Shadow Moon

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  The air in the cabin seemed to darken around them, and it took a moment for Roarke to realize it was not just his mood. Night was falling.

  “This trail is cold,” he said, and he didn’t mean literally. “Why are we here?”

  “I wanted you to see it,” Snyder answered. “Feel it.”

  Roarke nodded. To get inside the mind of a killer, there was no substitute for being on site. This man was comfortable in the outdoors, in this bleak wilderness setting. He did not bring his young victim to his home, or any place in the indoors. He was a hunter, of animals and children. They would find him in a mountain setting. He would own guns. Lots of guns.

  An animal howled somewhere in the distance, and Roarke felt a chill that was not from the freezing air. Suddenly he wanted very much to be gone.

  “I’ve felt it,” he said. “Now tell me what you really have in mind.”

  Snyder nodded. “Back at the lodge.”

  The night was pitch black, studded with icy stars.

  Back at the hotel, the agents both changed out of sweat-soaked clothes, showered, and met downstairs in the dining room. The bar area had tables in front of a floor-to ceiling fireplace with a blazing fire, and Snyder had managed a table near the heat and away from other patrons. After they’d ordered, Roarke just said it. “Look, I know what you’re thinking.”

  “Do you?”

  “The Wolf.”

  Snyder raised his hands. “It’s true. There was wolf fur and the same kinds of mineral deposits, sulfur and calcium, found on Aaron Light’s body—”

  Roarke interrupted. “If you’re going just on the basis of some wolf fur and mineral deposits, you can find that in other places besides Glacier…” he trailed off, remembering the other child disappearance in Yellowstone that Snyder had mentioned. If that other boy had been murdered—if—then that autopsy might well turn up the same kinds of mineral deposits and animal fur.

  Snyder held up a hand. “The Wolf is a side issue. Just hear me out. The joint task force of local law enforcement agencies is focusing its efforts here, in Idaho, because this is where the freshest crime scene is.”

  “But?” Roarke said.

  “But they don’t need us for that. I have something else in mind. Hours before Aaron was abducted, the family passed through a town called Snake River, Montana. There’s a witness there, a female who phoned in to the tip line anonymously, saying a local man was watching Aaron. I want to go to Snake River and try to find her.”

  He looked across the table, and the plea was naked in his eyes.

  “Three days, Matthew. All I’m asking is three days—”

  A harsh bleating shatters the silence.

  Chapter 62

  Portland - present

  Singh and Snyder

  Singh nearly jumps out of her skin at the sound. Snyder has risen from his armchair, equally startled.

  The alarm is coming from both of their phones, and the Amazon Echo, and Snyder’s laptop—all devices shrilling at the same time, sounding an alarm. A recorded voice speaks mechanically.

  “This is an announcement of the Emergency Broadcasting System. This is not a test.

  Flash flooding has been reported in parts of Multnomah, Clackamas, Columbia and Washington counties...”

  The spoken warning repeats over the klaxoning of the alarm.

  Singh is on her feet, moving to the window as if mesmerized. The sky outside is blacker than she has ever seen it in daylight. The rain looks like a solid wall of water.

  Snyder is behind her. “You can’t go out in that. You’ll stay in the guest room, of course. I can rustle up dinner.”

  Singh surrenders to the moment. “And you can finish your story.”

  Snyder is silent. She turns to find him staring into the crackling fire.

  “Agent Snyder?”

  He looks at her blankly, and then shakes his head. “There isn’t any more to tell. We didn’t go to Montana. Matthew got the call from Sheriff’s Detective Ortiz. He returned to California and went out into the desert.”

  Singh begs off dinner, as she has had next to no sleep the night before.

  When she runs out to her car to fetch her go bag from the trunk, the violence of the wind and water is unnerving. She comes back into the house completely drenched and thankful she does not have to venture further out in such chaos.

  Agent Snyder shows her to the guest room, which is clean and uncluttered by files.

  She changes from her wet clothes into a T-shirt and leggings, then calls Damien and leaves a voice message to report on the flash flooding and assure him she is safe at the house.

  She disconnects with a relief out of proportion to the situation that he is not there to answer her call. She needs time with her own thoughts, to process Agent Snyder’s story.

  She has many unanswered questions.

  She settles into bed with her laptop and starts her own hunt.

  She is able to find numerous reports of Aaron Light, the five-year old missing from Glacier. The boy was vacationing with his mother and stepfather and the stepfather’s two other, older children. All the news reports focus on a possible parental abduction by the estranged father. Singh can find no reports of a body being discovered. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children database lists Aaron as still missing.

  She frowns and checks the time. Still before 5:00 pm. Impulsively she picks up her phone and dials information, asks for the Snake River Sheriff’s Department.

  The male voice that answers is steely. “Sheriff Preston.”

  She knows rural sheriff’s departments tend toward skepticism, if not outright hostility, toward the FBI. She introduces herself instead as a child advocate from an organization to which she is a regular contributor.

