What We Found

by Kris Bock

  What We Found

  by Kris Bock

  A summer afternoon

  A stranger’s body

  A life changed forever

  And above, a hunter watches....

  When Audra stumbles on a murder victim in the woods, more than one person isn’t happy about her bringing the crime to light. She’ll have to stand up for herself in order to stand up for the dead woman. It’s a risk, and so is reaching out to the mysterious young man who works with deadly birds of prey. But with danger all around, some risks are worth taking.

  Pig River Press

  Copyright 2012 by Chris Eboch

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  About The Author

  What We Found

  By Kris Bock

  Chapter 1

  I shouldn’t be doing this. I don’t do things like this.

  And yet I kept walking, following Jay through the woods. I stepped carefully along the narrow path, but my good shoes would be dusty by the time we were done. My gaze flicked up to Jay’s long legs in faded jeans. His butt had been voted the best in our high school. It wasn’t the only reason I’d had a crush on him as a sophomore, but it definitely played a part.

  Six years later, it was hard to believe I was really walking through the woods with him. Though we’d grown up together in a town of only 8,000 people, we’d rarely spoken. He was two grades ahead of me, but even if we’d been in the same year, I wouldn’t have traveled in his circles. I’d seen him around school or at the pizza parlor, I’d watched his basketball games, I’d felt sorry for him when I heard his dreams of playing college ball fell through.

  Since I’d graduated, I’d only seen him around town when I came back to visit. We might smile and say “Hey” as we passed, the way acquaintances did. Yet a week after I’d moved back home, I was taking a long lunch to follow Jay into the woods. I felt like a giddy high school girl again.

  I had to remind myself that I was twenty-two, an adult, with a brand-new college degree—with honors. I’d worked hard to get the Hospitality Degree that had landed me one of the few good jobs in the only place in town worth working. I’d come back to my hometown for my new job at the Mountain Inn and Resort and for my brother, not for Jay. And I was old enough to realize that we probably didn’t have much in common.

  But when my high school crush noticed me for the first time and offered to show me the view from the plateau, how could I resist? I didn’t expect to start a beautiful relationship, but it was nice to imagine I’d turned into the type of woman who could attract a cool guy’s attention.

  My heart was beating a little too quickly and I had to wipe my palms on my slacks. Despite the leafy shade, the air hung heavy and hot, the first really warm day of the year. It had hit 87 down in Albuquerque the day I moved, but summer came later in the central New Mexico mountains, at an elevation of almost 7,000 feet.

  We entered a small clearing. Sunlight broke through the trees, dappling the long yellow grass. It was nice to be back in the mountains, back in these woods where I’d walked so often, after four years in a big city. I’d missed the green.

  A bird rustled nearby. Jay turned and smiled at me. I smiled back, but my face felt stiff as I remembered his reputation with girls. At the time I’d envied those girls, with all the naïveté of a shy teenager who never got asked to go for walks in the woods with boys. Now I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. He’d said he wanted to show me the view and point out the changes since I’d been gone. But in high school, a “walk in the woods” wasn’t about the scenery.

  I was being silly. We’d grown up since then. And we hardly had time to get into trouble. He couldn’t possibly assume we were sneaking out for a quickie after chatting for half an hour in the employee lunchroom. I’d told him I only had a few minutes.

  “Come on, let’s go through here.” He pushed into the trees to the side of the clearing, rather than going forward on the established path that looped around the plateau and eventually back toward the resort. The view should be straight ahead.

  I glanced back down the path, but the bright green of the golf course had disappeared around a bend. Still, we were just a few minutes from work. Maybe he knew another path, a smaller game trail.

  It was easier to go along than to ask questions. If he had something more in mind than admiring the view, I could stop him later. But no need to cause a fuss yet.

  A minute later he stopped in a smaller clearing, where a fallen log had cleared a space among the other trees. A nearby bank sloped down to a ditch that might carry a trickle of water later in the season, after the rains. I kept my smile in place and waited to see what he would do.

  He swung toward me and reached out with one hand. I jerked back. My arm bumped against a tree and I felt the bark catch my sleeve. I looked down to free it, my face hot.

  “Nervous?” Jay asked with a smile in his voice.

  I shrugged and avoided his gaze. “You startled me.”

  “Ah, sweet little Audra. Not so little anymore, and surely not so innocent?” He brushed his fingers over my hair where it draped over my shoulder just above my breast. I tensed but couldn’t move back without hitting trees.

  He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small plastic baggie. He unrolled it and pulled out a handmade cigarette—probably a joint. Some of the other rumors about him came back, rumors I’d forgotten. He grinned the cocky basketball-star smile that had melted so many hearts, but it didn’t look quite the same now. For the first time I noticed the hollows under his eyes and the faint lines on his weathered skin. Could he really be just twenty-five? Had we all aged so much? Or had the years been harder on him?

  He did work outside, which could account for some of the weathering. I was glad I always used moisturizer with sunscreen.

