Under the Gun

by Hannah Jayne

  I was happy to have my ass acknowledged and happier still that it was preceded with “pretty” and “little.” But it didn’t stop me from crossing my arms in front of my chest and hitching my chin. “How do you know it’s not supernatural?”

  He blew out a sigh. “Look, if I find any unicorn hooves, I’ll call you, okay? If I weren’t in such a hurry I would have tossed you out of the car.”

  “You still could have.”

  “Before or after your Dukes of Hazard stunt?”

  I thrummed my fingers on my thighs as Alex slowed for a light. “Hey, about the other day.” I kept my eyes fixed on the dashboard. “When I ran into you in the hallway? I was leaving Will’s apartment and it looked bad, but . . .”

  I mustered up my courage to look Alex in the eye—or in the right ear, as he was staring out the windshield—when he stepped on the gas and we blew through the intersection, sirens echoing off the sky-high buildings all around us. I was pressed against the leather seat with my heart firmly lodged in my throat and clawing toward the dashboard to right myself when I heard the cackle and scratch of the dispatch radio.

  “We’re almost there,” Alex barked into it.

  He made no motion to acknowledge my speech—or my presence—as he banked a corner that sent me sliding into the center console, the seat belt cutting against my chest.

  I cleared my throat as the car and my heartbeat slowed. “As I was saying . . .”

  “Oh, Christ.” Alex raked a hand through his ragged curls and snatched the radio with the other. “I thought they were keeping this one under wraps.”

  “We did our best,” the broken voice answered him. “But you know how it is. People smell blood on the air and they come running.”

  We pulled into the cracked parking lot that sat above Sutro Point, our tires crunching against the gravel. I saw Alex’s jaw harden as he maneuvered the car through the crowd of cop cars and emergency vehicles parked at angles. Civilian cars dotted the lot, too, and every other inch of space was taken up by enormous news vans setting up makeshift stations, their coifed and ready anchors stepping in front of cameras and painting on suitably concerned faces as they launched into their monologues. A handful of onlookers circled the anchorpeople and vied for their chance to wave on film; another cluster was gripping the metal police barricades and craning their necks to peer through the trees. The air was charged with palpable electricity; I couldn’t tell if it stemmed from the fear or excitement of the onlookers but every inch seemed solid and static-filled. A tense murmur cut through the crackling of police radios and the detritus of the news teams; I hadn’t even left the car and I could feel the electricity pulsing through me, the collective disquiet pushing painfully against my chest.

  I glanced at Alex as he kicked open his car door and swung his legs out—the leg of his jeans rode up over his ankle and I saw his gun holstered there. It gave me a little shock but a weird sense of security. I scrambled out after him. He shot a look over his left shoulder at me and cocked a brow, but seemed to think better of telling me to get back in the car.

  “Grace, Lawson.”

  Officer Romero was standing on the other side of the yellow crime scene tape, beckoning us with his blue, latex-gloved hands. Alex grabbed my elbow and yanked me through the crowd.

  “What’s going on?”

  Romero stood just a few inches shorter than Alex, and where Alex filled out his black T-shirt and jeans mercilessly with muscle that begged to be touched, Romero’s uniform bulged with jelly donuts and dimples over his elbows. He wagged his head, then stroked his scraggly black goatee.

  “I’m not going to lie, Grace, it looks bad.” Romero lifted his chin toward me. “I don’t think you’re going to want to go down there, Sophie. It’s just—” He looked at me, his heavy shoulders shimmying under a small shudder. “It’s really messy.”

  “She’s not going in. She’s going to stay here with you. Up here.” Alex’s eyes raked over Romero, daring him to challenge, but Romero just broke into a grin.

  “Good. I could use another set of eyes. Make sure them over there”—he jerked a thumb toward a group of civilians pressing hard against the police tape—“stay back.”

  “Can’t.” I shook my head and snatched a pair of gloves from Romero’s chest pocket. “I’m going in.”

  Alex turned and I followed him down the trail. “I don’t even know why I try,” I heard him mutter.

  “So fill me in,” I said, yanking on the gloves. “Tell me everything you know about this case.”