  “I have just a few questions regarding a murder investigation you conducted in January—”

  The sheriff does not let her finish. His voice is hard. “Lady, I don’t know what country you’re calling from, but you’re confused. We got no murder up here.”

  She flinches at the casual xenophobia, but keeps her tone even.

  “I am speaking of the five-year old missing from Glacier National Park in—”

  Preston interrupts her. “The kid’s father took him. I suggest you get your facts straight and stay the hell out of people’s business.”

  Before Singh can speak again, he has hung up on her.

  She sits still in the bed, unnerved by the outright denial. Outside, the wind lashes rain against the windows.

  After some minutes she stands from the bed and runs through a yoga set, using the stretches and meditation to dissipate the negative energy of the encounter.

  Then she settles back into the comfortable bed. But for some time, sleep eludes her. There is something about the whole story that feels strange to her, feels wrong.

  When she does drift off, it is to anxious nightmares of a formless pursuer.

  And sometime after two, she wakes in terror. With the absolute knowing there is someone in her room.

  Chapter 63

  Singh doesn’t breathe. She inches a hand out toward the drawer of the bedside table, where she always keeps a weapon.

  Then she remembers she is not at home. There is no weapon to reach for.

  In the days after she was attacked in the garage of her loft building by the armed online trolls, she slept with the Glock under her pillow, in addition to the knife she has always kept in her bedtable drawer.

  But she has surrendered her sidearm to Roarke.

  “Agent Snyder?” she asks, and hears the tremor in her own throat. Her pulse shoots higher when there is no response from the swaying shadow.

  “Matthew,” the intruder says hoarsely, and through her terror she recognizes his voice. Her eyes focus in the dark.

  Snyder stands, swaying, dressed in pajamas and a robe. His eyes are unfocused and he is in such distress, she is sure that he is sleepwalking, not conscious of where he is or who she is.

  She keeps her
own calm. “Agent Snyder,” she says firmly.

  “Matthew,” he says again. “It’s the Wolf. We didn’t get him. We didn’t get him. He’s out there.”

  Instead of turning on the bedside lamp, she rises from the bed, slowly, cautiously. “I’m here,” she says, not attempting to identify herself or correct him.

  “The Wolf,” he says again, urgently. “We have to get him.”

  “We will talk about it in the morning,” Singh says. “Now you must sleep.” She approaches him with soft footsteps, touches her hand to his arm. “Come.”

  He does not speak again, but allows her to lead him out of the room, down the L-shaped hall to his bedroom.

  His room is a master suite, a bed area and a sitting area with fireplace, a bathroom off to the side, sliding glass doors to another small deck. There is a small lamp on and files are spread all over the table and love seat of the sitting area. He must have been working long into the night, and their grisly subject matter worked its way into his dreams.

  She leads him to the bed. He sinks down into it like a child, and she pulls the down quilt up over him. He is instantly asleep—if he was ever awake at all.

  She returns to her own room, and with reluctant practicality bars the door with a chair.

  Her heart is racing as she lies down on the bed. She feels as if the solid walls around her have suddenly dissolved.

  Immediately she rises again, and reaches for her phone.

  Roarke answers on the first ring, his voice tense with adrenaline. She regrets the late-night call, but it is far beyond time for them to talk.

  She forces herself to sit calmly at the small writing table in the guest room. Methodically, succinctly, she explains everything. The ransacked files and the file Agent Snyder claims is missing. The murdered boy from Montana. The similarity of that attack to the killing of Young John Doe, and Snyder’s conviction that the murders are related, and possibly connected to the theoretical killer Roarke and Snyder called “the Wolf.” And her own call to Sheriff Preston and his denial of the Aaron Light investigation.

  Roarke is silent for such a long time she is not sure he is still on the line. Then he says, “Chuck is confused. The only case we were ever on in Montana was one we worked years ago.”

  For a moment she wonders if he has not understood. She begins, “He has been speaking of when you went to Idaho in January to follow up on the case—”

  “We didn’t go to Idaho to follow up on the Wolf. Ever.”

  The agitation in his voice is so pronounced, that Singh knows her worst fear has been confirmed.

  Roarke speaks again. “I called Chuck in December when the team was investigating the pimp murders in the Tenderloin and on International Boulevard. He told me then he was in Idaho, assisting in a child killing investigation.”

  She is grasping for questions that will help her understand. “Did he say that investigation involved the Wolf?”

  “There is no Wolf.” His voice is hard. “It was a theory we had a long time ago. Chuck wasn’t in Idaho in January or Montana in December. He’s confused.”

  Singh can hear Roarke’s harsh and elevated breathing. She knows, beyond a doubt, that he would never lie about something like this.

  “I understand,” she says, barely able to force the words out.

  “I didn’t send you up there to—” He stops, and she senses he is unable to finish.

  “I will take care of Agent Snyder,” she tells him, softly.

  “Thank you,” he says. And for a moment she thinks he has disconnected. Then he says, “He needs to rest. That’s why he’s retiring. Just get the files in order.”

  Singh places her phone carefully on her hotel desk and sits in silence.

