In the Clearing

Read In the Clearing Online

Authors: Robert Dugoni

Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Police Procedurals, #Women Sleuths, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Murder, #Series, #Thrillers, #Legal

BOOK: In the Clearing
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Praise for
Her Final Breath

“A stunningly suspenseful exercise in terror that hits every note at the perfect pitch.”


Providence Journal

 

“Absorbing . . . Dugoni expertly ratchets up the suspense as Crosswhite becomes a target herself.”


Seattle Times

 

“Dugoni does a masterful job with this entertaining novel, as he has done in all his prior works. If you are not already reading his books, you should be!”


Bookreporter

 

“Takes the stock items and reinvents them with crafty plotting and high energy . . . The revelations come in a wild finale.”


Booklist

 

“Another stellar story featuring homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite . . . Crosswhite is a sympathetic, well-drawn protagonist, and her next adventure can’t come fast enough.”


Library Journal
, starred review

Praise for
My Sister’s Grave

“One of the best books I’ll read this year.”

—Lisa Gardner, bestselling author of
Touch & Go

 

“Dugoni does a superior job of positioning [the plot elements] for maximum impact, especially in a climactic scene set in an abandoned mine during a blizzard.”


Publishers Weekly

 

“Yes, a conspiracy is revealed, but it’s an unexpected one, as moving as it is startling . . . The ending is violent, suspenseful, even touching. A nice surprise for thriller fans.”


Booklist

 

“Combines the best of a police procedural with a legal thriller, and the end result is outstanding . . . Dugoni continues to deliver emotional and gut-wrenching, character-driven suspense stories that will resonate with any fan of the thriller genre.”


Library Journal
, starred review

 

“Well written, and its classic premise is sure to absorb legal-thriller fans . . . The characters are richly detailed and true to life, and the ending is sure to please fans.”


Kirkus Reviews

 


My Sister’s Grave
is a chilling portrait shaded in neo-noir, as if someone had taken a knife to a Norman Rockwell painting by casting small-town America as the place where bad guys blend into the landscape, establishing Dugoni as a force to be reckoned with outside the courtroom as well as in.”


Providence Journal

 

“What starts out as a sturdy police procedural morphs into a gripping legal thriller . . . Dugoni is a superb storyteller, and his courtroom drama shines . . . This ‘Grave’ is one to get lost in.”


Boston Globe

A
LSO BY
R
OBERT
D
UGONI

 

Damage Control

 

The Tracy Crosswhite Series

My Sister’s Grave

Her Final Breath

The Academy
(a short story)

Third Watch
(a short story)

 

The David Sloane Series

The Jury Master

Wrongful Death

Bodily Harm

Murder One

The Conviction

 

Nonfiction with Joseph Hilldorfer

The Cyanide Canary

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Text copyright © 2016 Robert Dugoni

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.

ISBN-13: 9781503953574

ISBN-10: 1503953572

Cover design by David Drummond

For Joe. Time to fly, son. Time to soar.

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

EPILOGUE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

Friday, November 5, 1976

Klickitat County, Washington

B
uzz Almond informed dispatch he was rolling, punched the accelerator, and smiled at the roar of the 245-horsepower V-8 engine, the g-forces nudging him back against his seat. Word in the office was that the politicians would be phasing out the gas-guzzling dinosaurs and downsizing to more fuel-efficient vehicles. Maybe so, but for now Buzz had one of the big boys, a Chevy Caprice hardtop, and he intended to keep it until they pried his fingers from the steering wheel.

The shot of adrenaline made him sit up, his brain synapses firing and sending out electrical impulses. Fully operational. In the Marine Corps, they’d called it “combat ready.” He saw no reason to change now that he was a Klickitat County deputy sheriff.

Can I get an oorah?

Buzz slowed, lowered the driver’s-side window, and adjusted the spotlight, searching for the cross street. Most of the streets around here were marked, but not all; some were nothing more than narrow, unpaved paths. With no street lamps, and with a dense cloud layer shrouding the area, it was dark as ink. You could drive right past a road without ever seeing it.

