by April Henry
And the truth was that he was pretty sure there was a body lying down there.
He got off his bike, leaned it against a telephone pole, and ventured closer. Ice-rimmed weeds brushed against his legs, and he was glad of his waterproof pants. As he got closer, his footsteps slowed down. Finally, he was close enough to peer over a patch of blackberry canes that hid the top part of the body from view.
Arms and a face. A young woman’s face.
So, so white that Thad let out the breath he had been subconsciously holding. It couldn’t be a person. It had to be a mannequin. Human beings did not come in that weird waxy shade, a skim-milk white verging on blue. Besides, bodies didn’t just appear in vacant lots in Southwest Portland.
Then he realized that mannequins didn’t, either.
And now he saw where all the color had gone. The ground under her held a dark red pool.
“Lady!” he said. For some reason he found himself whispering, as if she were asleep. “Lady!”
She lay on her back, a small woman, no more than five two or three. She looked about his age, somewhere between twenty and twenty-five. A fan of wet, dark hair surrounded her face. One corner of her forehead looked abraded. Her arms were outstretched. A yellow purse was looped around her left elbow. Her lips were purple, and not from lipstick. Her eyes were half open.
“Lady!” Thad made his whisper louder.
The eyes didn’t blink. She didn’t move at all.
He had to get closer. Had to see if she was alive. He climbed down the slope, but after his first step, he started to slide. His Converses found no purchase on the frosted weeds. He pinwheeled his arms as he began to lose his balance.
Thad would later tell the police he wasn’t sure why he had decided to check out the body before calling 9-1-1. Was it because he thought she might still be alive? Was it because he still wasn’t sure she was really a person?
Whatever the reason, at 6:51 that morning, Thad Westmoreland landed with a thud a foot away from a body. He levered himself up onto his elbows, his face just inches from a dead girl’s.
And then she gasped.
CHAPTER 14
NICK
MONDAY
SOMETHING REALLY BAD
Nick woke to the sound of sirens screaming up his street. He sat up. His mouth tasted sour. Like something had died on his tongue.
Last night he had eaten two bowls of Life cereal and a sleeve of Ritz crackers chased with a glass of orange juice while he waited in vain for Kyle to show up.
The weird thing was that even though Kyle hadn’t been home, when Nick had pushed aside the curtain to check, his old white GTI had been parked on the street. So where had he been? Kyle didn’t even have a girlfriend at the moment, at least not one that Nick knew about.
Now Nick shambled down the hall. Kyle must have come home, because here he was, in body if not quite in spirit, slumped over a bowl of Wheaties slowly turning into brown mush. His chin was propped up with one hand, while with the other he scrolled through texts with his thumb. He glanced up at Nick, but it was hard to read his expression because his hand covered his mouth. His eyes were at half-mast. Even when he wasn’t out late at night doing who knows what, Kyle was always tired. During the day, he sorted packages at UPS. At night, he was inching his way to an associate degree at Portland Community College, one or two evening classes at a time.
“I didn’t even hear you come in last night, Nick,” his mom said.
He and Kyle exchanged a look. What was his brother thinking? He didn’t look guilty or proud or anything. Still, there was something off about him this morning. Kyle had lighter skin than Nick, but today it seemed a weird washed-out tint, nearly verging on green.
Carrying her coffee mug, his mom walked over to Nick and touched his cheek. “What happened to you? It looks like you got into a catfight—and lost.”
Nick touched his fingertips to the same spot and found three shallow furrows, dotted and dashed with tiny scabs. He didn’t even remember getting them, but he had been so focused on getting to Mariana.
How much of her story should he tell? Better to stick to the bare minimum. “We found a little girl who had gotten lost chasing after a kitten. She was in some blackberry bushes.”
“So she’s okay?”
“Yeah. Basically.” Another siren whooped up their street.
His mom’s head turned as she followed the sound. “That’s got to be the third or fourth one I’ve heard in thirty minutes. Something really bad must have happened—and close by.”
