Angels Fall

Brody. "You're telling me you're sure this is where she saw it, and I'm telling you I can't see anything to indicate there was anyone here passing the time of day, much less knocking a woman to the ground and strangling her."
    The logic of it was indisputable. And still. "He covered his tracks."
    "Maybe, maybe. But when the hell did he do that? He carted her off. dragged her out of sight, came back, covered up his tracks here—and that's not knowing anyone saw him kill anyone."
    "Or assuming he didn't see Recce up there."
    Now Rick took out his own sunglasses and through them looked over the water, up to the trail. "All right then, change that around and say he did. He still managed to clear out in the thirty minutes you say passed. Give it forty, and it still doesn't hold for me."
    "You think she's lying? Made it up? What's the point?"
    "I don't think she's lying." Rick shoved back his hat, gave his brow a troubled rub. "There's more to this, Brody. Seeing you two together vesterday—first at vour place, then at hers—I figured you had something going. That maybe you knew more about her."
    "More of what?"
    "Let's do that walk around, and I'm going to tell you. I expect you can keep what I tell you to yourself. I figure you're one of the few people in the Fist who can do that."
    As they walked. Brody kept his eyes on the ground, or studied the brush. He wanted, more than he'd realized, to find something to prove Rick wrong.
    Which meant, he realized, he was trying harder to prove some woman was dead instead of another woman was mistaken.
    But he remembered how she'd looked, how she'd struggled to keep herself from dissolving on the long hike back. And how alone she'd looked standing in her nearly empty apartment.
    "I did some checking up on her." When Brody stopped, narrowed his eyes. Rick shook his head. "I consider that part ol my job. Somebody new comes around, settles in. I want to know they're clean. Did the same with you."
    "And did I pass the audition""
    "You and I haven't had any words otherwise, have we?" He paused, lifted his chin to the left. " That's the back of one of Joanie's cabins. That one's the closest, and it took us about ten minutes to walk it. Setting a good pace, and not carrying dead weight. Couldn't've gotten any sort of vehicle closer than this. Either way, there'll be tire tracks."
    "Did you go inside? The cabin?"
    "Having a badge doesn't mean I can go inside somebody's property. But I looked around, looked in the windows. Doors are locked. Went to the two others that are closest, which includes my own. And there I did go in. Nothing there."
    Still they continued on, reaching the cabin, circling it.
    "Reece is clean, if you're interested," Rick continued when Brody peered through the cabin windows. "But she was involved with something a few years ago."
    Brody stepped back, spoke carefully. "Involved with what?"
    "Spree killing at the restaurant where she worked in Boston. She was the only survivor. She was shot twice."
    "Jesus Christ."
    "Yeah. Left for dead in some kind of closet, storage closet. I got details from a Boston cop who worked the case. She was in the kitchen, everyone else was in the dining room—after hours. She heard screams, gunshots, remembers, or thinks she remembers, grabbing for her cell phone. One of the men came in, shot her. She doesn't remember much more—or didn't. Didn't get a good look at him. Got knocked back in the closet and left there until the cops found her a couple hours later. Cop I talked to said she damn near didn't make it. Coma after surgery for best part of a week, and her memory was patchy after. And her mental state wasn't much better than her physical."
    Nothing, nothing he d imagined came close. "How could it have been?"
    "What I'm saying is she had a breakdown. Did some months in a psychiatric hospital. She was never able to give the cops enough details or description. They never caught who killed all those people, then she dropped off the map. The lead investigator got in touch with her off and on during that first year or so. Last time he tried, she'd moved, left no forwarding. She got family—a grandmother—but all she could tell him was Reece was gone, and wasn't planning to come back."
    Rick stopped, gave a long, slow scan, then changed directions and backtracked. A warbler began to call out in its quick, high-pitched song. "I recollect bits of it myself. The killing made the national news. I thought, as I remember, thank God we live