I released him, not ready to part but acknowledging it was time, when his eyes caught on something over my shoulder. His brow furrowed.
I spun around, hand going for my gun, ready to confront whatever waited behind me.
But there was nothing.
“I saw something in the leaves over there,” he said, pointing just off the trail. “It looked shiny.”
“Shiny?”
“Like a reflection.”
My stomach twisted and tumbled, already sensing something was off. He softly tread over with me just behind him, looking all around us. This didn’t feel right.
Charlie tilted his head this way and that, as if trying to catch the light again, picked up a stick, and began scratching around in the leaves and dead pine needles.
“Baby, we should go. I don’t like this.” I stood behind him, head on a swivel, afraid someone would sneak up behind us. My skin prickled like we were being watched.
Charlie gasped, the stick tumbling to the ground. He quickly backed away, bumping into me.
“What?” I asked, frantic. “What is it?”
“I sawhair.Someone’s hair.” He bent over, dry heaving even though there was nothing in his body to expel.
I didn’t want to look. I didn’t.
But I had to see. I had to know.
Without releasing him, I took a few steps toward where he’d moved the debris around, squinting, trying to make sense of what I saw…
I picked out her hand first.
Then her skull, beneath a waft of white hair matted with blood and decomposition. Her face was unrecognizable, whether from the elements or scavengers or the monster who’d murdered her, I wasn’t sure, but I knew who she was based on the glasses that still sat askew on her nose, and the sleeve of the light blue zip-up hoodie from the missing persons posters.
We found Janine.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“And you’re sure you didn’t touch anything but the stick?” Tate asked.
The scene was organized chaos. I’d met him in the gravel parking lot only a few hundred yards from where we’d found the body. Over his shoulder, a team of evidence technicians milled around, zipping themselves into full-body jumpsuits and roping off the trailhead with yellow crime scene tape.
They’d pulled up in large, unmarked vans that looked entirely too expensive to belong to the Ponderosa Sheriff’s Department.
Apparently, the FBI was a little more thancasually involved.
“Yes,” I said. It was the third time I’d given my account of what happened, and it’d be so much easier if I didn’t have to remember to leave Charlie out of it. “I saw something shiny, used the stick to scrape at the ground, and dropped it when I saw the body.”
He nodded, but Special Agent Sunglasses didn’t look convinced. “Tell me what you thought you saw again,” he said, frowning.
I sighed. “Look,um…”Fuck, I forgot his actual name.
“Special Agent Waters.”
“Right, Agent Waters. I was hiking to my car, saw a reflection of something off the path, and felt weird about it. I can’t explain any more than that.”
“Have you seen anything suspicious in the area in the last few days? Any hikers or vehicles?”
I raised an eyebrow at Tate, very aware that it was illegal to lie to a federal agent. I’d already toed the line a little too much for comfort.
