Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

They continued on, away from the houses, Michelle doing a fair job of keeping up the pace despite the limp. Brynn gripped her spear firmly, feeling both confident and ridiculous because of the weapon.

Soon they’d covered another quarter mile, then a half.

Brynn started and spun around. She’d heard a voice.

But it was only Michelle, muttering to herself, her face ghostly in the blue moonlight. Brynn too had the habit of self-dialog. She’d lost her father to disease and a dear friend in the department to a drunk driver. And she’d lost a husband too. She had talked to herself during those times of sorrow, praying for strength or just plain rambling. For some reason, she’d found, words made pain less painful. She’d done the same just that afternoon, with Joey in the X-ray unit at the hospital. She couldn’t remember what she’d said then.

They skirted scummy ponds choked with bog bean and cranberry. She was surprised to see a swath of moonlight illuminate a cluster of pitcher plants-a carnivore Brynn had learned about when helping Joey with a report for school. Frogs screeched urgently and birds gave mournful calls. It was too early in the season for mosquitoes, thank the Lord. Brynn was a magnet and in the summer wore citronella like perfume.

Reassuring herself now as much as Michelle, Brynn whispered, “I’ve been to the park on two search-and-rescues here.” She’d volunteered for the assignments to put to use some of the expertise she’d picked up at the State Police tactical training seminars, which included an optional-and extremely exhausting and painful-mini-survival course.

One of the two search-and-rescues here had actually become a very unpleasant body-recovery operation. But Brynn didn’t mention that.

“I don’t know the place real well but I have a rough idea of the layout. The Joliet Trail’s near here someplace, no more than a mile or two. You know it?”

Michelle shook her head, eyes on the bed of pine needles in front of her feet. She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“The trail’ll take us to that ranger station. It’ll be closed now but we could find a phone or a gun there.”

The station was Brynn’s first choice. But, she went on to explain, if they missed the building or couldn’t break into it they could continue on the Joliet, which angled northeast till it crossed the Snake River. “We can follow the river east to Point of Rocks. That’s a good-sized town on the other side of the park. They’ll have stores-for a phone-and a public safety office of some kind. Probably part-time but we can wake ’ em up. It ’s a ways, six or seven miles, but we can follow the river and it’s pretty flat walking. The other option when we hit the Snake is to turn west. And climb the rocks along the Snake River Gorge. That’ll take us to the interstate by the bridge. There’s traffic all the time there. A trucker or somebody’ll stop for us.”

“Climb the rocks,” Michelle muttered. “I’m afraid of heights.”

So was Brynn (though that hadn’t stopped her rappelling down a sheer cliff face to a waiting keg of Old Milwaukee-the traditional graduation exercise in the State Police course). And the climb at the gorge would be steep and dangerous. The bridge was nearly one hundred feet above the river and the rocks were often nearly vertical faces. It was in that part of the park where the body the law officers had been searching for had been recovered. A young man had lost his footing. The fall was only twenty feet but he’d been impaled on a sharp tree limb. The coroner said it probably took him twenty minutes to die.

To this day Brynn McKenzie was haunted by the image.

As they moved from the pine into ancient forest-denser and slathered in darkness-Brynn tried to pick out the route that would be easiest on Michelle’s ankle. But the way was often impacted with rooty brush, tangles of saplings and vines, forcing them around. Some they just had to fight their way through.

And some routes were so dim they avoided them completely for fear of missing a steep drop-off or deep bog.

And always, reminders that they weren’t really alone. Bats zipped by, owls hooted. Brynn gasped when she trod on the end of a deer rib rack, which swung up and clapped her in the knee. She danced away from the bleached, chewed bone. The scarred skull of the animal was nearby.

Michelle stared at the skeletal remains, eyes wide, without response.

“Let’s go. It’s just bones.”

They pushed through the tangled wilderness for another hundred yards. Suddenly Michelle stumbled, grabbed a branch to support herself and winced.

“What’s the matter?”

She ripped off her thin glove, staring at her hand. Two thorns from the branch had punctured her palm and broken off into her skin. Her eyes flushed with horror.

“No! no, it’s just blackberry. You’re fine. Here. Let me look.”

“No! Don’t touch it.”

But Brynn took the woman’s hand and flicked the candle lighter over the skin, examining the tiny wounds. “We just want to get them out so it doesn’t get infected. In five minutes you won’t feel a thing.”

Brynn eased the thorns out of her skin and the woman winced, whimpering and staring at the growing dots of blood. Brynn pulled out the bottle of alcohol, dampened the edge of a sock with it and started to bathe the wounds. She couldn’t help notice the dark, artistic nails.

“Let me do it,” Michelle said and dabbed at the skin. She handed back the sock and found a tissue in her pocket, pressed it onto the wound. By the time she lifted it away the bleeding had almost stopped.

“How is it?”

“It’s okay,” Michelle said. “You’re right. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

They continued on their route, heading in the direction that Brynn pointed.

Sure, she thought, Hart would pursue them and they’d have to remain vigilant. But he’d have no idea where they were headed. The women could have gone in any direction except south to the county road-since they’d have to sneak around the killers to get there.

With every passing yard, Brynn grew more confident. At least she knew something about the forest and where the trail ahead of them lay. The men did not. And even if Hart and his partner happened to choose this direction, the men would surely find themselves lost in ten minutes.

BACK ON THE shore near the Feldman house Hart was looking over the GPS function on his BlackBerry. Then he consulted the map of the area they’d brought with them.

“The Joliet Trail,” he announced.

“What’s that?”

“Where they’re headed.”

“Ah,” Lewis said. “You think?”

“Yep.” He held up the map. “We’re here.” He tapped a spot then moved his finger north. “That brown line’s the trail. It’ll take ’em right to that ranger station there.”

Lewis was distracted. He was looking over the lake. “That was smart, I gotta say. What they did.”

Hart didn’t disagree. Their short row into the lake had revealed that the women had propped up life vests to resemble bodies hunched down in the canoe and then shoved the boat into the water. The scream-at the sound of the shots-was ingenious. Had Brynn or Michelle uttered the sound? Brynn, he bet.

Hart wasn’t used to having to out-think his opponents. Part of him liked the challenge but a bigger part liked being in control. The contests he preferred were those in which he had a pretty good idea that the outcome would be in his favor. Like working with ebony: the wood was temperamental-hard and brittle-and could split easily, wasting hundreds of dollars. But if you took your time, you were careful, you foresaw any potential problems, the end result was beautiful.

What kind of challenge was Brynn McKenzie?

Smelling the ammonia.