Leave No Trace

by Sara Driscoll

  “He got another one.”

  Meg’s head jerked up to find Brian across the room, where he was discussing some intricacy of dog training with McCord. She snapped her fingers twice to get his attention. “Goddammit. If we’d gotten him on Sunday, this one would be alive.” She pushed away from the table and stood. “Who and where?” She strode to the front hall closet, opened it, and pulled out first her go bag, then Brian’s.

  Webb headed for the side door, returning momentarily with her hiking boots.

  Meg sat down on the bottom step of the staircase, wedging her phone between her ear and shoulder, and laced on her boots over thick socks pulled over the cuffs of her yoga pants.

  “His name was John Greyson and he was killed at his hunting cabin in the Cohutta Mountains.”

  “Why does that name sound familiar?”

  “Because he used to be a congressman in the House of Representatives. He also made headlines recently with his push for Native rights. Greyson himself was Chickasaw.”

  “Chickasaw, not Cherokee. So no interest in the land involved.”

  “Not directly, but Greyson was a proponent of Native rights for all tribes, not just his own. His family had a falling out with the Chickasaw leaders in Oklahoma decades ago, and they had enough money saved to leave the reservation and return to their ancestral lands in northwest Georgia. Greyson was the representative for one of those districts. But, given his family’s circumstances, and that they were uprooted from the greater tribe in its current location to return to Georgia, he had a deep understanding of what it was to lose your land and want it back. He encouraged the North Carolina Cherokee to reclaim what was once theirs and supported their efforts even though they weren’t his constituents.”

  Meg stood and took the FBI windbreaker Webb held out to her, smiling her thanks as she shrugged into it. One quick glance at Brian showed he and Lacey were ready to go. “Brian and I are ready. Where are we going?” She shouldered her bag, gave Hawk the hand signal for “come,” and stepped toward the door.

  “The cabin is just east of Crandall. Greyson was getting ready to go hunting when he was shot in his own doorway. His wife was standing only ten feet away inside the house and saw the whole thing. Called for help, but he was already gone.”

  “The archer was waiting for him to leave and picked Greyson off when he opened his front door.”

  “That’s my take on it. I’ll text you the exact location, but it’s going to take you over an hour to get there. It’s only about twenty-five miles as the crow flies, but twice that on country roads. The cabin is right on the edge of protected lands called the Cohutta Wilderness, so there are only limited roads into that area.”

  Meg swallowed a curse. They were here in Georgia, and they were still going to lose the killer because they were simply too far away via mountain roads. On top of that, they were literally being sent somewhere so isolated, it was called a “wilderness.”

  “The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there. Text me the location so I can map our fastest route.” She looked up to meet Brian’s nod of agreement. “We’re on our way.”

  Tuesday, April 16, 1:54 PM

  Off West Cow Pen Road

  Murray County, Georgia

  They met Murray County Sheriff Jasper at Greyson’s cabin.

  From West Cow Pen Road, they followed the twin track depressions through weeds and grass up into the hills, finally coasting to a halt behind the sheriff’s SUV. As Brian cut the engine, an older, balding man in brown pants, a beige long-sleeved shirt, and a heavy utility belt with his star-shaped badge neatly pinned over his left breast pocket climbed out of the SUV. He stood with his hands on his hips, eying them through the windshield, and worked a wad of gum hard enough to make Meg wonder if he’d recently given up chewing tobacco.

  Meg quickly scanned the cabin behind him. It was relatively new, constructed in the style of a rustic log cabin with a tall fieldstone chimney on one side and a wide expanse of front-facing windows. A long, covered porch ran the length of the structure with room for four Adirondack chairs, perfectly angled toward a breathtaking mountain vista. The only thing out of place was the front door that remained open despite the coolness of the mountain air.

  They quickly made introductions, and then Jasper led them up the porch steps to where Greyson had been killed. It quickly became clear why the door was propped open.

