by C. J. Miller
As she got closer to the tent, she saw a black tarp covering a body, the tarp bulging—likely from the arrows that had speared the victim. No mistaking the form. She stopped abruptly and turned, shoving her face against Nathan’s jacket. His arms went around her and he clasped her against him, his mouth close to her ear.
“You don’t have to do this. You can wait until they move the body to the morgue or get pictures. This will be ugly,” Nathan said.
She knew that. No way about it, this would be horrifying. Maybe the most horrifying thing she’d see in her life. She’d seen what the Huntsman did to his victims.
One thought shored up her strength and prevented her from having a complete breakdown. If it was Blaine, she didn’t want him to be a nameless, faceless hiker on the trail. She wanted to take him home with her. She’d scatter his ashes along the trail so he would always be in the place he loved. The thought was so heartbreaking she thought she might collapse under the strain of it.
Deep breath in and out. She could do this for Blaine.
Autumn gripped the front of Nathan’s jacket in her hands, needing the security of someone, of him. “I need to know now.”
“Okay.” His breath was hot against her ear, heavy with understanding. Had Nathan identified his sister’s body? What had that been like for him?
She turned and his hands remained on her waist. He provided support, his strength the only thing keeping her standing.
Ten more steps.
She took each one with a growing sense of dread. Bile roiled in her stomach and a rush of fear tightened in her throat. Everyone on the scene had gone quiet and was watching her.
Then she was standing over the tarp, swallowing hard to keep from losing the contents of her stomach. How had her life shifted so dramatically in twelve hours? This morning, she had woken tucked against Nathan, the heat of his body warming her to her core. Now she was standing over the body of the Huntsman’s latest victim, sick with dread it might be Blaine.
“You ready, ma’am?” the park ranger standing near the tarp asked.
She sent up a silent prayer for strength and leaned against Nathan, needing to absorb support from him. She nodded numbly and the tarp was peeled back.
Burned tufts of hair remained. The scent was nauseating. Her muscles tightened. The victim’s eyes were closed. Was it Blaine? High, strong cheekbones. The cheekbones were wrong. Not Blaine’s nose. Not his mouth. Relief poured over her and she let her body collapse against Nathan, a prayer of thanksgiving running through her mind.
“Stop. Stop. It’s not him.” She couldn’t look anymore, didn’t want to see the injuries the Huntsman had inflicted. Relief mixed with guilt. Another person had been killed. Someone else’s family member was dead. Someone else’s daughter. Someone else’s wife. They might not even know she was missing yet. They might be waiting at home for her to return. But the next time they saw her, it would be at the morgue.
The sadness was so pervasive, it cut her to the quick.
“It’s not Blaine?” Nathan asked, taking her face in his gloved hands and forcing her to look at him.
She shook her head. “No. It’s not him.” A tear slipped from her eyes, an outpouring of the chaos of emotions churning inside her.
The relief on Nathan’s face was plain and it caught her off guard. She’d expected the same stoicism he’d given her all morning. “Let’s get you out of here.”
He took her hand as they walked, him leading the way. Why had he allowed the intimacy of their clasped hands? Was he working on autopilot, dragging her as quickly as possible to the truck? She didn’t want to linger at the scene, the entire situation eerie and unsettling.
“Was this what it was like for you?” Autumn asked.
She knew he’d caught her meaning immediately by the stiffening of his shoulders. “It was worse because it was her. She was alone in the backcountry. What was she doing there?”
He spoke the question as if to himself.
“That must have been terrible for you. I’m sorry,” Autumn said.
“You don’t have to be sorry. I want the Huntsman caught. I don’t want anyone else to go through this. Everything he does is unnecessary. It’s some sick ritual and he loves it and craves it,” Nathan said, darkness entering his voice. “He won’t stop until someone makes him.”
They made it just outside the yellow tape.
“Nathan!”
Nathan drew to a stop and pivoted, releasing her hand, but staying close. “Special Agent Ford.” His voice held the same coolness Ford’s had.
A muscle in Ford’s jaw jumped. “Could she ID the body? Look like anyone you know?”
Autumn shook her head. “It wasn’t my brother. I didn’t recognize the victim.”
Ford swore under his breath. “Are you sure about that?”
She was sure. “I’m sorry. I’m grateful you let me come.”
Ford rubbed a hand across his jawline. “We’ve got to find this guy before he strikes again. I have people posted everywhere along the trail. How is he getting by us?”
He didn’t wait for a response, but walked in the opposite direction of where they were standing.
Nathan’s arm went around her shoulders and steered her toward the trailhead. Sharp pleasure from being tucked against his body charged through her.
“What will you do?” Autumn asked, trying to ignore the pulse of heat where his arm lay across her shoulders.
“About what?”
“This case. The body.”
“I’ll put together what evidence and clues we can until I find this guy.” Nathan kissed her temple. “I’ll find him. If I have to chase him up and down the trail for the next decade, so be it. I will find him.”
Chapter 6
Nathan took a step back from her and looked away. “There’s a command center at the ranger station a short drive from here. I want to stop in and talk to the rangers who found the victim.”
