“So I guess the rumor was true,” Carl says.
“What?”
“I heard he gave you some trouble last night,” Carl says. “Boss man doesn’t want you alone with him, even like this.”
“How’d you hear about last night?”
“Oliver spoke to Andrew this morning, who told me.”
“And you told…”
“No one. And I won’t. Chandler and Rushmore would go apeshit. We’d never hear the end of it. Did he really try to feed you to Will?”
“No! He was just…upset. He wouldn’t have gone through with it.” I don’t think. “Really, it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Bet Will thought it was. Should we be worried?”
“Nope,” I say, tossing Oliver’s book in his bag. His secret shame. Romance novels. I throw in two more and the last season of Doctor Who. We’ve only finished one disk. Guess I’ll have to borrow it if I want to see the rest. Not many TV marathons in our foreseeable future. “Let’s get him in.”
Carl flips him onto his back. Darn, he’s like a three-day-old embalmed corpse with waxy skin, sunken face, and tiny blue veins visible everywhere. I hate him like this. Gives me the creeps. Carl crosses his hands across his chest before the body levitates off the bed then down into the open casket. I can lift him with my mind but not my body, go figure. The casket has its own lift and wheels so we push it out and into the elevator.
“You ever had a werewolf case before?” I ask.
“Twice. Caught them both. As long as we take him in human form, we’ll be fine. Probably just some poor guy who thought he’d be okay isolating himself in the woods.”
“What do we do then? Arrest him?”
The elevator door opens and we push the casket out. “Depends. If he took proper precautions, did everything he could to stop from hurting someone, we just refer him to the proper pack for guidance.”
“He gets a free pass? That doesn’t seem fair. What about the dead man?”
He shrugs. “He went out into the woods at night. There’s always a chance you’ll get attacked by an animal. Don’t tell your boyfriend I said that, though.”
“I won’t.”
“And sorry for the pervert joke.”
“Don’t be. I thought it was funny.”
Carl offers to take the casket out to the van, so I run upstairs to pack. Just warm clothes and sneakers. Okay, I do toss in my silky teddy and box of condoms, not that I think I’ll get much use out of either. Dead bodies, nasty hotels, and chasing bad guys are all surefire mood killers. Lame. I put on my black jeans, thermal socks, red and black plaid shirt over black long sleeve top and hiking boots still covered in Florida everglades from the Great Basilisk Hunt. Sexy, I am not.
We all ride to the airstrip but have to wait for the agents and Dr. Neill, our medical examiner/doctor to drive in from town. The others arrive a few minutes later, tossing their weapons caches and suitcases into the cargo hold with the rest. When Will boards, he immediately takes the seat next to me usually reserved for Oliver. Chandler, his usual airplane buddy, glares before moving to the back of the plane with Rushmore. New world order, boys. Get used to it.
We take off without incident, me reading my book and Will his. His hand finds mine a few minutes later, but when Nancy rises and kneels in her seat in front of us, he pulls it away. “O.M.G.,” she says, taking off her headphones. “You two are like so cute holding hands like that. Why’d you stop?”
“May we help you with something?” Will asks.
“Yeah. So, I’ve been thinking about the like sleeping arrangements,” she says with her usual perkiness. “I figure you two like want a room together for some, you know, bow-chick-a-bow-bow, right?” Will presses his fingers to his temples to stop the oncoming headache. “And I know you don’t like me to bunk alone for, you know, like safety reasons, so I was thinking you two can have one room, Andrew and Carl the second, Dr. Neill alone as usual, then Chandler, Rush and Wolfe, then like Oliver and me. Perfect, right?”
I raise an eyebrow. “You and Oliver?”
“Totally! He’s like the only one besides you I’d feel comfortable sharing a room with. I can like guard his coffin during the day since you’re always making me stay behind. And I totally think he could like use a shoulder to cry on now what with you, you know, like dumping him and all. I’m a good listener.”
