With Deadly Intent Read Online Free Page A

down her satchel, lay her camera on top, and got down on all fours to peer into the
     boat's shadowy interior.
    â€œIt can't be,” she whispered. She closed her eyes for an instant to adjust her pupils to
     the darkness and opened them quickly to take a better look. No, she hadn't been
     mistaken. Brown spots trailed across the rowing thwart and spattered the bleached hull.
    She swore, adjusted her camera for a time shot, and fetched a spray bottle of Luminol
     from her bag. If the stains were blood, they'd glow in the dark. Taking the camera
     control in one hand, she worked the spray pump with the other, aiming a tiny squirt at
     an isolated brown splotch.
    As the chemical reacted with the stain and became luminescent, she let out a groan and
     triggered the camera. Damn the luck. While she stowed her supplies, her mind grasped at
     her last fragment of hope. The stains may be blood, but the boards would have to be
     sawed out and taken to the lab for more sophisticated tests before they'd know if the
     blood came from a human. Until then, she'd pray that Elise showed up alive.
    The plaintive moan of the fog horn at Devil's Point startled her. She swiveled her head.
     Thick, vaporous clouds billowed toward her from each end of the narrows. She snatched up
     her things and labored up the slope.
    By the time she reached the pathway, leading to her cottage, her arm ached from the load
     she carried. Quickly she removed a flashlight from a zippered compartment, stashed the
     bag under low hanging spruce branches, and hurried on. Her father always covered a crime
     scene with exacting thoroughness so she figured he and the sheriff would still be at
     work in the lane.
    Instead of taking the roundabout route via Otter Inlet, she chose a short cut and
     scrambled down through foot-snagging roots to the bottom of the ravine. A bulwark of
     thorny blackberry vines stopped her from clambering up the opposite incline to the lane
     above as she had intended. Since she didn't want to backtrack, no other choice remained
     but to travel the boulder-strewn ravine floor.
    In the fog-shrouded darkness, her flashlight scarcely penetrated the gloom. Damp strings
     of moss hanging from ghostly alder branches clung to her face making her heart lurch. A
     few steps farther on, she vaulted a shallow stream and sank into mud over her shoe tops.
     Would this horrible day never end?
    Lunging to solid ground, she plodded on. As she pushed through a willow thicket, her
     bobbing light picked out something white in the brambles on the steep slope.
    She halted, her heart beating in hard, painful thumps. She took a step, then another
     before pausing to stare at the sight before her. An ash rose area rug had been tossed
     from the byway above. As the rug unrolled and flattened out over the briar patch, a
     blood-stained sheet had tumbled out.
    Trembling so violently she could scarcely hold the flashlight, she lowered the beam bit
     by bit until it shone on the ground. Her body went cold and her breath snagged in her
     aching chest. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God.” Unable to stop herself, she kept murmuring the
     words over and over.
    On a patch of dead leaves, a few feet in front of her lay a knife: Not just any knife.
     This one had a shaped stag-horn handle, a polished nickel silver bolster, and a
     five-inch, blood-smeared blade.
    Oren's hunting knife.
Three
    Monday, October 24
    Amy flexed tense shoulder muscles and frowned at the flock of white-coated forensic
     scientists milling around the crime lab. As a rule, they worked in an atmosphere of
     quiet, purposeful concentration—except on Monday. Then the hubbub brought back memories
     of her high school science class. Actually, except for this department's more
     sophisticated equipment, the two places even resembled each other.
    However, the similarity ended with appearance. At this facility, each individual, who
     stood beside one of the analytical machines fringing the room's