  The body had been removed, but a wide puddle of blood flowed through the open doorway to drip in gruesome trails through the boards of the front porch. The arrow remained where it landed, embedded in the wall to the left of the doorframe.

  Sheriff Jasper pointed to the floor just inside the doorway. “Greyson stepped out onto the porch and his wife was almost right behind him. The shot only missed Mrs. Greyson by about a foot, or the killer might have taken them both out.” His treacly drawl was thick enough to stand a spoon in.

  Standing with Brian and the dogs on the top porch step to stay clear of the gore, Meg turned in place to follow the arrow’s flightpath. Situated deep in the forest, the cabin had been built on the top of a rise, the trees in front of the cabin cleared away to reveal the mountain range beyond.

  “That was a tricky shot.” Meg studied the stand of trees to the north of the cabin. “There’s no direct angle from the front that wouldn’t expose the shooter to the occupants in the cabin. So the archer had to take cover over there in those trees.” She stepped forward, resting her palm against one of the rough-hewn wooden posts supporting the porch roof. “But that meant he had to take the shot from the trees to the doorway, narrowly missing this post.”

  “It also meant he had to be a lot closer this time,” Brian added. “That’s only about thirty yards away, maybe less. Which means he risked being spotted.” He pointed to the windows stretching across the front of the cabin. “Especially with the victim and his wife on-site. What if she’d gone after him? She didn’t need to overtake him, just catch a glimpse of his face. It could have been game over.”

  “It goes to show how important this crusade is to him. He’s willing to risk getting in close to take the shot he needs. This is no game for him.” Meg turned to Sheriff Jasper. “Has the arrow been processed?”

  “Dusted for prints? Yeah.”

  “Is there another door to the cabin? I’d like to bring the dogs in to scent the arrow, but I don’t want them tracking through the blood.”

  “There’s a back door.”

  Meg glanced at Brian. “They may not pick up anything through the print powder and the overwhelming smell of blood, but it’s worth a shot.”

  One at a time, they brought the dogs in through the back to scent the arrow, staying well clear of the blood, then backtracked outside again to determine the shooter’s position in the trees.

  Jasper studied the ground inside the tree line. “The shooter must have spent some time in place, waiting for the Greysons to come outside, or his movement could have been spotted when he moved in. If so, there could be a place where the leaves or ground cover has been disturbed.”

  “You and your men haven’t checked this area out yet?” Brian asked.

  “Only from a distance. When I saw how Greyson had died, I connected this case to the others and contacted the local FBI field office. They got me in touch with Special Agent Torres. He said to keep my guys away from where the shooter stood until your dogs used it as the start of the search trail. After that, we could have full access.”

  “Thanks. On the bright side, that’s likely an unused section of the property, so any human scent is going to stand out for the dogs.”

  “And the location is going to be close to the outer tree line. The trees are too thick to move back ten or twenty feet, especially from this angle and when you have to aim around the porch post.”

  “The dogs will tell us that for sure.” Brian stepped forward into the trees and gave Lacey a hand signal. “Lacey, find.”

  The dogs identified the shooter’s location with amazing speed, both ze
roing in on the same area behind a tall chestnut oak with a wide, sturdy trunk.

  Jasper squatted down a few feet away, studying the crushed ground cover, crumpled leaves, and exposed patches of dirt with narrowed eyes. “Shooter stood here for a while. Got restless. Got a little careless even.”

  “What makes you say that?” Bracing her hands on her knees, Meg leaned in from the far side of the tree.

  “You hunt?” Jasper’s gaze cut down to Hawk, who still sniffed around their identified area.

  Meg stifled the expression of horror that nearly slipped by her control. Anyone who knew her knew hunting was about the last activity she’d ever participate in, but for many hunters, a water dog like a black Lab specifically meant duck hunting. “No.”