  He lit up, took a puff, and held out the joint. I shook my head and struggled to keep a polite half-smile in place. He frowned and kept his arm extended. “Come on, you need to loosen up.”

  My hand twitched, as if it wanted to follow his command of its own accord. I hated conflict. But I didn’t do drugs, and I wasn’t about to start. If I got fired from my job in the first week, I’d have a hard time finding anything else in town. I’d been away for four years, only visiting once a month, and I wasn’t about to make Ricky deal with Mom on his own any longer.

  “Thanks, but no. I, uh, have some mild asthma and smoke makes me cough.” I’d found excuses like that more effective than a simple no thanks, which could lead to derision and pressure.

  He shrugged and turned away, taking another puff. The smoke drifted toward me, confirming that this was no ordinary cigarette. I edged toward the ditch bank to get away from the smell. As an excuse for backing away, I leaned over to sniff the clusters
of yellow blossoms on a gangly wildflower.

  I almost gagged.

  Could that stench really be coming from those pretty little flowers? I straightened, trying to breathe shallowly through my mouth and hide my disgust so Jay wouldn’t think I was disapproving of him.

  Once I’d noticed it, the smell seemed strong all around me. Jay sat on the log and smoked. I paced the small open space, trying not to gag. It smelled of garbage, something rotten, decaying, dead. I wanted to get out of there. I wanted to turn back and run through the woods, back to my small office where I could focus on my work. This was a mistake. I’d never belonged with Jay and never would.

  My friend Katie’s voice sounded in my head. Stop it! You’re channeling your mother again. Not all men are monsters.

  He grinned up at me. “Come on, have a seat.”

  I stared into his face as my stomach churned. How could he stand being in this place? Couldn’t he smell it? Or did his little cloud of pot block out everything else?

  I managed a smile. “Can we go now? I don’t want to get in trouble my first week.”

  He made a sound that might have been a short laugh or might’ve been a grunt of annoyance. “What’s the big deal? My dad’s the manager. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  But his dad wasn’t my direct boss, and having Jay ask his dad to tell my boss to go easy on me wouldn’t build the reputation I wanted.

  He gave a smile that I would have found charming when I was fifteen. “Come on, sit down next to me.”

  I hesitated. I should tell him I was leaving. Just walk away. But I couldn’t make the words come out. He might get angry, and as he’d said, his father was the manager.

  I didn’t want to go back to the office smelling of marijuana. He had the joint in his right hand, so I finally sat on his left a couple of feet away. Once he finished his joint, I’d insist we leave.

  He edged closer and put his arm around me. His right hand—fortunately empty—came up to my face. I hoped he hadn’t dropped the joint into the dry grass. Fire danger was at its usual early-summer high.

  He leaned in and his lips touched mine. I flinched.

  Jay leaned back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  My face heated. “I’m sorry. It’s just….” I searched for an excuse that wouldn’t insult him. I glanced toward the ditch. “Something stinks here. It’s making me sick.”

  He sniffed the air. “You’re right. Smells like something died.”

  When he stood, I jumped up too. But instead of heading back for the main path, he walked closer to the ditch. It figured, a man notices something dead and instead of getting away from it he wants to poke around closer. I sighed.

  Jay sniffed and then made a face. He pushed past a low-hanging branch and took a couple of steps down the ditch bank. I guess I have my share of morbid curiosity, because I edged closer.

  Jay made a choking sound. He stumbled backward, turned, and bumped me hard as he pushed past.

  “What is it?” I demanded

  He leaned over the log, hands on his thighs, taking deep breaths. I looked toward the ditch, then back at Jay. What could have caused this reaction? Something dead, but larger and grosser than he’d imagined? I pictured a deer with maggots crawling all over it.

  I shuddered. Whatever it was, I didn’t want to see it.

  “Jay? Are you all right?”

  He straightened, still breathing heavily. “We have to get out of here. It’s a body. I think—I think it’s a body.”

  I stared at him, the words slowly sinking in. “You mean … a human body?”

  He didn’t answer. I glanced toward the ditch and whatever it hid. “Are you sure?”

  He shook his head. His skin looked gray, and his eyes seemed to stare at something no longer there. He lifted a hand and curled it into a fist over his chest. “There was … a hand.”

  I swallowed hard and pressed my arm over my stomach. “We need to call someone.” But if we reported a body and it turned out to be an animal, we’d look like fools. “We have to know for sure.”

  Jay made no move. I said again, “We have to know.”

  I walked slowly toward the ditch. I ducked under the branch. The smell rose up to gag me and I put a hand over my nose and mouth. My face turned away, refusing to see. I had to force myself to turn my head, to keep my eyes squinted open.

  Oh God. It was a body. A woman’s body.

  The smell choked me and my vision blurred. Behind me, I heard Jay’s harsh breathing. I should have listened to my instincts.

  I shouldn’t be here.

  Chapter 2

  I staggered back to Jay. My face felt strange, my lips pulled back in a weird grimace. “We have to call someone. Nine-one-one. The police.” I fumbled in my pocket for my phone.

