Furies (63 page)

Donovan reached into the body’s jeans pocket with her gloved hands and dropped the contents into a plastic baggie. A few dollars, some coins, some dirt which she also bagged, hoping it could provide a clue as to where the girl had come from. No ID was found, unfortunately. “Okay, I’m finished,” she said. “Are we good to go?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” McCarty said. The two detectives escorted Donovan and her techs as they carried the body up the hill towards their van. The uniforms had cleared the pathway of branches, making their journey up a little easier than it had been coming down. A crowd had formed up top along the highway to see what was happening in this normally quiet little patch of nowhere in the night. “Have one of the uniforms stand guard down here for the night,” McCarty told Cuthbert.

The other detective nodded. Laupacsis lingered back with Cuthbert and Morris and chatted as McCarty walked towards his cruiser. The air smelled crisp with ozone. Raindrops spattered on the windshield as McCarty got into the car. A downpour would start soon. A woman strangled, he thought, her shattered body left to rot in this dark, lonely forest. Christ. I hope we catch this guy fast. He fished his silver flask out from under his seat, looked around to make sure nobody was watching, and took a long drink.

Please follow the link below

to purchase the full version of

CHALK VALLEY.

http://www.amazon.com/Chalk-Valley-ebook/dp/B008LDYW2K

About the Author

D.L.Johnstone lives in the Toronto area with his wife, four kids and a half-dog/half-sasquatch named Charlie. He is also the author of the contemporary thriller CHALK VALLEY.

FURIES is his second novel.

If you’d like to contact him, please drop him an email at:
[email protected]
or follow him on Twitter
@
DLJohnstone1
.
He comments on thrillers, “indie” publishing and other miscellany at his blog:
www.dljohnstone.com
.

Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to the following individuals. Books may have a single author listed in the byline but they are rarely a solitary effort:

-My Mom, Bette, my first reader ever!

-My Dad, Lorne, and my brother, Tom – it never gets easier

-My meticulous and generous proof editor, Karen Gold

-My A-Team: Linda Boulanger, Jeroen ten Berge and Ryan Mason, for helping me pull together an amazing package. Where would this book be without first-class formatting, a fantastic cover and an outstanding map I wished I’d had when I started writing this book

-My beta readers: Laura Johnstone, Lisa Arbuckle, Martin Cho, J.P. Gagnon, Glenn Miller, Donna Spafford and Uri Gorodzinsky

-Helen Heller – this journey took a bit longer than I’d intended

-Robert (Sensei) Bidinotto, Theresa Ragan, D.B.Henson and Drew Kaufman, four tremendous authors who took the time to encourage and support a fellow traveller

- My four amazing kids – Emma Lee, Aaron, Liam and Megan, who inspire me everyday more than they will ever know

-And especially Cathy, who, after all these years, still manages to put up with me