The Hunted

by Val Tobin

  “They must rest sometime. Right?” Peter used his cell phone to take shots of the documents he viewed.

  “Yeah, when the sun hits its peak in the daytime,” Rachel replied. “They don’t seem to require much—not the eight hours humans supposedly need. Any studies done suggest they sleep between ten and two during the day. Other studies have found that’s only on bright, sunny days.”

  “Impossible,” Peter said.

  “We don’t know what they are or where they came from. What if …” She trailed off.

  “Surely you’re not thinking they’re extraterrestrial creatures.” Peter’s tone betrayed his contempt for that theory. It had been a popular one, on and off, since the grendels first appeared.

  “How’d they get here? Can you picture these things piloting a spacecraft?” He snickered.

  “What if they originated as organisms on a meteor?”

  “Do you know where ground zero is? They burst from the trees twelve years ago. In southern Ontario. We’re ground zero. No meteors crashed here then. You know where their population fans from? Storm Lake.”

  “Is this based on research you’ve done?”

  “It’s based on investigating I’ve done. The information exists. We need to verify it.”

  Rachel paused in the search through the files. Most of them were printed up from spreadsheets or word processing documents. She took photos of everything, unsure what might be relevant. Hound Dog and Peter did the same.

  After they finished, they returned the files to the closet, leaving it unlocked since they didn’t have a key. Rachel called HQ and reported the grendel. She spoke directly to Captain Pattenden, putting her on speaker.

  “We had to break down the door, Captain. I have a key to Jeff’s house but not to his lab.”

  “Were you aware he kept that thing there?”

  “Of course not. We rarely discussed his work. I understood he worked in grendel research, but I had no idea he was involved in anything illegal. As a matter of fact,” she said, a realization dawning, “it’s what he accused my father’s company of doing.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “No. I’ll wait here for the team you’re sending out to retrieve the subject. What will you do with it?”

  “Take it to the university in Lakefield and have them examine it. They have the facility to work with live ones.”

  After a brief exchange where Rachel had to swear to her captain she wasn’t involved in anything off the books, they disconnected the call.

  “How will they get the creature to Lakefield,” Peter asked.

  “They’ll tranquillize it and take the entire cage. No one wants to mess with one of these monsters.” She glanced from one to the other, staying with Hound Dog. “We’re done here. You can go home. I’ll wait for the team to get here. Peter and I can call a ride-share vehicle when they’re gone.”

  Hound Dog brushed a hand across his crewcut. “I’m not leaving. I’ll stick around and see this through.” He scowled. “Can we take this elsewhere? I’m getting sick of all this racket.”

  Rachel ushered the two men from the room and upstairs to the living room, closing the lab door and the door to the basement behind them as they left.

  Hound Dog dropped into a recliner, Peter sat on the couch, and Rachel positioned herself on the love seat. When they’d all settled themselves, she said, “Peter’s working a story.”

  “So?” Hound Dog asked.

  “You don’t need to get involved in this.”

  Understanding flashed in his eyes. “You told the captain you weren’t going off book.”

  “I’m not. Peter’s hiring me to take him into the woods.” She turned to Peter. “That’s what you wanted to discuss with me before we discovered Jeff’s body. Right?”

  “Correct.”

  “You need a team for that,” Hound Dog said.

  “We’re returning to Storm Lake. I can do this without involving the team,” Rachel insisted.

  Hound Dog’s mouth opened in a perfect oval. He clamped it closed and then said, “Why the hell would you do that?”

  “I have a theory about where the first grendels originated,” Peter said.

  “Yeah, I heard ya. Storm Lake.” Hound Dog said. “How’d you figure that?”

  “Logic, some investigating.”

  “What investigating?”

  The rumble of vehicles pulling up in front of the house reached their ears.

  “Save it,” Rachel said. “Let’s get that thing out of here first.”

  She rose and went to the door to let the team of protectors into her dead brother’s home.

  Chapter Eleven

  The team worked quickly. They secured the tranquillized grendel inside its cage in the back of their truck. A pair of scientists from the university had accompanied the protectors, and Rachel turned over all the research files they’d found in Jeff’s closet.

  After the team finally left, she locked the door behind them and returned to the living room. Peter and Hound Dog had returned to their original seats, and Rachel sat once more on the love seat.

  “I haven’t spoken to my father yet.” She wasn’t sure why she led with that except it had popped into her head. Why hadn’t he called her? By this time, news of Jeff’s death had probably hit the media.

  “Call him,” Peter said.

  She hesitated but not for long. If her father knew something she didn’t, perhaps she could draw it out of him. Rachel made the call. With a glance at her two partners in crime, she put the phone on speaker and set it on the coffee table between them. She held a finger to her lips, signalling them to remain silent.

  “Stefan Needham.”

  “Dad.”

  “Why do you always block your call when you call my cell?”

  “Is that your biggest concern right now?”

  “No.” His voice softened. “I was about to call you.”

  Sure you were. She waited for him to continue.

  “Honey, something happened to Jeff.” He exuded sorrow, compassion.

  Rachel doubted it, but the ice around her heart melted a fraction. “I know.”

