Page 12 of Blood Moon

Next to me, Tomasetti recites the GPS coordinates.

“Got it,” Hooper says.

“There’s an old wooden bridge,” I tell him. “We’ll meet you there in a few minutes.”

Skid had never been a fan of the graveyard shift. Since the chief had promoted Mona from dispatcher to officer, he’d been happily working second shift, which suited him just fine. The problem was, he liked Mona a little too much, and when she asked him to fill in so she could visit family in Portsmouth, he’d been sucker enough to agree.

“That’s what you get, fool,” he muttered.

To top things off, he hadn’t mustered the nerve to ask her out. Not even for an after-work-she’s-just-one-of-the-guys beer. Considering the size of their police department—just four full-time officers, one part-timer, three dispatchers, and the chief—he wasn’t sure it was a good idea. But she sure was cute.

“Skid, ten-eighty-eight,” came the dispatcher’s voice over his radio. Ten-eighty-eight was the ten code for “suspicious activity.”

Frowning, Skid picked up his mike. “What’s the twenty on that?”

“Three forty-five Horseshoe Bend.”

He sighed. “Ten-seven-six.” En route.

Skid made a U-turn at the service station on Fourth Street. He wanted to crank up the speedometer if only to alleviate his boredom, but the fog was too thick. Still, he blew the stop sign at Hogpath Road and made the turn onto Horseshoe.

It was a quiet stretch on the outskirts of town, older homes on treed lots that backed up to the creek. Flipping on his overhead lights, he made use of the spotlight affixed outside the cruiser as he idled down the street, keeping his eye on the house numbers, watching for movement. Last time he responded to a call on this road, a couple of juveniles had taken a sledgehammer to Mr. Morrison’s mailbox.

Through the drifting white mist, he spotted the house number he was looking for and pulled over to the curb. Using the spotlight, he scanned the area. Sure enough, at the end of the driveway a trash can had been tossed onto its side. Several garbage bags were torn open. Trash was scattered in a twenty-foot radius.

He could see the yellow halo of the porch light through the billowing fog, someone standing on the front porch, so he got out and headed that way.

“Mrs. Worthington?” he called out.

“Did you see them?” came a gravelly female voice.

As he neared the porch, he could just make out the silhouette of an elderly woman. It wasn’t until he reached the porch steps that he saw she was wearing a pink housecoat and clutching a baseball bat in her hands.

“Morning, ma’am.” He motioned toward the trash cans. “Looks more like dogs got into your trash.”

“Whatever done that wadn’t no dog, young man.” She gestured with the bat toward the mess. “You should have heard the ruckus. Sounded like a damn frat party.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“With this fog? What do you think?”

Skid resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “What about a vehicle?”

“They was on foot.” Using the bat, she motioned toward the side of the house. “I heard them run around to the back.”

“How long ago was that?”

“A couple of minutes. Must have been three or four of them. Howling like a bunch of damn hellions.”

“Stay put, ma’am. I’ll check it out.”

Grumbling, she closed the door.

Cursing beneath his breath, Skid left the porch. Chasing a group of juveniles through the woods in heavy fog in the middle of the night wasn’t exactly the way he’d envisioned this shift. If he was lucky, the dumb shits were long gone. Yeah, he thought as he made his way around the side of the house, Mona was definitely going to owe him after this. If not a date, then at least a beer.

Drizzle dampened his face as he started toward the backyard. He shone his beam ahead, but the fog was so thick he couldn’t even see the trees that grew along the creek a few yards away.

“Painters Mill Police Department!” he called out. “Come on out here and show me your hands! Now!”