The Body Finder

by Kimberly Derting

  She watched her feet move steadily over the gravelly terrain until she fell into an even rhythm. She found herself getting lost in the music as she ran, inhaling and exhaling with the cadence of her steps.

  She wasn’t surprised that she couldn’t see the mountain today; the low clouds obscured any trace that it had ever even existed, blotting the image completely from the skyline. She ducked beneath the canopy of the trees, following the trail she’d run so many times before and enjoying the feel of the threatening moisture in the air against her skin.

  And then something suddenly invaded her sense of calm. She paused the music and listened.

  It was strange when an echo came to her, especially one that wasn’t exactly an auditory echo, like now. Not to say that she couldn’t hear it, she could…kind of. But it was much less a sound than it was a feeling. A high-pitched squeal that was nearly beyond the range of her ears…more like a resonance, a dark vibration, than an actual noise.

  Either way, it was there. And it was clear and strong. And it was definitely close.

  Her first thought was that there was a body nearby. The intensity of it didn’t speak to what it was so much as when it might have been left behind. She pulled the earbuds out of her ears and slowed way down, and then came to a stop as she tried to decide how best to handle this. She thought about trying to locate the echo, right here, right now, but the idea of potentially uncovering another body—another girl, maybe even Mackenzie—out here on her own, all by herself, was more than a little alarming to Violet. Her previous reactions had not been a good indicator as to how she might respond.

  On the other hand, she knew this trail by heart, and she could easily find her way back here if she went to get help. She glanced around her, to make sure she knew exactly where she was, and decided to go back.

  She turned around and started jogging again, this time slower, her senses heightened and straining to keep in touch with the shrill, almost inaudible, screech.

  That turned out to be easier than she’d expected.

  It followed her.

  Her chest tightened, and her heart rate doubled as she glanced around her. She ran a little faster, concentrating on the echo more than ever.

  It was definitely moving, getting closer to her even as she should have been moving away from it.

  And then it hit her. It wasn’t an echo at all. It was an imprint. Which meant it wasn’t a body she was sensing. It was a predator.

  Her first thought, besides getting home faster, was that it was an animal of some kind. Coyote or wolf…maybe even a bear that had caught her scent as she’d trespassed into the forest. But whatever it was, it was closing the gap quickly, and Violet was desperately afraid that she might never make it out of the woods alive. Home was too far away.

  She needed to shorten the distance, even though that would mean leaving the trail. But she was being hunted now, she knew that with a certainty that she couldn’t explain, and she didn’t have much choice. The space between her and her predator was rapidly disappearing.

  She lurched slightly to her right, stepping off the fairly cleared pathway and into a sea of lush green ferns and brush that seemed to spring up from every square inch of ground. Stinging nettles clung to the bottom of her pants with their cutting barbs, and she had to lift her feet higher to outmaneuver the obstacles in her way. But adrenaline had kicked in, along with her fight-or-flight reflex. She felt like her airway was clearer and wider, and her steps had become easier rather than more difficult.

  Whatever was prowling through the woods followed right behind.

  Violet could hear her labored breathing, punchy with each hard footfall, as she concentrated on finding her way. She glanced back, quickly, only to see nothing in pursuit. But she knew better than to trust her eyes. It was there. There was no doubt in her mind that it was coming after her.

  And then she tripped, not all the way, she didn’t fall to the ground, but she’d stumbled…hard. Just as her knee grazed the ground, at the very moment that her fingertips shot out to catch herself in case she actually fell, her head turned, just slightly, to the right…and that was when she saw it. Or rather, him.

  She regained her balance more quickly than she would have thought possible, and before she could think through her decision she instinctively turned to her left and ran as fast as she could. The problem was, now she was running away from her house. But in that instant, it didn’t matter; all that mattered was getting away from the man who was following her…hunting her.

  She tried not to linger too much on the details, concentrating instead on where she should go and how she was going to get away from him. But the image of him, flanking her at that moment, was haunting. He was dressed in camogear, which to Violet was more reminiscent of the military than of hunters she had seen. Even his face had been painted, army green with black smudges circling his eyes. But the most disturbing part of all, the most alarming part, was the imprint he carried with him.

  He was a killer. And he was after her.

  She heard his footsteps eating up the ground behind her, as he gave up being stealthy and discreet. They sounded like thunder. She ran as fast as was humanly possible through the tangled ground cover, beneath the expanse of towering trees.

  She heard the river, and she knew she was getting closer to it. But that was bad…really, really bad. It meant she was going in the wrong direction, and the river, if nothing else, would provide the worst kind of roadblock, trapping her between it and the man chasing her.

  Far away, another sound penetrated her terror. She tried to listen to it, but it was gone too soon, before she had a chance to make out what it was exactly.

  She squeezed her way through branches that lashed out at her, whipping her face and arms. She was grateful that her feet kept finding a solid place to land, terrified that at any moment she might stumble again and lose any advantage that she might have in getting away from the man pursuing her. But she was growing tired now, winded, and panic was making it harder and harder for her to think clearly.

  The sound was there again, louder this time. It was distinctly different from the shrill resonance coming from her predator, but still, she couldn’t decipher it.

