by Meg Ripley
And instead, I had found a body.
If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought that maybe she had slipped on one of the rocks, hit her head and was just unconscious. Rocky beaches were always difficult to navigate—and extremely slippery. The rocks were glistening, which told me that the Atlantic had risen enough that day to coat the stones with a beautiful shine that reflected against the sunlight. So, it could have been possible. And I would have thought that were the case, had there not been blood everywhere.
There were lacerations and puncture wounds all over Danielle’s body. She didn’t slip and hit her head: it was an attack, and judging by the damage, my mind went to only one explanation.
“What seems to be the pro—Oh no! I know who that is: it’s Danielle, from Danielle’s Destinations! What the hell happened?” Sophia Ross, our emergency manager, rushed up to the body laying before me, checking for any signs of life. She was carrying a basic medical kit, which definitely would not be enough to aid the fallen celebrity.
“Has she moved at all?” Sophia asked while checking Danielle’s pulse at both her neck and her wrists, her brunette ponytail bobbing as she worked over the body quickly. Her hazel eyes looked up at me waiting for an answer.
“No signs of movement. When I found her, she was just lying there,” I said, snapping out of my daze and crouching down next to her while trying to stay out of her way. She pulled out a stethoscope and listened for a heartbeat.
She didn’t seem to find one.
Sophia started doing chest compressions and breathing into Danielle’s mouth, but quickly jumped back. As her breath had entered Danielle’s lungs, blood splattered out from her wounds.
“These lacerations went deep and punctured her lungs. She’s gone,” she admitted, looking down at the body sadly. She started scanning around just like I did, trying to find the person who could have done this.
“What do you think happened?”
“Well, someone attacked her, obviously. Judging by the contorted limbs, she put up a pretty good fight. These lacerations, though...I would say it was probably—”
“A bear…Right?” I made direct eye contact with her, knowing the answer before she even agreed.
“Yeah. A bear, for sure,” Sophia nodded.
“Dammit!” I stood and threw my fist into the nearest rock, causing it to crumble at my feet. I stared down at the ground, wondering how this could have happened.
“Now you know Cassidy isn’t going to be happy about that.” Sophia shook her head, putting away her stethoscope.
Cassidy was our park planner, and she had each rock meticulously placed on the beach. My gaze rose to Sophia, who was looking down at Danielle. “So, do you think it was one of us?”
Sophia’s eyes met mine and they were filled with worry. I could tell we were sharing the same thoughts.
Could a bear shifter have done this?
Was he or she one of our own?
Why would anyone have done something like this?
Well, it was my job to find out.
“I don’t know. There was no one here when I arrived. If one of us did this to her, I can’t pick up any incriminating scents with all this blood here. We’re going to have to get this cleaned up so I can try to track down whatever it is.”
“You know Knox is going to want to hear about this. Should I tell him?”
“You clean this up; I’ll handle Knox.”
I started walking away toward the woodlands, reaching out to our Alpha, Knox, with my mind.
What?
I could already sense the annoyance in his thoughts.
Sorry to bother you man, we—
I’m trying to enjoy my day off, and you’re cockblocking me.
He was not going to like this.
Sorry, Boss…
Just tell me what it is!
I winced at the urgency that came off as Alpha authority. It was a little hard to discern the emotions, but I decided there was a little of both mixed in there.
We found a body, Knox. Out on Hunters Beach.
A local? Knox’s thoughts were serious now.
Worse. It’s Danielle Peterson. I winced as I delivered the news.
The travel guide? Are you serious? Knox’s thoughts were loud and echoed in my head.
And we think it was a bear…
Don’t move. I’ll be right there.
But Sophia is here cleaning up the b—
DON’T TOUCH THE BODY! I’ll be there in a few minutes.
And with that, the connection was gone. I ran back to Sophia, who was just about to drop the corpse into the water of the Atlantic.
“Whoa! What the hell are you doing?” I closed our distance, my long legs allowing me to cover the ground separating us quickly.
“What do you mean what am I doing? She’s famous! We have to get rid of her!” Sophia sounded a bit panicked, and I could hear her heart hammering away in her chest.
“We can’t just throw her into the ocean and hope she turns up somewhere!” I grabbed the body from her.
“So, what are we supposed to do?” she asked with frantic eyes.
“Knox demanded the corpse no longer be touched until he gets here.”
“Why? What’s going on?” Sophia looked confused, which I supposed was better than panicked. Maybe.
However, I was just as unsure. We didn’t usually get human deaths in Acadia. If someone from our clan died, we buried them and had a ceremony with all members present. We couldn’t just bury Danielle Peterson. She was famous, and people would recognize her disappearance.
“I’ll just put the body back where we found it and we’ll wait for Knox. He was very insistent and not in a good mood.”
“Was he with Hannah?” Sophia teased, her skinny shoulders doing a little shimmy. Her ability to switch from one mood to another had always astounded me.
