Fatal Intent

by Ryshia Kennie

  Garrett blew out a breath that she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Behind her footsteps crunched, stepping through a graveyard of vegetation. She glanced around as Ian returned. His face was white as the chalk of a full moon. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  The constant thread of forest noise was muted by incessant and shrill calls that seemed to appear from nowhere and now knifed through the clearing. Crazed laughter was her first thought but the sound was coming from the sky. She sat back on her haunches. She’d finally lost her mind.

  “Hornbills.” Ian’s voice was filled with awe.

  Garrett looked up to see the large birds jostle each other as they flew together. Their three-foot-long red tails would have been impressive at another time. The birds screeched and called and continued what could only be called a laugh as they glided overhead.

  “We’re not alone,” she said too softly for Ian to hear. She wasn’t sure why she said it. It was a ridiculous thought, or maybe a hopeful thought. They were alone—she, Ian, the remaining team. There was no help. Still, she glanced over her shoulder as the feeling merged with one of déjà vu. The birds screeched again, and as she watched them share the same flight path, she shivered.

  Chapter Three

  Shot.

  Hornbills sliced jagged cries through the jungle canopy. As their cries faded into the distance there was only deathly silence.

  Aidan frowned as their conversation filtered to him. He squinted and moved closer. The woman’s white-blonde hair was a beacon in the shadows. The trees sifted the sunshine and the vines sucked up the remaining light that danced furtively across her features. He took in a breath, startled for a moment at her beauty.

  Then she moved and he had a clear view of what lay on the ground.

  He froze. It wasn’t a dead animal but a human body!

  There was no denying it. It was human and it was missing its head. For a minute he forgot to breathe. Not only did the body have no head, it looked like a tribesman. Was it one of the many who plied the jungle acting as guides? That would explain the fact that these two appeared to be alone, ill equipped, and without a guide. What were they doing here in the middle of the jungle without a weapon between them? It was clear they weren’t hunters, but what were they? The fact that there was a dead body, that it was headless—it didn’t disturb him like it might others. Death he had faced many times, both professionally and with his Iban tribe. With the tribe death was a natural flow of life. It was there where the skull of the last head taken still hung over a century later from a rafter of the longhouse. And always a man who danced between two worlds, in that instant, riveted on the scene in front of him, he flipped from his jungle mind-set into private investigator mode.

  He didn’t have time for this. He had promised to check the rice field and refill the pots that burned every night to keep the monkeys away. He had intended to do that earlier so he could catch the plane later this evening to Kuching. There was a man he needed to see about another apartment. The way real estate was going, he wanted to pick up as much property as he could before there was no further profit to be made. It was the last plane today. And now, it was obvious he was going to miss it.

  He moved closer. He couldn’t hear what she was saying but she projected confidence. To be alone and beautiful in the jungle with a dead body was a deadly situation. Did she know how dangerous the situation was? No animal would have taken only the head. Of course, that was an assumption, and part of his job was to not make assumptions. But he couldn’t fathom an accident, not with the head missing.

  There had been some recent run-ins with locals and loggers. But there was no logging in the immediate area. Gem smuggling was lucrative and the men involved were ruthless. As he watched, he considered the possibilities.

  “Where are they?” the man asked.

  So, there were others.

  To the left, the brush rustled and heavy footsteps sounded.

  He considered the Chinese. It seemed strange that he had run into evidence of both groups within such a short period. Did they have anything to do with this? He would have thought it a good possibility except for the beheading. That changed everything.

  He moved to the left and slid quietly through the forest. A group of men were making their way along a trail, the same trail that opened onto the clearing where the woman and the man waited. They were soft, that was immediately apparent in their faces, flushed and gleaming with sweat. But that didn’t mean they hadn’t killed. He’d seen it before.

  * * *

  Get it together, Garrett thought, even as she gingerly unhooked the watch and lifted it from Malcolm’s wrist. The watch had taken a beating but maybe his family would want it. She slipped it into her pocket.

  “Walking out is our only option. We’ll follow the river as much as we can,” she said as she stood.

  “Sid’s not going to like it.”

  “Sid’s not in charge of this expedition. Screw Sid.”

  Sid’s rich baritone laugh broke into the clearing. “Ah, sweetie, I only wish you would.” Sid’s laughter broke as he came closer. “What the ever-livin’—?” He bit off the expletive and his Australian accent was ripe and thick with shock. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Malcolm,” Ian confirmed, his voice soft, as if he was in a church.

  Burke and Drew emerged from the brush. But it was Sid who pushed forward, hunkering down beside the corpse.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Garrett said, relieved to see the whole team. She took a deep breath. “Sid, gather some branches we can use as poles. We’re going to make a stretcher and pull him.”

  “Pull him where?” Drew asked. “We haven’t a clue how to get out of here without him.” He gestured toward the corpse.

  The desk job she had left was beginning to look better and better. What had she been thinking? She had to get it together. Her team depended on her. This was the ultimate proof that she could handle an expedition. The ultimate proof that maybe she couldn’t.

  “We’re doomed,” Drew whispered. “What are we going to do?”