  She is reeling. But there is so much she understands, now. Perhaps even that she is not in as much disgrace as she had thought, except possibly with herself. She has completely misinterpreted her assignment. Roarke has sent her to watch Agent Snyder, not the opposite.

  This does little to alleviate the heartbreak she is feeling over this revelation. Or the profound responsibility she feels, to be worthy of the task she has been given.

  Her phone pings, announcing a text. She lifts her phone and sees a message from Roarke.

  It is a phone number and a name: Doctor Morales. She will call, of course she will. But she is already sure what the doctor will say.

  Chapter 64

  Portland - present

  Singh and Snyder

  She knows when she wakes that he is already up.

  Fog is thick outside the windows. The rain has diminished to this lingering mist.

  She has barely slept. Instead she has spent the night castigating herself.

  Of course the signs have all been there, plain for anyone to see. The difficulty maintaining his train of thought. The confusion of dates. The nighttime ransacking of his own files with no memory of doing it. The paranoia.

  But she has been caught up in her own mad theory, and has missed every warning. Instead of offering clarity and support, she has led Agent Snyder down her own rabbit hole of obsession.

  She throws back her quilt, and forces herself to stand, to re-dress in the trousers and sweater she wore the day before.

  Her heart is heavy as she walks down the hall toward the study. Agent Snyder is standing at the glass doors to the deck, and turns when he hears her step.

  “I believe I owe you an apology.”

  His eyes are clear, his voice rueful. He is back from wherever he was. But now she knows that clarity is only temporary.

  Last night she rehearsed a dozen different approaches to the subject in her head. Cautious, deferential, oblique.

  But in the end, when she sits down with him on the familiar sofa and looks into his beloved face, she speaks straight out. “I have spoken with ASAC Roarke. Agent Snyder, he says there was no trip to Idaho in January.”

  He looks stricken, and before she can lose her nerve, she adds softly. “I believe that there is something you have not been telling me. It is time to tell me now.”

  And that is all that is required.

  He confesses his diagnosis. Early stages of the scourge known as Alzheimer’s disease.

  “One morning I looked in the bathroom mirror and I didn’t know if I was the person looking back at me. I knew then.”

  He is shaky, seeming so very much older than she has ever seen him. His body is racked with emotion.

  “My mind. Feels like Swiss cheese. “There are holes. The holes…” He presses his hands against his temples, as if to squeeze his brain. And then he looks up at her with stricken eyes. “Does this mean that none of it happened? None of it is true?”

  She summons all her conviction. “Agent Snyder. This is true.” She stands and turns in the room, gesturing to take in the files around them, the books, the news articles and photos on the walls. “You have done all of this. Yours has been a lifetime of fighting evil.”

  He is intently focused on her. She continues in a burst of enthusiasm.

  “And there is more to do. We will do what we have been doing. We will enter all these files into ViCAP, just as we started. That is the work.”

  She is sure she can feel his energy lift, his spirit returning.

  “Of course you’re right. I forgot…” he stops, and finishes with irony. “I forgot myself.”

  They spend the rest of the day doing straight data entry into ViCAP. And there is something solid and right about doing this fastidious, repetitive business. It is not dramatic. It is not the stuff of movies. But it is the work that will put the predators away.

  It is the path.

  Chapter 65

  Portland - present

  Singh

  For a third night in a row, she lies awake in her bed, listening to the hollow spiral of the wind.

  She meant every word about the database being the Work. There is nothing better that she and Agent Snyder can do to bring his life to a culmination, to make a powerful stand against the dark. S
he cannot mourn what may come for him, because the present is all any human being ever has. She believes with everything in her that the decline of the body, and death, is a release from this world of shadow into a higher consciousness. Of all the people she has ever known, Agent Snyder deserves that transcendence.

  And yet her throat aches with unshed tears. She is missing Damien desperately. But to talk to him about all of this seems a betrayal of Agent Snyder. And she does not want to cry.

  She turns over in her bed for the thousandth time that night, trying to find some comfort.

  Then for some reason she recalls her brief phone call with Sheriff Preston.

  His drawling, dripping voice. The deliberate insult to her citizenship. So scathing. So arrogantly insistent that there was nothing at all to her query about the murder of a child.

  And he had been lying. She is utterly sure of it. Going so far as to deflect her inquiry with a racist comment. And for that moment in time, it had worked.

  And so? Roarke has told you that there was no investigation in Montana. Agent Snyder has confirmed that he is ill. His story about the Wolf is a hallucination, nothing more.

  She has even called in to the Bureau to inquire about Snyder’s January assignment. He was never assigned to a child killer case, nor any case at all in Idaho.

  And yet.

  Perhaps more than anything it is the mention of the national park called Glacier that she cannot dismiss. In Singh’s own theory, Cara spends much of her time in national parks.

  And who is to say that theory is not just as insane as Agent Snyder’s story? The murder in the Grand Canyon is the only one you have so far been able to find.

  But is that not the entire point? That the chances of finding a corpse in the vastness of a wilderness park are next to nil?