Dark Moon Walking

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It’s been more than eight years since ex-cop Dan Connor put a troubled criminal named Walker behind bars, and a year since he handed in his badge after losing the woman he loved. The remote islands off the Pacific Northwest coast seem like the perfect destination for his retirement. That is until a wave of increasingly sinister events disrupts his peace.When a mysterious boat drives Connor from his anchorage and a marine biologist working in the area goes missing, Connor is forced to team up with his former nemisis, Walker, who has been released from jail and is struggling with his own demons. They have little in common, but when a life hangs in the balance and others are threatened, the knowledge and skills of these two men from very different cultures are the perfect mix.With an eclectic cast of characters and a riveting plot, the first Dan Connor Mystery, Dark Moon Walking, is a fast-paced, suspenseful thriller that will keep you turning the pages until its explosive conclusion.About the AuthorR. J. McMillen has written for various publications and has worked in theater. She was president of Georgia Strait Alliance, as well as the provincial president of the Navy League of Canada. She lives in Summerland, British Columbia.Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Dark Moon Walking: Chapter One He didn’t know what woke him but it might not have been much. Sleep no longer came easily to Dan Connor. It was over a year since he had lost Susan and still he found himself waking in the night, listening for the quiet sound of her breathing. Sometimes it was just the weight of the silence that disturbed his nights, the overwhelming sense of absence. But not this time. This had been something external: a sound, a movement too gentle to intrude upon his consciousness but enough to alert senses minutely attuned to wind and weather and ocean. Something. The boat rocked gently as he pushed open the hatch and climbed onto the deck. A fine rain filled the air with mist and clung to the dark branches of the trees. Wind riffs chased across the water and above the shore, while cedars shivered against the night sky. Dan’s eyes carefully scanned the shadows, measuring the angles and distance from shore, making sure that Dreamspeaker had not dragged her anchor. Dan was a big man, maybe two inches over six feet tall, with a solid frame and the deceptively lean body of a martial arts practitioner. Sun and sea had turned dark hair light and light skin dark. The job had added a narrow scar that slanted down across his cheek. Loss had added the lines around his eyes and mouth. He moved forward along the deck, bare feet silent on the damp wood, and ran his fingers along the anchor rope as it curved over the drum of the winch and ran out to the bow roller. It was smooth and taut and he could feel the faint vibration made by the anchor chain as it moved gently over the gravel bottom. Above him the masthead light burned steadily. He leaned over the railing and looked astern to check on the dinghy. It floated quietly at the end of its line, bobbing a few feet off the stern. A sudden gust of wind, this one stronger than the others, swung the boat towards the shore and Dan straightened, glancing up at the sky. It was September, still a little early for the violent winds that came raging down the mountains with the winter and gave Storm Bay its name, but perhaps it was time to think about moving. He wondered if that was what had wakened him. In his sixteen years on the police force, he had learned to listen to his intuitions. If he had been back in Victoria, over four hundred miles to the south, he would have gone on instant alert, checking and rechecking everything and everybody around him to identify what had attracted his attention. But here? Here, except for the ruins of the old Namu cannery, there were only trees and water. He gave a slight nod, the movement dislodging the moisture that clung to his hair and sending a chill down his back. It was time to go. He would spend the remaining hours before dawn plotting a slow course back down south. He was ready for the familiar noise and bustle of the city, and the reality was that no matter how much he had gained in terms of self-acceptance and quietude of soul these last few months aboard the boat, winter would be more enjoyable with the comforts of the marina. Truth be told he was looking forward to being back in civilization. Just thinking about catching up with Mike and the guys from the squad bought a smile to his face. Amazing what four months alone on the ocean could do. He had barely spoken a word to them in the weeks and months before he left and here he was eager to see them all again. He could already imagine the yarns they would have to tell him, full of cynicism and the black humour that came with the job.He slid the hatch back and felt a wave of warm, dry air rising out of the cabin. As he stepped over the sill onto the steep steps of the companionway, he froze, heart racing and adrenalin surging as a piercing scream reverberated through the night. Seconds later it was joined by another and Dan cautiously exhaled. Mink. The damn things were everywhere, searching the rocky shoreline, fighting for food and for territory. That was one of the few things he wouldn’t miss. He leaned back towards the hatch, allowing his eyes to lazily follow the track of the moon on the water out towards the open ocean. Suddenly his gaze sharpened. Out beyond the rocky cliffs of the headland the pattern of waves changed. The random movement of the water stirred up by the restless gusts had taken