  “We’re going to get moving. Anyone have a belt?” Garrett slid out of her vest without waiting for an answer. Burke unbuckled his belt and handed it to her.

  “Drew, we need your jacket,” she commanded.

  “No way.” He shook his head. “Bloody leeches are everywhere. I’m not getting those things on me.”

  “Give it up.” Garrett held out her hand.

  Reluctantly Drew peeled off the lightweight rain jacket. When she turned, Ian was already holding his jacket out with a resigned if stoic expression.

  With branches, vines, vest, and the jackets they would be able to fashion a stretcher.

  Drew knelt down beside her. “I’ve made a field stretcher before.” He pulled his knife from his pocket and peeled off his vest.

  “Here.” Sid passed his vest to Drew.

  Garrett glanced at the sky. The sun hung mid-sky just over her shoulder. West. It set in the west. That was the direction of civilization. If they followed the river flow they’d get to one of the smaller villages, and maybe someone there could help them get to where the rivers joined; Rumah Muleng wasn’t far from that. Once they reached the village they could arrange transport to Kuching.

  In the meantime, there was the body. She couldn’t leave Malcolm alone to the elements, yet she knew bringing him was not a wise idea. Dragging a corpse through a forest studded with predators. There was no choice. She wasn’t going to leave him here. Here to be ripped apart . . . The thought dead-ended as she fought to stop tears that licked at her insides and twisted her stomach into a tight knot.

  “That should hold the branches, at least long enough for us to get out of here,” Drew said as he wrapped a vine around a branch and knotted it.

  “Yeah, civilization shouldn’t be that far away,” Burke said hopefully, brushing sweat off his forehead.

  Garrett hoped his optimism had some basis in reality. She was
beginning to have her doubts. Beginning to have doubts? She’d had doubts big time since leaving the city of Kuching. Much of her bluster hid those doubts. Her worst fear was that these men, her colleagues, would discover that her confidence was all show. What did she know about an expedition into the jungle? They were about to find out. They’d just hit worst-case scenario.

  “I still think we should wait,” Burke muttered. “Here, use this.” He handed a roll of string to Drew.

  “Where’d you get that?” Drew frowned.

  “Does it matter?” Sid snarled.

  “Guys!” Garrett said, searching for a diversion before there was a blowup. She pointed to the river. “That’s our best course. If we keep heading that way”—she waved her arm downriver—“we should be at a village by nightfall.” She hesitated; it wasn’t an outright lie—there was a remote possibility. If one could keep the river in sight in the dense foliage.

  In the impenetrable depth of the forest insects screeched, twigs snapped and life seemed to breathe around them. They all sucked in deep breaths. Somehow, with Malcolm’s commonsense knowledge of the forest, it had not seemed so intimidating.

  “We’ve already done this, guys. We’ve been without Malcolm for almost a day and a night. We can make it without him.” Garrett did her best to rally their confidence. “So let’s get moving.” She considered what had happened to Malcolm. Who had he run into? Poachers? Contraband? All criminal activities, all dangerous, and they were ill equipped to deal with any of it.

  She glanced over all of them. Educated scientists, brilliant in their field, but it was next to impossible to transform textbook knowledge into real-life common sense. And the only thing that kept replaying in her mind as she calmly issued orders was fear. Fear that maybe the headhunters were back. And maybe, with Malcolm dead, they had become the hunted.

  Chapter Four

  “We’re lost. Drew, I told you to bring the GPS,” Garrett said. “Why would you give it to Malcolm?” She shook her head. The GPS had been lost in the river along with Malcolm.

  “He was fascinated by it. He wanted to see how it worked.”

  “Great job, mate,” Sid sniped at Drew.

  “Let’s get moving,” she commanded.

  The trail that skirted the edges of the jungle was becoming fainter the farther they went. Within minutes it disappeared and there was only the sky to orient them. Malcolm had judged direction by the growth of moss on the tree trunks. He had no need of a GPS, and now that they did, it was lost.

  The jungle was forcing them farther back from the river. The overgrown vines and swampy soil had already pushed them to a point where the river was only a muted rush in the distance. They were following the river’s path by fading sound. What were they going to do once that sound was gone? Thirty minutes in, she wouldn’t think of it.

  “We have to head north and west,” Garrett reminded them.

  The river would lead them to the village eventually. That was a given. Everything else, without Malcolm, was scarily tentative, even the map, which only existed in her head. The actual map had been in Malcolm’s pack. There had been a map in her pack, too, but she had left that at the last village. They had intended to return there that night when Malcolm returned, except Malcolm never returned. All she had left was a small day pack with the absolute necessities and no navigation tools. She swallowed, willing the panic away, but it was too late. Panic had taken up residence beneath her calm façade.

  “That way.” Garrett motioned toward the jungle that only got thicker and darker the farther they pushed in. But that was where she was sure that river met jungle, where they needed to be no matter how difficult. “We’ve got to get back to the river while we can still hear it.”

