through the knee deep, crystal clear water, careful not to fall as she stepped across the sandy bottom and over the river rocks scattered about. Reaching the body, she grabbed the leg nearest to her and pulled the carcass away from the large rocks near the dock. The body began to sink once it was freed. Dani quickly grabbed the corpse's arm with her other hand, dragging it towards the shore.

  Wilbur moved down to the shoreline and helped her haul the body up out of the water. Dani rolled it over, gasping when she saw the large gash across the pale, blotchy flesh of the man's neck. His face had been slightly chewed off on one side, more than likely by fish that inhabited the water. Wilbur stumbled backwards, falling down in the sand on the embankment.

  "Someone cut this man's throat," Dani said nervously, examining him a little closer and taking more pictures with her phone's camera. "He hasn't been in the water long, a few days maybe. Are you okay?" she asked, looking up at the wide-eyed deputy who was wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. She was glad she hadn't had lunch, otherwise she'd be puking next to him.

  "Yeah, yeah. I just wasn't expecting that."

  "What have we got?" a squeaky male voice echoed across the open yard.

  Dani turned to see the doctor walking towards her, pushing a stretcher.

  "Hey, Henry. Looks like a homicide," she answered.

  "Whoa, that's an understatement," he said, walking closer and squatting down. "He's not bloated."

  "Yeah, I noticed that too," Dani agreed.

  "Let's get him loaded up. I'll have a preliminary report for you tomorrow probably."

  They worked together to stuff the dead body into the black bag and load it onto the stretcher and then she pulled her waders off.

  Dani grabbed the radio microphone clipped to her shoulder. "Dispatch, send another deputy to Lake Drive and alert the sheriff. We have a 10-35."

  "Roger," the dispatch operator replied.

  "Let's go walk the dock and see if we can gather any evidence. This property just turned into a major crime scene," Dani said, walking back down the dock.

  Ten minutes later, another deputy arrived and met them in the backyard.

  "I was just here a week or two ago for a 10-14," Vince said, walking up to Dani.

  "What do you mean?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

  "Someone was trying to break in the back door," he replied. "What happened?"

  "We found a man in the water by the dock with his throat cut," Wilbur exclaimed.

  "I heard about that call. Are you sure this was the house?" Dani asked.

  "Yeah, it was around three in the morning. I remember because the renter was a little ruffled, but very easy on the eyes. I've never seen her before."

  "Alright, I'll pull the report. I've already walked the dock and the yard, but you two take another pass. We're looking for blood, torn clothing, drag marks, anything out of the ordinary. Wilbur, what's the name of the renter? It's time I go have a word with her."

  Wilbur pulled the small notebook from his pocket and flipped a few pages. "Kristen Malone," he replied.

  Dani's breath caught in her throat, causing her to cough slightly. "That's not her name. The Malone family owns this house. She must have given you the owner's name."

  "Well, that's what the renter said her name was. Kristen Malone," he corrected.

  Dani's head jerked as if she'd been slapped. "What?" Her lungs deflated and she felt her stomach dry heave.

  "Is something wrong?" Wilbur asked.

  "No. I…I didn’t realize she was back in town. She's not a renter. She's the owner," Dani said as she turned around and began walking towards the house. She had thought about the day she would finally see Kristen again and after twelve years she still had no idea what she was going to say to the woman who had broken her heart. Her blood boiled and her heart raced. The closer she got to the front door, the angrier she got. Damn you, Kristen.

  Chapter 2

  Kristen had stayed away from the windows, choosing to hide out in her old bedroom on her laptop, as the sheriff's deputies traipsed around her backyard. Seeing the dead body floating by the dock had thrown her mind into a whirlwind.

  Loud knocking on the front door startled Kristen. She took the stairs two at a time and pulled the door open swiftly. She noticed the shape of a woman standing on the other side of the screen door. Kristen pushed the screen out wide, taking in the woman in front of her. The sheriff's deputy had dark brown hair pulled back in a short ponytail and black sunglasses with black lenses. She wore the same button down khaki shirt over a white undershirt and dark green trousers with a utility belt that housed a gun, a radio, and handcuffs as the other deputy who arrived earlier, but her uniform fit her athletic frame nicely.

  "Officer…" Kristen said, trying to make out the last name stitched on the brown patch above the woman's right breast. "Ricketts?" she gasped, recognizing the name.

  Dani stared at the woman in front of her in disbelief. She had light brown hair with natural highlights that hung just below her shoulders in lazy waves, big chocolate brown eyes, and suntanned skin. The red t-shirt and jeans she wore, hugged her slender figure perfectly, enhancing her average sized breasts and trim waist. Dani watched as she ran her hand through her hair, pushing it back over her shoulder and revealing small gold hoop earrings. The young girl she remembered from high school had grown into a beautiful woman.

  "It's deputy. Chief deputy to be exact," Dani growled.

  Kristen stepped over the threshold with a puzzled look on her face. "Dani?"

  Dani backed up a step, pushing her sunglasses up on her head, revealing her gorgeous green eyes. "How long have you been back?" she asked.

  "I…" Kristen knew she might run into Dani Ricketts while she was home, but she'd hoped she could do what she needed to do and get out of town without seeing the one person that could bring her to her knees with a simple look. She appeared visibly stunned when Dani's eyes met hers.

  "Kristen?" Dani huffed as her eyebrow arched.

  "What are you doing in a sheriff's uniform?"

&n
bsp; "I'm the one asking the questions. You've been gone for a long time, people change. They grow up, get jobs, and move on. Now, how long have you been in town and why the hell is there a dead body in your backyard?" Dani snapped.

  "Don't yell at me. I have no idea! I stepped onto the balcony to eat my lunch and saw something in the water. I haven't even been down on the dock since I got here."

  "And when was that?"

  "Tomorrow will be three weeks."

  "Why are you back?"

  "I own the house now and I'm selling it."

  Dani leaned back, looking towards the road. "I don't see a for sale sign."

  "I'm packing up my family's stuff first."

  Dani nodded, turning back towards her.

  "One of my deputies chased a prowler away recently, is that correct?" she asked, making notes on the small pad that she carried in her pocket.

  "Yes." Kristen ran a flustered hand through her hair, pushing it back off her shoulder again.

  "Do you have any idea who it was?"

  "No. He told me the rented houses get broken into a lot this time of year, usually when they're between renters."

  "What about the guy in the water? Any idea who he is?"

  "No. I didn't see his face. I realized it was a dead body and I screamed and ran inside to call 911."

  Dani pulled her phone from her pocket and scrolled to the close up picture of the man's face. "Do you recognize him? Was this the prowler?"

  Kristen peered at the picture and backed away in disgust. "No. I don't know if that was him or not. That's gross."

  "It's a lot more than a dead body, Kristen. That guy's throat was cut and he hadn't been in the water long." Dani scrolled to the next picture that showed his sliced throat and showed it to Kirsten.