Hannah had come to the park a couple months ago to write a story on the history of Acadia and our national parks in general. Knox was skeptical of her at first; after all, if the media were to find out that our national parks were established as safe havens for people who could shapeshift into animals, our kind would be in for a one hell of a shitstorm. Luckily, the two of them really hit things off and our secret has been safe.
Since then, it hasn’t been hard to find Knox on his days off—although god help you if you tried to bother him. Almost every time, he’d be in his cabin with Hannah—all day—and you wouldn’t see him again until it was time for his next shift. He’d never really showed much interest in the women around here, so I was glad to finally see him settling down with someone.
“I honestly will never understand how you can joke in times like these, Soph. We’re handling a dead body here and you’re behaving like a high schooler.” I shook my head and placed Danielle back where we found her. I tried to align her body the way I remembered it being, in the same grotesque position that had stopped me cold in the middle of my hike.
Whatever the reason was for Knox wanting to see her and handle this personally, I was going to find out what happened to this woman.
No matter what.
* * *
Sophia and I sat on the rocks waiting for Knox to arrive in silence while my brain kept working through what could have happened.
Could Harris, Jamie, or Kevin have come back, despite their ban from the park? They already risked exploiting our existence once by trying to attack a reporter—who turned out to be Hannah—a few months ago. I was glad when their Alpha, Shawn, was destroyed by Knox for killing Matilda and Harold, two of the elders from our clan. Shawn’s three cronies had been spared, but Shawn had been given exactly what he deserved.
Could there be a new rogue out there? Could someone from our clan have done this? I shook my head at the last thought. There was no way one of us could have committed such a crime. I grew up with everyone and I couldn’t imagine anyone hurting a harmless person. Besides, no one wanted to feel Knox’s wrath if they were caught even thinking about
doing something like that. And I didn’t want to imagine what it would be like to have to lock up one of our own.
Knox stormed out from the trees, marching right towards the beach and interrupted my thoughts. “What the hell?” he muttered as he walked over, kneeled and examined the body. “Well, this is Danielle Peterson, alright.”
I could hear low rumbling coming from Knox’s chest.
“What’s the problem? Shouldn’t I go about the investigation as usual? It could just be one of Shawn’s punks returning for revenge for their Alpha or something.”
“This is out of our hands now…” Knox stood up and looked to the sky, seeming deep in thought.
“What? What do you mean?” Sophia asked. She and I exchanged confused looks once more.
“Danielle Peterson is famous. Famous enough that her death will be noticed by the media. We have to call it in.” Knox took a tired breath.
“Call it in?” I didn’t like where this was going. I’d been the law enforcement Ranger of Acadia National Park for two years and I’d never had to call anything in. If anything ever happened in Acadia, I handled it.
“The FBI. We have to get the feds involved.”
“The feds? No way; this is my jurisdiction! I make the arrests. I investigate crimes around here.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. He wanted to get the feds involved? Why? I felt my blood boil at the thought of some stuck-up asshole spouting off about rules and regulations.
“You have to remember, we’re on federal land; this is beyond our jurisdiction,” Knox glared at me, probably sensing my anger, “and you will cooperate with them, understood?”
“But this was clearly a bear shifter attack! No wild bear around these parts would do this. We could be risking exposing our existence publicly over some travel guide?”
Pure-blooded black bears killed less than one person a year and there were at least a million of them in North America—I knew it couldn’t have been one of them. It was a shifter, and Knox was trying to get us all killed over whoever the idiot was.
“I’m calling it in. End of discussion. You both are ordered to not touch the body until they get here to examine it.” Knox commanded, marching back into the woods.
“So, we’re just supposed to sit here and wait while whoever did this could be getting away?” I shouted after him. It was getting more and more difficult to control my anger. I should have been out there looking for the killer.
“You will do as I say!” I felt the overwhelming pressure of the Alpha authority wash over me and I became silent, my body rippling from confined anger.
Knox said nothing else and walked away.
Sophia stepped closer to me. “Hey…I know you don’t want someone coming in and telling you what to do, but it’s the law. And you know it better than any of us. It would have been great if we went along protecting this park ourselves and never had to get the feds involved, but we all knew there was a chance that it could happen one day. I’ll admit, I didn’t think it would happen this soon, especially after that crew of rogue bears caused all that trouble a few months ago, but who knows! Maybe it won’t be so bad?”
Sophia looked at me and shrugged. She wanted me to accept this, but it was just too hard of a pill to swallow.
“It’s going to be a real shit show, I just know it. Some guy with a pole up his ass coming here, acting like he knows this place? It’s just bad news. Not to mention having them sticking their nose in our business? Everyone will have to be on their toes, including the person who did this. And we have no way of controlling that because we have no idea who it is that did this! There is literally no way this can go well.”
“Wow, Trent, so optimistic! No wonder Knox keeps you around!” Sophia said sarcastically. She patted my shoulder and then went to sit on a rock near the body. “Might as well take a seat and get comfortable; we might be here for a while. In fact, we’ll definitely be here for a while.”
