“I hate to think of him out in the dark woods, alone.” Carly glanced at the trees three lots away. The sun glowed from behind the tree line. Shadows reached across the houses on wooded lots.
Seth put an arm around Carly’s shoulders. “We’ll find him.”
“We’d better get started.” Carly took the list of phone numbers Alex had given them and went into the house. Alex made coffee in the kitchen. Time to start calling parents. It was going to be a long night, and Peter was out there, alone in the dark.
Predawn misted on the trail. Carly hefted her pack higher on her back. Thirty minutes into their search, there was no sign of Peter. She’d spent the evening calling Peter’s friends. None of them had seen him. She’d even asked the parents to check their basements and outbuildings for signs that the teen could be hiding on their properties. No luck. A search had been organized after Alex discovered old camping equipment missing from the garage. Firemen, hunters, law enforcement, scouts. At first light, everyone who knew the woods had been on hand to help find the missing teen. Six rescue teams had split up to search Peter’s childhood haunts.
Small Town Rule #9: Someone is always in your business, but that’s okay because someone also always has your back.
Seth consulted his portable GPS. “Our sector takes us across the river and turns north, following the Rogue all the way up to the old O’Rourke campground. Alex said this was one of Peter’s favorite hikes when he was a scout.”
Our sector. Like Seth would allow anyone else to team up with Carly.
“The bridge is about a quarter mile in. From there on, the path runs parallel to the river all the way to the old campground.” Carly set off down the trail. “My dad used to take us hiking on this trail.” Her tone turned wistful.
Seth fell into step behind her. Dry leaves and twigs crunched underfoot. The faint roar of water sounded under the chirp of insects and birds. Small animals moved through the underbrush. Though she couldn’t see the river yet, she could smell the mossy scent of the water. Dawn filtered through the trees.
“How far do you think he could have gone?” Seth wasn’t a Solitude native. They’d fished and camped a little, early in their relationship, but Carly had grown up here.
“Depends. The trail is all uphill, and the incline increases closer to the campground. That’ll slow him down. We aren’t sure exactly when he left yesterday, but the footing is rocky for night hiking. I’d think he’d pitch his tent as soon as it got dark,” Carly said. “On the other hand, most of his community service has been walking roadsides and recreation areas picking up litter. He’s pretty fit, and he packed supplies.”
According to his father’s inventory, Peter was equipped with a tent and sleeping bag. His father also suspected he’d raided the pantry for energy drinks, beef jerky, and candy bars.
“The state forest is on the other side of the campground?”
“Yes. Peter could disappear for a long time out there.”
“The Forest Service is on alert. The rangers will be out looking for him too.”
The trail let out onto the riverbank. White water rushed under a wooden bridge. The river was narrow here, maybe thirty feet across, but the current picked up as water was forced through the narrow gap between the rocks. On the right, the river plunged five feet over an outcropping of rock.
“Why did he take off?” Carly’s boots clomped on loose-sounding boards. Mist swirled up and dampened her skin.
The bridge bounced lightly underfoot as Seth walked onto it. “Who knows? His dad said the joint counseling session was rough on both of them. Maybe it was too much. Some people don’t like to talk about their issues.”
“If he wants to get his life back on track, he needs to understand why and how he got into this mess. Otherwise he’ll probably just make the same mistakes all over again. Problems have to be faced, not buried.” She left the bridge. The trail continued through a dense patch of trees and climbed. The temperature dropped ten degrees as they moved into the shade. The light sheen of sweat on her skin cooled, and Carly shivered. Had Peter been cold last night?
Seth didn’t respond.
“You know I would have been perfectly safe today with any one of the other volunteers,” she said. His behavior at the four a.m. search party meeting made her wonder if he really could change. None of the thirty firemen, cops, and hunters was good enough to partner with Carly. Seth had to be her personal guard.
“Maybe I just wanted to spend time with you.”
