SHADOW MOON
Book VI of the Huntress/FBI Thrillers
by
Alexandra Sokoloff
Author’s Note
The Huntress series takes place over six months of the present, and multiple timelines in the past. Shadow Moon is a culmination of those characters and storylines, and it is very strongly recommended, by me and every reader who has ever found the books, that you experience the series in order:
Huntress Moon
Blood Moon
Cold Moon
Bitter Moon
Hunger Moon
Shadow Moon
Complete series: mybook.to/HuntressSeries
Welcome to the hunt.
- Alexandra Sokoloff
February 2019
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Praise for Alexandra Sokoloff
Huntress Moon
A Thriller Award Nominee for Best E-Book Original Novel
A Suspense Magazine Pick for Best Thriller
An Amazon Top Ten Bestseller
“This interstate manhunt has plenty of thrills…keeps the drama taut and the pages flying.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“The intensity of her main characters is equally matched by the strength of the multilayered plot…The next installment cannot release soon enough for me.”
—Suspense Magazine
“Who you know: Agatha Christie, Gillian Flynn, Mary Higgins Clark. Who you should read: Alexandra Sokoloff.”
—Huffington Post Books
The Price
“Some of the most original and freshly unnerving work in the genre.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A heartbreakingly eerie page turner.”
—Library Journal
“The Price is a gripping read full of questions about good, evil, and human nature…the devastating conclusion leaves the reader with an uncomfortable question to consider: ‘If everyone has a price, what’s yours?’”
—Rue Morgue magazine
The Unseen
“A creepy haunted house, reports of a 40-year-old poltergeist investigation, and a young researcher trying to rebuild her life take the “publish or perish” initiative for college professors to a terrifying new level in this spine-tingling story that has every indication of becoming a horror classic. Based on the famous Rhine ESP experiments at the Duke University parapsychology department that collapsed in the 1960s, this is a chillingly dark look into the unknown.”
—Romantic Times Book Reviews
“Sokoloff keeps her story enticingly ambiguous, never clarifying until the climax whether the unfolding weirdness might be the result of the investigators’ psychic sensitivities or the mischievous handiwork of a human villain.”
—Publisher’s Weekly
“Alexandra Sokoloff takes the horror genre to new heights.”
—Charlotte Examiner
“Alexandra Sokoloff’s talent brings readers into the dark and encompassing world of the unknown so completely, that readers will find it difficult to go to bed until the last page has been turned. Her novels bring human frailty and the desperate desire to survive together in poignant stories of personal struggle and human triumph. But the truly fascinating element of Sokoloff’s writing is her deep dig into the human psyche and the horrors that lie just beneath the surface of our carefully constructed facades.”
—Fiction Examiner
Book of Shadows
“Compelling, frightening, and exceptionally well-written, Book of Shadows is destined to become another hit for acclaimed horror and suspense novelist Sokoloff. The incredibly tense plot and mysterious characters will keep readers up late at night, jumping at every sound, and turning the pages until they’ve devoured the book.”
—Romantic Times Book Reviews
“Sokoloff successfully melds a classic murder-mystery whodunit with supernatural occult overtones.”
—Library Journal
The Harrowing
Bram Stoker and Anthony Award Nominee for Best First Novel
“Absolutely gripping…it is easy to imagine this as a film. Once started, you won’t want to stop reading.”
—The London Times
“Sokoloff’s debut novel is an eerie ghost story that captivates readers from page one. The author creates an element of suspense that builds until the chillingly believable conclusion.”
—Romantic Times Book Reviews
“Poltergeist meets The Breakfast Club as five college students tangle with an ancient evil presence. Plenty of sexual tension, quick pace and engaging plot.”
—Kirkus Reviews
Also by Alexandra Sokoloff
The Huntress/FBI Thrillers
Huntress Moon: Book I
Blood Moon: Book II
Cold Moon: Book III
Bitter Moon: Book IV
Hunger Moon: Book V
The Haunted Thrillers
The Harrowing
The Price
The Unseen
Book of Shadows
The Space Between
Paranormal
The Shifters (from The Keepers Trilogy)
Keeper of the Shadows (from The Keepers: L.A.)
D-Girl on Doomsday (from Apocalypse: Year Zero)
Nonfiction
Stealing Hollywood: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors
Writing Love: Screenwriting Tricks for Authors II
“A Woman Wouldn’t Do That” (in Hollywood Vs. the Author)
Short Fiction
The Edge of Seventeen (in Rage Against the Night)
In Atlantis (in Love is Murder)
The New Girl (from Nasty Woman Press)
Learn more about the author at: http://alexandrasokoloff.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2019 by Huntress Productions. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13 9781950696000
Cover design by Cissy Hartley
Cover photo by Professional Fine Art
For Siegrid, who knows all the roads
Contents
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
PART TWO
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
PART THREE
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
&nbs
p; PART FOUR
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
PART FIVE
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
PART SIX
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
PART SEVEN
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
Salton Sea: three weeks ago
Singh
Desert wind blows through the mosaic of cracks and holes in the walls of the abandoned motel.
FBI Special Agent Antara Singh lies on the concrete floor, breathing shallowly beneath the cloth blindfolding her eyes. She can smell the blood of the man Cara Lindstrom has just murdered. A heavy, coppery stench, fouled with the body fluids of Detective Gilbert Ortiz.
Now she feels fingers on her ankles, cold, expert hands tightening circles of rope, pulling them taut to bind her legs.
Singh hears Lindstrom step back. Now she feels an explosion of sensation: a boot connecting with her rib cage, her kidneys, as Lindstrom systematically kicks her. Damaging blows, but she experiences them more as motion and impact than pain. The narcotics Lindstrom has given her are already taking effect.