  My hand trembled as I lifted the phone toward my ear. Jay grabbed my wrist. “No.”

  “What do you mean? We just found a body! We have to report it!”

  He plucked the phone out of my hand. “We’re not telling anyone. We were never here.”

  My hands dropped to my sides. “But—but—we can’t just—we have to—Jay, this is serious!”

  “Exactly.” He pushed me toward the main path. “This is serious and we don’t want to be involved in it. Let somebody else find it.”

  “Jay, that’s ridiculous.” I tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he outweighed me, and with the trees close on either side I had little choice but to keep going forward.

  When we hit the main path I wrenched away and turned to face him. “Jay, give me my phone. We don’t have to stay here if it bothers you that much. But we need to report this. That person’s been missing…” I gulped. “…for a while. People must be wondering what happened to….”

  The image flashed through my mind, much as I wanted to erase it. The body was hardly recognizable but long hair and the tattered remnants of a flowered jacket suggested a woman. “Her. I think it was a woman. She might have gotten lost or injured while hiking. Caught in a storm. Attacked by a mountain lion.”

  My stomach roiled. I pressed an arm across it and bent over. Probably not a mountain lion. It would have destroyed the body, scattered the bones. I wanted to throw up but couldn’t.

  I straightened. “Whatever happened, people need to know about it. She must have family wondering where she is. There’s no guarantee someone else will stumble over that soon, not where it is.”

  He grabbed my upper arms and leaned in so I winced at the smell of pot on his breath. “Listen to me. I have marijuana in my pocket. Do you think I want to bring the police out here?”

  “So hide it, get rid of it! Anyway, they’re not going to search you.”

  He leaned closer and spoke slowly. “We are not going to do anything. Let it go. This isn’t our responsibility.”

  He pushed me down the path toward the resort. I stumbled ahead of him, hardly aware of where I was stepping. My body felt stiff and clumsy, and the forest seemed to spin around me. My foot caught on something, and I went down on one knee. Jay hauled me up again.

  It had to be a dream. A nightmare. Things like this didn’t happen.

  I shook my head. Of course they happened. Every year a few people died or disappeared in the wilderness. One of my high school classmates had gotten drunk and walked off a cliff. Hunters had accidents. Tourists went hiking unprepared, not realizing that this luxurious ski and golf resort backed up to miles of unmarked wilderness.

  But I’d never had to see it before.

  We broke out of the woods at the edge of the golf course. The walk had seemed to take forever and yet to take no time at all. Golfers played in the distance, cheerful spots of color against the green grass. Jay nudged me and I turned to skirt the fairway. In another couple of minutes we would be back in the resort. Did Jay really expect me to go to my office and pretend nothing had happened? The horror had to be written all over my face.

  I tried a smile. My cheeks twitched in a spasm.

  This was absurd.
I had to make Jay understand how important this was. In another minute we’d have no privacy. I tried to ignore my stuttering heart as I turned to face Jay.

  Before I could speak, he growled, “Don’t start. You’re an outsider now. You don’t have friends here. You don’t know what’s really going on. So keep quiet. Leave this alone.”

  I stared, my mouth open but no words coming out. Jay darted a glance toward the buildings. “I’m going back to the greenhouse. Get back to work and keep your mouth shut!”

  My mouth snapped shut so hard my teeth rattled. Jay stormed away. I didn’t watch him go; I stared straight ahead until my vision blurred.

  Finally I shook my head and blinked rapidly, bringing the world back into focus. Brilliant blue sky. Unnaturally green grass. In front of me everything was clean, tidy, sanitized for your protection. But behind, the forest grew untamed, with shadows that now seemed threatening. At the resort, people went about their business, their work or play, with no idea of the thing that lay out there in the woods.

  I gulped back a sob. Not a thing. A person. As terrible as that was, it was important, too. Someone had died in those woods. Probably a woman or teenage girl. I hoped she had died quickly, without pain or fear. Had she been caught in a storm last winter? Gone into the ditch for a little shelter from the wind? They said freezing wasn’t so bad at the end.

  Or had she died violently? I didn’t want to believe it possible, didn’t want to think about it. But someone needed to find out for sure. Someone needed to bring her home.

  Jay disappeared into the greenhouse behind the resort. I crossed the fairway to the main building and went down the hall to my office, my mind still back in the woods. I sat behind my desk and stared ahead. I needed to do something, but I couldn’t make myself move. I only managed to blink when my eyes got so dry they stung.

  I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at nothing. The knock on the doorframe took a moment to register. I turned my head and forced a smile. My face felt stiff, but the smile stayed in place as my boss entered.

  “Oh, good, you’re back. The preliminary write-up for the Sullivan wedding looks good, but I want to go over a few things.” Eslinda stepped closer. At barely five feet tall, she didn’t have to duck her head much to peer into my face, even though I was seated. “Are you all right? You look pale.”