Kyle’s hand suddenly tightened against his mouth. He leapt to his feet, pushed past Nick, and then bolted out of the room. Down the hall, the bathroom door slammed, but it didn’t do much to conceal the sound of his retching. Nick hadn’t been that hungry, and now the idea of food didn’t seem appealing at all.
“It sounds like Kyle has the flu.” His mom’s mouth twisted as Kyle made another terrible noise. “Half the people in my checkout lane have been sick. You look at the belt and it’s loaded up with cough drops and NyQuil and you just wonder what your chances are.” She was a cashier at Fred Meyer, a regional supermarket chain. “I keep using hand sanitizer, but it doesn’t help if people are coughing or sneezing right in your face.”
When he got really upset or anxious, Kyle sometimes threw up. Same as Nick. Nick still felt a little queasy when he thought about what had happened last night.
So was something bothering Kyle or was it just a stomach bug? Whatever the truth was, Nick felt better about yakking when he first looked at Mariana’s leg. Throwing up was a trait he shared with his brother. Didn’t that mean it had to be genetic? His mom had a cast-iron stomach. You could bring her a dead frog, show her a nasty cut, or even throw up on her shoes and she would just carry on. So if Nick’s and Kyle’s sensitive stomachs hadn’t come from her, they must have inherited them from their dad. Which meant it must not have stopped him from serving in the army.
“You’d better hurry up and eat.” The coffeemaker hissed when she pulled the pot free while more fresh coffee was still trickling in. She dumped the few ounces into her mug and slid the pot back. She never ate breakfast but always insisted that they did.
Nick hadn’t even sat down at the table, where Kyle’s cereal was entering the last stages of Wheaties soup. “I think I’ll grab something to eat later.”
“Don’t tell me you’re getting sick, too!” She tried to put the back of her hand on his forehead, but he ducked away.
“No. But listening to Kyle has kinda put me off eating for a while.”
“Okay.” She went to her purse and dug out a five-dollar bill. “In case you want to buy something at school.” She held it out to him.
He shoved it into his jeans pocket. “Thanks.”
From his room, his phone started chirping. When he checked, there was a text from Mitchell.
Evidence search in SW Portland. Meet @ 0900.
As Nick read, he heard another siren. His room faced the backyard, so he couldn’t see anything. Carrying his phone, he walked down the hall and out the front door.
Barefoot, he picked his way across the lawn, shivering in his T-shirt. The blades of grass were edged with the white sparkle of frozen dew. In his wake, he left clear green footprints. He reached the curb and kept walking until he got to the corner. He looked up the street. About six blocks away, something was clearly up. He squinted. A fire truck and maybe a half-dozen cop cars.
Nick texted back. Is that anywhere near Greenleaf?
It’s ON Greenleaf. How did you know?
Nick’s heart started thumping like a phone book in a dryer. Because I’m right down the street.
CHAPTER 15
NICK
MONDAY
EVERYDAY CARRY
Nick walked back through his yard, now with his phone pressed against his ear. Normally he would have just kept texting, but he was calling Mitchell instead. Cautious Mitchell might say something that he would never text.
When Nick opened
the door, Kyle was in the living room, watching some sports recap on TV. “What’s going—” his brother started, but Nick raised his hand, telling him it would have to wait. He walked straight back to his room.
“This is Nick,” he said when Mitchell finally answered. “I live right off Greenleaf. What’s going on?”
“A female crime victim was discovered in a vacant lot on Greenleaf this morning.”
Nick knew that lot. When he was a little kid, it had held a small apartment complex. Then some idiot shooting off illegal bottle rockets on the Fourth of July had sent one through a window instead of up into the sky. He had vague memories of being part of a crowd watching the orange flames leap into the darkness.
The tenants had made it out safely, but the building itself had been a total loss. The remains had been bulldozed but the place was never rebuilt. His mom had said it had something to do with the trickle of water that ran through the lot during the rainy months. Now the space was covered with blackberry bushes and weeds.
