Cold Fear
Authors: Rick Mofina
Tags: #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Mystery, #Police Procedurals, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Murder, #Thrillers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
either are the creation of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously,
and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments,
events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cold Fear
Rick Mofina
Kindle Edition December 2012
Print Edition 2001
Copyright 2012 Rick Mofina
Copyright 2001 Rick Mofina
ISBN 978-1-927114-34-6
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e-Formatting by
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Praise for the novels
of Rick Mofina
BE MINE
"Rick Mofina is writing a fine
series of thrillers: Swiftly paced, entertaining, with authentic details of
police procedure." - Dean Koontz, #1
New York Times
Bestselling
author of The Face and Fear Nothing
BLOOD OF OTHERS
"Tense, realistic, and scary in all
the right places." James Patterson, #1
New York Times
Bestselling
Author
"Another riveting read from one of
the leading thriller writers of the day." -
Penthouse
COLD FEAR
"A powerful gut wrenching
thriller." -
The Midwest Book Review
"Bursts with suspense. The action is
so intense, the writing so realistic, it's as if we are there during the
search. This is a book to cause icy shivers." - RT BookReviews Magazine
IF ANGELS FALL
"If you buy it for the flight,
you'll be reading it on the escalator." -
National Post
"Guaranteed to keep readers flipping
the pages." -
The Toronto Sun
THEY DISAPPEARED
"Rick Mofina's tense, taut writing
makes every thriller he writes an adrenaline-packed ride." - Tess
Gerritsen
New York Times
bestselling Author
THE BURNING EDGE
"Tight and excruciating suspense...a
winner." - Jeff Ayers,
RT BookReviews
IN DESPERATION
"A blisteringly paced story that
cuts to the bone." - James Rollins,
New York
Times
bestselling author
THE PANIC ZONE
"The Panic Zone is a headlong rush
toward Armageddon. It's brisk pace and tight focus remind me of early Michael
Crichton." -Dean Koontz #1
New York Times
bestselling author
VENGEANCE ROAD
"Vengeance Road is a thriller with
no speed limit! It's a great read!" - Michael Connelly, #1
New York
Times
bestselling author
SIX SECONDS
"Six Seconds moves like a tornado." James Patterson, #1
New
York Times
bestselling author
THREE TO THE HEART
(Anthology)
DANGEROUS WOMEN & DESPERATE MEN
(Anthology)
To the memory of my mother
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world….
--Ephesians 6:12
Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind….
--Third Part of King Henry VI, Act V, Scene VI,
William Shakespeare
How It Began
The last
thing Paige Baker saw
before fleeing her family’s campsite was the blood dripping from her father’s
ax.
Her parents had just had an argument, ending with her
mom stomping off and Paige scrambling with her dog for the shelter of her tent
while her father savagely chopped wood.
Inside the tent, Paige wept at the
thud-thud-thud
of his wrath, logs cleaving, splintering. She tried to calm herself, think of
ways to make it better for her parents. But what was a ten-year-old kid
supposed to do?
Find her mom, talk to her? Paige began jamming things in
her backpack. Her family was falling apart. She was helpless. Maybe she should
try talking to her dad.
Somehow she summoned the courage to approach her father,
emerging from her tent, inching toward him with Kobee, her beagle, in her arms.
“Daddy?”
No answer. His muscles contracted as he chopped. Sweat
dropped from his face, darkly blotching the neck and underarms of his gray U.S.
Marines T-shirt.
Thud-thud-thud.
“Daddy. Please. I need to talk to you.”
“Get the hell away from me and go find your damned
mother!”
His fury terrified her. Kobee yelped. She hugged him
tighter, standing before her father.
“Please…I need to talk….”
He steadied a log upright with his left hand, swinging
the ax with his right hand.
“Daddy!”
Her pleading distracting him, the ax slipped, the blade
struck his hand, blood spurted. He cursed, then without warning charged at her
still gripping the ax, blood webbing down the handle.
“I told you to get the hell out of my face now, goddamn
it! Go see your mother!”
Paige squealed, bolting with Kobee on his leash, items
spilling from her backpack as she ran down the dark wooded trail, her heart
breaking. She had never ever seen her dad like this before.
Later, Paige slowed down on the trail, halfway to where
she figured her mother was. Her tears ceased when she was startled by a
chipmunk. She gasped. It pinballed from a rock, to a log, to a rock,
disappearing into the woods. Kobee spotted it. Before Paige could react, his leash
slipped through her fingers, jingling a fading good-bye as he chased it,
vanishing into the dark, eternal forest.
“Kobee! Come back here!” Paige took a few steps into the
bush to follow him, but it was so dense she returned to the trail. “Kobee! Get
back here this instant!”
Paige sat down, slapping her knees.
Do something
quick!
But she was uneasy about leaving the serpentine trail that threaded
along some of the most breathtaking terrain of Montana’s backcountry, a remote
region known as the Devil’s Grasp, where the Rocky Mountains grace the northern
reaches of Glacier National Park.
Minutes passed and still no sign of Kobee.