  Silence lingered for a moment. She assumed her father was digesting this revelation.

  Finally, he said, “What? How?”

  “I found him.”

  From the phone came a sharp intake of breath. “What do you mean you found him? Where? Rachel, what have you done?”

  An interesting way to phrase it. “Me? What could I have done? I waited for Jeff to come to my house. When he didn’t show up, I tracked him to the woods. The grendels had caught him.” She didn’t mention the anomalies in Jeff’s body and in two of the four grendels they’d found in the vicinity. The lab would examine each monster’s stomach contents to verify they’d killed Jeff. Odds were good they had, but the investigators couldn’t assume anything. Tests had to verify.

  “Why was he there?”

  Something about her father’s tone perplexed Rachel. He’d said it smoothly, as if asking the question was more important than any answer she might give.

  “No idea. He wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the woods.”

  “He was supposed to be in jail.” Again, his tone seemed off: smooth, conversational, when it should have been aggrieved or even frustrated and angry at the injustice of it all.

  Rachel had gone through all the what-should-have-beens and the if-onlys in her head, struggling to accept that events had played out the way they had. While searching her brother’s lab, she’d by turns cursed him out for stumbling into death and lamented him for being a hapless victim. What she hadn’t done was reach a point where she could discuss Jeff’s death as if it were long past.

  Perhaps she read too much into it. Everyone grieved differently. She filed the information away in the back of her mind to give him the benefit of the doubt but kept it on her radar.

  “A friend bailed him out. No clue how he ended up in the forest. The friend and Jeff parted company af
ter Jeff’s release.” Her gaze met Peter’s as she talked.

  His face bore a look of anguish, and she gave him a half-smile and a slight headshake to reassure him. He should assume no blame for what had happened after he and Jeff had separated. Whoever had taken Jeff to the woods should bear all the responsibility for his death.

  “How do you know this so-called friend didn’t lure him out to the woods? Feed him to the creatures?”

  Peter’s expression became stoic, and Rachel immediately shut down that line of questioning.

  “I know this person, Daddy. He wouldn’t have done that. He saved our lives twelve years ago. No way would he do anything to hurt me or Jeff.”

  Hound Dog, looking as if a million questions rolled around in his head, stared at Peter. Rachel shook her head at each of them and held her index finger up, begging them to maintain their silence. Both the men would provide unique and objective perspectives on the conversation. As long as her father assumed it was private, he’d speak more candidly.

  Part of her felt guilty for tricking him, but another part of her wanted to prove he knew more than he let on. In the darkest corners of her mind lurked the suspicion he was somehow responsible or at least involved. Whenever that idea surfaced, so did rage and a desire for vengeance.

  “That was twelve years ago. You don’t know him anymore. Is he the guy who showed up at the house with you in the delivery van?”

  “Yes,” she whispered, suddenly wondering if he was right.

  She’d risked everything by trusting Peter, and he’d been the last one to see Jeff alive. He’d shown up at her house with a key he’d received from Jeff. But a key that would’ve been the only one missing from the ring he had on his body when they’d found him. Peter wouldn’t have known which key belonged to her house. He couldn’t have gotten the key without Jeff identifying hers—unless it’d been done at gunpoint.

  “I’m grateful for what he did then, Rachel, but how do you know he’s okay now?”

  “I’ve spoken to him. Jeff was alive when Peter left him.”

  “Glad you think so. I’ve contacted the investigators. They’re turning the bodies you found over to the company. We’ll examine them here.”

  “What? Why? When we find human remains among the grendels, they’re all supposed to go to the university lab where a specialist can examine them.”

  “We’ve got better facilities, and I want to make sure nothing’s overlooked. We’re experts in this type of research.”

  “The grendel department at the university in Lakefield specializes in this. They have everything they need. You shouldn’t be allowed to go near it.”

  “I’m not. My staff will do all the work. They’ll remain objective.”

  She doubted that. They might provide Stefan with unbiased results, but the company could spin the reports anyway he wanted them to when it came down to releasing the findings to the investigators.

  “Your captain and the investigating officer will oversee it. We’ve done this before. They often need us to handle the overflow or high-priority cases.”

  “Is that so?” First she’d heard of it. “It’s your son. How can they overlook the conflict of interest in this? Doctors can’t do surgery on their own relatives. This is the same thing.”

  “I’m not working on it directly. The reports will automatically go to the investigators. I’ll receive a copy. Do you want to know the results or not? I’m doing this for you too. You’d never learn the results if I didn’t have the autopsies conducted here.”

  His suggestion was illegal. She had no right to those results. Uneasy, she said, “Was this your idea?”

  “Of course. I haggled for it. As soon as the cops called to inform me they had your brother’s body, I insisted they bring it, and the grendels’ bodies, here.”

  The information didn’t reassure her, but at least this way she’d learn whatever came out of the autopsies—as long as Stefan told the truth. “Okay. Yes, I want to know the results. You’ll send them to me?”

  “As soon as I get them.”

  “Will you plan the funeral with me?”

  “I have staff who can put together something nice for him. We won’t have to do anything.”

