Within twenty feet, she understood Sarah’s excitement on the radio. The limbs of most trees had been cut back for forest fire prevention. Under the protective veil of higher branches, a pool of blood saturated the ground and dry needles. A lot of blood.
Rachel stopped just outside the ring. She eyed the five men as she kneeled beside the circle of blood at least three feet in diameter. “Could be a kill site, but there’s no fur or remnants of a carcass.”
One of the gentlemen in the group approached her. “Ma’am.”
She turned her gaze upward to see a guy the size of a linebacker staring down with sharp, blue eyes and a cut jaw. His dark hair longer than she’d expect for a sailor.
“Rachel Crossing, Senior Park Ranger,” she said. “You found this?”
He kneeled beside her and nodded. “Garrett Wesson, JTF2.”
“What’s JTF2?”
He slid his gaze from the pool of blood to her face. “Joint Task Force. Special Operations. And you’re definitely at a kill site.”
“I can see that, Mr. Wesson. Not exactly uncommon in the wilderness. Animals tend to hunt each other.”
A heavy drop landed on her cap and she removed her hat. Rain would wash away any evidence. She’d have to work quickly if she intended to find out where the blood came from. If she had a badly injured animal on her hands, she’d have to deal with the deed she liked least about being a ranger.
“I’d keep that on if I were you,” he said somberly.
“Why is that? JTF melt in a rain shower?” She turned her gaze to her ballcap and saw the dark, wet splatter on the brim.
A chill ran up her spine. It wasn’t rain at all, and her head slowly tilted back. The answer to where all the blood came from wasn’t on the ground. Horror twisted her stomach into a knot when she focused on what hung over the branch above her head.
Chapter Two
Garrett watched Rachel spring backwards, away from the perimeter of blood. Her dark-lashed chocolate eyes flittered with a frenzy of emotions like a snow globe after a good shake.
She swallowed thickly and darted a look at the big park ranger who’d accompanied her. “William.”
William nodded before she finished the sentence. “I’ll go back to headquarters and call the RCMP.”
“I’ll stay and talk to the witnesses. Please take Samuel and Sarah with you.”
He backed away, but not before giving Garrett a hard once-over.
Under the circumstances, Garrett probably shouldn’t have chuckled, but he did. “Not our kind of work,” he assured the ranger. “We don’t mutilate people and leave them headless in trees.”
Rachel pulled a notebook from her pocket and clicked the top of her pen. “I’m going to need all your names and home addresses, but first, tell me what you heard last night, Garrett.”
“Sorry, classified.” Booker, one of his team guys, said. Red, wiry hair, with a quick tongue specializing in sarcasm, he was gonna get them in shit with the ranger if he didn’t zip the lip.
Crack, their team breacher, stuck an elbow into Booker’s ribs. “Sorry, think he’s still drunk on whiskey,” Crack explained.
Rachel’s expression tightened with impatience. “Drunk or not, you’ll be sitting in the backseat of a car with an RCMP emblem on the door if you don’t answer my questions.”
“Hey, she’s not a cop.” Booker swayed a little and slapped a hand on Crack’s shoulder to steady himself.
Before they all ended up guilty in the Rachel’s eyes, Garrett intervened. “Listen, why don’t they give you their information then let them go back to the campsite? We’re not going anywhere.”
“What site are you assigned?” she asked.
“Forty.” His team formed a semi-circle around him and Rachel.
Rachel’s brows rose. “That’s almost at the other end of the loop. “How loud was this disturbance?”
Booker and Crack, he’d known for five years. Tigg, he’d known for ten. Tigg’s wife gave him a bad time for coming this weekend, complaining he spent most of the year with the guys and didn’t need more bonding time. Cork, whose temper flared hot too often and was one helluva sniper, had joined their team a couple years ago.
“Loud enough to pierce a pretty good haze of whiskey, Ranger Crossing,” Tigg said, tipping his head. “Screeches and snarling. Made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. The guys convinced me it was probably an animal and its prey.” He gazed upward. “Wasn’t expecting this.”
