two sets of footprints and off to the left, a third. The third set was Doc Hartnup’s, she was sure of that. One set of prints diverged to follow the Doc, and from the size she figured it for Andy Diviny. The smaller set was Natalie’s, and they broke right to follow a downland path. That was odd. Why wouldn’t she have accompanied the other officer to follow a clear trail?
She waved Mike Schneider over and showed him the upland trail. Schneider got it and nodded, and he peeled off to follow that, jerking his head for Strauss to follow him. Dez flagged Sheldon and pointed downland. He nodded and as she began creeping forward, he followed along on her wide right flank, his gun steady, his eyes narrow and hard.
As they moved down the shadows grew deeper. There were boulders, left behind by a glacier thousands of years ago. Natalie Shanahan’s trail was easy to follow through dirt or moss, but soon it vanished as the ground became rockier. After another hundred yards Dez lost it completely.
Two minutes later Sheldon gave a sharp, short whistle, and when Dez turned, he waved her over. She saw why before he even pointed it out. Natalie’s trail reappeared in a different spot than Dez expected to see it. It looped around one of the big boulders and headed uphill in a straight line. The shoe impressions were deeper on the balls of the feet.
“She went running up that hill like a bat out of hell,” murmured Sheldon.
Dez nodded. “I’ll go up the hill. You go around and come up the east slope.”
“On it,” he said, and he was off, running low and fast. Dez watched him for a moment, nodding approval. Like her, Sheldon had dropped the veneer of “cop” and was back in the Big Sand.
The hill was too steep to climb without using both hands, so Dez holstered her gun, grabbed some roots, and pulled herself up. She was surprised Natalie managed to haul her ass up this way. Natalie was the queen of Weight Watchers but she snarfed down two Big Macs every lunch break.
As she reached the top of the hill, Dez took a firm left handhold and drew her pistol. She couldn’t hear Sheldon, but she knew he would be coming up the slope. It was a longer route but easier, so they should be hitting the same spot at the same time.
Dez took a breath, pulled herself up, peered briefly over the edge, and then ducked down, letting her mind process what her eyes had seen in that flash look.
The green forest was red.
“Christ,” Dez said aloud as the data splashed across her mental screen. Leaves and grass painted a dark crimson. Something lying there. Pale and streaked with dark lines of red. An arm. She was sure of it. Was there a figure standing there? No. It was a tree. She was sure of that, too.
Dez’s heart was hammering as she tightened her grip on the root and the gun. Then, with a grunt and a curse, she was moving, her feet scrabbling and slipping on the mossy stones of the hill. Up, up and then she was over the edge, swinging her Glock around into both hands, fanning the barrel from point to point, checking everything, making sense of shapes, putting everything into order.
Except that it wasn’t orderly. None of this was going to fit into a picture that would make sense. She knew that at once, and for a disjointed moment she couldn’t even feel the gun in her hand.
Natalie Shanahan lay sprawled on the leaves and moss. Her eyes were open. So was her chest. The vest was torn open. Shirt and bra in rags. Ribs stood up jagged and white through the torn meat of her breasts. Her body was bathed in blood, her face was splattered with black mucus. The skin around the wound was ragged, the ends pulled and torn. Steam curled upward from the burst meat. Smoke curled from the barrel of the pistol that was still clutched in Natalie’s hand; the slide was locked back. Brass cartridges lay scattered among the leaves and stones and dropped pieces of flesh.
Nothing else moved in the clearing. No perp. Nothing.
“Jesus God Almighty…”
Dez didn’t even turn as Sheldon Higdon spoke. She couldn’t. She was unable to move.
“Officer down!” yelled a voice. “Officer down!”
Dez looked up. Sheldon glanced at her and then they both turned and stared off to the east. The cries were coming from farther up the slope. She recognized the voice. One of the other two combat vet cops. And with a sinking dread, Dez knew that they had found Andy Diviny.
“God,” she murmured. “God…”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“Jesus…,” breathed Sheldon. “Look at her!”
“I know,” said Dez.
There were more shouts and then the hollow
“Dez…” began Sheldon, but she cut him off.
“I
“The fuck is happening?” grunted Sheldon as he ran.
Dez said nothing. The day was all wrong and it was spinning away out of her reach. Even as she ran forward she felt like she was shrinking back, retreating within her own mind. This was all impossible.
She tore the shoulder mike from its clip and yelled into it. “We have officers down, repeat, officers down. We need backup right fucking now!”
Then she and Sheldon broke through a screen of shrubs … and the day became even more impossible.
Officer Jeff Straus lay faceup on the grass at the far side of the clearing. His entire face was … gone. Torn away to reveal ragged red muscle and white bone. Blood oozed down the sides of his face. Strauss’s pistol lay three inches from his hand.
Much closer, just a few yards away, Officer Mike Schneider stood with his back to Dez and Sheldon. Schneider’s Glock was down at his side, clutched in a tight fist. Schneider’s whole body twitched and he jerked the trigger. The blast was sharp and loud and the bullet punched a bloody groove through the side of Schneider’s ankle bone before burying itself in the dirt. Then Schneider’s legs buckled and he dropped full-weight onto his knees, the jolt knocking the gun from his twitching fingers. There was a hissing sound and Dez saw a geyser of bright red blood shoot outward from below Schneider’s chin and splash the pale face of Andy Diviny. The blood struck him in the mouth and eyes and splattered the rubbery leaves of a big rhododendron. As Schneider canted sideways and fell, Diviny stared straight at Dez.
Purple lips peeled back from bloody teeth and Diviny hissed at her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“No…”
Dez heard the word, but she could not tell if she spoke it, or Sheldon. It could not have been Strauss. That much was obvious. He had no lips left with which to speak. His mouth and cheeks had been torn away, and his eyes stared in terminal astonishment up at the roof of green leaves.
The sounds of the forest were gone, washed out of the moment by another sound. That of Andy Diviny chewing a mouthful of flesh.
“No!”
This time it was Sheldon who spoke — who almost sobbed the word — and then his sob turned into snarl as he rushed forward and swung the stock of his shotgun at Diviny’s jaw. Dez watched, unable to react. There was a terrific crack! Bone shattered, teeth flew, and the young cop’s head whipped around so fast that his whole body was spun into an awkward pirouette. Diviny crashed into the rhododendron and fell almost out of sight except for his twitching legs.