She sighed and looked out at the ocean.
“I don’t know who I’d rather deal with, them or you,” I said, shaking my head and sitting on a rock near hers.
She laughed and nudged me playfully. Sophia had always been like a sister to me and was always there to lighten the mood. Even still…
I was not looking forward to this.
Not one bit.
2
Blanca
“We are now flying over Acadia and will be touching down momentarily.” I heard the pilot’s voice in my ears through the headset.
I looked out the window of the FBI emergency helicopter to see at least twenty mountains and lakes. My gaze widened in awe, taking in everything I could with long sweeps of my eyes.
It was beautiful. I wasn’t sure what I expected, but I found the view absolutely breathtaking. The lakes looked crystal blue, sparkling as the sun shone on them. The mountains were tall and all I could think was that if I got any down time before I left, I wanted to hike one, for sure.
“I know you guys aren’t here for pleasure or anything, but we are just passing over Acadia’s Eagle Lake, and I would highly recommend visiting if you get the chance after your investigation is over,” the pilot said. I looked out and saw a giant lake; it looked so inviting, like its waters were beckoning to us with its cerulean fingers.
“And just over there, you can see Cadillac Mountain. If you’re out early enough, it’s a beautiful place to watch the sun rise.”
I kind of liked this pilot.
“How do you know so much about the park?” I asked into my headset.
“I took my wife here for our 10-year anniversary. She’s really into nature and we loved it.”
Once I thought about it, it seemed like a fantastic place to spend a few days, but I wasn’t there for a vacation. I wouldn’t be doing much mountain climbing, swimming, hiking or anything like that.
I was there to investigate a death and possible murder.
I wasn’t given much information about the case, only that there had been a death in Acadia National Park. I was in shock when I had heard Danielle Peterson was the victim, as she was one of the most well-known TV personalities at the time. If people watched the Travel Channel, it was for her. What could have possibly happened?
I wasn’t sure, but I was there to find out.
Investigations involving national parks were usually handed off to the Department of the Interior, but due to the high case volume they were experiencing, my team had taken over. With everyone else working on their own assignments, I was the lucky one chosen to hop on the next helicopter out to Acadia.
I didn’t mind; it wasn’t like I had a case to work on at the time. Plus, it was just the kind of investigation I was often picked for. Any assignments involving thieves, murderers and terrorists were usually handed off to me. If someone asked, I’d tell them that those people had no place on this earth and I was glad to put them behind bars. People who broke the law deserved to be punished and I was happy to help exact justice whenever I could. Some people hated their jobs, but I looked forward to every case.
However, I didn’t have enough information to tell if the case would involve a murderer and I sure as hell wasn’t going to make assumptions. I went by the facts, and there was little for me to go on, so I would have to wait.
I was lucky that my supervisor had found two agents from other teams to assist me. I would need some help, especially if we ended up catching a person responsible for the death. He or she would be detained until we could take the individual back to headquarters for questioning, and I would need people from our side to watch over the suspect. I didn’t know anyone at the park, and until I cleared them all of suspicion, I didn’t trust a single one of them.
Jesus himself could work there and I would make sure to check out his background file and alibi.
The file for this case contained several sheets of paper. The first outlined the call that was made to the FBI by the Deputy Park Manager, reporting that he found the body of Danielle Peterson dead in his park. The re
st of the meticulously printed papers were outlines of the individuals who held jobs at Acadia. The reports didn’t contain too much detail, other than names, races, ages, and how long the person had held his or her position at the park. Or was it a wild life preserve? I couldn’t remember and I supposed it didn’t matter. The last of the stack included two files that had large X marks on them with the word “Deceased” stamped across their fronts. I wondered if those positions had been refilled yet and what had been the cause of their deaths. If so, those were variables that I didn’t have the appropriate information on, and I would need to gather that as quickly as I could.
Just try to focus on the death you were sent here to investigate, I told myself, taking a deep breath. I felt adrenaline start to pump through me as we descended onto Acadia’s helicopter pad. The Acadia Air Tour helicopter was parked to the side and three people were standing just outside of range waiting for us.
Once we touched down, I grabbed my briefcase and removed my headset. “Get ready,” I said to the agents behind me. “We need to be prepared for anything, starting right now.”
I looked out the window and the three people were walking towards the helicopter. I could see them clearly and they were only a couple of feet away from the safety range. There were two men and one woman, a pair of them in similar outfits and one dressed in a much more casual outfit.
The woman was brunette sporting a shoulder-length ponytail. She wore a green bomber jacket with Ranger patches all over it, a white tee shirt, and grey pants. She looked fit, but not overly-muscular or anything. She probably hiked through the park often, especially by the looks of her boots. I guessed she must be Hispanic or mixed as my eyes passed over her caramel complexion.
The tallest guy had a buzzed, military-style cut and was very muscular. He looked serious, but his posture was open. His peachy complexion was mostly covered by a navy blue long sleeve shirt and slightly loose jeans.