A Nia Carter Thriller and Mystery Book
“The Fallen,” book four in the Nia Carter Thriller and Mystery series, hits Amazon on April 25. But today, you can read chapter one for free!
Dana Breland’s breath came in puffs as she pushed herself along the path, her running sneakers crunching over the thin crust of snow that had settled in the woods overnight. The air was sharp, edged with the scent of pine and wet earth, the morning still thick with the dampness of late autumn. Early November in Duskwood meant the trees stood bare, their skeletal branches rattling against the wind like brittle bones. She adjusted her gait, avoiding the slick patches where frozen leaves had fused against the dirt.
She ran this trail every morning, from her rental cabin near Deer Hollow down to the lake’s edge, where the water lay chilly and undisturbed. At this hour, the town was just waking up. The only sounds were her own breaths. The path sloped downward, leading toward the shoreline, and she focused on the familiar markers—the gnarled oak with its split trunk, the moss-covered rock where the fishers liked to gut their catch during the summer.
But something was different this morning.
She heard a footfall against the snow. A pause, then another step. It wasn’t the movement of a deer or the scramble of a squirrel. Someone was in the woods.
Dana slowed but didn’t stop. The rational part of her mind told her it was nothing. A hunter, maybe. Crossbow season had started last week, and she had seen a few men in camouflage heading into the woods over the last 48 hours. Perhaps one of them had strayed too close to the trail.
Still, unusual noises in the forest put her on edge.
She kept jogging, ears tuned to the woods behind her. The footsteps didn’t come again, but she sensed someone had been watching her.
Get a grip. It’s only a hunter.
By the time she reached the lake, her skin felt clammy beneath her thermal shirt. The lake stretched before her, vast and dark, reflecting the bruised sky of early morning. A mist curled along the surface, clinging to the shoreline like breath against glass. It was eerily quiet.
Dana slowed to a walk, her shoes crunching over the frost-stiffened reeds. The water lapped against the muddy shore. By January, Duskwood Lake would be nothing but ice.
Then she spied a boat.
It was anchored fifty yards out, a small aluminum craft, bobbing on the frigid water. Odd. No one usually took a boat out this early, not when the air was bitter and the water cold enough to kill in minutes.
Dana shielded her eyes from dawn’s light, trying to see if someone was in the boat. But the mist was thick, curling up and around the boat like fingers.
Something was wrong.
She took a cautious step toward the shore, her sneakers sinking into the frozen mud. She looked along the empty shoreline.
Behind her, in the woods, a branch snapped.
Dana whirled with her breath caught in her throat.
“Hello?”
No one answered.
“You’re too close to the footpath,” she said, hoping against hope the stranger behind the tree line was hunting.
Dana took another step, her breath visible. The boat bobbed on a wave, anchored but swaying in. She squinted through the mist, searching for any sign of the boater inside, but the craft appeared empty.
“Is anyone in the boat?”
There had to be. How had the boat gotten fifty yards off shore without someone driving it?
“Are you okay? Should I call the police?”
A strange sensation crept up her spine. Something about the boat it rocked, the way the fog clutched the craft, left her shivering.
She turned to glance back at the woods. No unexplained noises had come from the forest since she warned the hunter to stay away from the trail. The shoreline sat empty.
Dana continued along the shoreline, keeping her eyes on the dark water. The lake was deep, treacherous this time of year. One wrong step, one fall from a boat, and the icy would steal your breath before you could think about calling for help.
Bending, she retrieved a rock and considered tossing it into the water to rouse the boater.
Another wave lapped the shore. Then another.
The water bulged.
Bubbles frothed to the surface, breaking through the stillness in an endless churn.
Then a shape rose from the murky depths.
A shape, pale and bloated, pushed its way to the surface, as if the lake had spat out what it could no longer hold down. A hand emerged first, fingers stiff and swollen, reaching toward the sky. Then came the head. And a face.
The man’s skin was pallid, almost waxy, lips blue, eyes open and empty. Water streamed from his nose and mouth as he bobbed, the current pulling him closer to the shore, closer to where she stood.
Dana’s breath seized in her throat.
For a moment, she couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream.
The man’s body tipped, rolling with the water. His arms floated outward as if he was reaching for something. For her.
His clothes, dark jeans and a heavy jacket, billowed around him, slithering like a jelly fish against the lake’s pull.
Then his mouth, slack and gaping, seemed to move.
A gasp, ragged and primal, ripped from Dana’s throat. She stumbled backward, feet skidding over the frozen mud.
She turned, sprinting for the tree line.
Her scream echoed across the silent lake.
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