Cold Lake Read Online Free PDF Page A

the moment he’d picked her up from her house and smelled her perfume as she climbed in his truck, he’d been buried in the present. Time was passing one elevated heartbeat at a time.
    He looked over his shoulder and saw the floor-to-ceiling window view Antler Creek Lodge offered, sitting atop the Rocky Points Ski Resort. The sky to the west was painted pink, the sun completely gone behind the mountains. The late spring snow on the peaks outside was like a blanket of orange sorbet in the fading light of the sunset.
    The fragrance of fresh bread pulled his gaze from the windows to the table.
    “Thank you.” Wolf nodded to the waiter as he left.
    Sarah tore a slice of bread in half and bit into it. “So, are you ready to talk about today yet?”
    Wolf chewed the soft, warmed bread. “I’d rather not ruin our first date in years.”
    She sipped the wine, keeping her eyes on his. “Just tell me. After that exit this morning? And I can see that it’s on your mind. What the heck happened today?”
    Wolf sighed and took a sip of water. “We found a … some dead bodies today.”
    “Oh my God. At the lake?”
    “In the lake.”
    She leaned forward. “Really?”
    Wolf sipped his wine.
    “Bodies? Plural?” Sarah reached across the table and gripped his hand.
    Wolf leaned forward and checked the neighboring table to his right. The couple was smiling at one another, distracted in conversation. “A lot of bodies. And I’m not sure we’re done pulling them up. They were”—he studied a piece of bread—“mutilated.”
    “Jesus.” She whispered. “Like, a serial killer?”
    Wolf nodded.
    She put her other hand over Wolf’s and looked around the room. “That’s insane.”
    Wolf nodded again. He took another sip of wine.
    Sarah shook her head and stared off in thought. “So who were they? I can’t think of any missing people. Are they Rocky Points citizens? Have you identified anyone?”
    Wolf gave a squeeze of Sarah’s hand and looked over to the neighboring couple again. They were both silent, reaching for their drinks. Both startled with Sarah’s last words.”
    She turned her face away from them and shielded her mouth. “Sorry,” she whispered.
    Wolf waited for the couple to resume with their own business.
    “We identified one of them,” Wolf said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Do you remember Nick Pollard?”
    Sarah frowned. “No.”
    “He was younger than us growing up, a sophomore. Disappeared the summer after our senior year. I remember my dad was really bent out of shape about it.”
    “Oh, geez. That long ago?” Sarah straightened and nodded. “Wait, yeah! I remember.”
    Wolf squeezed her hand again.
    She bent forward and lowered her voice. “Sorry. Yeah. The fourth of July. I remember he went missing on the fourth. They were all saying he went up to the lake and never came back. He went up to see ... ah, I forgot her name. But some weird girl, used to be homeschooled? Remember? Lived up on the lake? Everyone was saying that her dad killed him.”
    Wolf pulled his eyebrows together. “How do you remember and I didn’t remember any of this?”
    Sarah smiled. “I don’t know, Sheriff Wolf. How don’t you? Probably because you were doing two-a-days in Fort Collins, trying to impress the CSU cheerleaders with your tight spirals.”
    Wolf shook his head. “I had already impressed the right cheerleader by then.”
    Sarah smiled sheepishly and looked down.
    The past, damn it . Wolf had learned recently that talking about the past with Sarah was a sure-fire way to ruin the moment, and he’d just done it again.
    She looked up quickly with a mischievous smile. “Seriously, though.” She let go of his hands and leaned forward on her elbows, creating a gap between her breasts that Wolf wanted to dive into. “I thought that third toss of yours today was going to rope that calf. The way it barely hit him in the ass and then hit the dirt?”
    Wolf gave her a dagger stare and blinked. “I