  She heard mumbling and the rough scrape of the primitive stretcher as it bounced the body along the forest floor. She wanted to tune out all sounds and sensations, that and the facts. She wouldn’t think of it as anything but the body. To think of it as once human, as Malcolm, would only bring unneeded emotion into the situation.

  “Get it together, guys. We’ve got to keep moving,” she snapped. Orders and anger numbed the raw edges, staved off the weeping that once started might never stop. She pulled her knife from its sheath and unnecessarily cut through a tangled vine. She was making a point, emphasizing her decision to push forward. A night in the Borneo jungle in an unknown locale was unthinkable. If they were lucky they would be able to veer back to the river’s path and make the village. There was time. At a steady pace, barring getting lost, they could do it.

  * * *

  “Hurry it up. We need to get to safety before nightfall.” The woman commanded them and veered deeper into the jungle. Aidan knew she was trying to get to the river, but her direction was completely skewed.

  This was unbelievable. He didn’t know how much longer he could trail them. They were babes in the woods, at least one was. The others, mostly, from what he could see, they were just idiotic.

  Again, he considered whether he should make his presence known. Yet he hesitated as he continued to shadow them through the underbrush. He moved silently on his flip-flops. He grimaced. His silence was unnecessary. The noise they made—well, he might as well be in the city in rush hour.

  He was ahead of the group now. He stopped and waited. They were moving much too slowly to make it to any settlements before dark.

  He allowed his thoughts to drift as he waited. The jungle had been rife with intruders today. First there were the Chinese. Hunters weren’t completely uncommon but he usually knew in advance when they were in the area, as they were rarely without local guides. But these foreigners had been alone and he was immediately suspicious. He’d watched them for a long time trying to figure out what they were about. Eventually he determined that they did have a guide, one who had headed upriver and was set to return. Still, he’d watched them. Large men even for Chinese—large in an overfed way, with skin taut and shimmering in the tropical heat. Their laughter had been like hot metal in his side.

  The language they had spoken was Mandarin, a language Aidan understood, among others. As a private investigator, languages came in handy.

  “We’ve got to get out of here unless you want to spend the rest of your life in the jungle. Pedro said an hour. He was serious. His kind know time.” The man paused. “It’s instinctive.”

  It was clear they were speaking their Iban guide, for there was no one else. Anger rushed through Aidan at the memory of the obvious racism. They didn’t belong here. They were here as an addendum to their real life. His hand brushed against a stem of grass, grounding him. Wasn’t that what he was? In a loincloth, carrying a spear, and pretending to be something he was not? When his real life was Kuching and the thrill of a new case amid the rush and hum of the city?

  No, he was not the same. He could never be the same.

  They had switched to English, a sure sign that they were businessmen. Men with enough money to relieve their boredom, and this had become their game board.

  He forced his attention to the present. He watched as the woman strode ahead of the group. Her femininity was unmistakable, her figure outlined beneath clothes that only clutched and clung in the turgid tropical heat and flattered every curve. They were heading straight for a tree where he could see a good-sized python dozed, deceptively still.

  He considered revealing himself. To the uninitiated, a python that size could be terrifying. He doubted if she knew that right now it was more vulnerable than she. The python was well camouflaged and sated. There was no danger there.

  The blood-curdling scream curled through the heat and raked shrill fingers down his spine.

  He held back his initial urges to push forward, to offer help. He stood his ground and waited. There was much to learn here and no danger, yet. It was telling that she hadn’t been the one to scream.

  He watched her walk over to a man who stood quivering, staring up at the python. Her hips swung sweetly and the seductive movement was out of place in the jungle
, out of place in his thoughts. What was wrong with him?

  He was going to have to show himself soon. The group was obviously lost and there was nothing more he could learn from remaining out of sight. It was time to change tactics.

  * * *

  “Move it,” Garrett hissed at Ian. Her stomach quivered and her natural instinct was to run away.

  “Move, Ian!” Her voice was a sharp whisper in his ear. “Don’t look at it. Just move. One foot in front of the other—go!”

  “Ouch, Garrett,” Ian said as he twisted his arm free.

  “Keep moving,” she snapped.

  “I can’t,” he gasped. Years at a desk had made him soft, out of shape, despite the fact that he had only, like her, just turned thirty.

  “He was huge,” said Sid when they reached the group. “Can’t stand the buggers myself.”

  “Are you okay?” Garrett asked as they moved away.

  Ian nodded. He took a gasping breath but his color was returning. “It startled me.”

  “I’ve heard a girl scream less,” Sid said.

  “Shut up, Sid,” Garrett snapped.

  Around them the jungle vibrated with the sounds of millions of insects. The screeching sent a different type of shiver down Garrett’s spine. Like a long-anticipated treat, it never disappointed her. The thrill was always there. Snake or not, it always came down to the insects. This was what they all lived for, what they loved. This expedition had been eagerly anticipated by all of them. She hated that she had to cut it short. And while the insects pulled her, fear drove them. Not justice for Malcolm and not grief. It was fear that they had to get out before they were hurt too. She hated that about herself—about the others.

  Drew glanced behind him. “I’d be more comfortable if we put some distance between us and that . . .” He pointed back to where the python had been.