  “Hunting in the woods can be a challenge. Lots of obstructions when you’re setting up a shot. The shooter was forced to come in relatively close, especially with that porch post blocking part of the doorway. But up close means that even behind a tree with this kind of girth, you’d have to peek out from behind. At first you’d do it carefully.” He put actions to words, placing himself out of sight behind an adjacent tree and leaning out slightly to reveal only a sliver of his face. “But after a while, you get a little restless and maybe overconfident and you do this.” He stepped out from behind the tree, giving Meg a full-body slice of him from his heavy brown boots to the top of his bald head. “If you’re out deer hunting and step out like that, you give the deer a better chance of seeing the larger movement and bounding away. In this case, you run the risk of attracting the attention of anyone in the cabin who might be looking out.”

  “We’re running under the assumption the shooter is wearing camo,” Brian said.

  “Most likely, but camo doesn’t make you invisible. Just helps you blend in.” He squatted down again and drew a circle with his index finger around part of the undergrowth. “You see this here? See how some of these softer stems are crushed and broken? Standing out here would have made the shooter partially visible from the cabin. Even in camo.”

  Meg circled the tree to study the spot, then looked up toward the cabin. “But the shooter would have to step out to take the shot. You’d need more room to shoot an arrow than fire a rifle.”

  “Right. But imagine you’re holding your bow as you stand behind the tree. You’ll only have a second to set up your shot, so you’ve already got an arrow nocked and ready.” Jasper mimed holding a bow with a nocked arrow at his side, pointed at the ground. When your target comes in sight, you . . .” He stepped straight out, raised his invisible bow, pulled back, took a second to aim his shot, and released his virtual bowstring. “You don’t . . .” He lowered the bow to the starting position, then stepped out, raising the bow, then stepped forward one pace, resettled, then pulled back, aimed, and released.

  Meg nodded in understanding. “I follow you. You do the minimum movement because it’s faster and doesn’t draw as much attention. And stepping out to the right of the tree means more of you can stay behind the tree. Step to the left and all of you is out in the open.”

  “As long as you shoot right-handed.”

  “Ninety percent of the population is right-handed, so we have a good chance there.” Meg’s gaze dropped to the crushed greenery. “Yet the shooter stepped out and around the trunk, where he might have been seen.”

  “That’s my take.”

  “We think this is an experienced hunter, so wouldn’t this be someone who would be used to waiting for his target to wander by?” Brian asked. “Isn’t that the whole concept behind a blind?”

  “Sure is. But a hunter in a blind is never standing. You sit in some blinds, lie in others. Because standing is tiring, and that makes you fidgety.”

  “And that’s when you get careless and step out where you might be seen,” Meg finished. “Got it.”

  “I’ll get in there once the dogs are gone, but I think I see a partial boot print. If so, we’ll cast it.”

  “We’ll get out of your way, then.” Meg looked at Brian. “Because of the route we had to take to get here, we’re too far behind again even though we were in-state at the time of the killing. The shooter will be long gone. We’ll do the search, but I doubt we’ll find anything useful.”

  “Won’t know until we try,” said Brian.

  “True enough. Thanks, Sheriff. We’ll be in touch.” Meg bent and indicated the flattened spot behind the tree and Hawk gave it another cursory sniff. “Hawk, find.”

  They let the dogs lead them into the trees, the cabin quickly melting into the forest behind them.

  Despite the sunshine, only diffuse light trickled through areas of thicker leaf canopy. But the dogs’ steps were sure and they trotted forward side by side in total agreement.

  The dogs followed no visible path, but pushed through the forest, crunching over dried leaves and climbing over and around mossy boulders. The higher they climbed, the rockier it became, slowing their pace. They took the dogs off their leads, allowing them to leap from boulder to boulder gracefully, leaving their handlers to scramble up after them with significantly less coordination.

  “Maybe it’s time we started doing agility drills,” Brian muttered.

  “It couldn’t hurt.” Hooking her fingers over the lip of the rock above her, Meg pulled herself up. “But this makes me think the shooter had to be wearing some sort of pack or sling for the bow. You’re not going to manage this climb if you’re carrying a bow in one hand. He must be carrying it on his back.”