“So she’s dead?” Nick lifted his SAR backpack from the floor of his closet and laid it on the bed. He stepped out of his jeans as he pulled a set of long underwear from his dresser. You couldn’t wear jeans on a callout. Once they got wet, the cotton would just suck the heat right out of you. SAR protocol called for wearing three layers, top and bottom. You started with a base layer of long underwear, added fleece for insulation, and topped it with something waterproof.
“I heard she was alive at the scene, but just barely. I don’t know what’s happened since then. She was stabbed, probably sometime last night.”
Nick couldn’t believe it. A murder or an attempted murder, right in his neighborhood?
The hour he had to get dressed, get his gear, and get to the sheriff’s office was ticking away. It was ridiculous to have to go through all of that when today’s crime scene was just up the street.
“How about if I just meet you guys there?” He pulled on one layer, then another. A murder! And what? Six, seven blocks from his house? Last night he had driven right down Greenleaf, he thought as he hopped on one foot and then the other, pulling up his socks. Maybe around the same time it had happened.
“That’s not established procedure,” Mitchell said slowly. Before he went to the bathroom, he probably checked a book of rules to make sure it was okay and to see how many squares of toilet paper he was allowed to use.
Nick forced himself to speak slowly. “Look. It doesn’t make sense for me to have to walk to the bus stop, then wait there until the next bus comes, and then get on and wait some more while it makes two dozen stops, and then walk the rest of the way to the sheriff’s office—and to try to do it all in an hour—when all I would be doing is climbing into a van and coming right back to where I already am now.” He pushed his feet into his boots.
“I don’t know…” Mitchell’s voice trailed off, and Nick knew he had won. “You’re going to have to walk. We can’t have a bunch of random civilian cars cluttering up the scene and being a distraction.”
Just how lazy did Mitchell think he was? “Don’t worry, dude. It’s only, like, six blocks away. Of course I’m gonna walk it.” Nick didn’t bother mentioning that he didn’t have a car and that there was no chance he could borrow one today.
“Then it’s okay, I guess. See you there.”
Before picking up his backpack, Nick opened his dresser drawer, pushed aside the top layer of socks, and looked at the two knives nestled in the back. Every certified member of SAR seemed to carry a knife, sometimes more than one. Knives could cut clothing to gain access to a wound, snip laces to get someone’s boot off, even slice seat belts to free someone trapped in a totaled car. Nick had never actually done any of those things yet, or even seen them done, but when Jon had talked about them in one of the Wednesday night classes, he had pictured them plainly. Even doodled a few of the possibilities. And he had saved up and bought his first knife as soon as he could.
Now Nick slipped the Kershaw Blackout into his right pocket. The Kershaw was his everyday carry, or EDC, and he did carry it everywhere. Even at school, which had the kind of sissy policies that would probably get you in trouble for cutting an L-shaped piece of paper and then pointing it at someone. He just kept it buried deep in one of his front pockets. Luckily, Wilson did not have metal detectors.
Nick had saved for several weeks to buy the Kershaw, which was made by a local company. The best part about it was that it was “spring assisted,” making it basically similar to a switchblade. Once you pressed the button on the side, it unfolded so fast you couldn’t even see it move. Unlike a switchblade, Jon had assured them that spring-assisted knives were legal in Oregon.
Nick left the first knife he had gotten in the drawer. It was a fixed-blade knife, marketed as a “combat knife.” He had ordered it off the Internet the day he joined SAR. On their first mission, Nick had worn it in a sheath threaded through his belt, with the handle showing. Five minutes later Jon had taken him aside and told him he had to stow it in his pack.
“Sure, when we’re doing survival scenarios, and building shelters and fires and such, a fixed-blade knife might come in handy,” Jon had said. “But we don’t want people wearing them out in the open all the time. It can make us look a bit military and intimidating.” He had actually said these things like they were bad. “It’s also about safety. If you trip and fall while you’re wearing a fixed-blade knife, it’s possible it could punch right through the sheath, and maybe even into you. So you’re going to have to stash it.” After that, Nick had bought the Kershaw and put the combat knife in his sock drawer.