on a smooth, herringbone shape that was unmistakable. It was a wake. Sometime in the last few minutes a boat had passed. It should have been clearly visible, its running lights demanding his attention, yet he had not seen it. Even more disturbing, he had not heard it. With a wake of that size it had to be a large vessel travelling at a high rate of speed yet he had been totally unaware of its presence. Frowning, Dan slid quietly down the companionway stairs and sat at the navigation station. Beside him the radio sat silent, a glowing red light confirming that it was set to receive. He reached out and turned the volume up, but he heard nothing but static. He turned on the radar, even though he knew it was too late to show the passing vessel but wanting to confirm the familiar contours of the bay. He wasn’t sure why he felt so uneasy. Even at this time of the year there were occasionally other boats. Perhaps it was a fish boat, although the season had ended long ago and they seldom moved at night. But why would anyone be running dark—and he was sure the vessel had been dark: he would have seen the lights otherwise. Even more puzzling was why he had heard no engine sound. A quirk of the wind? It seemed unlikely as there were no whitecaps, no sign of any disturbance on the water except for that arrowing wake. Another burst of static from the radio interrupted his thoughts and he strained to hear. Reception was poor in Storm Bay, the steep mountains and high cliffs blocking most of the signals, but the night often improved it. He could faintly hear a voice. It wasn’t clear enough to make out the meaning but one word was unmistakeable. “Dreamspeaker.” Chapter Two His name was Walker. It was not the name his mother had given him but it was the only one he answered to now. Early on in his career on the streets, they had called him “Ghost.” It had suited his talent for slipping in and out of buildings unseen and unheard. Later, some wit had added Walker in a nod to his Native ancestry. It had amused him for a while. Ghost Walker. Like a character in a book one of his several step-fathers had liked to read. Finally, like him, it got pared down. Now it was just Walker, although it no longer suited him. Not since he fell from a roof after a robbery went wrong and broke both legs so badly the doctors told him he might never walk again. Not since he spent over three months on the physio, forcing protesting muscles to move, willing stiff joints to bend and fighting the urge to scream. Not since he had spent three long years in jail. Now he spent most of his time on the water, paddling through the narrow channels that his ancestors had called home. Odd how priorities could change. Other things were changing too. He had never had much time for people, knowing only too well the pain they could inflict. Even as a child he had preferred to keep himself aloof, learning early that the less he was noticed the fewer beatings he would receive. Now he found himself dropping in more often to check on the few folks that had found their way to this remote tangle of islands and rocks and bays that clung to the rugged central coast of British Columbia. Oddballs and loners for the most part, but good company all the same. He had even paddled over to the old lodge on Spider Island a couple of times in the last month just to make sure the girl was okay. He shook his head as he thought of it. Didn’t seem right to leave a young girl alone all summer, a city girl at that, but she seemed happy enough, filling up a stack of notebooks with stuff about kelp and sea otters and herring roe and who knows what else. He glanced up at the sky, checking the time by the height of the sun. He could use the last of the ebb to reach the bay, see if the girl was still there and then catch the flood to take him home well before dark. She would want to know about the otters he had found and if he was honest with himself, he would appreciate the company. He pushed aside the dark hemlock branches that drooped down over the water and let the canoe slide gently out into the current. Summer was almost over and despite the fact that it was barely past noon it was dim and cool here on the lee of the island. The falling tide had exposed a patch of jagged, black rocks and Walker deftly steered out past them into deeper water. The sharp smell of iodine assaulted his nostrils as his paddle caught in a mass of undulating seaweed and then the slender boat picked up speed as it moved out into the channel. By two o’clock he had covered over nine miles and Shoal Bay slowly opened up in front of him. It formed an almost perfect circle, its shore fringed with a sloping, gravel beach. The land rose steeply at each of the points and then dipped down to form a wide valley in the center where the trees had been cleared to make an open meadow. In the middle of the meadow sat the lodge, an old wooden building with graying walls, empty doorways and windows that stared blindly out over a rickety deck. Years ago, it had welcomed fishermen and miners and, occasionally, an adventurous sailor returning from a voyage to some remote inlet, but it had been abandoned long ago. A narrow, weed-strewn path led from the deck down to a wharf. Blackened pilings, each clothed with orange sea anemones and purple starfish, marched in a gentle curve out into the deep water at the center of the bay. A metal ladder attached to the end of the wharf led down to a float where an old wooden fishboat bobbed gently alongside. The words Island Girl were stenciled across her flat stern in faded and peeling yellow paint. The drum and net that had once hung there had been replaced with two d...