The Bodies Left Behind

low. “Michelle, stop!” Any minute, the man would fire. It must’ve been Hart; he remained motionless, waiting for the perfect shot.
    Michelle sprinted directly toward him.
    The man couldn’t miss.
    But no shots came.
    Slowing to a stop, Brynn could see why. It wasn’t a person at all. What the crazed young woman had been attacking was just a weird configuration of tree trunk, broken about six feet up, the branches and leaves giving the impression of a human. It was like a scarecrow.
    “I hate you!” the young woman’s shrill voice echoed.
    “Michelle!”
    Then, when she was ten feet away, Michelle apparently realized her mistake. She stopped, gasping for breath, staring at the trunk. She dropped to her knees, lowering her head, hands over her face, sobbing. An eerie keening came from her throat, both mournful and hopeless.
    The horror of the evening finally poured out; the tears up until now had been tears of confusion and pain. This was a rupture of pure sorrow.
    Brynn approached and then stopped. “Michelle, it’s okay. Let’s—”
    Michelle’s voice rose to another wail. “Leave me alone!”
    “Please. Shhhh, Michelle. Please be quiet. . . . It’s okay.”
    “No, it’s not okay! It’s not okay at all.”
    “Let’s keep at it. We don’t have much farther to go.”
    “I don’t care. You go on. . . .”
    A faint smile. “I’m not leaving you here.”
    Michelle hugged herself, rocking back and forth.
    Brynn crouched next to her. She understood that something else was going on within the young woman. “What is it?”
    Michelle looked absently at the knife, slipped it back in the sock scabbard. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
    “What?” Brynn persisted.
    “It’s my fault they’re dead,” she whispered, her face miserable. “Steve and Emma. It’s my fault!”
    “You, why?”
    She snapped, “Because I’m a spoiled little brat. Oh, God . . .”
    Brynn looked behind them. A few minutes. This was important, she sensed. They could afford a few minutes. The men were miles away. “Tell me.”
    “My husband . . .” She cleared her throat. “My husband’s seeing somebody else.”
    “What?”
    A faint, pained smile and she managed to say, “He’s cheating on me. I said he’s on a business trip. He is, but he’s not going alone.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “A girlfriend of mine works for the travel agency his company uses. I made her tell me. He’s going with somebody else.”
    “Maybe it’s just somebody he works with.”
    “No, it’s not. And they got one hotel room.”
    Oh.
    “I was so mad and so hurt. I couldn’t be alone this weekend! I just couldn’t be. I talked Emma and Steve into coming up here and bringing me along. I wanted to cry on their shoulders. I wanted them to tell me it’s not my fault. That he’s a bastard, that they would be my friends after the divorce and dump him . . . . And now they’re dead because I couldn’t act like a grown-up.”
    “That’s hardly your fault.” Brynn looked back and saw no pursuers. Nor any sign of their mascot, the wolf. She put her arm around the young woman and helped her to her feet. “Let’s walk. Tell me while we walk.”
    Michelle complied. They collected her pool cue and continued toward the river.
    “How long’ve you been married?”
    “Six years.” Her voice caught. “Michael was like my best friend. Everything seemed so fine. He was so laid-back, generous. He took really good care of me. . . . And you know what’s so messed up? That ’s why I lost him—being a spoiled little girl.” She gave a sour laugh. “He’s a banker. He makes all this money. When we got married I quit my job. It’s not like he wanted me to or anything. It was my idea. It was, like, my chance to go to acting school.”
    Michelle winced, stepping hard and apparently jarring her ankle. She continued, “I told you I was an actress. . . . Bullshit. I’m a twenty-nine-year-old acting student. And not a very good one. I was an extra in two local commercials. And Second City told me no. My life is lunch with my girlfriends, tennis, my health club, my spa. The only thing I’m good at is spending money, shopping and keeping myself in shape.”
    To the tune of a svelte size 4, Brynn couldn’t help but observe.
    “And I became . . . a nobody. Michael’d come home and I couldn’t even talk about the housework—because the maids had done it all. I got boring. He fell out of love with