Path of Bones

by L. T. Ryan

  Cassie couldn’t move. The man positioned himself on top of her and pinned her arms with his legs. The pain was excruciating, and no matter how much she bucked and kicked, she couldn’t knock him off.

  When he threw the branch to the side, Cassie was grateful he hadn’t decided to end her life then and there. But the relief was short-lived. He wrapped his large hands around her neck and squeezed until she couldn’t breathe. His grip was so tight, she couldn’t scream for help.

  The last thing she saw before she passed out was his wicked grin and the pure malice in his eyes.

  Twenty-Seven

  The pressure released from Cassie’s neck, and she coughed and gagged as air was restored to her lungs. Cassie looked up in time to see the young woman swinging the doctor’s toolbox at his head. It connected with a sickening thud, and the man toppled off her with a grunt. His limp body collapsed on the ground and folded onto itself.

  Her neck was throbbing—it would bruise—and her throat was sore. She swallowed past a lump and winced again, fearing the mark that would be left. How would she explain this one at the museum?

  The woman stumbled past Cassie and dropped the toolbox. It burst open and sent tools flying. Cassie lurched forward and grabbed a knife at the same time the man regained consciousness and his own balance and scooped up a small device with a round blade on one end.

  A bone saw.

  The flashlight was on the ground now, half covered by detritus from the forest floor, but still illuminating all three of them in a warm cone like stage lighting, enough that it was easy to keep track of the killer. Cassie put herself between him and the woman who sank back down to her knees and was crying again.

  “Please,” Cassie said. The word scraped along her throat, she had to swallow to ease the pain. “Don’t do this.”

  “I don’t like complications.”

  “I don’t have to be a complication,” Cassie said. The pain in her throat was subsiding, but it still felt raw and tender. “Let us go.”

  Cassie wasn’t sure what she would do if he took off into the woods. He might escape, but she and the victim would both be safe. And Cassie had seen enough of him that she would be able to identify him from a photograph. Unless he could disappear from the face of the earth, his life was over.

  “I can’t let you go.” The glow of the flashlight made his smile look more menacing. “But I promise I’ll make it quick.”

  “Will you drain my blood too?” Cassie had to keep him talking. “It’s not O Negative, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “How do you know about that?”

  “The police know.” Cassie was playing with fire. “What I’m interested in is, why? What do you need the blood for?”

  The man scoffed. “It’s not for me.”

  “Then for who? Who are you sacrificing these women for? Why?”

  He looked at her like she was an ant beneath his boot. “That’s not a question I’m going to answer.”

  Cassie decided to change tactics. “How could you do this? You’re a doctor. You’re supposed to keep people alive.”

  He laughed, and for the first time, it seemed like there was actual emotion on his face. “Do you know one of the first lessons I learned as a doctor? Humans are fragile. We think we’re the apex predator, but all we can rely on is our brain, and most of our species can’t even do that.”

  “So, you choose to kill people instead?”

  “I didn’t choose this.” He took a step forward. His voice quieted. “I didn’t choose this. I’m doing what I have to do. That’s what we’re taught as doctors. Save who you can. Choose. Play God. If you lose someone, move on. There are more to save.”

  “But you’re not choosing to save one person over another. You’re choosing to kill one person over another. Doesn’t the Hippocratic Oath mean anything to you?”

  “Am I?” He smiled again and it looked wrong. He didn’t look deranged. He was in complete control. Measured. It shook Cassie to her core. “Who knows you’re here?”

  “No one.”

  “See, you’ve already lied to me once, so I’m not inclined to believe you. Let’s find out, shall we?”

  Keeping eye contact, he knelt and picked up something off the ground. It was her phone. It must’ve fallen out of her pocket when they’d struggled. A pit formed in her stomach. Even if she could get away, she wouldn’t be able to call someone. She would be on her own in the middle of the woods.

  She hoped David received her last text and had already sent the police.

  “Ah, David. Is he your boyfriend? He seems very concerned.” He made eye contact with Cassie. “You shouldn’t have told him where we were. You know that, right? I’m not a sadist, but my anger does get the best of me sometimes.”

  “Please—”

  “Shut up. I need to think.”

  “Look, you can’t take us both.” Cassie infused her voice with as much calm as she could muster, though her hand holding the knife was trembling. “One of us is going to get away and you’re screwed.”

  “She’s still out of it,” the man said. “And will be for a while. If she runs, she’s not going to get far.”

  “Do you think you can do that before the cops get here?” Cassie asked. “You need her blood, right? And her heart? You think you can kill me, kill her, and still make it out of here?”

  “There’s one way to find out.”

  The man switched on the bone saw and lunged for Cassie. She had a split second to dive out of the way and her first thought was to keep a grip on the blade in her hand. She landed on the ground and felt sharp pain ripple outward from her knee. She had landed on a rock. She rolled to the side, hopping back up on her feet despite the sharp pain in her leg.

  It took her a moment to orient herself, but by the time she found the doctor again, he had pulled the woman to her feet and held the saw to her neck.

