Sinful Suspense Box Set Read Online Free PDF Page A

He’d left behind a wife and three kids. At the base of the cross someone had strapped on a teddy bear with a piece of faded blue ribbon.
    I looked down into the ravine and swallowed back the bitter taste in my throat. The blackened skeletal remains of several trucks littered the ground in a macabre display. The trees around the truck graveyard were young saplings, offspring of the adult trees surrounding the blackened pit. I wondered how often a layer of young trees had sprung up only to be charred into ash and turned to loam to wait for a seed to start again.
    The newspaper article about my dad’s accident had noted that his truck had not fallen to the bottom of the ravine like the others. It had gotten jammed on a boulder. But with his combustible cargo, it had burst into flames. They’d found my dad’s charred remains inside.
    I surveyed the area. There was only one boulder large enough to stop a rolling delivery truck. My throat thickened as I stared down at it. There was no sign of the wreck, and a carpet of brilliant green moss grew around the massive rock.
    I reached into my backpack and pulled out the chocolate donut. It was smashed and looked more travel weary than I felt. It had been Dad’s favorite. Occasionally, I’d go with him on a long weekend delivery and we always took a box of chocolate donuts with us. We’d have a contest to see who could lick off the icing the fastest.
    The rumble of motorcycles roaring in the distance interrupted the peace and quiet of the forest. Several squirrels popped out of the nearby shrubs as I threw my leg over the railing. A narrow, flat ledge of dirt ran parallel with the guardrail. I set down my guitar and bags.
    Donut in hand, I headed cautiously down the side searching for solid footing with each step. On the third step, my foot slipped, and I slid down several inches before I could gain traction again. The terrain was cut into broad, weatherworn steps where the dirt would level off to form a flat shelf before dropping down sharply to the next ledge.
    I walked along one step to an area that had an easier decline and nearly tripped over a small plaque that had been welded to a metal stake. The plaque was completely crusted with dirt and the writing was faded and hard to read. I picked up a rock and scraped away some of the debris, expecting to read another tribute to one of the victims. Instead, it turned out to be a tribute and a trailhead marker commemorating the nineteenth century fur trappers who had frequented the area. The aptly named Trappers’ Trail had been deemed a historical landmark.
    I straightened and looked past the sign. The trail itself was mostly worn away by rain and wind. Forest litter and even some human litter covered what must have been a well-trod path a few hundred years earlier. A long winding path led down into the ravine and disappeared into a thick copse of trees. It might have been a historical landmark, but it wasn’t being maintained in the slightest. Of course, it might have been a little too much dark irony for a town to be celebrating its proud history right along the site where the notorious Phantom Curve had claimed so many lives. 
    I traversed another slope of loose gravel and managed to reach the boulder with the donut still in hand, but it now had grit mixed in with the rainbow sprinkles. Overhead, the motorcycle engines echoed off the towering mountain slope.
    My shoes slid along the mossy ground, kicking up the musty green smell that was uniquely moss. The boulder stood taller than me, and it was at least fifteen feet wide. In fact, to call it a boulder was silly. It was more an extension of the rocky mountain slopes, an outcropping that had somehow skipped the usual ravages of wind and erosion.
    I stood and closed my eyes as an evergreen scented breeze pushed against me. Without warning, a jolt of panic shot through me. Suddenly, the breaths I’d been pulling in at a natural pace and depth weren’t enough, and I couldn’t