Predator

by Janice Gable Bashman

  “It could be a piece of a tool or some other instrument,” Kelsi said.

  Bree shot Kelsi a surprised look. They’d been working together for weeks. Other than the remark about the gobs of peat, this was the first time Kelsi had offered any comment. As Bree gathered up equipment, Kelsi looked back at her as if even she was surprised she’d spoken.

  Chapter Three

  With Kelsi and Conor in the lead and Bree and her dad following, keeping the stretcher level while climbing out of the hole required a constant see-saw between them.

  Bree conquered the last step and looked out over an uneven blanket of moss and plants covering the peat. The field tent was off to the right on a dry hummock. Past Kelsi’s shoulder, Bree eyed Conor’s blue truck and her dad’s van in the distance. It was a quarter mile away, maybe a little further. Avoiding the really wet areas, they began picking their way back to the truck; it was like walking across jelly.

  “I wonder what this guy was like,” Bree said, watching where she set each step.

  “That’s the question we all ask,” Conor said. “Was he a farmer? A shoemaker? A blacksmith? Did he live in a cottage or a mansion? Was it the beer or the whiskey he liked? Meat or fish?”

  “Did he have a wife and kids?” Liam said. “Or a dog?” He held Conor’s field kit in one hand and a bucket in the other and walked alongside the stretcher next to Conor.

  Her dad added, “It’s impossible not to wonder what his life was like. Who he loved—”

  “How he died,” Bree said abruptly.

  Conor nodded. “Yeah, well that too of course. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t interested in all of that.”

  Bree weighed the importance of the man’s life against what little weight was left of him. “But someone murdered this guy. And what about those marks on the body? How’d they get there? And what happened to his hand?”

  “There could be all kinds of explanations.” Now that Kelsi had found where she’d stowed her opinions it seemed she wanted to unpack them all. “They’ve found a lot of bog bodies over the years and many were tortured. Some were even decapitated.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Watch your step,” Conor said. “This gap’s wider than the others.”

  They tried to coordinate a hop over the space, but when Bree landed the peat gave way under her heel. She slipped and lost her hold on the stretcher. When she’d found her balance and spun back toward the stretcher it was too late—the body was already hanging off the stretcher’s edge. The others fought to steady the stretcher. She spread her arms wide, grabbed hold of both sides of the stretcher, and pressed herself against the body.

  She had to.

  If the body fell it would be destroyed.

  And it would be her fault.

  “We’ve got this end,” Conor said to Liam. “Go help Bree.”

  With only the body bag separating Bree from the body, she knew she had ruined some of the delicate tissue, tissue her dad had warned her—and trusted her—not to damage when they were uncovering the body. Bree swallowed the lump in her throat and focused on keeping her hands steady and the body on the stretcher.

  Liam scooted around the corner and lifted the stretcher. “We’re good.”

  “Give us a nod when you’re ready,” Kelsi said.

  Bree moved back to her dad’s side. Once she had a grip on the handle again, she sighed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

  “It could have happened to anyone,” Liam said. “It’s tricky walking in the bog, especially when you can’t see your feet.”

  Bree was glad for Liam’s support. But it had happened to her. And everyone had witnessed her incompetence.

  “Let’s get moving,” her dad said. “We still have a lot to do.”

  Bree took measured steps as she crossed the bog; her hand gripped the stretcher so tightly her fingers hurt. Each time she planted her foot she shuddered inside. What if the peat gave way again? What if she lost hold of the stretcher? And what if she damaged the body so badly she completely ruined it?

  After what seemed like forever, Bree reached the end of the bog, the uneven dirt road a welcome relief beneath her feet. They loaded the body into the back of the van and her dad, Conor, and Kelsi stayed behind while she went with Liam to retrieve the rest of the equipment and the soil samples. Once they returned, Bree handed Kelsi her cameras and placed Conor’s field kit into his truck.