Garrett noticed Rachel didn’t follow their gazes to the body draped over a branch thirty feet up the tree. Hard to tell for sure, but it had probably been a man by the shape of the shoulders. “How many visitors do you have camping in the park?”
“Fifty sites are occupied. Forecaster called for warm weather this weekend.”
She said it without batting an eye, which told him she was the type of woman who knew what was going on within her area of responsibility and took her job seriously.
Rachel continued to write on her pocket-sized notebook. Her fingers shook slightly, but the situation didn’t hamper her from keeping her head on straight. Garrett rested his gaze on her pretty, natural features. Refreshing, compared to last night at the concert in Whistler where the women wore dresses barely covering their sex and layers of eye make-up. Rachel’s long, dark lashes and pillowy pink lips had his attention, even with the gruesome scene dangling above their heads.
“When did you return from Whistler?” She didn’t look at him, her attention scanning the ground, around the pool of blood.
“Before the gates to the park closed at twenty-three hundred hours.”
Rachel wandered away from him. Sometimes she kneeled and turned a twig over with her pen, then she looked into the forest surrounding them and continued to walk as if on the trail of her quarry.
He motioned to his men to stay put, then followed. She stopped and stared at the ground fifty feet from the kill site. Her brows snapped together, wrinkling her forehead. With her right leg, she lined her foot up with something on the dirt.
His interest piqued, he joined her. “What the hell?”
Rachel’s foot was tiny in comparison to the deep impression in the soil.
“That’s not possible.” He spoke his thought out loud.
She raised her eyes to pan the trees. “No,” she said wistfully. “But if we’re both seeing it, then it is possible.”
Garrett kneeled, and she followed with a crouch and took a picture with her phone. Using her pen, she measured off the footprint. In his estimation the footprint was eighteen inches long and at least eight inches wide. Dirt ridged between the definitive toe prints.
“Murder and a hoax,” he muttered, shaking his head.
“Those two elements aren’t normally found together.” Rachel stood.
“What’s up?” Crack asked, standing a few feet behind them. After he joined them, his expression altered. “That’s not a bear print.”
Rachel shook her head and moved to follow the prints that led off into the denser bush. She wasn’t armed and Garrett gripped her elbow. “Where do you think you’re going?”
She tugged her arm gently from his grip. “Stay here.”
He shot a look at his teammate. Cork shrugged. “We’ve faced a lot of shit, Lieutenant, but I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Rachel had already disappeared behind a thatch of bushes.
“I’ll go with her,” Garrett said. The rest of the guys appeared before he moved.
“What the hell is that?” Booker gaped at the track. “Jesus, Joseph and Mary, that is not real.”
Together, they trailed behind the gutsy ranger through the foliage until they broke into a small clearing.
“Rachel. Stop,” Garrett ordered. Ahead of her lay an entrance to a cave at the base of a ruggedly carved hill.
“The prints lead in there.” She unsnapped a small flashlight from the utility belt wrapped around her slender waist, and turned it on.
He caught up to
her. “Listen, I get your curiosity, but you need to think about this. Those prints are fresh, and they lead in, but they don’t lead out.” He saw that immediately. “Whatever dissected that poor bastard hanging in the tree might be in the cave. Whatever it is, by the size of the footprint, you’re not going to stop it by banging it over the head with your flashlight or poking it in the eye with your ballpoint pen.”
“Are you armed?” she asked, turning to look him in the eyes.
“Wasn’t planning on going into combat.” He paused. “No, I’m not.”
Rachel’s radio crackled with a call. “Unit One, this is HQ.”
She stashed her flashlight and drew the handheld radio close to her mouth. “Go ahead, Lacy.”
“RCMP are coming. They told us to keep clear of the site.”
“I’m a quarter mile west of Echo Sixty. There’s a bluff with a cave and tracks leading to the entrance.”
“What type of tracks? Bear?”
She darted a look at him. “No, a bi-ped.”
A lengthy pause followed. “You mean human?”