Once Nick started carrying a knife, it turned out you could use it surprisingly often. No need to look for scissors when you had to cut something. And he had used it in SAR for less dramatic things, like cutting parachute cord for shelters, cutting the string that marked out grid searches, and breaking down wood to build a fire.
Dressed in his outdoor gear, Nick hoisted his helmet and backpack. He felt kind of silly carrying his full SAR backpack to a vacant lot in the middle of a city, but Jon said you never knew when you might be called to deploy straight to a trailhead to search for a missing person. Saving a life trumped finding crime scene evidence.
When he came out of his room, Kyle was waiting for him. “So what’s happening? What were all the sirens about?”
“I guess some girl got stabbed up the street.” Nick put on a nonchalant expression. “SAR got tapped to do the evidence search.” Students were allowed to take part in searches during the day, as long as they maintained a certain grade level.
Kyle’s eyes actually widened.
For once, his brother was impressed.
CHAPTER 16
NICK
MONDAY
DROVE RIGHT BY
With every step Nick got closer to the scene, his heart rate sped up. He counted eight—no, nine—cop cars. A fire truck sat at the curb. Its ladder had been extended high over the site. At the top, a man was taking pictures, getting an aerial view. Yellow crime scene tape had been looped around trees and signposts and even the antenna of a parked car. A lady cop was stringing up more tape, creating a second perimeter that was probably thirty feet farther out than the first.
Nick wasn’t the only one drawn by the sirens. People clutching mugs of coffee stood in their driveways, gawking. Some gathered in groups of two or three, pointing and talking in low but excited voices. And some were already bellying up against the new crime scene tape.
A block from the site, he buckled on his red climbing helmet. The helmet was part of SAR protocol, even if they were in no danger of being bonked by falling rocks. He felt ridiculous wearing it. Bad enough to wear the helmet when you were surrounded by people wearing helmets. Far worse if it was just you. What if someone thought he was some mentally disabled kid, the kind who had seizures?
But since his orange SAR shirt was covered by his coat, he needed to wear the helmet if he wanted to get on the other side of those two lines of y
ellow tape. It was like a secret signal that he belonged.
When Nick came up to the crime scene tape, he picked a spot that wasn’t yet lined with people. He felt their eyes on him. He wiped all expression from his face as he cut between an old man and a woman wearing a coat over pajamas. He was a professional.
But to get under the tape he had to bend so low the weight of his pack made him stagger. He almost fell. And when he straightened up, a uniformed cop holding a clipboard was glaring at him.
“Just what do you think you’re doing? Don’t you see that tape?”
Nick was still fumbling for an answer when a man’s voice broke in.
“Hey, it’s okay, Rob.” It was Detective Harriman. They had met when Nick, Alexis, and Ruby had found a girl’s body in Forest Park when they were looking for a missing autistic man. “He’s with Search and Rescue. They’re gonna do our evidence search today.” He looked past Nick, and his wrinkles got even deeper as he squinted. “Where’s the rest of your crew?”
“They’re still coming. I got permission to walk over since I only live about six blocks away.” Nick took in the scene. Two cops were talking to the people lined up along the tape. Two more were taking photos of a narrow trail of flattened weeds. And, with a little thrill, he saw a fifth cop using gloved hands to put what looked like a brick into a brown paper bag preprinted with the word Evidence. Most of the cops, like Harriman, wore paper booties, but no one was wearing a full-on white suit as Nick had seen on TV shows. He was kind of disappointed.
“How come they’re not wearing bunny suits?” Nick asked.
Harriman rolled his eyes. “Think about it. Nearly one hundred percent of the time, if you’ve got someone in a Tyvek suit, they’re standing right next to someone who is not in Tyvek. Our uniforms don’t shed. There’s no point in suiting up.”