Ghost Canyon (The John Decker Supernatural Thriller Series Book 7) Anthony Strong (popular romance novels .TXT) 📖

watching hopefully, his brown eyes flitting from person to person, beseeching one of them to offer him a morsel.

“Will your specialist be arriving today?” Robyn asked between bites.

Agent Fowler nodded. “He’s on the way as we speak. He’ll be here by dinnertime.”

“And then we can get to work,” Agent Barnes added. “I don’t like all this sitting around. It’s a waste of time.”

“We had no choice.” Fowler bit into his sandwich and glanced toward his partner. “You heard the eyewitnesses. You saw the body cam footage. We have protocols for this kind of situation.”

“What footage?” Robyn asked. “If there’s video of whatever is in my goldmine, I want to see it.”

“Classified, I’m afraid,” Barnes said. He had finished his own sandwich in record time and was now sucking remnants of mustard from his fingers. He picked up a napkin and wiped his hands.

“Maybe she should see it,” Agent Fowler said. He looked at Robyn. “You’ve been living out here for a while, correct?”

“About six months, but Carlton has lived here for decades.”

“Yeah. We spoke to him a little while ago.” Fowler grimaced. “He wasn’t terribly helpful. Told us we should buzz off and leave him in peace.”

“That isn’t exactly how he put it,” Barnes said. “It was a mite more colorful.”

“It was, indeed,” Fowler agreed. “But since there’s a lady present, we don’t need to repeat his exact choice of words.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Robyn said. “I’ve heard just about every cuss word there is come out of that man’s mouth. If swearing were an Olympic sport, he’d have a pile of gold medals.”

“Regardless, he wasn’t terribly helpful, and I don’t expect him to become any more so.”

“He doesn’t appear to like authority figures,” Barnes observed.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Robyn replied. “Now, what about this video?”

“I’ll fetch my iPad.” Fowler stood up. He took his plate and placed it in the sink on the way out the door.

Robyn heard heavy footsteps on the stairs leading to the second floor. She looked to Agent Barnes, but he had removed his cell phone, and appeared to be checking his mail. Tieg, who was growing impatient, took the luling conversation as an opportunity to make his case for tidbits. He nudged Robyn’s leg then sat looking up at her. Robyn couldn’t help grinning, and pulled a piece of ham from her sandwich, which she had yet to finish. The dog wolfed it down and then chuffed with pleasure. At that moment, Agent Fowler returned with the iPad in his hand.

“The video is pretty blurry and dark,” he said, retaking his seat. He placed the iPad on the table and pushed it over to her. “I’ve forwarded to the relevant section. There’s some pretty gruesome stuff there, when they first come across the missing search team member. I skipped past most of it, but even so, you should be prepared.”

“You don’t need to watch if you don’t want to,” Barnes said.

“It’s fine.” Robyn looked down at the iPad, and the frozen video image displayed on the screen. Now that she thought about it, she wasn’t sure she actually wanted to view the footage. She hadn’t slept well last night as it was. Seeing the events in the mine firsthand would not make sleeping tonight any easier. She hesitated, her finger hovering over the play button, and then, deciding she had to know what was roaming her property, she clicked play.

Agent Fowler was right. The video was grainy and at first, she couldn’t make out what she was looking at. Then the video came into focus and she saw a flashlight beam bobbing off craggy tunnel walls. It swung left, then right in wild arcs, and Robyn wondered if there was anything on the video worth seeing, but soon it picked out a figure standing astride a body that Robyn realized was Sasha, the search team member who had lost her life. But it was the strangely wraith-like figure that made her gasp. It was like nothing she could ever have imagined. A walking corpse with skin stretched tight over its bones. It resembled a monster from a Hollywood movie, something conjured up to scare teenagers at sleepovers. But she knew it wasn’t. This was very real. And those awful eyes…

“Well?” Agent Fowler studied her with a deadpan stare. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

“Are you kidding me?” Robyn paused the video and pushed the iPad back toward the FBI agent. “If I saw something like that coming toward me, I wouldn’t stop running until I reached Canada. Why would you think I could be of any help identifying whatever the hell is on that video?”

“Because you live here. You’re the one who opened up the mine. I was hoping there might be a local legend to shed light on this creature. There’s a buttload of folklore in these parts. It wasn’t unreasonable to think you might know some of it.”

“I moved here from Chicago. Besides, since when does the FBI rely on folklore to solve murders?”

“When we encounter a situation that conventional science can’t explain. This isn’t the first time we’ve come across a scenario like this.”

“You’ve seen one of these creatures before?” Robyn asked, incredulous.

“No.” Fowler shook his head. “Not this. But the agency has encountered other unexplainable situations, and we’ve learned the hard way to take them seriously. There are certain individuals in every field office around the country tasked with identifying and handling such things.”

“Unexplainable?” Robyn wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. The surreal nature of the situation was not lost upon her. She was sitting at a table with a pair of government agents discussing what could only be described as a monster. “The FBI really has agents who deal with spooky shit, just like in that TV show?”

“We’re nothing like the TV show.” Fowler sounded offended. He’d obviously heard this before. “But yes, there are specially trained agents around the country.”

“And when we feel the situation requires it, we call in help,” said Barnes.

“Which reminds