City of the Lost: Part Two Page 7

  "Right."

  Dalton grumbles, but it is the efficient next step and he assigns us directions. Then he says to me, "We're looking for prints, crushed moss, broken twigs. If you see any, call me over to make sure it's not just an animal."

  We get to work. The toughest part? Checking for signs of passage without leaving them yourself. Wait! I see a footprint! It's a boot, about size six women's ... er, never mind.

  I move slowly and methodically. I want to impress Dalton. I won't deny that. I'm a woman and I'm a visible minority, which means when I made detective and zoomed up to major crimes before the age of thirty, people blamed affirmative action. I'm accustomed to proving that I got my position because I deserve it.

  I find prints, but they're all animal. As for broken twigs or crushed undergrowth, my section is the barest--not by accident, I suspect. Dalton can be an ass, but he's an ass in support of the job, not against it. In other words, he isn't going to hand me a challenging segment to check, so I can screw up and let Hastings escape.

  Without vegetation to examine, I cover my strip quicker than the others, despite moving slowly. I'm near the edge when I find a spot with bent twigs, as if something large passed not long ago. I'm looking for prints when the wind flutters through the trees, and out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of something white. Too white to be natural in this forest.

  Twelve

  My hand drops to my holstered gun. As I step to the left, squinting into the darkness, I can see a pale oval against a tree. A face? It's the right size.

  I glance back for the others. No sign of them. I'm within shouting distance, but I'm sure as hell not going to shout. Nor am I going to walk away and give my target time to escape.

  I creep forward. I've turned off my lantern. I'm dressed all in dark colours. I pull my hat down farther, and hunker low as I move. I can see the white shape now, on the other side of what looks like a clearing.

  I have to inch through the trees to get a better look. I move at a snail's pace, and the whole time I'm hoping Dalton or Anders realizes I'm out of sight. But no one comes and I can't leave my target, so I continue easing forward. Sliding my feet keeps me from crunching small twigs. It does not keep me from rustling when my foot slides straight into a pile of dead leaves. The crackle sounds as loud as a twenty-one-gun salute and I freeze, my gaze fixed on that pale oval, hand on my gun.

  The oval doesn't move. I pick up my pace, certain I'm going to realize I'm seeing moonlight reflecting off a tree or something equally innocuous, and then I'll be really glad Dalton didn't come running ...

  I stop. I see black patches where the eyes and mouth should be. The height is about right to be a person, though. It's as I'm measuring that height that my gaze drops and I see ...

  Beneath the oval is a tree trunk, maybe two feet wide. I don't see shoulders or arms--just the narrow straight line of the trunk.

  I push past the last tree, and I move too fast, stumbling into the clearing. Hand still on my gun, I catch my balance and look up and--

  I let out a curse. I don't mean to. But I see what's on that trunk, and I can't stifle an oath of surprise. At least I don't scream.

  I yank my gaze away to do a slow sweep of the clearing, making sure I haven't stumbled into a trap. There's no one else here.

  I look again. It's a human skull nailed to a tree. The remains of a pair of jeans are nailed up below it. Boots sit below the cuffs.

  The jean legs are in two pieces, bottom and top, the middle shredded and completely dark with blood. The top half of the jeans is flat against the tree. The bottom is not. I grab a stick and move closer and prod at one of the lower legs, and the fabric falls, propped up rather than nailed. I'm looking at a mangled and bloodied lower leg, hacked away at the kneecap.

  As I back up, brush crunches underfoot. I spin, hand on my gun, as Dalton strides into the clearing. His eyes are blazing, and it takes everything I can muster not to step backward.

  "Did I tell you not to take off?" he says.

  "I saw something. I thought it was a person."

  "I don't give a damn what--"

  I point at the skull. He stops. Then he mutters, "Ah, fuck." That's it. Like I'm pointing out signs of illegal campfire activity.

  "You've seen this before, I take it?" I'm struggling to keep my voice steady.

  "Yeah," he says. "It's a territorial marker for one group of hostiles. Never this close to the town, though."

  His gaze drops to the boots. And that severed leg. That's when he stares. And when he says "Fuck" this time, it's in a whole different tone.

  "That's not normal, I'm guessing."

  "Hell, no. Like I said, the skull is a territorial marker. Primitive tribes used shit like that to scare off others. We had one of the skulls removed and tested, and it was fifty years old. Something they'd dug up and put in the sun to bleach."

  "Not an actual enemy's head, then."

  "No, no. They don't do anything like ..." He trails off and his gaze returns to those amputated legs. "Fuck."

  I take a closer look with my lantern. "They don't appear fresh enough to be Hastings. Powys, I'm guessing."

  "Yeah. I recognize the boots."

  "So we keep looking for Hastings?"

  He shakes his head. "Trail's lost. We'll do a wider search in the morning. ATVs. Horses. Full militia." He turns and calls. "Will? I need you over here."

  And thus ends our hunt. With the three of us staring at a pair of amputated human legs, staged in jeans and boots, before Anders marks the tree with bright yellow tape and we return to town.

  We're back in Rockton. I'm shivering. I don't think the guys notice--everyone's lost in their thoughts--but before we separate for the night, Dalton says, "You know how to build a fire?"

