Dead. A clean shot.
He hadn’t wanted it to suffer.
In the distance he heard the report of guns. A couple of blasts were followed by yelps of pain. He glanced around. Seeing no one, he knelt by the dead coyote, reached into his coat pocket, and pulled out several strands of long blond hair. He pried open the coyote’s mouth and wound the hair around two back teeth.
Alastair experienced a wave of self-loathing. He’d been feeling that a lot lately. He hated what he’d become, and yet he couldn’t see a way out, so he just kept digging himself deeper.
Rachel flushed the toilet, leaned over the sink, and cupped cold water to her face. Why was it called morning sickness when it hit at any hour of the day or night? And why was it getting bad now, when she was in the third trimester?
The first three months had been easy. She hadn’t even known she was pregnant, blaming the skipped periods on stress, but now the baby seemed to be draining the life out of her.
Her cell phone rang.
Alastair Stroud, calling to tell her the coyote slaughter was over. “We’re in the square.”
“I’ll be down in a few minutes.” She flipped the phone shut. Sometimes she hated men. A lot of times she hated men.
In the kitchen she took a few sips of a protein drink, hoping it would settle her stomach; then she headed to the square.
It looked like half the town had turned out.
Dead coyotes had been removed from truck beds and were on display, lined up ten wide and three deep.
Cameras were clicking.
News teams had set up in a grassy area on the opposite side of the street. The mayor, dressed in his Day-Glo hunting vest and cap, was being interviewed by television stations. He hadn’t wanted news of the hunt to leak out before the event, but he sure as hell wanted the press here now, once it was over. He was bent on bringing tourists back, even if it meant the slaughter of innocent animals.
When the mayor’s interview was over, he spotted her and made his way over. “Quite a success, I’d say.”
Rachel stared at him. “If you’re talking about creating your own reality, I agree.”
She’d shocked him, but he quickly recovered. “I’m surprised by you. Somebody who sees so much death.”
She let out a little sound of protest. “That doesn’t mean I like it or embrace it.”
“I never said that. And nobody likes it. This was something that had to be done.”
She’d always resented the way he’d come in and just taken over, and it had surprised her that he’d beaten out two locals for the position of mayor. It seemed people were ready for guidance and big ideas. She could understand that, since nothing up until this point had really worked for them. Tuonela had been in a state of decay and decline ever since she could remember.
Alastair Stroud appeared. “We’d like for you to autopsy a random sampling of animals.”
That veiled demand didn’t improve her mood. “Animal autopsies aren’t in my job description.”
“Come on, Rachel. Just do a cursory exam. Maybe check stomach contents. Look for signs of human remains.”
“If that’s what it will take to prove that this slaughter was completely uncalled-for and that these animals are innocent, I’ll do it. Pick out the three most likely suspects and bring them to the autopsy suite.” She turned and strode away, quickening her pace and making it inside the morgue just in time to throw up again.
Rachel followed standard autopsy procedure, beginning by dictating the basics into a small recorder. That led to the external exam of the first animal’s fur and paws. She pried open the mouth and brought the swing arm close, all the while aware of Alastair Stroud standing a few feet away.
“You could have stood up to the mayor.”
“I tried.”
“I can see that.” She picked up a pair of tweezers from the instrument tray.
“I can only do so much.”
“I’m beginning to think that’s a problem with everybody in this town, me included. An inability to take action.” With a gloved hand, she held the animal’s jaw open and extracted long pale threads from between the back teeth.
Jesus.
Now, that was totally unexpected.
She held the strands under the light.
Alastair stepped forward. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Forget everything I just said,” she mumbled with distraction. “Hair.
Human
hair.”
Alastair let out a low whistle.
Rachel tucked the strands into an evidence bag and plopped down on a nearby stool, stunned. It could take a while to shift gears. “I’ll see if we can get the crime lab to put a rush on this.”
“Now we know the perpetrator.”
She looked up at him. “Do we?”