  Cassie made the wrong move.

  “Please,” Cassie begged. “Don’t do this.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  Cassie didn’t know if it was better to lie or tell the truth. She let the silence stretch on.

  “Answer me!” the doctor yelled, moving the saw closer to the woman’s throat.

  “Yes! Yes!” Cassie locked eyes with the woman. They both had tears running down their cheeks. “They’re on their way. You’re not going to get away with this. You already have four bodies on your hands, you don’t need more.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I already have four on my hands. What’s two more? I’ll already be getting consecutive life sentences if I don’t get the electric chair.”

  “You said it yourself, you’re not a sadist.” Cassie’s mind was working at warp speed. “What do you want?”

  The flashlight’s dull beam illuminated the confusion on his face. “What?”

  “I know half the police department. What do you want?”

  Cassie had spent a long time being afraid—of Novak, of men, of the dark, of life. A lot of therapy and a great deal of time had helped her work through most of her issues, but she’d be lying if she didn’t admit she woke up in a cold sweat every once in a while, terrified that she was back in that graveyard or back in the basement of that house when Novak had tried to kill her a second time.

  But now? She felt the calm wash over her. She didn’t have a choice. She was fighting for her life and the life of this woman she had never met. There was no room for error.

  “Who are you?” the doctor asked again. The difference this time was that he seemed interested.

  Cassie caught movement out of the corner of her eye, but she refused to look away from the man in front of her. “My name is Cassie Quinn. I’m—I’m a psychic.”

  The doctor laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “I’m not.” Cassie licked her lips. “I’ve seen every single one of your victims. First, Elizabeth. Then Hannah. I saw Sage’s dead body the morning after she was killed. Then I saw Jessica’s ghost. She’
s the one who told me how to find you. She showed me the van in a parking garage.”

  The look on the doctor’s face was a strange mixture of fear and incredulity. “Impossible.”

  “How else do you explain how I found you? How else would I know you were driving that van?” Cassie kept talking. She kept saying whatever came to mind. Anything to stretch the seconds into minutes. Engaging his curiosity had the effect of keeping his intelligent mind working, guessing, trying to figure out who this woman in front of him really was. “You’ve been meticulous this entire time. You left no evidence behind. Look at me. I’m not a cop. If I were, I’d have come here with a gun. I’m just some woman.”

  The man opened his mouth to say something, but the words didn’t come out. Harris’s voice rang out through the darkness. “Savannah PD. Put down your weapon.”

  Several flashlights switched on, illuminating Cassie, the doctor, and his victim in a swath of bright light.

  Twenty-Eight

  Cassie dropped the knife. Tension drained from her body. Blood drained from her head and she felt as though she were about to collapse to the ground. The hum of the bone saw faded until all she heard were the crickets and labored breaths surrounding them.

  Then the woods erupted in chaos.

  Several officers, including Harris, moved in on the doctor and his victim, separating the two. They pushed the doctor to his knees and handcuffed him while a pair of EMTs emerged from the trees to check out the woman, who was shaking and crying in earnest.

  David appeared by Cassie’s side like he had materialized out of thin air.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Cassie shook her head no. It was all she could manage. Her voice had left her. Her knees shook uncontrollably. She sunk to the ground and David stayed with her the entire way down.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. “You scared me.”

  Another EMT ran over to Cassie and looked her over. She heard the paramedic talking with David, but the words sounded far away. She felt a cool sensation on her legs and looked down to see a woman covering the worst of her cuts with gel and several small bandages.

  “Is she okay?” Cassie heard her own voice as if it belonged to someone else. “The woman, is she okay?”

  “She’s fine,” David said. “You saved her life.”

  The EMT threw a blanket over Cassie’s shoulders and shined a light in her eyes. She inspected the bruise forming around Cassie’s neck. When she looked back up at David, the EMT said, “No major damage. She’ll be fine.”

  “Thank God.” David’s hunched shoulders retreated.

  Harris appeared out of the darkness and knelt in front of Cassie. Her face was a strange combination of concern and anger and confusion. It took her a few minutes to find any words.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Cassie said. As the adrenaline faded, she regained sensation in her arms and legs, and she was grateful the paramedic had taken care of the deeper cuts. The tender areas around her neck would take longer to heal.

  “You shouldn’t have come here by yourself.” Harris’s words were controlled. She was speaking just above a whisper, but her voice still held all its power. “That was incredibly stupid.”

  “I know.”

  “Cassie, I—” Harris broke off and took a few seconds to gather herself. “Cassie, I’m thrilled you’re okay, but what you did tonight... You should’ve called me.”

  “I know. It didn’t go as planned.”

  “And how were you planning it to go?”

  “I-I don’t know.” Cassie put her head in her hands. The reality of the situation dawned on her. “I didn’t think. I reacted. I didn’t want to bother you if it was nothing, but I knew I couldn’t let it go.”

  “How did you find the van?”

  “Coincidence.”

  Harris surprised Cassie by laughing. “I’m trying to figure out if you’re the luckiest person alive or the unluckiest.”