She glanced back. Their gazes met. Unfortunately the stubborn set to his jaw was damned sexy, and despite the animosity hovering around them, she felt the connection straight into the pit of her belly. Visions of him, naked and powerful, rising over her in the moonlight, flooded her brain, reminding her of the overwhelming link they’d shared since the first time they’d met. Love at first sight was no joke. She was her own worst enemy.
She turned her attention back to the trail, which had turned rocky. The incline increased. Her thighs and lungs burned with exertion. How long had it been since she’d gone hiking? With Brianna and her job, she barely had time to shower some days. “The next couple of miles will be tough.”
“Okay.” Seth, despite carrying a much heavier pack, ambled along as if they were strolling hand in hand down Main Street.
Ten minutes later Carly didn’t have the breath for any more conversation. Her feet slipped on loose pebbles. Seth’s hand in the middle of her back kept her from falling backward.
“Why don’t we take a break?” he asked.
As much as she hated to stop, this could be a very long day, and they’d even packed for the possibility of spending the night in the wilderness. “There’s a good rest spot up ahead.”
The trail leveled and opened into a twenty-by-ten clearing. Carly set her pack on a boulder and swigged from her water bottle. Seth opened an energy bar and broke it, offering her half.
“Thanks.”
“Look at this.” Seth squatted and pointed at a small pile of charred branches in a rock circle. Sand had been kicked over a fire. He pressed a hand to a rock. “Cool.”
Carly circled the clearing. She spotted four evenly spaced holes in the ground forming a rough four-by-seven rectangle. “Someone pitched a tent here. The size looks about right for the two-person shelter Alex described.”
He looked up at her and frowned. “Doesn’t mean it was Peter, though. Lot of campers out here.”
Carly suppressed her hope. “I know, but Alex said this trail was one of his favorites.”
Seth straightened. “We’ll find him, and until we do, we know he has the skills to survive.”
“Provided nothing happens to him. He could fall or get sick. Dozens of things could happen to him, and that’s only the wilderness turning on him. With Mike missing . . .”
“We don’t know that anything bad happened to Mike,” Seth pointed out.
“His disappearance looks exactly like Roy’s.”
“But we can’t make the assumption. He could have simply forgotten to tell someone he was taking Friday off.” But Seth’s voice lacked conviction. He didn’t believe Mike was on vacation. “Walt killed Roy, and Walt is dead. He can’t hurt anyone.”
But logic didn’t dispel her growing anxiety.
Seth straightened and brushed his palms together. “You ready?”
“Let’s go.” Carly picked up her pack. Hope added energy to her steps. Someone had camped in this clearing recently. It could have been Peter.
Three hours later, though, disappointment and exhaustion weighted her legs. The sound of water penetrated the foliage as the trail wound back toward the river. They paused, setting down their packs for a brief respite.
“Don’t get discouraged.” Seth handed her a meal replacement bar. “We’ve seen plenty of signs that someone’s been on this trail.”
“But like you said before, there’s no way to know if it was Peter or random hikers.” Carly chewe
d, washing the energy bar down with half a bottle of water, the coolness of the morning long gone.
Seth scanned the surrounding forest. “How much farther to the old campground?”
“It’s about a hundred yards ahead at the top of that rise.” Carly pointed up the trail.
She wiped her forehead with a bandanna. “I’ll be right back.” She took a ziplock bag of toilet paper and a travel-size bottle of hand sanitizer from her pack.
“Don’t go far.” Seth unfastened the long-range two-way radio from his belt. “I’ll check in.”
Each rescue team was supposed to check in with the base camp every hour or so as terrain and signal strength permitted.
“I think I can manage to pee in the woods, Seth.” Carly walked away.
She heard him talking into the transmitter and pure static answering him. They’d have better luck with communications at the top of the trail. She picked a spot, took care of business, and cleaned her hands with hand sanitizer. The pungent sting of alcohol left her nostrils as she turned back toward the clearing. Another, cloying scent drifted to her. She sniffed, unease settling over her with a rush of goose bumps up her arms. “Seth!”