This was too easy. Too obvious, the hair strands appearing to have been freshly introduced rather than packed and matted with oral debris. She started to voice her suspicions, but caught herself at the last second.
Alastair was standing there looking like an anxious trick-or-treater. Rachel thought about how odd he’d been acting lately.
What the hell was he up to?
Chapter Thirty-seven
It didn’t seem like I slept at all, but I must have, because the creak of floorboards above my head jerked me awake. Weak light filtered through the small ground-level, block-glass window, indicating that morning had arrived.
Graham really should have warned me about the mice.
I’d heard them scratching, the sound coming from the vicinity of the freezer. Sometimes I swore it seemed like they were
inside
the freezer.
At one point I’d gotten up and opened the freezer lid, then quickly hid when I heard footsteps on the floor above my head.
I rubbed my face, braided my hair, and wished I had a drink of water. I looked up at the wooden rafters and wondered what I was doing. How did I constantly get myself into these situations? Why hadn’t I just gone back to Minneapolis with Ian and Stewart?
Was I fooling myself? Convincing myself I could make a documentary that would have some impact and meaning either socially or artistically? I mean, I’d worked with a lot of people who thought they had talent when they really didn’t. Was I just another one of those delusional fools? How did a person know? That was the problem with delusion.
I heard a door slam, then heavy footsteps. A minute later the basement door opened. I jumped to my feet and grabbed the sleeping bag.
“Just me,” Graham whispered. He jogged down the steps. “He’s gone. He left really early. I gotta get going. I have a big test today. It’s worth half my grade, and I’m already late.” He glanced at the freezer. “Hey, why’s this open?” He closed the lid.
“There were mice trapped inside.”
“Mice?”
“Yeah. Inside the freezer.”
“So you let them
out
?”
“Yeah.”
He laughed and we left.
I dropped Graham off at school. He got out of the car, pausing and leaning in the open door. “Pick me up right here at three thirty.”
I was fiddling with the radio. “Yep.”
I headed downtown to see if anything was going on. A press conference was in progress on the courthouse lawn. I dug out my camera and kept a low profile while inching my way through the crowd of bystanders, reporters, and newspeople.
Mayor McBride was going through his spiel, an obviously prepared speech, talking about how they’d get to the bottom of the deaths. He went off on a coyote tangent again. Apparently they’d had some huge coyote roundup that had ended in a massive kill.
Buncha lunatics.
I got it on tape. I might use it; might not.
I shut off the camera and looked up from the viewfinder. A guy in a dark suit was watching me.
Crap.
I got the feeling he was with the mayor. One of his thugs. Did people really have thugs, or was that just on TV?
I capped the camera lens.
The guy in the suit began wending his way toward me, cutting through the clumps of people. I jumped, turned, and began walking away quickly. I broke out of the crowd and chanced a look over my shoulder.
He was still coming, faster now.
I ran.
I didn’t really know why. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but something about a big guy in a suit just made me haul ass.
Graham’s car was nearby, but I didn’t want the guy to see me getting in it. I cut down an alley, through a yard, down another alley. Glanced over my shoulder. Not there. Circled back to the car, jumped inside, started the engine, pulled away.
Checked the rearview mirror.
There he was. Standing in the middle of the street.
I headed out of town, to the place I’d wanted to visit again since day one. The scene of the original crime. The place where the little girl had appeared, then disappeared.
A few heavy frosts and the trees had lost most of their leaves. Now, rather than a repeated pattern of yellow, the repeat was dark, symmetrical trunks under a gray sky.
I began filming as soon as I stepped from the car. Keeping the camera low, I walked slowly toward the grove of trees. The leaves were thick and buoyant under my feet. They absorbed sound and created heaviness around my ankles that weighed me down. My body seemed closer to the ground, and my legs weren’t as light as they’d been on the road.
I could see a few birds clinging to tree branches, but they were silent, watchful. The area felt lifeless and hollow.