There are soft, booted footsteps on the concrete floor, retreating.
Singh suspends her breath to listen.
Lindstrom’s presence is gone. Singh is alone in the shell of the derelict hotel lobby.
She knows what she has been left with.
The body of an overweight young man slumped in a chair behind a table laden with video equipment, blood pooling at his feet from his slashed throat.
And a platform in the center of harsh klieg lights. Its surface red, drenched in blood. Ortiz’s naked body spread-eagled on the top of the platform, gutted, bloodied beyond recognition.
In her drugged state, Singh’s mind drifts above her own body and she sees herself as part of the gruesome tableau as well. Blindfolded, bound, bruised.
A cover story for her own part in the carnage.
Her consciousness falls back into her body as someone bursts through the front door of the lobby. Two sets of footsteps. Heavy. Male. There is a paralyzing instant of terror that it is the men, the online trolls who attacked her in the parking garage, or the ones who had paid Ortiz in the hope of assaulting Cara…
Then there is a familiar voice calling her name, a rush of motion as someone hurls himself to the ground beside her… the touch of familiar, beloved hands as Damien gathers her into his arms.
Her partner. Her rescuer. The man she has just deceived in a way she would never in her life have expected or wanted.
Damien pulls off her blindfold. He kneels above her, his regal face harrowed with worry. Her ASAC, Matthew Roarke, hovers behind him.
Men she would trust with her life. Men she must now lie to…
The full effect of her ordeal and the narcotics hits her and she passes gladly into the dark relief of unconsciousness.
Chapter 2
San Francisco – present
Singh and Roarke
The San Francisco Bay is a gleaming mirror of the city today.
Singh stands in Roarke’s office, looking past his desk, out the window at the glimmering bay beyond. Perhaps it will be the last time she sees this view, from this building.
She has rehearsed her speech in the shower, during her morning and evening meditations, while walking on the white sand beach during the week she has just passed in the Maldives with Damien, “recovering” from her ordeal in the desert. She has spent days preparing her words, her mind, her heart, for what she knows she must do.
She meets Roarke’s eyes and lifts her arm, extends her letter of resignation…
Her ASAC will not let her speak. He stares into her face, does not acknowledge the envelope in her fingers.
“I called you in because I’m sending you to Seattle. Special Agent Snyder is putting his case files in order in preparation for his retirement and he needs a researcher to help. I’m assigning you.”
She opens her mouth to protest and he cuts her off again. “This is not a request. I am ordering you on assignment.”
She inclines her head in acknowledgement and steps to the door, then turns back and speaks quietly, a reminder of their last conversation.
“Do you think that things are better?”
He stares at her, through her, and says flatly, “I’ll need you to turn your sidearm over to me.”
A seemingly unrelated request, which has everything to do with everything. He no longer trusts her with her weapon.
Her face flushes, a high burn in her cheeks. But she nods, and removes herself to her cubicle to fetch her service weapon.
She surrenders it to Roarke in a wordless exchange. After, she walks down the corridor—not back to the bullpen, but to the elevators, down to the lobby of blue-veined marble, out the front doors.
It is only when she steps into the chill of the outside that she realizes how badly she is shaking.
Roarke stood at the window watching Singh cross the Civic Center Plaza, as if viewing her from behind the reinforced glass of a prison wall.
He found himself wishing he had been the one to leave.
His life seemed unbearably constrained. He longed for the sound and touch of the wind, the vast stretch of desert vistas. The wilderness.
He knew banishing Singh was hypocrisy of the highest order. Her words had taken him back to that last conversation in the desert. It was where he lived now, in his mind, that windy night when he’d stood in the palm grove, calling out for Cara.
Had he heard her say, “Come”?
Or was that his own, desperate imagining?
The truth was, he had been half a breath away from following her out into the desert, never to return.
We are all mad, here.
Chapter 3
San Francisco - present
Singh
Singh walks blankly across the Civic Center Plaza, with its p
ollarded mulberry trees and statues and bundled-up homeless, toward one of the grand marble buildings surrounding the square. She mounts the stairs of the Asian Art Museum, moves between the slender columns of the building.
The expansive lobby and open galleries are instantly calming.
She finds her way to an inner gallery, to a stone bench among the familiar gods and goddesses: Tara, Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and sits in the midst of the statues to examine her sentence.
Banishment to Portland to assist Agent Snyder in what is essentially administrative paperwork. What used to be called secretarial work.
Exile—under the supervision of a psychological profiler. Who presumably will be able to monitor her for signs of violence, even psychosis.
An elegant solution, she must admit, to a problem that must have caused Roarke no end of sleepless nights since the bloody standoff in the Salton Sea desert, under the Hunger Moon.
She had expected almost anything else. Firing. Arrest.
Last month she had been teetering on the brink of insanity. And had certainly crossed the line into criminality.
She had not killed the Palm Desert sheriff’s detective, Ortiz. That bloody task had been Cara Lindstrom’s. But Singh had been an accomplice, in thought and deed.
And she had been planning for a far more direct and consequential action, before Roarke had intervened at the last moment. It had been a fever dream of an idea. Singh is not herself sure if she would have been able to go through with it.
She does not know if she is grateful or resentful that Roarke stopped her.
The man she intended to kill, the man Roarke prevented her from killing, has left the administration and is trying to foment other right-wing takeovers in other countries presently vulnerable to his toxic agenda of racism and dominionism.
Perhaps that is one definition of “better.”
There is still a madman in office, doing damage every hour of every day that he is allowed to remain.
But she has not been fired. Her ASAC is not arresting her, nor institutionalizing her, though these things may come.