  “That makes sense. Also protects the bow from damage when climbing through this rocky terrain.”

  The dogs led them down again, into thicker tree cover, but the ground fell away to their right, the trees growing precariously from the rocky ground, some losing their battle with gravity to sag sideways at an angle. Far down below, a break in the foliage revealed the dark, winding bed of a wide river, flowing fast enough that white-water foam was evident more than a hundred feet below.

  “What’s that down there?” Brian asked.

  “If I remember the map correctly, that’s the Conasauga River.”

  “It looks brutal. Let’s hope he didn’t try to escape that way.”

  “Doubtful. On our way to the cabin, while you were driving, I was scouting the area on Google Maps. That part of the river has Class IV rapids for white-water rafting. Our shooter doesn’t strike me as the insane type who’d try to escape that way, especially after all the rains they apparently had here this spring. The water level looks high and the current fast, the kind of conditions that could sweep you away to drown. I’d bet money on him escaping via dry land because even though he likely knows we have dogs, it would be suicidal to try to ford that river, at least right now.”

  The path narrowed, forcing the dogs to go one at a time, and Brian dropped back with Lacey. The scent must have been stronger, because Hawk picked up his pace, forcing Meg to break into a jog behind him. But a few minutes later, the path closed in farther as it sunk into a small valley with a track crossing the ridge of a rocky wall rising above them to their right and then falling off to their left. About a hundred feet ahead, the path opened up to a green valley below.

  But Hawk’s tread was sure, and he was apparently unfazed by the need for careful stepping.

  Sometimes it’s good to have a low center of gravity.

  “Hawk, slow. We’re not all as coordinated as you and Lacey.”

  As if the universe heard her, a loose stone shifted under Meg’s boot and she slipped, flailing her arms to keep her balance on the narrow, rocky path, letting out a small cry that brought Hawk up short. “Sorry, buddy.” She stopped, catching her breath and her balance, and then turned to check on Brian, still about twenty feet behind her. “Careful up here,” she called. Facing forward again, she bent to rub a hand over Hawk’s back to reassure him she was fine.

  The arrow sang over her back like the crack of a whip, exploding against the rock wall directly beside her.

  Meg took only a lightning-fast m
oment to process the attack before jumping into motion. “Talon, go!”

  Hawk bounded forward, leaping down the path. Meg sprinted behind him, careful steps forgotten in the face of a much deadlier danger. A second arrow followed the first, whistling over Hawk’s back by mere inches before skittering across the rocks with a metallic whine.

  Fury filled her. What kind of person would target a dog? Her dog? The answer came with stunning clarity. The kind of person who would purposely risk themselves waiting at a murder scene for search teams to arrive to pick them off. Especially if the dogs were the intended target. That would make other handlers think twice about joining the next time.

  Because a born hunter wouldn’t hesitate to kill, be it human or animal.

  They were in big trouble.

  They needed to get out of the open, where they were sitting ducks. Ahead, the rocky outcrop on her right crawled away from the path, and blue sky and rolling hills were visible past trees bunched near the path in the distance. Get into the trees. If he can’t see us, he can’t shoot us.

  “Talon, run!”

  Her heart thumping and breath grating, Meg bent forward and powered after her dog, her eyes locked on the path. Any misstep that would take her down would leave her an easy target for certain death from the gutting of an arrow.

  Keep moving.

  Another arrow whipped by, this time a few feet behind her. She tossed a quick look to her left, but above her, up the rocky hillside, there was nothing but a blur of boulders and trees.

  Taking about three seconds to reload and aim. Rushing it, so his aim is off.

  Wilcox’s words rang in her head—An elite hunter only needs one arrow to make a kill. That’s the kind of hunter we’re looking at here.

  Not so elite now, are you? It’s a lot harder when your target refuses to stand still.

  Every arrow that missed gave them seconds of escape time, and Meg fully intended to use them. She didn’t dare look back, but suspected Brian was safe, wherever he was. If there was just one archer, only one of them was likely the target.