“First off, I didn’t dump him,” I insist. “For the nine millionth time, we were never dating.” Will gives me a sideways glance. “And second, there is no way in heck you’re sleeping in the same room as him.”
“Why not?” she asks with a pout. “You don’t trust him?”
“It’s not him I don’t trust,” I say.
“We’re keeping the usual arrangements,” Will says. “Nice try though.”
The teen huffs and falls back in her seat. Smiling, I shake my head. “Oy.”
“I hope you don’t mind,” Will says in a low voice.
“What? Nancy not bunking with Oliver? I don’t mind.”
“No. Us not sharing the same room. I think we should focus on the case, and I don’t want our first time to be in some motel between autopsies and gunfights.”
I kiss him. “That’s sweet.” I wrap my arm through his and rest my head on his shoulder. “And it’s nice to know dead bodies don’t turn you on.”
“Nice to know you feel the same way,” he says, locking his fingers with mine.
“Yeah.” I gaze up at my boyfriend. “Working with him isn’t going to be a problem, is it? After last night?”
“I can restrain myself.”
“Since when?” His eyes narrow and lips purse in fake annoyance as I grin. I kiss him chastely again, and again and the third time he deepens it until someone scoffs.
“Get a room.”
I shake my head and sit back in my seat with a sigh.
This is going to be a long assignment.
Chapter Six
Wilderness Girl
We land and drive to the scene as we’ve done a couple dozen times before. I used to get nervous on the drive but this is old hat by now. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for nerves and terror during our stay in North Carolina. I’ve heard it’s truly beautiful here, but it being winter the usually lush green of the trees is nowhere to be seen. The hills are nice, though. Even in winter the tops of the mountains are rimmed with blue, hence the name the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Five miles after we turn off the highway, we end up on the two-lane curvy road, then after another turn we’re finally at Appalachia Summit State Park. I’m so glad to be off that narrow road without a guardrail for the curves, just rolling hills that dead end at the rapid river a thousand feet down. The park’s entrance isn’t paved, just gray gravel which kicks up dust behind us. After about half a mile, we dead end at a parking lot where five police cruisers, a Ranger’s SUV, and an ambulance sit in the lot. Even without the park being closed only the most hardcore outdoorsman would go hiking today. It’s in the low forties, gray as the gravel and windy enough the bare tree branches crackle with every gust. Beats Kansas, though.
The police officers and a Park Ranger with a goatee dressed in a brown khaki uniform and olive green coat, start walking toward the SUVs as we park. I zip up my jacket, affix my professional face, and climb out of the car. Will and Chandler take the lead with me close behind to greet the officers. I’ve learned a little eyelash flapping goes a long way to quash jurisdictional beefs. Will extends his hand to the state police officer saying, “Trooper Tobin? I’m Special Agent William Price. These are my colleagues, Agents Chandler and Alexander.” We nod. “Thank you for waiting for us and allowing us access to the scene.”
“I’m Park Ranger Rick Mills,” the ranger says, shaking Will’s hand.
“Ranger Rick?” I ask as I shake his hand, eyebrow raised.
“I know,” he says with a smirk, hazel eyes doing the same. “My friends give me shit for it too.”
Will, scowling at the ranger
, clears his throat. “Well, now we know who everyone is, perhaps we should get to work.” Okay, I must remember not to flirt in front of my boyfriend, intentionally or not. “Walk me through what happened this morning.”
“I’m on a week rotation,” Mills begins, “but I’ve been here since four yesterday afternoon. At usual I closed the park at six and there were no cars in the lot. The last group left at five-thirty. I checked the park in my jeep three times last night: after I locked the gate, once at midnight, and finally three hours later. There was nothing out of the ordinary. No cars in the lot, no people camping at the summit, nada. I opened the gate at eight this morning and half an hour later a pair of hikers are pounding on my door telling me they’d found a severed leg on one of the trails. I radioed the state police right away and went to check it out. I walked up and down both trails, but didn’t find the rest of the body or blood trail.”
