like midnight. If she didn’t find one of Amelia’s markers by 6:35, she’d quit and turn back.
She almost tripped on a tangle of tree roots across her path. And then she heard something that made her stop. Twigs snapped underfoot. “Is anyone there?” Karen called. The noise was unmistakably someone-or
She directed the flashlight in the general area where the noise was coming from. But she didn’t see anyone. The sound was fading. The trees and bushes seemed to move as the beam of light swept across them. Then Karen saw it-only a few feet away. A piece of white fabric with a blue stripe was tied to the low-hanging branch of a small, bare brittle-looking tree. She made her way through the brush to get a closer look. She remembered the fabric pattern from yesterday. Koehler had said it was his lucky shirt.
Standing very still, she listened for a moment. Whatever she’d heard earlier, it was gone now. Karen shined the light in the trees, searching for the second piece of Koehler’s lucky shirt. She found it through the thick overgrowth, about thirty feet away. She seemed headed in the right direction, but there was no real path. It was nearly impossible to navigate her way in the dark. At one point, she walked right into a branch, and just missed scratching her eye. Touching her cheek, she glanced at her fingertip and saw blood. “Good one, Karen,” she muttered, pressing on.
Part of her wanted to turn back. Amelia had been right about everything so far. Karen knew she was close to finding Koehler’s corpse. Did she really need to see it? Once she set eyes on it, she’d have to call the police. And then how would she be any help to Amelia?
Still, she forged ahead, following one trail marker after another. She’d counted seventeen of them, and guessed by now she was about a quarter of a mile off the trail she’d started on. Karen found another rough trail, and then came upon a clearing, a little bald spot in the woods, no more than ten or twelve square feet. With her flashlight, she scanned the tree branches for the next marking, but there wasn’t one. She had no idea which direction to go from there.
Something darted across the ground in front of her. Karen gasped and tried to catch a look at it with her flashlight. But the thing scampered by so quickly all she saw was a shadow before it was gone. “Relax,” she said to herself. “Probably just a rabbit.”
She still had the flashlight directed on the forest floor when she noticed something else amid the leaves, twigs, and dirt. One part of the ground was darker, as if stained. The leaves were a different color. Karen took a step closer. Something smelled horrible-like death. She knew that putrid odor from the nursing home. It filled the room when a patient had died.
With the light shining on that dark patch, she could see some of the leaves were the burgundy color of dried blood. Part of the ground was covered with a slimy substance that had attracted bugs. Was this where Amelia had left Koehler’s corpse? No doubt, some person or thing had been there for a while. It had started to decay before being moved. Karen wondered if a bear, or maybe even a cougar, had dragged off the carcass.
The fetid smell was too much for her, and she backed away. Shaking, she felt sick to her stomach.
Karen took a few deep breaths, then scanned the forest floor with the flashlight’s beam. She was looking for a mound of dirt that might indicate a grave, or maybe even a piece of clothing. But there was nothing.
Still, she knew Amelia must have killed Koehler on this spot. It was where the lucky-shirt markers ended.
She heard something-a rustling sound, and twigs snapping again. She made a wide arc around the slimy patch of ground and directed the flashlight into the woods on the other side. The sound seemed to be coming from that direction. Karen could see only the first row of illuminated bushes and trees. Beyond that, it was just blackness. She thought she saw a bush move. Or was it just the shadows playing a trick on her. “Who’s there?” she called.
The rustling noise abruptly stopped. Karen realized no forest creature would freeze up like that. This was a person.
She was paralyzed for a moment, waiting for the next sound.
All at once, there was a shuffling noise, footsteps.
Karen turned and ran, but suddenly the ground seemed to slip out from under her. She fell backward into that oily patch of leaves and dirt. She let out a sharp cry. The flashlight had rolled out of her hands, and she desperately scurried along the ground to retrieve it. Then she struggled to her feet. Leaves stuck to her clothes. As she frantically brushed them away, she felt that slimy, jelly-like substance that had come from Russ Koehler’s decaying corpse.
Karen could hear the footsteps coming closer. She spotted the last marker, tied to the bough of a bush by the crude pathway. She ran toward it, and anxiously searched for the next marker. All the while, she could hear that rustling behind her, pursuing her. The trail suddenly disappeared, and so did the markers. Panic stricken, Karen waved the flashlight around, hoping to find a piece of Koehler’s shirt on a nearby tree or shrub. Without them, she couldn’t hope to find her way back to the main trail.
Had she taken a wrong turn? She noticed a short path amid the foliage, and hurried along until her flashlight illuminated something on the ground in front of her. Karen froze. “Oh, God, no,” she murmured. For a moment she couldn’t breathe.
At least a dozen strips of Koehler’s shirt littered the pathway.
All this time, someone had been behind her, removing Amelia’s markers. That someone didn’t want her finding her way back to the main trail.
She heard the footsteps again, coming closer. Karen blindly ran through the brush, zigzagging around trees and shrubs, staggering over rocks on the ground. She didn’t know where she was headed. She could have been totally turned around and forging even deeper into the woods. Branches lashed at her face, arms, and legs. At every turn, she expected a hand to grab out at her. She prayed for some sign ahead, a light through the trees, some signal that she was near the edge of the forest. She didn’t want to die in these woods, as Koehler so obviously had.
All the while, she heard the footsteps thumping behind her, the bushes rustling.
But she could hear something else, too. It sounded like a car approaching. Up ahead in the distance, she saw the beam from a pair of headlights sweep across the bushes and trees. After a few moments, another car sailed by. Karen raced toward the road, and civilization. Her lungs burning, she pressed on. She could actually see the edge of the forest now, and cars whooshing past. By the time she emerged from the woods and felt the pavement beneath her, Karen was almost delirious. She didn’t know if she had stumbled back onto Newcastle-Coal Creek Road, or if it was another street. She didn’t have any idea how to get to her car from this spot.
She tried to wave down an SUV, but it passed her by, its horn blaring. Karen swiveled around and shined her flashlight into the woods.
She saw him for only a second-a tall figure ducking behind a tree. He had a small shovel in his hand. He couldn’t have been more than a hundred feet away.
Karen swiveled around. “Help! Help me, please!” she screamed, waving at another approaching car, a beat- up Taurus.
The car pulled over to the side of the road.
Karen caught her breath. “Thank you, God,” she whispered.
“This teenager in the Taurus was so sweet. The poor kid, I had him driving one way and then the other before we finally found where I’d left my car.”
The cell phone to her ear, Karen stood outside a RiteAid in a Bellevue strip mall. Under the glaring halogen lights, she could see her reflection in the storefront window. With her brown hair a mess, dirt on her clothes, and scratch marks on her face, she looked as if she’d been beaten up.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” George asked for the second time.
“Somewhat traumatized, but okay,” Karen replied with a shaky laugh.
“And you don’t want to call the police?”
“Well, at this point, we don’t have a body,” she said. “And I’m sure all of those trail markings will be gone by the time anyone goes back into those woods, searching for one. I don’t think calling the police would do any good right now. Besides, I’d like to get Amelia some help before the cops and the press start going to town on her. And you’ll think I’m crazy, but there’s still a part of me that believes she’s innocent.”