  “Why don’t you join us for dinner at the hotel?” her dad said to the team. “My treat. Say around seven-thirty. It should give us plenty of time to secure everything in the lab and get cleaned up.”

  “Wish we could,” Conor said, “but I promised my wife we’d grab a pizza and watch a movie with Liam and Finn. Can we catch you again?”

  Bree’s dad nodded. “You’re welcome any time. How about you Kelsi? Bree and I would love the company.”

  Kelsi hesitated but then said, “Sure.”

  Great. Dinner with her dad and Kelsi. She’d much prefer the pizza, movie, and promise of some time with Liam.

  She turned begging eyes toward her dad. But he was looking at Kelsi and smiling—perhaps a little too much.

  Chapter Four

  Malshey Hotel, Largheal, Ireland

  The hotel was busy despite the late hour. Across the lobby, Bree spied a couple waiting to check in. The woman, in a short black dress, gazed into the eyes of a man who looked young enough to be her son. Three gum-chomping kids slumped in plush chairs with their feet up on ottomans, their attention glued on their cell phone screens. A blast of air hit her from the right as a man squeezed past the doorman and into the hotel with a bag in hand. He lumbered past Bree, leaving behind the aroma of coffee. She caught a hint of something sweet—caramel or maybe vanilla.

  “I’m glad you were able to join us for dinner,” her dad was saying to Kelsi. “You’re welcome any time.”

  Kelsi smiled. “Thanks, but I’d gain twenty stone if I ate like this every night.”

  He looked her up and down and smiled. “I seriously doubt that.”

  Kelsi blushed and crossed her arms. Bree turned her head away just enough so she didn’t have to look at them head on, but not enough to make it obvious.

  Her dad’s cell rang. He slid it out of his pocket, checked the display, and said, “Sorry, I have to take this.” He held the phone to his ear. “Hang on a second,” he said to the caller. He held up a hand to Bree and then moved across the lobby in search of a quiet place to talk.

  Bree sighed. His five minutes meant ten, twenty, sometimes thirty. Once he got caught up in something he forgot about everything else, sometimes even her. She sent a text to Liam and then plopped into an empty chair. Kelsi joined her.

  “You’ve been quiet,” Kelsi said. “I hope you’re not angry that I laughed at you back at the bog.”

  A smile pushed onto Bree’s face. “It’s okay. I had to shampoo my hair three times before I got all the peat out.”

  Kelsi crossed her legs and leaned toward Bree. “You know you can talk to me if you want to, right?”

  What did Kelsi expect her to say? Bree shrugged and glanced across the lobby at her dad, but she said nothing. Her cell buzzed and, thankful for the interruption, she pulled it from her pocket and checked the message. It was a text about a concert at the Pulse in a few days. Guess she’d have to miss that one. Flying home for a concert wasn’t an option.

  “It means a lot to your dad that you found the body—professionally and personally.”

  Bree didn’t want an interpreter, but Kelsi’s words made her happy. “Since my brother Troy died…he’s been…it’s just been impossible to talk to him.”

  Kelsi leaned closer. “Don’t let his distance make you think he doesn’t care about you, because he does. You’re his whole world. You know that, right?”

  Bree nodded and deliberately changed the topic. “Did they ever find out who tortured and decapitated the other bodies they found in the bog?”
<
br />   “It wasn’t just one person. Different bodies exhibited different methods of dismemberment.” Kelsi lowered her voice. “And as far as I know, this was the first found in the Galamonga Bog.”

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Bree said. “Why would someone cut off his hand?”

  “Who knows what goes through the mind of someone like that. Why does it matter so much to you anyway?”

  “It just does. No one should die like he did or be buried like that. It’s not right. And then we dig him up and put him a bag and…”

  “I know.” After a long moment Kelsi added, “It was hard for me the first time I zipped a body bag over a corpse, really hard. I felt like I was inside the bag and that I was still alive and suffocating. I started to panic and could barely grab my breath.”