Taking a deep breath, Paige started into the woods after
her dog. She found a branch for a walking stick. The skylight dimmed and the
temperature dipped as she entered the dense stands of sweet-scented spruce and
lodgepole pine. Tree limbs scraped at her face and arms, snagged and pulled at
her jeans and backpack. Thick wild growth, practically impossible to walk
through. But Paige kept moving, banging her walking stick against the trees and
brush, feeling herself moving in a downward slope.
“Kobee! Here boy!”
Suddenly, Paige’s feet slipped. She hit the ground,
sliding on pine needles, knocking against trees, brush slicing into her hands.
Her body rattling, bumping down, down, down, stopping in a shaded glade of soft
moss. Paige held her breath. The distant tinkling of Kobee’s leash. That way.
Confident, she brushed dirt from her jeans, heading deeper into the forest.
“Kobee!”
Paige came to a small river.
Now what? Wait! Kobee’s
leash jingling? Faintly?
Yes, she heard it. From the other side of the
river. Butterflies. Kobee would chase them.
Wait.
To get back, just
go through the forest up the slope.
She blinked. OK. She pushed on, finding
a natural bridge of fallen trees, using it to carefully cross over the rushing
water to the other side.
“Kobee!”
No sign of him. She was getting mad, worried. Which way?
Why did her parents take this stupid trip? Why didn’t
they just stay at home in San Francisco? Why come here? How was a ten-year-old
kid supposed to figure out what was wrecking her family, or understand the
terrible thing that made her mother so sad that sometimes she would not talk to
anybody, just go off by herself for hours?
Was her mother a little crazy?
She heard the leash again, from deep inside the next
dark forest.
“Kobee! Get back here, you stupid dog!” Paige considered
returning to their camp to get her dad. No way. He was way too angry.
She decided to go a short distance into this next
forest.
“This is it Kobee! Do you hear me? You are in huge
trouble!”
She came to another little river. The fourth one? Not a
trace of Kobee. Paige rested on a rock staring at the snow-topped mountains. It
was getting late. Tired. Hungry. She should start back soon. Kobee would know
the way back. Paige had stupidly counted on returning with him. Stupid.
Sniffing, she searched her backpack. Some stuff in there. Nothing good though.
She found an Oreo cookie and tapped it on her walking stick. This always
worked. Why didn’t she think of this sooner?
“Kobee...I’ve got a cookie for you….”
Tap-tap-tap.
Nothing. Paige kept tapping. For nearly half an hour.
Still nothing but a high country wind fingering its way through the mountains,
carrying the echo of a crow’s caw. Soon, Paige ate the cookie. Gazed skyward.
Only a few days ago, she was peering down from her window seat of the jet,
marveling at the Rockies rising up to her from the earth below. About nine
million snowcapped peaks stretching to the horizon, like the top of a big cream
pie. It was pretty, but scary too. No cities, no buildings, no roads. Nothing
down there but mountains, rivers, lakes and never-ending forests.
If you ever got lost down there, how could they ever
find you?
Paige did not have a clue about the woods. She had never
been camping before. She was from San Francisco. Her world was malls, clothes,
music, cell phones, soccer and e-mail. She could click her way around the Net,
no problem. But the woods?
It’s like going back in time or something,
she had thought from the plane, watching one range blend into another.
Now she was down here. Fear gnawing at her.
She did not know the way back.
How did this happen?
It hit her like an avalanche.
She was lost.
On the brink of tears. Unaware she had been gone for
hours, had wandered from the new Grizzly Tooth Trail, in the Devil’s Grasp, one
of the most remote regions in the nation. Parts of it curled into Canada.
Anxious, Paige began hiking in different directions,
hoping, praying to spot something familiar. Other hikers? Maybe her mom decided
to come this way. Maybe her dad lit the campfire and she could see it. It was
getting colder by the minute. Her cuts, her bug bites, her scrapes began
hurting. Her legs ached. Her feet were sore. She was exhausted. Afraid.
She stood at the edge of a ridge, overlooking a forest
so vast it seemed to encompass the entire planet.
“Dad!--Dad!--Dad!--Dad!--Dad!--Dad!”
Her voice echoed in vain.
“Mom!--Mom!--Mom!--Mom!--Mom!--Mom!”
Paige collapsed to the ground, gripping her walking
stick.
Why was this happening to her? The sun sank lower. These
mountains got so dark and cold at night. She did not know how to build a fire.
Far off, she heard the rumble of thunder.
“Mommy!”
This was the place where Mommy said her monster
dwelled!
Shut up, Paige!
The sun dropped behind the mountains, turning part of
the horizon a heavenly pink, orange and blue.
A twig snapped crisply in the darkened woods behind her.
She stood. Held her breath.
Nothing.
A bird, maybe? A chipmunk?
Then another twig; no, a branch broke. Something larger
out there. Rustling. Closer. Something approaching her. Something coming from
the darkness. Something bigger than Paige.
“Mommy?”
Nothing.
Her heart pounding faster.
“D-Dad? Is that you?”
Silence.