The Bodies Left Behind

tracking his progress by his footsteps. Her hearing was sharply attuned. All her senses were, in fact. The blade of the spear, the Chicago Cutlery knife, was close to her face, deep in the shadow of the tree, so that it wouldn’t flash in the moonlight and give her position away. She reflected that it was curious that this unused knife’s first task wouldn’t be to trim a beef tenderloin or chicken cutlet but to kill a human being.
    And she reflected too that this thought troubled her very little.
    A faint snap, a rustle.
    Then the breeze came up and blew hard. She momentarilylost track of his footfalls in the scampering of leaves and the hiss through branches.
    Where? she thought in panic.
    Then she could hear him again. The partner was still headed directly for the bait. His route would take him just past the tree where she was hiding.
    Twenty feet.
    Ten feet. The faint crunch of his steps.
    She examined as much of the area as she could from her hunting blind, looking for Hart. Nothing.
    Six feet, five . . .
    Then he was even with the tree.
    Finally, he walked past it.
    Brynn looked out at his back. He’d swapped the combat jacket she remembered from the Feldmans’ for a North Face ski parka, which he’d probably stolen from their house or from 2 Lake View. He’d put on a cap too, covering his blond crew cut.
    Okay, now’s the time, she told herself.
    Her body filled with a calm, almost euphoric sensation. This had happened on other occasions but usually at the most unexpected times. A triple-combination jump with her atop a speeding chestnut mare in a horse competition. A frantic pursuit of a weapons dealer down a county road, hitting 140 mph. When she and Keith, on vacation, defused a potentially fatal fight by two teenagers in Biloxi.
    Times to fight  . . .
    She now thought: Stun him with the bolo and charge in fast. Jam the spear into his back as hard as you can. Grab the shotgun.
    And get ready for Hart to come. Because come he would—at the first sound of his partner’s screams.
    Brynn stepped from the tree, sized up her target, then swung the bolo and let it fly.
    The ball arced toward him and clipped his ear. He cried out and dropped the gun.
    Brynn ignored the pain in her body and leapt forward.
    She wasn’t a deputy now. Not a wife or mother.
    She was the wolf, a primitive creature, survival its only thought. Running, running, toes of her boots digging into the hard earth, in her hands the spear, now gleaming bright in the cold light, and aimed directly for him. She managed to resist a fierce urge to let go a mad howl.

    NOW THEY WERE GONE .
    Hell. For ten minutes Hart had closed the distance between himself and the women, heading straight toward the clearing—the shooting zone, he thought of it—while he’d kept tabs on Lewis.
    The other man had seen or heard something to the right, the east, and hurried down the hill to the flatter ground. He’d looked around but apparently it had been a false alarm. He’d returned to the woody ridge on Hart’s left. Both men had continued forward, scanning the landscape for the prey that had disappeared.
    Where were they?
    Had they spotted him or Lewis?
    And if they had, what were their options for escape? The clearing was in front—to the north—and they obviously weren’t there. Lewis was now on a ridge to the west and Hart himself was facing due south. There was a band of trees around the clearing, which the women might be hiding in. Or they might’ve fled down a steep drop-off to the right and were making their way east into the thick of the park. That direction would take them back eventually to the Joliet but according to the GPS, the trail was a long way off now, and they’d have to cover miles of dense woods to get there.
    What would Brynn do?
    He decided she’d gone down the incline that led to the streambed and then continued north toward the Snake River—only avoiding the exposure of the clearing. A longer route and harder, but safer.
    She was like an animal with finely tuned instincts of survival, anticipating him.
    He glanced toward the ridge, where Lewis had now paused and was looking around. Then he turned to him and lifted his arms. Meaning: They’ve vanished.
    Hart pointed to himself and then to Lewis, who nodded. Hart began the climb to the high ground to join his partner.

    WHERE?
    Where was Michelle?
    Carrying the Savage rifle in one hand, the spear in the other, Brynn McKenzie paused and looked around her. She was