Rachel drew in a long breath. “I mean humanoid, walking on two legs.”
“You think Harry is back?” the female voice squawked.
The long, blood-chilling scream took them all by surprise, echoing from inside the cave. High pitched and agitated, it chilled Garrett’s blood and made every hair stand up on his body.
“Extract!” Crack gripped both his and Rachel’s shoulders and pulled. “Now.”
Behind Rachel, he and the rest of the men ran for the bush to take cover. Crouching, they peered through the spindly limbs of vegetation and broad-leafed plants. Rachel raised her phone, prepared to take a picture of whatever was in that cave if it disclosed itself. Garrett kept hoping it would. Maybe the granddaddy of all bears, or a cougar.
They didn’t have to wait long. A large figure, shadowed by the darkness of the cave, appeared near the entrance. Maybe eight feet tall. Far taller than any man, he’d seen.
They had two choices: run, or stand and fight, if whatever that was decided to charge them.
It threw its head back and screeched in a chord that struck a man with childhood night terrors. Garrett’s team decided the best course of action and began leap frogging their positions like they did in combat. Someone watched while someone else took cover behind them. He gripped Rachel’s hand.
It could be a hoax. If so, they could bring the psychopath down right now. If it wasn’t—Garrett couldn’t take the chance with Rachel by his side.
“Keep low,” he ordered.
****
Rachel’s heart thumped with adrenaline, feeding every extremity with a message to get the hell away from the legend she’d finally witnessed firsthand. She’d seen the prints in the park, but kept quiet, not wanting to scare away families nor draw herds of mystery hunters.
Garrett and his friends ran in short spurts, then stopped to listen, then retreat again. Sweat drizzled down her spine by the time they sprinted into the campsite. Clutching the cool metal of her truck’s door handle, she yanked it open. Garrett and Crack joined her in the cab while the other men jumped into the bed of the pickup. Rachel gunned the engine to life.
“Go, woman, go!” A hand hammered on the top of the cab, and she darted a look in the rear view mirror, then stomped on the accelerator. The creature crashed through the forest toward them. Gripping the wheel with both hands, she disregarded the maximum speed limit of 5km and left a trail of blue exhaust hovering behind. A few minutes later the truck bucked, thumping across a few potholes as she stopped in front of headquarters.
William met her on the covered porch of the cabin. “Gather the staff,” she ordered. “We need to get the visitors out of the park.”
Her second in command’s head swiveled when she marched past and into HQ, on a direct course for the equipment room.
Stuffing her hand in the pocket of her green ranger jacket, she retrieved a bundle of keys. Finding the small key on the ring she rarely used, she shoved it into the weapons locker and threw open the door.
William filled the doorway. “What is it? What’s out there?”
The remainder of her staff appeared. “Sarah, Samuel. Start on the western loop. Tell our visitors we’re closing the park due to problems with the water. I want everyone gone within the hour.” She pulled the first rifle and a box of ammunition then thrust them at William. “Load up.”
“What did you see out there?” he asked, but the answer came from behind them.
“I’d advise you to follow your boss’ order,” Garrett said, sliding past William into the equipment room.
“Lacy, get on the radio and tell Marla to shut the incoming gate at the entrance and put out the closed sign. When the RCMP arrive, tell her to return to HQ.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Lacy hightailed it out of the small room, getting smaller with the arrival of Garrett’s team.
“You’ve got enough weapons for all of us,” Booker stated. He’d sobered up pretty fast in the last twenty minutes. “We can assist your staff to escort the visitors and guard the exit route.”
She paused. As special force operators, Garrett’s men were familiar with combat and rescuing civilians. In a spur of the moment decision, she nodded, and gave each of the men a rifle. “Booker, would you accompany Sarah?”
“Sure thing, boss lady.” He winked at William, who stood by Sarah’s side.