  She ducked left to avoid a huge cedar tree in her path and heard the heavy, nearly deafening footsteps of the man behind her. She twisted right then, hoping to use the tree between them to cut off his direct path.

  This time, when she heard it again, she knew what it was. A voice rang out through the dense woods. She felt a surge of hope, even though it was still too far away for her to hear the words called out or to tell who was behind them.

  Without thinking, she yelled back, as loud as she could manage with her chest now constricting tightly, practically squeezing her throat closed with panic. “HELP! HELP!!!” she screamed as hard as she could, but it came out hoarse and disjointed. She couldn’t wait around to see if she’d been heard.

  Her toe caught against something sticking up from the ground, and her footstep stuttered, but not enough to really slow her down. She didn’t know how much longer she could keep this pace, or even if this pace was enough to keep him at bay behind her. Her lungs were burning with the fiery strain, and the stitch in her side was pinching tightly.

  The voice came again. Louder, much louder now. She could hear the words…and she recognized who it was.

  “Vi-o-let!” she heard Jay’s voice calling out to her. “Vi!”

  She wanted to cry with relief, not sure that she should even be relieved to hear him. Maybe his presence only meant that the killer tracking her down would carry two more imprints out of the woods today. But she couldn’t help reveling in a moment of sheer delight at the sound of his voice.

  “Over here!” she yelled. “I’m over here!”

  A group of trees stood in her way. She dodged between them, or thought she had, until she felt her shoulder slam hard against one of the immovable trunks. It practically knocked the wind out of her. And this time she stumbled, slowing
way too much. She tried to regain her speed, not looking where she was going as she broke through the cluster of trees and bushes, and by the time she realized that she’d reached the edge of a bluff leading down to the river, it was too late.

  The fall was long, and hard, and happened so fast that Violet could only make out the blur of green, brown, and gray on one side and the distorted icy rushing waters of the river on the other. She felt her ankle twist beneath her as she landed at the bottom. She hit the ground with a surprisingly loud thud that forced every ounce of air from her body. Her head ached, although she couldn’t tell if she’d hit it or not. Her body felt battered and defeated.

  She opened her eyes, only briefly, expecting to see the camouflaged man in hot pursuit, taking advantage of her incapacity to finally catch up with, and kill, her. She looked up to the spot where she’d fallen from and she saw no one.

  The imprint was gone.

  When her lids became too heavy to hold open any longer, she let them flutter shut again.

  And she dreamed.

  Of Jay.

  CHAPTER 22

  WHEN VIOLET AWOKE, SHE WAS CONFUSED. Disoriented, like the strange sensation of waking up in a bed that wasn’t your own and then struggling to remember where you’d fallen asleep.

  Only this time, Violet was pretty sure she hadn’t fallen asleep in the back of an ambulance.

  The details of how she’d gotten there were hard for her to grasp and felt like scraps from a dream—or a hallucination—pieced together in incomplete segments.

  She remembered running….

  And being chased.

  And a voice calling out to her.

  She tried to sit up, only to find that she was fastened to the stretcher and her neck was being held immobile by a huge brace strapped around her.

  She remembered falling, a memory made more clear by the pain shooting up from her ankle. She assured the paramedic riding with her that her neck was just fine, but he insisted that she stay put, and no amount of pleading on her part could change his mind.

  “How did you find me?” Violet finally asked him, giving up on the idea that he would release her.

  “Some kid called it in, said he was your boyfriend. He’s coming right behind us.” He waved his metal clipboard toward the rear doors of the vehicle as if Violet could see out of them. She couldn’t of course; she was strapped to a gurney. “I think he thinks the sirens are for him too.”

  Violet closed her eyes. Jay had been there, it hadn’t been a dream after all. He’d come looking for her. She didn’t allow herself to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t.

  Relief spread through her, insulating her in the knowledge that she was safe now. She kept her eyes closed and concentrated on the sounds of the wailing sirens to distract her from the throbbing pain in her ankle.

  She was embarrassed by all the attention she drew when the ambulance pulled into the emergency bay at the hospital. Jay met her inside, and never left her side, holding her hand silently—reassuringly—throughout the triage process, where she was cleared from the restraints. And when she was finally wheeled back to a room with long curtains hanging down to separate one bed from another, Jay pulled a chair close to her.

  He captured her hand between both of his and touched her fingertips to his lips. “Are you okay?” he finally asked, seeming to breathe for the first time since she’d seen him.

  She felt guilty for causing him to look so troubled. “I’m fine, really. I think I just twisted my ankle a little. It’s nothing. As soon as my parents get here, we can go home.”

  She hated being in the hospital. She’d already felt several imprints moving around her. She doubted those who carried them were murderers exactly, but Violet was certain that echoes attached to those who administered lethal doses of painkillers too…even when it was done to give the dying a more peaceful passing.

  Jay’s mom was a nurse and carried an old, faint imprint of her own. Violet had never asked Jay about it, but when she’d told her mother once, her mom had explained that sometimes it was too much to watch someone suffering when they died.

