The Bodies Left Behind

it.”
    “Next to Marquette State Park.”
    “I’ll give my man a call who runs CI’s, see if there’s any word about somebody talking to a pro—hired killer.”
    So that ’s what he means by pro. Dahl was getting irritated. “That’d be much appreciated, Agent Brindle.”
    “You want one of our people there, on the ground?”
    “Not yet, I don’t think. Let’s see what’s going on first.”
    “Okay. Well, call if you need to. We’ll be totally on board, Sheriff. This Mankewitz, he’s fucking around with illegals and Homeland Security and terrorist issues.”
    Not to mention putting a poor family at risk, Dahl thought. Something else he refrained from saying. He thanked the agent and they hung up.
    “How soon?” he muttered to the young deputy beside him.
    “Half hour . . .”
    “Well,” Dahl began impatiently, rubbing his scarred leg.
    “I know, Sheriff,” Gibbs said. “But we’re doing eighty. Any faster and all it takes is one deer. And if it doesn’t kill us coming through the windshield, Eric’ll get us from behind. That boy really oughta back off a bit.”

    THEY’D LEFT THE Joliet Trail twenty minutes before, with Brynn deviating only when necessary—around thickets and brambles and beds of leaves that might cover trip holes and bogs. They headed up into the hills, steep ones, and already the incline was dramatic in some places. A slip could turn into a tumble down a hillside for many yards, over sharp rocks and through thornbushes.
    The men would be at the bottom of the cliff by now. She hoped that, finding no bodies, they’d continue through the ravine to the ranger station. It could be forty minutes, an hour before they realized they’d been tricked and returned to the Joliet Trail to resume the hunt.
    A brief pause for another compass reading. They’d remained largely on course, due north.
    For the first time tonight Brynn was beginning to feel that she and Michelle might survive.
    They’d be at the river soon. And then either a treksouth along the bank to Point of Rocks or the shorter but arduous—and dangerous—climb up the gorge. She couldn’t get that image out of her head: the hiker who’d fallen and been impaled on the tree limb.
    The recovery team had needed a chain saw to cut the body free. They’d had to stand around waiting for an hour for an officer to arrive with the tool.
    Brynn squinted at a silver flash in the distance ahead of them. Was that the river?
    No, just a narrow band of grass shining in the moonlight. Otherworldly. She wondered what kind it was. Graham could have told her in a heartbeat.
    But she didn’t want to think about Graham.
    Then she shivered at the sound of a howl behind them. A creature baying. Was it the wolf that seemed to be following them as persistently as the men?
    Michelle looked back at the sound. She froze. And then she screamed.
    “Michelle, no!” Brynn whispered harshly. “It’s just the—”
    “Them, it’s them!” The young woman was pointing into the darkness.
    What? What did she see? All Brynn was looking at were layers of shadow, some moving, some still. Smooth or textured.
    “Where?”
    “There! Him!”
    Finally Brynn could see: a hundred feet away a man stood behind a bush.
    No! They hadn’t believed the trick at the junction. Brynn gripped her spear. “Get down!”
    But whatever’d been building within the young woman now exploded in rage and madness. “You fuckers!” she screamed. “I hate you!”
    “No, Michelle. Please, be quiet. We have to run. Now!”
    But the younger woman seemed transfixed, as if Brynn weren’t even present. She flung aside the pool cue steadying her and pulled out a pool ball bolo.
    Brynn stepped forward, gripping Michelle’s leather jacket. But, her face a mask of fury, the woman shoved Brynn away, sending her slipping down an incline of slick leaves.
    The bolo in one hand, the knife in the other, Michelle charged the man, moving fast despite her limp. “I hate you, I hate you!” she screamed.
    “No, Michelle, no! They have guns!”
    But she seemed deaf to the pleas. When she was thirty feet away from the man she flung the bolo, which flew in a fierce arc and nearly struck his head. He stood his ground—just as Brynn herself had back in the Feldmans’ driveway.
    Undaunted, Michelle continued her charge.
    Brynn debated. Should she follow? It’d be suicide. . . .
    Then decided: Oh, hell. She grimaced, rose to her feet and charged after the woman, trying to keep