  Alex turned. “You know as much as I know. And I’ll let you take a look at this crime scene, but that’s it. No more nosing into my business.”

  There was real annoyance in Alex’s tone. I hadn’t expected it to cut me so deeply, but it did and I felt a pang of sadness stab at my gut. I wanted to answer him, but I was afraid to open my mouth and set forth a slew of blubbering explanations, apologies, and pent-up frustration so I just nodded and followed him, my gloved hands raised, doctor style.

  There was a clearing in the brush where the trail veered off sharply, nosediving toward the cliffs. The grass here was matted down and the vegetation was broken; the smell of the foliage was heavy with something else, too, something overpowering and metallic. I felt bile rise in my throat.

  “Blood,” I whispered.

  It hung heavy in the air, giving the usually calming stretch of forest an ominous, sharp feeling. It stuck out against the crisp, refreshing air of the forest.

  We wound through the trees and popped out in a clearing; the foliage was heavy but shorter here, and I was able to spot slivers of the roaring ocean through the trees. The scene would have been picturesque had it not been for the police officers, the men in their white-lettered FORENSICS jackets, and the two sheeted bodies laid out on the dirt. I sucked in a breath and steadied myself.

  “Something came through here like a tornado.” Detective Campbell was standing with his back to us, staring out over the ocean and speaking to no one in particular. He was built like a fireplug with a basketball-shaped head that seemed to bleed into his shoulders, into his thin white button-down shirt. He jammed his hands into his pockets and spun around, shaking his head and clucking his tongue like we were dealing with an errant teenager rather than a heinous crime scene.

  My eyes followed his to the half circle of redwood trees that surrounded the clearing. The bark was torn clean from one of them, and it looked as if someone had taken an ax to the trunk, leaving four clean slice marks across it. The lower branches on the surrounding trees and the suckers around that were mashed down and broken; the soft pine underbrush was kicked up and scratched into two deep grooves.

  “Grace!” Campbell’s face broke into a wide smile when he noticed Alex, and I snapped to attention.

  Alex shook Detective Campbell’s hand. “What happened?”

  The smiled dropped from the detective’s face and he led Alex by the shoulder, stepping cleanly over one of the sheeted bodies. My stomach twisted and the backs of my eyelids pricked; someone was underneath that sheet and the detective stepped over him. Suddenly, strangely, I was overcome with sadness and I crouched down to brush off the bits of pine needle and dust that Detective Campbell’s shoe had rained over the body. My hand stopped, frozen, when I saw the bubble of blood seeping from beneath the sheet. It moved in a slow river at first, picking up bits of debris from the forest floor, then moving faster, pooling.

  I felt the acid churning in my stomach and burning the back of my throat. My brain commanded me to stand, to move, to run, but I was rooted to that spot and now everywhere I looked was marred by blood—in smears and in pools, congealing, dirty, splattered. The smell was overwhelming and my head felt heavy, my knees weak. I saw the forest roll upward and the blue of the sky before Alex grabbed me. His hands were rough—one around my waist and one on my upper arm—and I tried to right myself, but his lips were on my ear.

  “I told you to stay in the car.”

  I shook him off
and swallowed hard, willing my stomach to settle. “Wha—what happened to them?” I asked.

  Alex shook his head, waiting until I stood on my own before turning toward the detective.

  “Any word—murder weapons, wounds, anything?” Alex nudged his chin toward the bodies and Detective Campbell nodded, flipping open his black leather notebook.

  “We don’t have positive IDs yet. So far, we’re fairly certain it’s two females, late teens early twenties, maybe.”

  “You’re ‘fairly certain’ they’re females?” I asked.

  It was then I noticed the chalky bits of spit gathered at the corners of Detective Campbell’s mouth. His skin was ashy. “It’s that bad.”

  Alex put his hands on his hips, dropping into cop mode. “What are you thinking?”

  “Wild animal, maybe. Never seen anything like it before. Not out here at least.”

