Jeffery Deaver - The Bodies Left Behind

Spoiled little girl…

“No,” Brynn whispered. “They couldn’t be here this fast if they’d bought our trick at the cliff. They rigged something with the flashlight. Hart did. To fool us.”

Same way I tried to fool him. Except his trick worked.

And where was he, Hart? She remembered a recent tactical training course. The instructor had lectured about pie-wedge crossfire. Never directly opposite, of course-risk of friendly fire injuries. Hart would be coming up behind them, not from the right flank.

She couldn’t see him but she knew he was back there someplace.

Which meant the men had spotted them and were moving in for the kill.

They were on flat ground here, headed for a clearing, which Brynn had been looking forward to-no dense tangles to fight through, just planes of low grass, flat. But now she steered Michelle to the right toward a steep, rocky hill, several hundred feet long, descending to a creek bed. At the bottom there was no moonlight and they’d have good cover. “There, down into the ravine. Do the best you can. Come on. Fast.”

They started down the hill, sticking to the thicker clumps of oak and dense brush, where they’d be less of a target. They half slid, half ran, scrabbling down the steep slope, Michelle in front, Brynn behind her.

They were doing well until, halfway down, Brynn tripped, her foot catching on a vine or branch. She landed hard on her butt and slid on the slick leaves right into Michelle, taking her legs out from under her. They began a long, unstoppable tumble down the hillside, Brynn desperately trying to keep a grip on the spear so it didn’t slash either of them to death.

They ended up in a shallow ravine.

The knife in Brynn’s pocket had poked through the ski parka but the blade hadn’t cut her. Michelle lay on her back, frantically patting her belly. Brynn was terrified that the younger woman’s knife had cut her deeply.

Gasping for breath, Brynn whispered, “You all right?”

Michelle’s hand found the knife inside her jacket. It hadn’t apparently done any damage. A nod.

Brynn slowly sat up, gripping the spear. She looked around and saw a depression in the dry creek bed. They headed into it. Brush and a natural line of three-and four-foot boulders gave them some cover.

“Look,” Michelle whispered and pointed.

Brynn watched Hart’s partner, holding the shotgun ready to shoot, moving east-toward them-in a jog. The breeze was busily stirring leaves but he must’ve heard something. He was looking directly at the spot where they’d fallen. Then he gazed around him and vanished into a thick copse of trees to the north.

Brynn gripped the spear handle, staring toward him. “How’s your ankle?”

“Okay. I fell on my other leg.”

Scanning the hill. Neither of the men was visible.

Brynn was estimating distances and speculating where the partner might’ve gone. Michelle whispered something. Brynn didn’t hear. She was lost in consideration. She made a decision. Then surveyed the ground. “Okay. We’re going to split up. I want you to move that way, stay in the ravine and keep your head down. Over there, see that dip? Get down into it and cover yourself up with leaves.”

“What are you going to do?” Michelle asked, her eyes wide.

“See it?” Brynn repeated firmly.

“You’re going to go after him, aren’t you?”

Times to run, times to fight…

Brynn nodded.

“I want to come with you. I can help.”

“It’ll be a bigger help to me if you just stay hid.”

Michelle looked somber for a moment. Then smiled. “I won’t worry about breaking a nail, if that’s what you mean.”

Brynn smiled too. “This is my job. Let me do it. Now go on down there, cover yourself up. If they get close and you have to run…” She looked along the dry streambed and pointed to the lake, which was really no more than a pond. “That’ll be our rallying point. The near shore, by those rocks.”

“Rallying point. What’s that?”

“Where soldiers meet when they get split up. It’s not a cop thing. I got it from Saving Private Ryan. ”

Drawing another smile from Michelle.

CHARLES GANDY, a lean, bearded man in his early thirties, wearing a North Face insulated windbreaker, stood beside a Winnebago camper parked in the woods of Marquette State Park, next to a ramshackle ranger station that had been abandoned years ago. The camper was nicked and dented and the butt end sported a half dozen bumper stickers extolling the importance of green energy and listing such accomplishments as mountain biking Snoqualmie Pass and hiking the Appalachian Trail.

“You hear anything else, honey?” asked Susan, a round woman with straight, light brown hair. A few years older than Gandy. She wore a necklace in the shape of an Egyptian ankh, two braided friendship bracelets and a wedding ring.

“Nope.”

“What was it?”

“Voices, I’m pretty sure. Well, sounded like a shout almost.”

“The park’s closed. And this time of night?”

“I know. When’s Rudy due back?”

“Any time.”

Her husband squinted into the night.

“Daddy?”

He turned to see his nine-year-old stepdaughter standing in the doorway, T-shirt, denim skirt and old running shoes. “Amy, it’s time for bed.”

“I’m helping Mommy. She wanted me to.”

Gandy was distracted. “All right. Whatever your mom says. But go on inside. It’s freezing out here.”

The girl disappeared with a swirl of long blond hair.

The camper had two doors, front and back. Gandy walked to the back one, stepped inside and found a battered deer rifle. He loaded the clip.

“What’re you doing, honey?”

“I’ve got to go see.”

“But the rangers-”

“Not around here and not now. You lock up tight, pull the curtains and don’t open the door for anybody ’cept me or Rudy.”

“Sure, honey. Be careful.”

Susan climbed the steps inside and closed and locked the door. Shutters closed and the camper went dark. The faint sound of the generator was pretty much covered up by the wind. Good.

Zipping up his jacket and pulling on a gray knitted hat that Susan had bought him for his birthday, Gandy started down the small path that led eventually to the Joliet Trail, the rifle held in the crook of his arm.

He made his way south and east. They’d been here for four days and he’d spent much of that time hiking nearby. He knew the place well, had found impromptu paths and trails, made by deer-trampled leaves, broken branches and pellets-and people (ditto, minus the shit).

He moved slowly, cautiously. Not afraid of getting lost, afraid of whom he might run into out here.

Had that sound been a scream or not? he wondered.

If so, human or animal?

Gandy now walked two or three hundred yards in the direction he thought he’d heard the sounds, and then knelt down, surveying the moonlit forest. He heard snaps and a crack or too, not far away, maybe branches falling, maybe deer, maybe bear.

“Or maybe my damn imagination.”

But then he tensed.

There, yes…No doubt about it. He was looking at a person-a woman, he was sure-moving from tree to tree, keeping low. She was carrying something in her hand. It seemed thin. A rifle? He gripped his own, a Savage.308, tightly.

What was this all about? Shouting and howling in a deserted, and officially closed, state park so late at night? His heart was slamming. His instinct was to get back to the camper and get the hell out of here. But the rattling diesel engine could attract unwanted attention.

As he hunkered low, spying on her, he wondered why she was acting like a soldier. Cautious, creeping from cover to cover. She was clearly no ranger. She didn’t have on a distinctive Smokey the Bear hat or a typical ranger uniform jacket. It seemed she was in a ski parka.