The Bodies Left Behind

around the lake so far. We’re still looking. Divers haven’t found any bodies.”
    “That’s good. I’ll let you know if I find anything. Out.”
    “Out.”
    Graham was staring at the shotgun, as if he could will it to become invisible.
    Hart said, “Why isn’t anybody over here, except him, though? I don’t get it.”
    “They’re not as smart as you, Hart. That’s why.”
    “We better get a move on. Take his Glock, his extra clips.”
    Graham shrank back against the rock.
    Leave the shotgun. Please, leave the shotgun.
    Footsteps sounded on the crinkly leaves.
    Were they coming his way? Graham couldn’t tell.
    Then the steps stopped. The men were very close.
    Hart asked, “You want the cop’s scattergun?”
    “Naw, not really. Don’t need two.”
    “Don’t want anybody else finding it. You want to pitch it into the river?”
    “Sure thing.”
    No!
    More footsteps. Then a grunt of somebody throwing a heavy object. “There she goes.”
    After a delay Graham heard a clatter.
    The men resumed walking. They were closer yet to where Graham huddled between earth and stone. If they went to their left, around the boulder, they’d miss him. To the right they’d trip over him.
    He unfolded his knife. It clicked open. Graham recalled that the last time he’d used it was to cut a graft for a rosebush.

    AT THE SOUND of the gunshot—it was close—Michelle had gasped and spun around, letting go of Amy’s hand.
    The girl, panicked again, hurried back down the ledge, whimpering.
    “No!” Brynn called. “Amy!” She eased past Michelle, staring at the thorny bushes below, and then trotted after Amy. The girl saw her coming, though, and just as Brynn approached, she dropped to the ledge, squirming away. “No!” she squealed. She dropped Chester, who tumbled over the side. The girl lunged for the toy and went over the edge herself, pitching for the barberries. Brynn’s hand shot out andcaught Amy by the sweatshirt. Luckily she was facing downward. Had she been upright the skinny girl would have slipped out of the garment and fallen into the mass of thorns.
    The girl screamed in fear and pain and for the loss of her toy.
    “Quiet, please!” Brynn cried.
    Michelle ran back, reached down, grabbed the girl’s leg, and together the women wrestled her onto the ledge.
    The girl was going to scream again but Michelle leaned close and whispered something, stroking her head. Amy once again fell silent.
    Brynn thought, Why can’t I do that?
    “I promised her we’d come back and get Chester,” Michelle whispered as they started moving up the ledge again.
    “Goddamn it, if we get out of here, I will personally wade through those thorns and get him,” Brynn said. “Thanks.”
    They had another two hundred feet to go before they reached the top.
    Please, let there be a truck when we get there. I’ll get ’em to stop if I have to strip naked to do it.
    “What was that shooting?” Michelle asked. “Who was—”
    “Oh, no,” Brynn muttered, looking back.
    Hart and his partner were breaking from the same bushes where Brynn had paused to consider whether to climb the ledge five minutes ago.
    They paused. Hart looked up and his eyes metBrynn’s. He grabbed his partner’s arm and pointed directly at the women on the ledge.
    The partner worked the shotgun, ejecting one spent shell and chambering a new one, and both men began to sprint forward.

    “TAKE YOUR SHOT,” Hart called to Lewis.
    They were both breathless, gasping. His heart was pounding too hard to use the pistol but his partner might be able with the shotgun to hit the one who was last going up the rocky ledge, Michelle.
    Good.
    Kill the bitch.
    Lewis stopped, took a deep breath and fired a round.
    It was close—Hart could see from the dust on the rock—but the pellets missed. And just then the trio vanished as they leapt off the ledge at the top into what seemed to be a field.
    “They’ll be making straight for the highway—through the clearing and into the woods. They’ve got the kid. We can beat them if we move.”
    The men were winded. But Lewis nodded gamely and they started up the ledge.

    GRAHAM BOYD FLINCHED as the gunshot sounded, no more than a quarter mile away.
    He was in a precarious position, perched on the edge of a cliff of sandstone, the Snake River churning past nearly a hundred feet below. He was staring down and in the dim light he believed he could see the shotgun that Eric Munce’s murderer had flung over the edge.