Nathan had kissed her temple, a casual gesture, but it had the same heavy impact on her. Did the kiss imply an intimacy? Was he attempting to recapture the closeness they had lost when the FBI had shown up that morning?
“Autumn?”
Oh, the command center. The rangers. She was familiar with the station, having worked a number of shifts when she had been a forest ranger a few years before. “Ford told us to back off. What makes you think the rangers will talk to us?”
Nathan smiled at her. “They might not talk to me, but they might talk to their old buddy, former Park Ranger Reed.”
How had he known she’d been a park ranger? She gave him points for doing his homework on her. “Which rangers found the body?” Autumn asked, thinking of Ben.
“I don’t know yet,” Nathan said.
Putting the rangers in a difficult position, a position where they had to choose between friendship and duty, didn’t seem fair. It wasn’t fair to her, either. “If they were told not to discuss the case, I can’t ask them to disobey a direct order. They could lose their jobs.”
Nathan stopped on the path and faced her, taking her hands in his. His dark eyes penetrated hers as if he could see straight to her soul, and his thumbs rubbed her palms in slow, soothing circles. “I wouldn’t ask this of you, of them, if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.”
Autumn swallowed hard as the image of the Huntsman’s latest victim sprang to mind. She saw the victim as she might have been in real life. With a family. Friends. A job. “What is it you need to know?” She pulled her hand away, confused by the message he was sending.
“I need information to catch the killer before he strikes again. I need the details of what they saw before they found the body. Was the area disturbed in some other way? Did they have a clue a body was waiting for them before the smoke started?”
“All
right.” Autumn tried to think about the trail in spring, the green and deep brown of the mountains, the heavy smell of earth, the freshness of blooming flowers—anything to blot out the image of the victim.
They walked the rest of the distance to the trailhead in silence and climbed into the truck. After throwing their packs in the backseat, she and Nathan fastened their safety belts and then Nathan pulled out of the spot.
The ranger station, a faded green trailer with wooden stairs leading inside, was a ten-minute drive away. A small crooked sign on the front of the building announced it was Ranger Station No. 403. Autumn knew the combination to the door, doubting it had changed in years. Nothing of value was inside. One unmarked car she recognized as Ben’s and one ranger vehicle was parked on the stony lot that served as a parking area. They took the creaking wooden stairs to the door and Nathan pulled it open.
Ben and another ranger she knew less well, Mark, looked up from their desks and a modicum of relief washed over Autumn. They weren’t sticklers for the rules and they were overall good guys.
They had been working hard, fatigue showing plainly on their faces. The ranger station was filled with more boxes and papers than normal.
“Hey, Mark. Hey, Ben,” she said.
The men stood and Ben crossed the room to hug Autumn. His goatee tickled her cheek. “Long time since we’ve seen you here. Friendly visit or business?”
“Little of both.”
Autumn introduced Nathan to Mark. “Nathan and I are working the Huntsman case.”
Ben and Mark exchanged glances. Ben spoke first. “We’re not supposed to talk about the case without permission from the FBI agent-in-charge, Roger Ford.”
Autumn wouldn’t give up that easily. “How about we float a few theories and you can give us your impressions? We want this madman found. Anything you can tell us could be critical.”
Ben shrugged and glanced at Mark. “I guess that would be okay.”
Autumn hoped once they started talking, she and Nathan could derive the information they needed. “The killer has been striking along the Appalachian Trail.”
Autumn stepped back, and let Nathan take the lead. “Initially, I ruled out territorial killer because the murders took place farther apart. But my working theory is that his territory is the entire Appalachian Trail.” Nathan walked to the edge of a desk and propped his hip, looking relaxed and friendly. Autumn had no doubt it was intentional.
“The killer considers the trail to be his and he doesn’t like anyone on it who doesn’t follow his rules.” Nathan rubbed his jaw. “Maybe his victims don’t stay to the trail or maybe they disrupt the peace and quiet of his area. He feels as though he needs to rid the trail of people who break his rules.”
Autumn’s chest felt heavy. Nathan hadn’t mentioned that theory to her before, nor could she imagine anyone thinking they owned the trail. The trail belonged to no one.
Nathan continued as the men listened, nodding their agreement. “He dominates the trail. If someone gets in his way, if they do anything to disturb what he considers his perfect paradise, he kills them.”
“And hangs them so they can’t touch the trail.” The words popped from her mouth before she could censor them.
Nathan nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Ben shifted in his chair and looked at the ground. “I found that poor hiker.” He rubbed his forehead, as if trying to summon the words, and closed his eyes for a brief moment.
Though their relationship had been underscored with awkwardness since Ben had come out to her in high school, Autumn didn’t hold back. She slipped her arm around his shoulder and hugged him, wanting to give him support.
“I smelled burning in the morning. I was worried a hiker had gotten lost. I called Mark to tell him where I was going, gave him my GPS coordinates and started hiking.