  That was exactly how Bree felt. But she wasn’t going to share that with Kelsi. Instead Bree said, “That’s awful. What’d you do?”

  “Luckily the feeling passed before anyone seemed to notice, but it was still pretty scary. I’ll never forget what it felt like.”

  “I guess not,” Bree said.

  “Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that it’s okay to get freaked out once in a while, especially over something like that.”

  “I wasn’t freaked out.” The harsh tone in Bree’s voice gave away her lie.

  Kelsi raised her eyebrows, briefly stared at Bree, and then said, “Okay, but if you change your mind and you want to talk about the body, or anything else, I’m willing to listen.”

  “Sure. Whatever.”

  Kelsi’s hand was warm on Bree’s knee. She wore an odd ring. The thick silver band came together at the sides to support an octagonal shape with a raised elongated eye in the middle. Emanating from the sides of the eye were four distinct sets of carved parallel lines that reached to the edges of the octagon.

  “Cool ring,” Bree said. “Is it new?”

  Kelsi pulled back her hand. “No, I usually wear it on a chain while I’m at work.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Kelsi smiled. “It’s ancient. From well before my granny’s time. No one really knows how old it is.”

  Bree’s thoughts turned to her mom and her jewelry: bracelets and pins and earrings that now belonged to Bree, but that Bree couldn’t bear to wear. She’d give them up in an instant if only it would bring her mom back.

  Bree’s cell buzzed again. She smiled—it was Liam. “I gotta go.”

  Chapter Five

  Village Cafe, Largheal, Ireland

  “How’d you get away so soon?” Bree said. “I thought you were eating dinner with your family then watching a movie.” She sat next to Liam at a small table in the corner of the coffee shop. Cinnamon and chocolate mixed with the thick aroma of coffee.

  “The film was shite. My da always gets PG so Finn can watch. I’d rather be here with you.” Liam raked back his blond bangs and smiled. Dimples marked the corner of his mouth and, despite the dim lighting, she caught the sparkle of his eyes.

  “So what? You just took off?”

  He chuckled. “No, my da would ground my arse big time if I did that. I told him you needed to talk to me. How was dinner?”

  “Pretty boring,” Bree said, and then she filled him in on her conversation with Kelsi.

  “I still can’t believe you found a bog body.”

  “It is pretty incredible. If that peat farmer hadn’t been digging illegally during the night and left a hole, or if I hadn’t decided to check out the bog, or if I didn’t notice something weird in the peat, the body would have stayed buried forever.”

  “It’s a good thing you did,” Liam said.

  She nodded. “Yeah, but I can’t stop thinking about those strange marks.”

  “Me neither.” He took a sip of water.

  “We have to find the missing hand,” she said, “or we’ll never know what happened to the man. Not really, anyway.”

  “It’s not like you could look for it now. It’s too dark. Besides, you promised your dad you’d stay away from the bog.”

  “Let’s go tomorrow at lunch,” Bree said with a huge smile.

  Liam chuckled briefly. “I have a meeting for the cricket tournament I’m reffing. But we could go another day.”

  “I’m not waiting,” Bree said. “I’ll go without you.”

  “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

  Bree nodded. “I know my way around the bog. I’ll be fine.”

  Liam looked to his left, and Bree followed his gaze. She made brief eye contact with the man at the next table before he abruptly looked down and examined his coffee.

  Liam said, “Let’s ditch this place. There’s a great spot a couple of blocks from here. The view’s great and…” He leaned toward her and whispered, “That guy won’t be listening to everything we say.”

  The man shifted sideways in his seat. Although he had his back to her, Bree suspected he still was hanging on to their every word. She nodded and said, “Let’s go.”

  Outside the coffee shop, they had to zigzag in order to navigate the crowded sidewalk. Parents pushing strollers with sleeping babies, couples holding hands, a guy carrying a box and pulling a large suitcase behind him. No one seemed to mind the slight chill in the air.