  Without warning, the detective leaned down and pinched one corner of the sheet, pulling it up. I felt my eyes grow and every muscle in my body tightened, curled in on itself, crushed my breath from my lungs. When Alex pressed a palm to the back of my neck I leaned into it, loving the cool feel of his skin on mine. A breeze kicked up and sent a shiver through me; I realized that my whole body had broken out into a bitter sweat and I clamped my eyes shut instinctually, bent over at the waist.

  “You okay?” Alex’s voice was a throaty whisper and I let him help me upright.

  I cleared my throat, but my voice was still hoarse. “What happened to her?”

  The detective dropped the corner of the sheet, but the image of the woman—decimated, torn—was seared into my mind. Her skin looked like it had once been a flawless, pale porcelain but was shredded into snarled ribbons now; what remained of her clothes and stringy blond hair was blood soaked and caked with mud and pine needles. I gagged when I realized that she hadn’t been placed so much as dumped—limbs next to torso, torso next to head—and none of the limbs were attached.

  I turned around and gagged, not caring who saw me vomit. I tried to keep my eyes open because every time I pinched them shut, the girl—what remained of the girl—was burned into my eyelids and I gagged again.

  Alex rested his hand on the small of my back. “Are you okay, Lawson?”

  I used the back of my hand to swipe at my eyes and nose, then spat on the ground and used the bottom of my shirt to wipe my mouth. I nodded, still bent over, hands still on my knees. “Yeah.”

  When I straightened up I saw that Alex’s face was pale and his eyes were glassy. He had been a detective for a long time and the crime scenes he was privy to were some of the most gruesome, but this destruction was overwhelming.

  “You don’t have to stay out here,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s nothing UDA about this.”

  “So you think this was, what? A mountain lion, black bear?”

  Alex put his hands on his hips and looked at Detective Campbell, who shrugged, his meaty shoulders brushing his earlobes. “We don’t have many details. A runner found them.” He nodded toward a thin man in papery-looking running shorts, the goose bumps visible on his legs. The man had his hands clasped behind his back and was fidgeting or shivering—I couldn’t tell which—as he gave a statement to two officers.

  “The guy runs here every morning, usually heads out about five, five-thirty a.m.”

  “He runs the Sutro trail?” Alex asked.

  The detective nodded.

  “What’s he doing here now?” I wondered. “It’s almost four.”

  Detective Campbell sucked on his teeth. “Guy said he missed his run this morning, so he came out on his lunch hour. Put a call into his office and his story checks out. He was working this morning and checked out around eleven-forty.”

  “Okay, so he heads off for a run.” Alex turned, his cornflower-blue eyes scanning the trail we had just come from. “He would have been up there. Why did he cut off the trail? What made him come down here?”

  I looked up toward the top of the ridge where the trail cut in. The tops of the heads of the onlookers and officers barricading them could just barely be seen. “He probably couldn’t have seen much if he was on the trail. Especially if he was running.”

  “The guy said he heard something.”

  “Heard something?”

  “A rustle, something. He didn’t really say, other than something distracted him from his course.

  “He wasn’t wearing earphones, an iPod, anything?”

  Detective Campbell shrugged again. “Nah. He’s a real nature type. Says he likes to run first thing in the morning because it’s quiet or just before the lunch rush. He likes the peace.”

  I wasn’t a runner—far from it, often considering my other options even when something is chasing me—but something seemed wrong about the runner’s story.

  “Excuse me for a second.” Detective Campbell slipped away from us and toward another officer who was chatting comfortably with a newscaster.

  I put my hands on my hips, biting my bottom lip. “This smells fishy to me.”

  Alex scanned the horizon. “Yeah, well, we are surrounded by the ocean.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Who goes running at five a.m.? It’s still dark. And then running at noon? Was he going to go back to work all sweaty?”

  Alex wasn’t looking at me. “I don’t know, Lawson.”

  “Like I said, fishy. I think this guy is searching for an alibi.”

  “Going running is a pretty weak one.”

  “Right. And who goes running without an iPod?”

  “Someone smart, who knows that he may be relatively alone on this trail, so it’s best to listen to his surroundings rather than the Spice Girls.”