  He probably thinks he’s doing me a favour taking this off my hands. “No, Dad. I want to do this.”

  “Why? Don’t be silly. I’ll have my assistant take care of the legwork and send you options to approve.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” she asked. “We never got to bury Mom. No one ever recovered her body.” Agony seeped through her words. “When Jeff’s body is released, I’ll plan his funeral. Select an urn. Find a caterer and buy flowers and do whatever the hell else needs to be done to lay him to rest. It’ll be personal. Your assistant barely knows him, and your company threw him in jail.” She added that last as a stab at him for not helping Jeff in his hour of need—any hour of need, not just today.

  “He broke the law and trespassed on private property. He vandalized the gate. Are you forgetting he brought that on himself?”

  “No, but you could have prevented this.” A sob caught in her throat. “You could’ve supported him. Helped him work through his confusion and worry. You know: been a dad?”

  “Enough of this. You’re grief-stricken. Sounds as if you need someone yourself.”

  For a moment, she thought he might reach out to her the way a father should. The moment didn’t last long.

  “Why don’t you call a friend, okay? I’ve got to go. This stuff with your brother has wreaked havoc with my schedule. Tell you what. When they release his body, send whatever you want done to my assistant. He’ll make sure it’s implemented. Okay?”

  “Fine. Whatever. I’ll be in touch. Goodbye, Dad.” She disconnected the call.

  Chapter Twelve

  Silence hung heavy over the room. No one wanted to be the first to shatter it. Rachel regretted allowing Hound Dog and Peter to listen to the call. They had a clear picture of the relationship she had with her father. Peter had already had an inkling, perhaps, based on her father’s reaction to their arrival at his home twelve years before, but that was a snapshot taken long ago. Peter could’ve assumed it was no longer valid and the product of stress and horror from the sudden emergence of the grendels.

  Not that her father had been nasty to Peter—on the contrary—he’d thanked the young man profusely for rescuing his children from deadly predators. But Peter had likely read between the lines when neither child had displayed overwhelming affection for Stefan. Rachel and Jeff had clung to one another, had clasped Peter’s hands. To their father, they’d shown relief at finding him alive and hope, but not trust, he’d make everything better.

  “What’s your take?” She looked from one man to the other. Her gaze settled on Peter.

  She studied him, gauging his reaction. As the conversation with Stefan had wrapped up, Peter’s scowl had deepened, and he looked pissed beyond words.

  “I don’t like what he implied about me.”

  “Clearly.”

  “Jeff was so young …” Peter pressed his palms to his face for a moment. When he removed them, his eyelashes were damp.

  “Peter,” Rachel began, “what happened to you? I know you posted some things on social media, but you’ve never said how you went from majoring in business to investigative journalism.”

  He leaned back in his seat and tilted his head, resting it atop the backrest. When he spoke, he directed his words at the ceiling.

  “My girlfriend. The grendels got her. At least, I assume so. It was the long weekend—the Victoria Day weekend—when they appeared.”

  “That May two-four weekend seems to be when they first appeared anywhere,” Hound Dog commented.

  Rachel remained silent as her ordeal that same weekend flashed through her mind.

  Peter kept his gaze on the ceiling and continued his story. “She disappeared. I had to work that weekend. Holiday pay paid double-time-and-a-half. I needed the money.” His eyes squeezed cl
osed, but no tears slipped out though his hands balled into fists. “I needed the money, so I didn’t go camping with her.”

  A chill raced up Rachel’s spine. She’d seen tributes to Peter’s former girlfriend on his page and assumed the young woman was a victim of the grendels, but hearing him tell the story made it real.

  “No one who went camping returned after that weekend,” Peter said.

  “Where did they camp?” Rachel asked.

  “Near Algonquin. Not in the park itself but on someone’s privately owned land on a river. They planned to canoe and hike.” He heaved a sigh and sat up straight, aiming his gaze into a spot somewhere on the wall between Rachel and Hound Dog. “I searched for her. Tried to, anyway. No one was permitted to go into the woods when the news of the grendels spread—not even cops.”

  Rachel remembered that time well. As a thirteen-year-old child, she hadn’t understood everything that went on, but she knew from experience why entering the woods had become dangerous. She was happy the government made it illegal to everyone except those in the military. Since no one knew anything about the creatures they fought, even military personnel who went after them sustained high casualties.

  Shortly after that, the protectors formed. After six months in boot camp, protectors could go into the forests in teams and hunt the grendels with fewer human lives lost.

  Peter continued his story. “Business and making money lost all meaning for me. I lost my drive for it. The first civilians they allowed to enter the forests were journalists. I wanted in—not just to find out what had happened to Sylvia but to dig into how this happened in the first place. Where did the grendels come from? Why did they suddenly appear throughout the forests in first Ontario and then everywhere else?”

  “What did you find?” Rachel hadn’t followed the news and studies about the grendels. She hadn’t cared where they came from. All that had mattered to her was wiping them out.

  “Nothing about their origins, which is why I’m here. I found traces of my girlfriend’s camp. Where she died.” His voice choked, and this time, tears leaked from his eyes.