  At the next corner they turned onto a narrow residential street. Its terraced houses were each painted a different color: red, blue, burnt orange, yellow, purple, green. The area was quiet but hardly deserted. There were parked cars in the driveways, a bicycle lying on a front lawn, and lights on inside the homes. The air seemed cleaner here somehow.

  They stepped off the curb, and a pimped-out blue Nissan Micra barreled down the street, radio blaring through the open windows. In one quick move, Liam jumped back and out of the street, pulling Bree with him; her right hip just missed slamming into a green post box. The car flew past with a giant whoosh of air.

  The danger passed but Bree trembled in its wake.

  “What a git,” Liam said. “That guy could have killed us.” He held Bree’s hand so tightly it felt like her fingers would break. “You okay?” He pulled her hard against him.

  Bree could still feel her heart thumping against her chest. But it was no longer from fear. With Liam by her side, she felt safe, and alive. “I’m good,” she said.

  They crossed the street, walked three blocks, and stopped at the intersection.

  “We’re here,” Liam said.

  Across the street, an eight-foot-high wrought iron fence ran the length of the block and continued around the corners. Two open gates, flanked by tall stone columns, stood like sentries in the middle of the fence. From the distance, the park looked nothing like Bree had expected. A fortress in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Cold and uninviting.

  Liam picked up the pace, and they made their way into the park.

  Beyond the gates, everything changed. The buildings and the cement and the cars and the noise ceased to exist. It was like they had stepped into another world. Clusters of trees and bushes created intimate spaces. Wild flower patches were everywhere, splashes of rich color in the glow of the landscaping lights. And for as far as she could see there was not another soul around.

  Liam smiled. “There’s a great spot up ahead. You’ll love it.”

  They passed under a pergola covered with thick creeping vines and followed the path around the bend to where an older couple sat on a dimly lit bench. Hard wrinkles lined the hunched woman’s face. The man was bald and had a gut that sat atop chicken legs. Their gnarled hands were wrapped tightly together. The woman smiled at Bree and Liam and in a gravelly voice she said, “’Tis a grand evening, isn’t it?” The woman’s happiness showed on her face despite the toll the years had taken on her body.

  “It is,” Bree said with a smile.

  A little farther on, Bree and Liam reached a cluster of oak trees. Something rustled from above, and Bree looked up. Two flying squirrels glided right over he
r head and alighted on another oak. Then the squirrels scurried down the trunk head first and ran off.

  Liam slipped his arm around Bree and led her down a dirt path that wound through a cluster of bushes and came out on the shore of a lake. Moonlight reflected off the surface and the water rippled in the breeze.

  Bree stopped and beheld the beauty. So much water in the middle of nowhere. It was so quiet she could hear herself breathe.

  “Not many people come down here,” Liam said. “The bank’s kind of steep and most everyone hangs out on the other side where it’s leveled out. During the day, there are a lot of boats and fishing and stuff, but it gets pretty quiet around here this time of night.” He kicked a few broken sticks out of the way and then tossed some rocks to the side so they could sit.

  “So tell me more about the bog body,” Liam said.

  “That’s the last thing I want to talk about here.”

  Liam nodded. “I used to come here to fish with my da when I was a little kid. But that was a long time ago.”

  “Why’d you stop?”

  Liam sighed and turned his head away from Bree. “Things changed.”

  “How?”

  “They just did.”

  Bree heard a sadness in his voice and was about to ask Liam about it when he said, “You ever wonder what your life would be like if things were different? If you were born somewhere else or some other time, or had different parents?”

  “Sure. Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” His voice trailed off.

  “Why are you asking?”

  “No reason. Just wondering.” Liam reached over and squeezed Bree’s hand while looking out across the lake.

  Bree sensed there was something more, and she really wanted to know what he was thinking. But it was hard to talk about things sometimes, even when you wanted to, so she let it go. He’d tell her when he was ready.

  She stared straight ahead, afraid to look at Liam.