  "I'll be fine."

  "Fuck," he mutters. Wrong answer, apparently.

  Anders cuts in before Dalton can continue. "I know you don't want to impose, Casey. Especially at four in the morning. Up here, though, no one's going to give you brownie points for toughing it out, and some of us"--a pointed look at Dalton--"will get pissy if you try."

  "It's a waste of time," Dalton says.

  "Right. Inefficient, to put it a nicer way. If you don't know how to build a fire, admit it. If we're both too tired to come and get one going tonight, we won't offer. I'd tell you where to find extra blankets. Eric would say, 'Then you'd better learn.' Either way, no one's going to--"

  "Speaking of wasting time ..." Dalton says.

  "Go home, Eric. I'll get Casey's fireplace going."

  "No."

  "It'll take me five minutes--"

  Dalton cuts him off with a snort.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Anders's words turn brittle.

  "Five minutes? You go over there, you won't leave again before dawn."

  Anders's eyes narrow. He murmurs for me to "Hold on a sec" and then leads Dalton aside. They walk about ten paces, not far enough for me to avoid overhearing in the stillness of the night.

  "You want to yank my chain?" Anders says. "Go ahead, but there's a fine line between needling me and insulting me, and that crossed it."

  "How?"

  "She just arrived today. Travelled all yesterday. Was trapped in a car then a bush plane with you for hours. Lands to find we have a body she can't investigate. Then discovers we have cannibals in our woods and spends her night tramping around those woods, only to find a skull and severed legs. Do you really think I'd invite myself back to her place in hopes of getting laid? Seriously?"

  "No, I think you'll go back to her place and keep talking until the sun comes up. And then neither of you will be in any shape to search tomorrow."

  "Oh."

  "Yeah, oh." Dalton shakes his head and walks back to me. "I'll get that fireplace going. Come on."

  Dalton gives no outward sign he's unsettled by what we found in the forest, but I can tell he's off his game by the simple fact that he forgets he's supposed to be an asshole. He gets my fire going and shows me how to d
o it. He explains where to buy wood but advises that I learn to chop instead to save credits--downed trees are hauled into the woodlot, where they're free to anyone who'll chop them. Anders might be more comfortable explaining things, but Dalton is a damned fine teacher when he's in the mood.

  Once the fire's going, I discover he's somehow transported that bottle of tequila to my house. We go into the kitchen, and it's there, and he's pouring me a shot without asking if I want it.

  He pours one for himself, too. Then he sniffs it with some suspicion, and I try not to laugh.

  "Never had tequila?" I ask.

  "Nope."

  "It's not going to taste good," I say.

  "Then what's the point?"

  I shake my head and down my shot. It burns all the way, that delicious heat that muffles my brain on contact.

  He eyes me and then takes his shot. He only gets about two-thirds in before sputtering and coughing. He squeezes his eyes shut, hands resting on the table. A moment's pause. He opens his eyes. "Not my way, but I get it." He finishes the shot, slower now.

  "Long day, huh?" I say.

  "Yeah." He pauses, glass in hand, before carefully setting it on the table and looking over, meeting my gaze as if preparing some earth-shaking pronouncement.

  "It's not usually like this," he says. "In Rockton."

  I laugh. I can't help it. I burst out laughing and he looks at me, as startled as if I'd broken into song. He watches me, that look on his face, the one I've come to think of as his dissection look. Like I'm an alien life form he's trying to understand.

  After a moment, he says, "Yeah, I guess that's obvious. At least, you'd hope so," and he smiles, and when he does, all I can think is, Goddamn, sheriff, you should do that more often. It's the tequila, of course, and the long night and the long day and feeling like I've been walking through a minefield on tiptoes. When he smiles, it is--in an odd way--reassuring, like the ground finally steadies under my feet. Things aren't so foreign here. Even Sheriff Dalton can smile.

  It only lasts a moment. He doesn't wipe it away, as if remembering he's supposed to be a jerk. It simply fades, and I realize that the "jerk" mode isn't an act. We all have our different aspects. That's one of his. So is the quiet, reflective guy who sat on the back deck with me and stared into the forest for two hours. There's a lot going on in that head, little of it simple or uncomplicated, and most of it weighed down by the responsibility of keeping the lid on this powder keg of a town. Which doesn't mean Eric Dalton is a nice guy. I don't think he can be. Not here. This is as nice as he gets, and I appreciate this glimpse, the way I appreciate the smile, and I also appreciate that he doesn't backtrack to cover it up, to be the asshole again.

  I fill our shot glasses halfway. He takes his. We drink them. Not a word exchanged for at least two minutes afterward, until he says, "I'll come by at ten. Yeah, not a lot of time to sleep ..."

  "But we have a manhunt to launch. I know."

  He nods and leaves without another word. I lock the door behind him, settle on the couch in front of the blazing fire, and soon fall asleep.

  KELLEY ARMSTRONG is the internationally bestselling author of the thirteen-book Women of the Otherworld series, the Nadia Stafford crime novels and a new series set in the fictional town of Cainsville, Illinois, which includes the novels Omens, Visions and Deceptions. She is also the author of three bestselling young adult trilogies, and the YA suspense thriller, The Masked Truth. She lives in rural Ontario.