  “If you figure that out,” David said, “let me know.”

  “Why would you come here by yourself, Cassie?”

  “I wanted to see if he could be a suspect.” Cassie pulled the blanket around her shoulders. “When I got here, I saw him leading her into the woods. I couldn’t let him go and risk not stopping him. I figured I could stall him long enough for you guys to get here.”

  “You messaged David but not me.”

  “You were pretty angry the last time we spoke.”

  Harris blew out a big breath and placed a hand on Cassie’s shoulder. “I was. I’m sorry about that. This case has been stressful.”

  “I never intended to add to your stress.”

  “I know.” Harris laughed again, this time with a touch of hysteria. “I still don’t understand you. I’m not sure I believe what you do is real, but I’d be an idiot to not see that it gets results.”

  “You’re not the first person to say that to me.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.” Harris looked up at David. “What about you? Did you believe her the first time around?”

  Cassie answered for him. “Oh, definitely not. He threw me in jail. Overnight.”

  Harris smiled. “Really?”

  “I did,” David said.

  “Yeah. I don’t blame him. It was a rough case. I was going crazy seeing all the victims. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted someone to listen to me.”

  “And he did.”

  “Eventually.” Cassie shrugged. “Took him a while, but yeah. We worked on another case after that. And another. He could see I wasn’t nuts. Started to trust me.”

  Harris stood and the other two copied her movements. “Tell me, Detective Klein. How long did it take for you to start believing in ghosts?”

  “Not sure I do.” David looked over at Cassie, and a gentle smile made its way to his face. “But I believe in her.”

  Cassie allowed the warmth of his words to fill her up. She reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thank you for coming for me.”

  “You’re welcome.” The smile faded. “But if you ever pull something like that again, I’m throwing you back in a jail cell, Quinn.”

  “I get the feeling you’re quite the handful.” Harris looked at Cassie.

  All Cassie could do was shrug. “I bend the rules when I don’t think there’s another option.”

  Harris’s eyes sparkled. “I’m pretty sure that’s what vigilantes say, and they’re frowned upon.”

  “I just want to help,” Cassie said.

  Over the last few days, she had struggled with her abilities and how her future would be impacted if they didn’t go away. As comforting as the idea was to never see another dead person, she knew she would miss it sooner or later. It was on days like this that it all felt worth it.

  Cassie peered around Harris and saw the EMTs loading the young woman on a stretcher. She looked alert and she was talking with the paramedics and one of the other officers.

  “Her name is Katie,” Harris said. “You saved her life.”

  Cassie let the bubble of emotion overwhelm her for a moment and tears fell from the corners of her eyes. She would’ve made a million different choices if she had to do it all over again, but she couldn’t deny that it felt good hearing those words.

  “You did a stupid thing tonight, Quinn,” David’s voice softened. “But it was a good thing, too.”

  “I don’t disagree, but let’s not make it a habit, okay?” Harris said.

  “I’ll try not to,” Cassie replied.

  Harris stood. “We should get back to the precinct.” She turned to Cassie. “We’ll need to take your statement and I want to get started on questioning this asshole sooner rather than later.”

  Twenty-Nine

  David pulled up to the precinct and put the sedan in park. Cassie opened her eyes when she felt the vehicle stop. She allowed the cool night air from the open window to calm her down from the night’s events.

  “Cassie.” David turned to her, speaking for the first time since
they had gotten into the car. “You scared me tonight.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

  “I’m happy you reached out to me,” David hesitated.

  “But?”

  “I’ve known you for a long time. You’re smart, and I don’t believe for a second that you’re incapable of taking care of yourself. But you can’t take on the world alone.”

  “I’m not—”

  David held up his hand. “Maybe I’m crossing a line here, and maybe I’m reading the room wrong, but if I don’t say it, I’m going to regret it.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “You mean a lot to me and Lisa. I’ve seen the real you over these past few years, and I know without a doubt that you’re one of the best people I’ve ever met. You’re selfless and brave and good, right down to your soul. But you also scare the shit out of me sometimes.”

  “I do?”

  David nodded his head and Cassie caught a glimpse of a tear in his eye. “You have a gift that can help so many people, but sometimes I think you forget to help yourself. It’s okay to want to take a break once in a while. It’s okay if you fail. I learned a long time ago that I can’t save everyone. That sometimes keeps me up at night, but it also keeps me sane. Something tells me you struggle with the same thing.”

  Cassie didn’t know what to say. She nodded.

  “You have a profound effect on people,” he continued. “Harris has known you for a couple of days and you’ve already changed her.”

  “I have?”

  “She’ll never admit it but yeah. You have.” He wiped a tear away. “I guess what I’m saying is that sometimes you’re like a candle that’s burning too bright. You add a lot of light to this world, but I’m terrified you’re going to burn out too soon. I know you’re always going to get mixed up in cases like this, but you can’t go running in there half-cocked. You have to be smart about it. You have to let people help you.”

  Cassie placed a hand on David’s arm. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about anything other than trying to stop this guy.”