  “So sue me for liking classic pop.” I tapped my foot, still unsettled, until it hit me. I spun to face Alex and leaned in close. “Okay, then. You don’t listen to music so you can listen for cars, ax murderers, amphibians, sea-creatures, or whatever. That means the guy takes precautions, right?”

  “Lawson, I told you. This is pretty clean,” he gulped, his eyes flitting over the rapidly soiling sheet. “A relatively cut and dry murder case.”

  I looked back at Alex, flicked my gaze over the bodies. “It’s anything but cut and dry. Did you see those bodies, Alex?”

  His eyes flashed and I practically growled. “Don’t you dare tell me this was probably gangbangers.”

  “It’s not your jurisdiction, Lawson.”

  “Just tell me this, Alex. What kind of guy takes precautions and runs toward a rustle in the bushes?”

  Alex paused, but still didn’t look at me.

  “Look at him, Alex. The guy is practically naked.”

  Alex glanced over to the runner—his legs were bare, his shorts covering little more than his rear and the tops of his thighs. They were so tight that I could make out a key ring with a single key on it and something small and rectangular—a cell phone or a wallet—pressed into the zipped back pocket. He wore a long-sleeved shirt that was fitted against his thin torso, and sneakers and no socks.

  “He’s got no protection and he’s running into the bushes on a practically deserted trail? Explain that.”

  “I can’t. But I can tell you that the blood is pretty fresh on these bodies and whoever did—did what they did to them—has to be completely covered in it. That guy’s clean.”

  I raised a challenging eyebrow and Alex’s inner groan was almost audible. “I’m going to go ask him a few questions anyway.”

  I moved to take a step toward Alex and he put a hand on my chest, effectively holding me in place. “You’ve got two choices. Go sit in the car or wait here. This is a police investigation.”

  “Don’t patronize me, Alex Grace,” I hissed.

  “You’re not a cop, Lawson.” Alex’s eyes had changed from that warm, inviting cobalt to a steely grey that rivaled the unsettling rage of the ocean. “I don’t need you here.”

  Alex walked away from me and suddenly the hiss of the sea-soaked wind was biting. I pulled my jacket
against it, but the icy fingers still slid down the back of my collar, whipped up my pant legs, and stung my cheeks. I was left in the clearing with the two sheeted bodies—dead bodies, I sadly reminded myself—while the police, paramedics, crime scene investigators, and finally, the coroner, buzzed around taking statements and photographs or poking through the foliage carefully collecting evidence. I watched while a younger guy, his black jacket slick with mist, bent down and collected a few strands of hair with a pair of industrial-sized tweezers.

  I squinted at the find when he did—a small bunch, possibly ten or twelve—of brown hair, about six inches long. I filed it in my mental database when he zipped it in his evidence bag. He took a careful step and I found myself doing the same thing, gingerly picking my way through the shrubs and the broken remainders of puzzle bark suckers. I don’t know how long I wandered, but when I looked up the crime scene and its surrounding task force were just a few inches tall, the chatter and squawk of the police radios and onlookers strangled by the sound of the crashing waves below me. The grass and shrubs were broken here, too, tramped down and spattered with something tarry and black. I poked at it with the tip of my finger and recoiled, the blood dripping down to my palm. “Oh, god!” I rubbed my palm against my thigh until it burned.

  I did my best to pick around the broken grass and splattered blood, but in my zeal to be delicate and light-footed, I hooked my toe over the top of a jutting rock and vaulted forward, landing hard on my chest in the grass. My head bobbed forward and a starburst of pain shot across my forehead, blinding me. I tried to blink away the blob of darkness that started in my right eye, but when I looked up, everything was a watery blur and fuzzy black spots shot across my field of vision. I tried hard to focus on what was right in front of me: first a few blades of grass. The rock that sprouted an offensive trickle of my blood. The trees swaying in the breeze fifty feet in front of me. The shadowy figure that stood there.

  Terror overtook the pain and I shoved myself up, feeling the soft earth digging itself into the tears in my palms. I knew the wind was blowing, slapping my hair against my cheek and neck; it matted into the blood at my temple, but I couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything. I tried to yell, but the wind snapped by and snatched the scream right out of my mouth.