“One of my colleagues took the couple who found him to our station to give formal statements,” Tobin says. “We had cadaver dogs out here, but it was odd. They got about halfway up the trail, then wouldn’t go further. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is the search still in progress?” Chandler asks.
“Yeah, but it’s slow going. The terrain’s steep and dense, and without the dogs it’s a needle in a haystack. One of my guys sprained his ankle, and another got a mild concussion when he slipped and hit his head on a tree, and we have nothing to show for it.”
“So you’ve only got a leg? There wasn’t any blood around it or detritus?” Will asks.
“Just the leg. If I had to guess, an animal carried it there. Looked licked clean too. Maybe a bear or bobcat, but we haven’t had any reports of sightings of either for a year,” Rick says.
“What about deaths? Strange, natural, or otherwise?” Chandler asks.
“A man had a heart attack about five months ago, but that’s it. This is a pretty quiet place.”
“What about other strange incidents? Full set of camping gear found without the owners? Animals acting odd? Reports of dogs or wolves?”
“I mean, we’re always finding tents and packs abandoned or just forgotten. Sometimes people aren’t supposed to be here and run when we come. That other stuff, no. And there aren’t any wolves in North Carolina. Not for five hundred miles.”
“I’m sorry to be rude, but why is the FBI interested in an animal attack?” Tobin asks.
Ugh. Every darn time we show up people ask us this question. I just want to shout, “Because we’re the mother f-ing FBI and we do what we want, that’s why!” It hasn’t happened yet. Getting close, though.
“We’re investigating the disappearance of Edward Mitchell from Virginia,” Will says. “We had reason to believe he was traveling this way. He’s an avid outdoorsman and this was one of his favorite parks.”
“Oh,” Rick says. He turns to me. “So, you’re from Virginia? Whereabouts?”
Will clears his throat, and I try to hold in my smile. “I think it’s time we got hiking,” Will says. “Daylight’s wasting.”
“Right,” Rick says. The ranger pulls out a map from his back pocket, unfolding it on the hood of his car. It’s one of those topographical kind, so I have no idea what I’m looking at beyond wavy lines. “There are two paths to the summit, the east and west. The leg was found on the west path. It’s the older of the two. Steeper, rockier, only the die hards take it. We’ve walked up and down both though.” He points to the area between the two paths. “We also covered about thirty percent of the woods between east and west.”
“Which trail were the dogs on when they freaked?” I ask.
“West,” Tobin says, “but the dogs around the east trail, especially the ones in the woods, started whining, and well…” Both he and Rick exchange an uncomfortable glimpse.
“What?” I ask.
“They started, uh, humping each other and the handlers, ma’am,” Tobin says. “And all the dogs are fixed, so there’s no reason why they’d act like that.”
“After we brought them down here, they were fine,” Rick adds.
“Okay, give us a minute,” Will says as he starts walking away.
Chandler and I follow our leader back to the rest of the team. They’re just waiting by the cars, Nancy fiddling with her iPod, already bored. “The thing with the dogs, is that normal with werewolves?” I ask.
“No,” says Will. “Frightened, yes. Raging hormones, no.”
“Then what does it mean?”
“No clue.”
“What’s going on?” Rushmore asks, rising from the hood.
“They still haven’t found the rest of him,” Will says. “So we’re going to split into two groups and help with the search.”
“What are we looking for?” Carl asks. “If they haven’t found anything yet I doubt we will.”
“Keep an eye out for claw marks, other dead animals, pools of vicious fluid and fur from the change. We want to see if we can find their trail. For all we know, there might be other victims.”
“Do we have to go out there?” Nancy whines. “It’s so cold and icky. And aren’t there like snakes and stuff? Can’t we just let the other police do it? They, like, know what they’re doing. We know what did it, we know it’s not here, so like what’s the point?”
I agree with her, but that could just be the lazy, city girl in me talking.
