She didn’t answer right away and just tied off the thread, cut it, and dropped the needle into the tray like she was trying to hurt the metal.“That’s the thing,” she said finally.“I don’t get to be scared.I have to fix people.Patch them up.Get them back out there.”
He let that sit a second.“Even so, I’m happy to help.”
Her eyes, when she met his, were a carnelian blue in the soft light.“You can’t even help yourself, Ace Osprey.”
Ouch.But that didn’t mean she was wrong.“Maybe I’ve just been waiting for the right motivation, Doc.”
The flash of alarm in her expression settled through him and landed hard.Yeah.That.
Mud clungto Christian’s boots like it had teeth.Each step squelched, slow and loud in the soaked undergrowth.Rain came down steady now in a relentless drizzle.Needle-fine and cold enough to sting where it touched skin.
Dutch stood ahead with his arms crossed, jaw tight, hat dripping.The beam from his flashlight cut a white path through the dark.Just off the trail, two kids stood by their four-wheelers—Ty Weaver and Kyle Denton.Juniors from the high school.Christian had seen them around school events, mostly grinning like idiots.Tonight, they weren’t smiling.
Ty’s face was blotchy and pale.Kyle wouldn’t take his eyes off the tree line.
“They touch anything?”Christian asked.
“No,” Dutch said.“They had the sense to call right away and sat tight until I got here.But they’re spooked.”
Christian scanned the area.“Can’t blame them.”He stepped into the clearing.“Why did they call you and not Brock?”
Dutch rolled his neck, looking down the river.“Kyle wants to be an AWT, so we get together whenever I’m in town to play chess.He has my number on his phone, so he called me.I guess we can call in Brock if you want.”
Why wake him up?Christian angled his head to see better.The body was sprawled wrong, like it had fallen from a height or been dropped.Limbs twisted.One hand buried in the mud like it had tried to dig its way down.The man’s shirt was torn open.
Christian crouched.Dutch’s flashlight beam caught the face, and Christian went still.The eyes were gone.Not just closed.Not swollen.Gone.Hollow sockets stared back at him, dark and ragged at the edges.“Jesus,” he muttered.
Dutch stepped up beside him, mouth a hard line.“Told you.”
Blood streaked across the man's face, dried now except where the rain had diluted it into something slick and ruddy.His mouth was open like he’d been screaming.Christian didn’t want to imagine what it sounded like.He stood and backed off a few paces.“No animal did that.”
“No.”Dutch said quietly.“We’d see prints.Scat.Tracks going in or out.This was a human.”
“Someone who took their time,” Christian said.He turned toward the boys.“Ty.Kyle.Either of you recognize the victim?”
Both shook their heads fast.Ty looked like he might puke.
“He just…he was just there,” Kyle said.“We thought it was a tarp at first.I went closer.Then I saw his shirt.And…his face.”
Ty wiped his nose on his sleeve.“Why would somebody take his eyes?”
“I don’t know.”Christian turned back toward the body.The trees pressed in on all sides—thick, dripping, watching.Somewhere out there, someone had done this with their own hands.Not from a distance.Up close.Personal.
“You get a name?”Dutch asked.
Christian pulled the wallet from the guy’s pocket, careful not to smear the blood soaked through the jeans.“Arizona license.Eli Warner.”They finally had a name for one of the victims.
Dutch leaned in.“We have an identification?I would’ve bet against it.This is something, Christian.The guy must’ve been a tourist?”
“Maybe.”Christian stood again.“Not anymore.”He stood over the body, his flashlight sweeping in a slow arc across the soaked ground.Everything was mud, pine needles, and blood.The river churned behind them, loud enough to make it hard to think.
Then he saw it.
Off to the left, a shallow depression in the moss.Another just beyond it that was barely visible under the sheen of rain.But the spacing was right.The angle was right.He took a step, crouched beside it.Let the light fall at just the right angle.“Dutch,” he said.
Dutch walked over, peering down.“That a print?”
“Yeah.Boot tread.Deep enough for weight, but not the victim’s.He didn’t get back up.”Christian followed the line with his light.“There’s more.It moves off into the trees.”