The light hit upon a cluster of battered mailboxes atop wooden posts. Buzz inched the beam up a metal pole until he saw a reflective green street sign: “Clear Creek Rd.” That was it. He made the turn. The car bounced and pitched in the ruts and potholes. The residents groomed some roads in spring and summer. Not this one.

He continued a quarter mile through heavy scrub oak, pine, and aspen. At a bend to the left, a light shimmered in the tree branches. Buzz drove toward it, onto a gravel drive leading to a double-wide. Before he’d parked, a man pushed out the front door and descended three wooden stairs, crossing a dirt yard cluttered with unstacked firewood, scrap metal, and an empty clothesline.

Buzz checked the name he’d jotted on his pocket notepad and got out. The air, smelling of pine, was heavy with the weight of impending snow. First of the season. His girls would be excited.

The ground, starting to freeze from the quick drop in temperature after a week of punishing rains, crunched beneath his boots. “Are you Mr. Kanasket?” Buzz asked.

“Earl,” the man said, extending a rough, dry hand. From Earl Kanasket’s dark skin and black hair, which he wore pulled back in a ponytail, Buzz surmised he was a member of the Klickitat tribe. Most had moved northeast to the Yakama Reservation decades earlier, but not all. Earl wore a heavy canvas jacket, jeans, and thick-soled boots. His face was pocked with dark moles and had the weathered look of someone who worked outdoors. Buzz figured him to be early forties.

“You called about your daughter?” Buzz asked.

“Kimi walks home after work. She calls from the diner before she leaves. She’s never late.”

“The Columbia Diner?” Buzz asked, taking notes. He’d passed the one-room log cabin less than a mile back on State Route 141.

A woman hurried out the door, wrapping a long coat around herself. A young man followed, likely a grown son, given the strong resemblance.

“This is my wife, Nettie, and our son, Élan,” Earl said.

The hem of Nettie’s nightgown extended from beneath her coat. She wore slippers. Élan stood barefoot in jeans and a white T-shirt. Buzz felt cold just looking at him.

“What time does Kimi usually get home?”

“Eleven. Never late.”

“And she called tonight?”

“Every night. She calls every night she works,” Earl said, starting to sound impatient.

“What did she say?” Buzz asked, trying to remain calm but getting a sense this was not just a girl late for her curfew.

“She said she was on her way home.”

Nettie put a hand on her husband’s forearm to calm him. “This is not like Kimi,” she said to Buzz. “She wouldn’t upset us. She’s a good girl. She’s going to the University of Washington next year. If she said she was coming home, she would be home.”

Élan turned his head and folded his arms across his chest, which Buzz thought an odd response.

“So she’s in high school?”

“She’s a senior at Stoneridge High,” Nettie said.

“Could she have gone to a friend’s house?”

“No,” Earl said.

“And she’s never done this before? Never been late?”

“Never,” Earl and Nettie said in unison.

“Okay,” Buzz said. “Is there anything going on at home or at school that could have caused her to break her routine?”

“Like what?” Earl said, now sounding angry.

Buzz kept calm. “Recent disagreements. Teenage-girl drama at school?” Buzz had no real point of reference—his daughters were four and two—though he recalled that his own sisters and their friends had become royal pains in the butt when they hit puberty.

“She broke up with her boyfriend,” Élan said, stopping the conversation cold.

Buzz looked to the young man. When he didn’t elaborate, he redirected his attention to Nettie and Earl. From the blank expressions on their faces, Buzz could tell this was either news to them or something they didn’t think worth mentioning.

“When did that happen?” he asked Élan.

“Couple days ago.”

Now we’re getting somewhere,
Buzz thought. “Who’s her boyfriend?”

“Tommy Moore,” Élan said.

“You know him?”

“Went to school with him, but he wasn’t her boyfriend then. I introduced them after.”

“When was that?”

“Two years ago.”

“They’ve been dating for two years?”

“No,” Nettie said, emphatic.

“No, I was in high school two years ago,” Élan said.

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