“The point is, at the moment, we have nothing else to go on. This is a crime scene, we are going to investigate it. Two teams. Me, Bea, and Rushmore will take the west trail and surrounding area, the rest of you the east. Nancy, you lead Andrew as far as he can go up the east. You two don’t stray off the path. Radio check every ten minutes. We clear?”
“Yes, sir,” we all say.
“Listen and follow the instructions of the other searchers. They have more experience than we do but give nothing away. As far as they know, we’re looking for a missing person from Virginia named Edward Mitchell. That’s all they need to know. Be safe out there. Good hunting.”
After a few more grumbles from the gallery, we start equipping ourselves with walkies, cell phones, guns, and water. Finally, Bette my sheathed machete, takes her spot on my belt. The man did say there would be bears. I add tissues because my nose is already running. The cold and pollen will do me in before the wolves do. Rushmore, Will, and I walk back over to the men, Ranger Rick’s smile growing as I get closer. He keeps that up in front of Will, we will find a body in the woods.
“The three of us will take the west path. We’re the most experienced hikers,” Will says.
I suppress a chuckle. Mall walking, yes. Hiking up a mountain, no.
“I’ll take the others,” Tobin says. The Trooper grabs a portable GPS from the jeep and walks over to Team B.
Rick hands us another GPS. “Are the other Rangers out there too?” I ask.
“There’s only three of us assigned to the park. Taylor’s in Raleigh for a seminar, and Winsted’s been sick all week with the flu. I left them both messages but they haven’t called back.”
“We’ll be fine,” Will says.
Rick shuts the trunk and starts toward the back of the lot. Rushmore is close behind, but Will touches my arm to stop me. “What?”
“I’m going to, um, need you to keep him busy and away from me as much as possible.”
“Why?”
“Judging from what they’ve told us, how little progress they’ve made, I’m pretty sure the only way we’re going to find the body or any clues is me.”
“You’re not going to…you know…wolf out are you?”
“No, but if I do pick up a scent, I’ll need to separate from the group.”
“Okay, well, I’ll use every one of my feminine wiles to distract him. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
He takes my hand and kisses it. “Just don’t be too distracting or I’ll have to rip his leg off.”
With a smile, I roll my eyes and we start into the woods where a chain hangs across the gray gravel trai
l overgrown by brown foliage and rocks. Ugh. It’s all uphill with hanging branches in the way. I’m tired just looking at it, but I still run up to Ranger Rick, all sweet smiles. He grins back, pleased with himself for snaring another one. I know his type. Dating, or mating in his case, is a numbers game. No harm in letting him believe I might become one of his numbers. I’ll make things interesting as he’s literally carrying me up this massive fraking hill.
I’m the first to admit I’m not in the best shape. There were a few glorious months where I wore a single digit clothing size, mind it was the highest one, but still. I worked out three times a week in our gym and watched what I ate. Then I broke my arm, had surgery, and stayed with my grandmother who loves to cook. In a month and a half, I gained ten pounds. Today is gonna suck.
Ranger Rick takes that trail like the pro he is, and I do my best to keep up, making sure my huffs and puffs remain at a low decibel. Rushmore follows close behind, scanning both sides of the brush for clues. I just see endless dead brown bushes up to my knees and bare trees. Still, it’s downright claustrophobic with the trees one on top of another, so dense I can barely tell where one ends and another begins. The last time I was in woods like this I was running for my life, chased by a crazed cop who shot me. Another angry red scar across my bicep added to the collection. I still get nightmares that I’m running and running and can’t find the end. Yeah, I hate the woods.
“Have you searched either side of the trails yet?” Rushmore asks.
“The dogs did,” Rick answers.
I glance back at Will, whose nose twitches like a rabbit on cocaine. This is not the best look, nostrils flaring and mouth sneering. Okay, it really creeps me out, but I’m sure some of what I do freaks him too. He can’t be too happy with falling furniture whenever we’re intimate.
High Moon (A F.R.E.A.K.S. Squad Investigation Book 4) Page 9