Before entering the trees I paused and kept the camera focused on the spot where I thought the little girl had appeared. I panned to the right and left, bringing the camera back to the beginning.
Nothing unusual in the viewfinder.
But then, I hadn’t seen anything in the view-finder last time.
I glanced up and checked the path. The sky was a slate gray, distant and cold and talking of snow. My fingers were turning red, and I felt a chill wrap around my ankles and creep up my pant legs. Why hadn’t I worn socks? Why hadn’t I borrowed some heavier clothes from Graham?
Foolish and unprepared. Story of my life.
I moved forward and tried to ignore my physical discomfort.
Into the woods.
Even though most of the leaves had fallen, a few clung stubbornly to branches, twirling as if trying to break away and drop to the ground. It was even quieter here.
The trees had been planted by a human hand, unnaturally close together. The artist in me appreciated the way the trunks lined up from every angle, all paths leading into black infinity.
Should I have come here by myself?
I’d thought it would be okay, since it was daylight. Both of the murders had happened at night. But now, with the sky turning so dark, and with the woods so isolated . . .
It was like night.
I paused and looked behind me.
I’d come farther than I’d thought. I could see Graham’s car, but it was small and undefined. When I swung back around, the other side of the woods didn’t seem any nearer. The entire place created an optical illusion.
Should I stop? Go back?
I’d gotten footage. Maybe not everything I’d wanted, but probably enough. I always shot too much anyway.
But I wanted to get to the other side.
I walked faster; to hell with the jerkiness of the camera. It might add a little something.
Five more minutes and the view ahead hadn’t changed.
I paused to check behind me.
I couldn’t see the car anymore. I lifted the camera to shoulder level and did a slow 360-degree pan, the black trunks nearest me blurry while the distance was in sharp focus.
This was going to be some of the coolest stuff I’d ever shot.
For a moment I forgot about my plan to make a documentary on Tuonela. I was just excited about what I was capturing.
I heard a rustle. I lowered the camera and visually scanned my surroundings. Dark trees. Standing. Watching. A flutter of a leaf, then hollow air.
A movement. Something black. A shift of bark. Was that a head? Someone looking from around a tree? And another? Was that another someone?
Like a kaleidoscope, black objects seemed to ooze from the tree trunks, moving in unison. I gasped and took a step back.
The sky was darker now, and I blinked, trying to make out what I was seeing.
Shapes moved toward me.
I tried to scream, but the air swallowed the sound as soon as it left my mouth. I ran. The wrong way. Away from the car, but it was my only choice because it was also away from the dark shapes coming after me.
Chapter Thirty-eight
As soon as the bell rang, Graham was out of the school building, looking up and down the street. No sign of Kristin or his dad’s black car.
Great.
Where was she?
He waited while the buses pulled away. Pretty soon everybody was gone, and still no sign of his ride.
He walked home.
It wasn’t far.
Was he the worst judge of character in the world? Kristin was a flake, but had he misread her? He’d known she was using him, but he’d felt that at her core she was all right. He certainly didn’t think she’d do something like steal his dad’s car. Was that possible? No, she wouldn’t do that.
Would she?
She wasn’t at his grandfather’s house. He’d half thought maybe she’d be there. Nobody was home. After an hour he called Alastair and told him at least part of the story.
Never tell them the whole story.
“Kristin Blackmoore was supposed to leave town yesterday,” Alastair said. “What was she doing with your car? Your dad’s car?”
“I let her borrow it. She wanted to get some video before she left. It didn’t seem like a big deal.”
“I’ll see what I can find out.” Alastair disconnected.
An hour later he called back and Graham answered the phone before the second ring.
“We found the car,” Alastair said. “At Aspen Grove.”
Graham swallowed. “Kristin?”
“Her belongings were inside, but no sign of her. I have some officers searching the area right now.”
“She’s there. Somewhere. She has to be somewhere. Or maybe Ian and Stewart came back and she left with them.” But would she have abandoned the car? With her stuff in it?