Rachel’s park had turned into a house of horrors. Whether real or some kind of demented hoax, she wasn’t putting her visitors in jeopardy. Maybe she was jumping to conclusions that Harry left the body in the tree, but who else did she have to accuse? Her biggest fear was whoever had been strung over that branch was a visitor, but why hadn’t anyone reported him missing? She stopped mid grip, fingers clutching the next weapon, but not pulling it from the rack. There were two left. One for her and one for Garrett.
She faced Samuel and Sarah. “I have to check on old man Conch.”
Samuel shook his mop of sandy blond hair. “Rachel, don’t think that’s a good idea. He’ll be fine. He’s lived in the forest for forty years.”
“Who’s old man Conch?” Garrett asked, loading the weapon she gave him.
Rachel closed the door to the gun locker. “Originally a draft dodger. He built a little cabin for himself about three miles into the bush. He doesn’t bother anyone. Lives off the land.”
Garrett nodded. “I’m coming with you.” He finished loading the rifle, and tucked the weapon under his arm.
“I could use you here to help my staff.”
His intense blue eyes caught her in his gaze and small lines creased at the edges with a smile. “I am helping your staff. I’m guarding you. Part of my SOP.”
“SOP? You Navy types have a lot of acronyms.”
“We do, and we’re trained for all three environments.”
“Good, follow me.” She walked backwards. “Samuel, I want our visitors out of the park. The remainder of Garrett’s team can help you. Radio me when the park is empty.”
She ran down the hallway and into the supply room. “Here. They’re ready made with water, food and supplies.” She plucked two packs from a metal shelving unit.
Garrett hooked one over his broad shoulder, making the pack look tiny. “I bet you were a Girl Guide, weren’t you?”
She chuckled and it warmed her insides, offering an instant of relief.
“Listen, it’s a guy in a suit,” he said, and raised a brow. “There’s no such thing as monsters.”
“Eight feet tall?”
“Standing on a pair of drywall stilts could make him that tall.”
Rachel inhaled his words of common sense. “True, but he forgot to shave his body for the last thirty years. Come up with as many excuses as you want, Garrett. Whatever it is, there’s a dead body slung in a tree, and I have families camping in the park.”
“Rachel!”
Lacy’s call had her moving. Rounding the corner, she saw four RCMP offic
ers standing in the middle of her headquarters.
“Good afternoon.” Rachel nodded. “Lacy will show you where the body is.”
One of the officers eyed her and stepped forward. “Looks like you’re going hunting.”
“No, checking on a squatter who lives in the park. My staff are asking the visitors to leave and the park is now closed.”
The RCMP member’s gaze shifted to Garrett. “Do you work for the park?”
“No, camping here.”
“Alone?”
His men joined everyone else in the main room of the centre. “My team will help Rachel’s staff get the visitors out safely.”
The cop’s broad shoulders stiffened. An imposing man, with his cap pulled low over his brow, his scowl indicated he wasn’t taking orders. “No one’s leaving the park until we see the body and then speak with the visitors. We’ll clear them.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Rachel said sharply. “They’re not responsible for the murder.”
The member turned his head and spoke to a female officer standing behind him. “Constable Bitton, put a unit at the exit. No one leaves.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rachel glanced at the officer’s nametag. “Sergeant Clancy, that’s not wise.”
“From this point forward, this area is under RCMP jurisdiction. I’ll decide what happens next, dear.”
The hair on Rachel’s neck stiffened at being called dear. “Investigate the site, and then you explain how a human being could hang a man thirty feet up a tree.”
The Sergeant’s expression didn’t flicker. “That’s what we intend to do, but until then, the visitors will remain here. Gather them up and bring them to park headquarters.”
Rachel bit her tongue to stop herself from calling him an irresponsible jerk, but he hadn’t seen what they’d seen. He was also blowing the cover on her water story to keep things simple and not terrify a bunch of tourists, some of them families with children.
Garrett remained quietly by her side. Her staff had rallied around her. “For now, do as he asks,” she ordered. Lacy stood at the door, her forehead one tight wrinkle. The female officer named Bitton joined her.
Legend of Spiralling Cedars Page 2