“The body was swinging in the wind.” Ben closed his eyes and a tear slipped down his cheek. “I didn’t expect to find anyone the way I did. I hoped I wasn’t too late, that maybe he or she was still alive.” He shook his head in dismay. Park rangers didn’t deal with murders often, and the brutality and senselessness of the Huntsman’s murders were doubly difficult to understand. “No one has come around asking about a missing person.” Ben’s voice shook with emotion, and he seemed to push the words from his throat. “I should have stayed closer to the trail. The weather has been bad and I wasn’t hiking in the storm. Maybe I should have.”
“You couldn’t put your life at risk. You had no way to know this would happen,” Nathan said.
“You can’t blame yourself for this,” Autumn said, patting Ben’s hand.
“We’ll find her family,” Nathan said. “Was there a car in any of the lots nearby?”
Ben shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Any reason a hiker would go off the trail after the warnings posted everywhere?” Nathan asked. “Maybe a scientist doing research?”
Ben inclined his head. “We haven’t had any local researchers call to let us know they were working in the area. Not since the killings started.”
Nathan asked a few more questions, and when he seemed satisfied he’d gotten the information he’d wanted, the conversation turned to other, far less stressful topics. She didn’t want to abuse their willingness to cooperate. After a casual exchange about their lives and families, she and Nathan said their goodbyes and left the trailer.
“What’s the plan now?” Autumn asked, pulling her gloves on to her hands.
“I need to get inside the killer’s mind.”
She wanted to be as far from the killer as possible. “How do you plan to do that?”
“I want to walk where the victim walked. I want to walk in the killer’s tracks. Can you help me do that?”
“If you think it will help,” Autumn said, thinking again of the victim and of Blaine. She was at a loss for options, and if this was the best plan they had, she had no choice but to go along.
* * *
Autumn followed Nathan to the trailhead and then to the spot marked by a white paint blaze indicating a point along the Appalachian Trail. The trail was wet and slippery, the snow having melted in some places, making deep pockets on either side of the path where water collected and formed muddy pits. It was quiet as they began walking deeper into the forest’s shelter. Even with the mostly bare trees, nature was an easy place to hide. Low-lying brush, rocks and fallen trees created an infinite number of concealed hiding spots.
“Impossible to find any footprints,” Nathan said under his breath.
Autumn hadn’t been looking for footprints. She’d been scanning for movement in the trees, expecting to see the Huntsman watching them, waiting to strike. She had hiked this area of the trail many times. It wasn’t far from the Trail’s Edge, maybe a few days at a quick clip. “The woman who keeps the hiker shelter near here also stashes a travel log for her visitors to write about their journeys. She’s kept over ten years of journals. She types them up and posts them on a blog. It’s good PR for the trail.”
Nathan’s eyes lit with interest. “Do you think our hiker left a message in her book?”
Autumn shrugged. “She—or he—might have if she passed that way. If she stopped to rest, she might have wanted to leave her mark on the trail and write a note that she’d been here. I doubt Hilde came out in the snow to collect the journal. Without people walking the trail as much this season, she wouldn’t need to put out a new journal as often.”
Nathan stepped up his pace.
The hut that Hilde Sinclair kept was a nicer one along the trail. She took pride in keeping it in good repair, not letting the roof leak or the shelter become overrun with rodents. It was hoisted on cinder blocks and three sides were made of sturdy oak. The front was exposed to the outside, oak covering about half of it. Hooks along the roof ridge allowed the opening
to be closed off with a tarp to block the wind and rain.
The shelter was empty except for the bunk-style wooden platforms secured to the walls.
“She keeps the journal inside,” Autumn said. She went up the stairs and scanned the little hut, half expecting the journal to be missing. But it was tucked inside the leather bag against the far wall, a few pens dangling from strings tied to it.
Autumn removed it with her gloved hand and brought it to Nathan. They set it on the floor of the shelter and opened it. She turned the pages carefully to about the middle of the book where the last words were written.
In tiny childlike printing, every letter lowercase, in dark print as though the letters had been traced repeatedly, it read, “This is a hallowed ground. Our timeless laws are to be revered and honored with endless duty. Be warned that you are to stay on the trail. The mother’s secrets are not for all to know. They are mine to keep sacred.”
The entry wasn’t signed. It wasn’t dated.
This wasn’t a casual note left by a well-meaning hiker. No comments about the weather, interesting wildlife spotted in the area or good-luck wishes for other travels.
“He left this,” Nathan said. He adjusted his gloves and turned the pages of the book. Scattered randomly through them was the same message repeated in the dark scrawl.
Nathan turned the book on its side and Autumn sucked in a breath. Maybe it was dirt. Maybe it was clay. But along the side of the closed pages was a red smear.
After so many months of eluding the police, the park rangers and the FBI, would the Huntsman leave DNA evidence behind? If it was blood, it could belong to any of hikers who had passed through and either read the book or left a message. The substance found at the Trail’s Edge in cabin twelve could have been blood and if it was, could it be a match to the blood on the book? Autumn wished Nathan hadn’t been shut out of the investigation so they’d know more.
“Has he ever done anything like this before?” Autumn asked. Leaving a message was risky. Handwriting analysis could provide clues or a fingerprint could give away his identity. How realistic was it to find a fingerprint on a page of a book that might have been touched by dozens of hikers?