Kimberly Derting - The Body Finder

Violet had been born and raised in Buckley, a little nowhere of a town that sat on a stretch of highway that joined the western and eastern halves of the state. Buckley rested in the shadow of Mount Rainier, in the foothills of the Cascades. She had seen the majestic white peak rising high above the Cascade mountain range more times than she could count, and yet she never tired of the magnificent view. The larger mountain dwarfed the smaller ones that surrounded it, making it look as if it was floating above them. It was like a beacon, even against the most brilliant sky.

What made it even more of an extravagance, something not to be taken for granted, was that the mountain wasn’t out every day. Of course, Violet knew that it was always there ; but in an area where the sun found itself cloaked by cloud cover more often than not, it was even more of a rarity to see Mount Rainier in its entirety, unobstructed by fog or the high clouds that often hung over the mountain from the top down…or flat-out obliterated by dense, dark clouds that blocked even the most tenacious light that tried to penetrate them.

She ran in the shadow of the mountain for as long as she could, until the trail she followed veered left again, winding around the rich, verdant pastureland that bordered the gravel pathway.

She was surprised that something so small as witnessing the mountain at sunrise could make her feel so much better. But it did. Already the foreboding feeling that had been hanging over her was lifting, and she felt clearer, calmer.

She settled into an easy pace, allowing her thoughts to drift away, lost in her music and the steady cadence of her body’s movements. She liked the feeling of control she had when she ran, that she was in command of her body, in charge of each muscle’s perfectly timed movements. She felt strong as she looked down at her long, ground-eating stride, and felt powerful in at least this element of her life.

She passed several weak death echoes as she ran. She’d grown accustomed to these, the ones that didn’t compel her-didn’t draw her-and she was able to ignore them easily enough. She didn’t know why these forgotten corpses didn’t call out to her in the way that others did; she only knew that they didn’t.

Not in the way the girl in the woods had when Violet was eight.

Emilee Marquez had been only fourteen years old when she was abducted on her way home from school. She was murdered before being buried in the soft soil where Violet had found her. The draw to find Emilee had been almost overpowering, something beyond Violet’s control.

But why?

Maybe it was because not much time had passed, or maybe it was because of the violence of the girl’s death. Or worse, Violet thought, perhaps it was because she was so aware of what was happening to her as she died. Maybe she understood too much, and that memory was forever burned on to her body in the form of an echo.

The girl’s killer was never found, but Violet would never forget the sound-the haunting voice-that had called her to the body. Sometimes she had nightmares that she would run into him, the man responsible, at the supermarket or at the mall, carrying the imprint of Emilee’s death on him like some unspeakable shadow that he could never escape.

Violet pushed the unsettling thought away.

She slowed only once, when the heavy sweatshirt became too warm for her to wear any longer, and she tugged it over her head, tying it tightly around her waist with its sleeves. But she reached her stride again easily and settled back into her rhythm.

By the time she’d run full circle, reaching her house, her T-shirt was saturated in sweat, and she felt relaxed from head to toe.

It was the car in the driveway, and the man-boy perched on the hood waiting for her, that made her lose some of her newfound tranquillity.

He was grinning at her in a way that made her legs feel like they were made of nothing more solid than gelatin. They might have even quivered from something other than her early-morning run.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she slowed from a jog to a walk and placed her hands on her hips. It would take her a few minutes to get her breathing back to normal. Longer if he kept smiling at her like that.

He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. What about you?”

She opted for the obvious and filled her voice with as much sarcasm as she could. “I live here, actually.”

“Ha-ha, smart-ass. I was asking if maybe you couldn’t sleep too.” He shook his head at her wisecrack. “You know, since you were running at six-thirty in the morning? I was gonna see if you wanted to go for a walk or something.” He eyed her up and down, looking a little disappointed as he hopped down from the car’s hood. “But it looks like you already went without me. That’s okay, it was a long shot anyway.”

Violet didn’t like the way she was suddenly so eager to be near him. Even though they’d been nearly inseparable for the past ten years, it now felt urgent to keep him close.

“All right, let’s go.”

“Are you sure?” He seemed skeptical. “I don’t want to talk you into it.”

“No, really, I’m not ready to go inside and start my homework yet anyway.” She was already leading the way into the trees that surrounded her house, and he was following right behind.

They walked for a long time like that, with him tagging along in her wake, not saying a word to each other. It was normal for Violet to take charge once they’d entered the cover of the woods; she had done so since they were just little kids. And even though Jay was nearly as familiar out here as she was after all these years, he let her lead anyway, comfortably taking second place to her.

It was already getting warm. The forecasts predicted late- summer temperatures in the low eighties. Violet loved this time of year, relishing the lingering sun before it was cast away by the wintry gloom. Summer generally arrived late in her part of the world, usually waiting until July was well under way before making a regular appearance, so the persisting summerlike temperatures were welcome for as long as they wanted to stick around.

“So, are you going to the lake today?” Jay asked, finally falling into step beside Violet as their pace slowed. They headed nowhere in particular when they hiked like this, exploring places they’d been more times than they could add up, both on, and off, the well-known paths.

Violet shrugged. “Are you?”

She already knew the answer; they both did. Today was the big end-of-summer party at Lake Tapps. Kind of a last blast before the sun disappeared for the year. Pretty much everyone they knew would be there.

Jay shrugged too. “I was thinking about it.”

Inwardly she smiled at the prospect of spending one of the few remaining lazy summer days with him at the lake. “Yeah?” she questioned, not needing him to actually ask her along. “Maybe I’ll go too.”

He grinned, practically beaming at her, and an unfamiliar warmth that had nothing to do with the weather crept through her. “Cool. You can drive,” he suggested.

She shook her head. If it had been anyone else, she’d probably feel like she was being used, but instead she loved the exhilarating feeling of having something he didn’t have, especially in light of the fact that he suddenly seemed to have everything that she wanted. “Fine, then you can buy me gas,” she added, raising her eyebrows and daring him to say no.

But the accident happened before Jay had a chance to respond.

And it was all his fault. At least that’s how Violet would remember it when she replayed it in her head. If he hadn’t been smiling at her like that when she’d looked up at him she would never have lost her concentration…or her footing.