About the Book
Once again, death has found its way to Rockfish Island’s National Park, this time in the form of a terrible climbing accident. When Sheriff Lane discovers the victim has ties to an accidental drowning the summer before, she becomes suspicious the two deaths are linked and not accidents at all. Recruiting Park Ranger Phillip Russell into her investigation, the two begin looking into the past. Lane, digging into the life of the latest victim with her new deputy, Caleb Pickens, and Philip, befriending those who were involved in the prior death the summer before. It's not long before Philip becomes convinced Sheriff Lane is looking for murder and mayhem where there is none. But Lane, trusting her instincts and intuition, refuses to let the investigation fizzle out. Will the two deaths end up being a coincidence after all or will a murderer be unmasked?
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Excerpt
Birds exploded from the trees below, their wings furiously
flapping against the damp air. Her feet stuttered to a stop, and she watched as
they scattered, startled by the loud noise as much as she. Was someone behind
her? Another hiker, perhaps? She heard, more than saw, the swaying of motion
further down trail. A heavy movement against the bushes.
There again. Closer. Another crack, a snapping of branches
underfoot. She sharply turned her body towards the sound.
“Hello?” she called out, a friendly lilt to her voice.
Adjusting the strap around her neck, she waited for a reply.
There was nothing...only the sound of pattering raindrops bouncing off the
plastic protecting her camera. She adjusted the strap again and took a halting
step forward, straining to see through the shroud of morning mist. Was
something there? It was hard to tell.
Fidgeting with her ponytail, she unconsciously leaned
forward, her eyes raking across the scenery below. The trees and bushes, as if
sensing her full attention upon them, sat motionless in the settled silence. An
eerie silence she suddenly thought and then scolded herself for being so
dramatic. She was alone.
Relaxing her stance, she took a deep breath, slowly
exhaling. It must have been nothing. The wind tossing and creaking the branches
of a tree. A chipmunk or squirrel jumping from one limb to another. Nature
simply being nature.
Even so, her sense of unease still lingered. Keeping her
eyes down trail, she anxiously fumbled her cargo shorts. Feeling a familiar
lump, she pulled a can of bear spray from her pocket and curled her thumb over
the safety clip.
Rumor was, there had been a bear attack earlier in the year,
around springtime. She hadn’t seen any bear tracks in the mud. However, this
didn’t mean they weren’t around. Not to mention, there were cougars to be
concerned about as well. Yet, here she was, up there all alone with just a can
of bear spray. Or was she?
Curtly dismissing the thought, she suddenly felt silly. She
was being paranoid and wasting time. Standing there, peering at nothing, while
clutching a can of bear spray, wasn’t going to get her to where she needed to
go.
Shoving the can roughly into her pocket, she gave the slate
gray sky an appraising look before tugging her windbreaker hood further over
her forehead and trudging ahead. There was still half a mountain to climb and
not a lot of time to do it in.
So far, the morning mist layering the rugged terrain had
made it hard to see her footing, and the steady drizzle of rain was making it
hard to keep it. Both did little to hamper the young woman’s mood. The fact
that this was her third morning climbing up The Mole Hill, a local nickname for
the 5,372-foot mountain, with no sign of a mountain goat to be had…However, did
dampen her mood quite a bit. Especially, since this was to be her last day
before heading back home to the grind of the Emerald City.
Instructed to visit Rockfish Island by a local Seattle
activist magazine, she had gone in hopes of attaining a few picturesque photos
of the goats atop their craggy rock perches. The idea had seemed simple enough.
Scramble up the rocky terrain. Find a few large, white-haired, black horned herbivores.
Snap a few pictures and then down the mountain, she’d go. But the large goats
weren’t as plentiful or as easy to spot as she had imagined they’d be. This was
in part, she was finding out the hard way because the goats hadn’t taken to the
island. At least, not as well as they had in more conducive areas.
According to her research, the mountain goat population had
been introduced to the Rockfish National Park back in the 1920s. Around the
same time as their introduction to the massive Olympic National Park where they
flourished. So much so, several decades later, the Olympic National Park was
wanting to re-home the goats to their natural habitat in the Cascade Mountains.
The magazine, which had contracted her agent for the
photographs, wanted to stop the relocation. With their strongest weapon of
opposition being the public, the magazine strategized the need to pull on
people’s heartstrings. A good picture could do just that.
About the Author
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J.C. Fuller is the author of The Rockfish Island Mystery series. A lover of all things mystery, especially thrillers and whodunits, she is excited to share her imagination with her readers and is currently working on expanding the series. She lives in Washington state and is a nature lover, enjoying the outdoors with her family whenever possible, and lives at home with her two faithful companion dogs, who also keep her feet warm when she's writing. Please enjoy Black Bear Alibi (Book 1), The Push (Book 2), and False Findings (Book 3).
This sounds interesting
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