  “What were you doing so far off the trail, Vi?” Jay continued to cup her hand tenderly.

  She didn’t answer him. This wasn’t a question she wanted to discuss yet—especially not with Jay. She asked him a question of her own. “I thought your mom needed you. How come you came back?”

  She didn’t tell him how grateful she was that he had. Or why.

  It was enough of a diversion to keep him occupied for a moment. “She only needed me to let her into her car. She locked her keys inside, and I had her spare with me. But by the time I got back to your house, your mom said you’d gone for a run. I was gonna try to meet up with you on your way back and walk with you, maybe sneak you behind the bushes for a few minutes.” He smiled at her before turning more serious. “And then I heard you yelling for help…and crap, Violet, it scared the hell out of me. How did you fall, anyway? What were you doing down by the river?”

  She heard her parents then, before she saw them, and their chaotic arrival saved her from answering Jay’s questions. She could hear them at the nurse’s station outside her door, asking about their daughter’s condition, still questioning one of the nurses as they dragged her into the room with them.

  Violet assured her parents—in the same way she had Jay—that she was fine. That it was just a fall, some bruises and scrapes, nothing to worry about. And still, no one seemed to believe her.

  After a full workup, and a painful, and humiliatingly unsuccessful, attempt at standing on her own, she was sent down to Radiology for an X ray on her right ankle. By the time Uncle Stephen arrived with Aunt Kat, Violet was ready to make a run for it. Only she doubted she could get very far.

  On the other hand, her uncle was exactly the person she wanted to see right now. She had been biding her time until she could tell him what had really happened to her. But now that he was there, she wasn’t sure how to start. So she waited for the right moment.

  He ruffled her hair as he came in, all uncle and no cop about him now. She far preferred her uncle to the chief; he had inherited the sense of humor in the family, while her father got the receding hairline and mad skills with numbers. “Geez, Vi, you didn’t need to break your own leg to get out of going to the dance with Grady Spencer. A simple ‘no’ would have been just fine, I’m sure.”

  Apparently no one had noticed that Jay had barely let go of her hand for a second. His thumb was now tracing lazy circles around her palm, and he answered her uncle’s teasing comment without looking away from Violet for even a split second. “She’s not going to the dance with Grady,” he announced, smiling at her mischievously, and for a moment Violet forgot how to breathe. She hoped she never got used to how a simple look from him could turn her into a blithering idiot.

  “Really?” her aunt Kat asked, her eyes narrowing as she glanced from Violet to Jay, and then down at their intertwined hands. Clearly she wasn’t going to let the comment pass unnoticed. “Why is that?” she asked in a voice filled with unspoken meaning.

  Stephen Ambrose looked at his wife curiously, a little slow to catch on, which was sad, really, considering it was his job to seek out clues and solve mysteries.

  Jay answered Kat without missing a beat. “Because she’s going with me.” He winked at Violet, whose cheeks had flushed to a brilliant shade of scarlet. She wasn’t entirely sure she was ready for this.

  Violet saw her mom and Aunt Kat exchange meaningful glances.

  They knew, she realized. And now her uncle did too.

  Uncle Stephen gave Jay his best I’m-keeping-my-eye-on-you look, but a quick “Hmm” was the only sound he made.

  How much embarrassment could one person possibly survive?

  There was a moment of awkward silence, made even more uncomfortable by Jay’s refusal to look anywhere but at her. He reached out and brushed his finger along her cheek. Violet almost forgot to care that everyone in the room was looki
ng at them.

  Her uncle Stephen cleared his throat, and Violet jumped a little.

  “So, what exactly happened, Vi?” Suddenly the police chief was back in the room with them.

  Violet pursed her lips. She wasn’t sure where to start, but she knew it needed to be said. “Well,” she began, “I went for a run.” She paused to chew her lip, trying to put her words in the right order. “Anyway, I thought I, you know, heard something. An echo.”

  “Really?” her uncle asked. “Do you think it was a body…a person? Did you stop?”

  Violet shook her head. “No, it wasn’t that, exactly.” She cursed herself for being such a chicken, but she was afraid of how everyone was going to react if they knew she’d been followed—and very nearly captured—by a man who had obviously been chasing her. “I…it wasn’t a body.” Spit it out, already! “It was a man.”

  The words didn’t have quite the impact she’d expected, and she knew from the clueless looks on their faces that she was going to have to explain it to them.

  “Someone was following me,” she stated, and finally she had their full attention. Before they could bombard her with questions, she plunged ahead. “It was a man, and he was carrying an imprint on him. That was how I first knew he was there. He was hiding, wearing camouflage so I couldn’t see him, and he was…following me while I ran.” She paused to take a breath, feeling a little light-headed now that she was in the middle of her explanation. “When he realized that I’d seen him, he started to chase me. I knew I needed to get off the trail to try to get home faster, but I got turned around and ended up heading toward the river instead.” She looked at Jay gratefully, fresh tears stinging her eyes. “That was when I heard you calling for me.”

  Violet glanced up. Everyone was watching her uncle, who was pacing now. He seemed to be deep in thought. It wasn’t quite the reaction she’d expected from him.