“Thank you,” she said, to cover the awkward silence that followed. “I guess neither of us meant to air all our baggage at once like that.”
The phone on the desk chirped loudly, startling them both.
Jake snatched it up. “Yello?”
Annie watched as his expression grew serious, then crumpled completely into slack-jawed disbelief.
“Ben—Ben, slow down, tell me where you are… Okay… And, and you’re sure? You’re absolutely positive she’s dead?… No, you drop Layla off with Delores and meet me back out there, we’ll park up at Lewis Ridge and hike down to the spot… All right, I will, and, Ben, don’t breathe a word of this to anyone else, you understand? I’ll take a statement from you when we get up there.”
Jake hung up the phone and stood, grabbing his jacket off the back of the chair and sliding an arm into it.
“I need your help.” He turned to Annie again. “Can you identify claw marks on a body?”
Annie’s voice failed her, and she nodded.
“Then I need you to come with me. Ben Gannon just found a dead hiker down below the eastern Lewis Ridge trail. He thought she fell, but when he got up to her, he said her body was all torn apart. He thought maybe a bear or cougar had gotten to her, but then he saw…” Jake hesitated with one arm in his jacket.
“What?” Annie asked, though she wasn’t certain she wanted to know.
“Bruises. Bruises around her neck. Like… like hands.”
Annie’s breath caught in her throat.
Again came the thought she had carried with her through the snow.I didn’t sign up for this.
Jake zipped his jacket and nodded to the back corner of the room. “Grab my camera, will you? It’s there in the filing cabinet. I need to give Doc Porter a quick call and have him clear his schedule for an autopsy.”
Annie found the Nikon in the bottom drawer and slid the strap around her neck with her eyes on Jake. The phone was pinched between his ear and shoulder as he relayed details and curt instructions to the doctor while scribbling out a note on the desk.
She’d never seen him like this. Restrained. Assured. In control. This was a completely different Jake Proudy. This was the officer who had graduated top of his class at the academy, the lovable, goofy boy-next-door shoved aside by the man of action.
“You ready?” he asked over his shoulder as he hung up the phone.
Annie nodded, though she wasn’t sure she would ever be ready for what they were about to see at Lewis Ridge.
Chapter 8ANNIE
The poorly maintained Forest Service road was not kind to the low-bottomed police cruiser, and Annie gripped the handle above the window as they climbed up and around the mountain.
She was doing her best to avoid looking at the sheer drop-off just feet from the spinning tires of the car and watched instead the slate-gray clouds at the top of the windshield, their dark edges roiling inward, threatening rain.
Jake’s foot stayed on the gas as they bumped and jostled their way over the uneven gravel, engine whining loudly against the steep grade.
“Hang on.” He whipped the wheel left, and Annie squeezed her eyes shut as they skidded around a tight curve, gravel spitting behind them. When she opened her eyes again, there was a black 4Runner parked on the side of the road ahead with a man standing beside it, waving his arms in the air.
“That’s Ben,” Jake muttered, swinging the cruiser in behind the SUV and shifting into park.
Ben, his mostly gray hair tousled, blue track jacket rippling in the wind, jogged to the driver’s-side window of the cruiser.
“It’s bad, Jake,” he said when Jake opened the door. “Really bad. You’re not gonna be able to get her out of here.”
“That’s okay,” Jake said, zipping his jacket and climbing out. “County has a recovery team. I radioed on the drive up. They’re on the way, but I gotta get down there and take some pictures of the scene first. You didn’t touch anything, did you?”
Her.Annie made the correction in her mind as she climbed out of the car, bracing herself against the stiff wind.You didn’t touchher,did you?
“No, no, I just climbed back down and hiked out of there as fast as I could.”
Jake nodded. “Good. You show me where she is, then you can get on home. I’m sure you’re pretty shaken up.”