He rounded a boulder. “What’s wrong?”
“Do you smell it?”
The scent of death was unmistakable.
He inhaled, his gaze sharpening. “Probably an animal.”
Carefully scanning the ground, they followed the smell to a spot a few yards off the trail. Carly stepped over a fallen tree. Insects buzzed to her right. Next to her, Seth paused and turned. He’d heard them too. His hand on her arm stopped her, but not before she saw it.
Carly’s heart clenched, and her vision blurred. “Oh my God. No.”
Next to a tree stump, a pair of boots protruded from a dense patch of underbrush.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Alex said Peter was wearing his boots.”
Seth caught Carly’s elbow and eased her to a fallen log. He couldn’t promise her the body wasn’t Peter, but he could spare her the sight of a corpse. “Stay here.” Leaving her on the log, he stepped closer to the boots. The scent of decomposition permeated his nasal passages, and his stomach flopped. Stepping carefully to minimize his evidence trail, Seth moved in. Please don’t be Peter.
The smell intensified, as did the drone of flies, as he bent low to look under a patch of brush.
The face was turned toward him.
Not Peter. Mike.
Seth turned away and breathed for a couple of seconds. Coated with the scent of decay, his throat clogged. He swallowed.
“It’s Mike,” he called.
“Oh no.” Her voice was strained. “How . . . ?”
“Gunshot wound to the head.”
“Oh my God.”
Tamping down his personal acquaintance with the victim, he let his professional persona take over. Exposed to the elements and the heat, the body exhibited signs of initial decomposition: abdominal bloating, some marbling of the visible skin. The remaining eye was open and milky white. Insects and animals had been busy, with the majority of activity centered at the wound, natural orifices, and fingertips. He checked his watch. Seth was no ME, but he’d seen his share of remains. Considering the inspector had been missing approximately thirty to forty hours, Seth would bet this was where Mike had been all along.
A 9mm lay on the ground next to his hand. The body was positioned as if Mike had been sitting on the tree stump when he’d died and then fallen to the ground. A folded piece of paper protruded from the shirt’s chest pocket. Using one finger, Seth tilted the paper and peeked at the text.
“Seth?” Carly called.
“Yeah.” Seth turned to see her squinting through the foliage. He tucked the paper back into Mike’s pocket and retraced his steps back to the trail. While he’d love to preserve the crime scene, finding Peter was more important. The best Seth could do was call the death in. He rooted through his pack for something to mark the location of the body on the trail. He pulled out an extra sock and tied it to a low-hanging tree branch.
“What did you find?” she asked.
“A structural inspection report for the main building of the O’Rourke resort. Mike signed off on it.”
“Do you think he felt responsible because the roof caved in and killed that man? Could he have driven out here to kill himself?”
“That’s the implication.” But Seth wasn’t convinced.
“Look over here.” Pale-faced, she pointed behind the fallen tree.
Seth peered over. “Vomit.”
He examined the ground in front of the log. Two indentations indicated where someone might have knelt. An empty energy drink can was tucked under the edge of the log, the same brand Alex had said Peter took with him. In his mind, Seth saw Peter finding Mike’s body, stumbling backward, falling to the ground and getting sick. Seeing a dead body would freak out a teenager.
He tied his other sock to a tree branch next to the puddle of vomit.
Carly leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees.
Seth unclipped the two-way radio from his belt. “I’ll call it in.” But all he could raise on the radio was static. He and Carly also carried personal locator beacons that could be activated in an emergency, but direct communication would be optimal so the medical examiner could be called ASAP. Evidence deteriorated rapidly in the open. The sooner the crime scene was secured the better. He turned to the trail. “We’ll have to climb to the top of the rise. Can you hike?”
Carly pushed to her feet. She swayed for a second, then righted herself. “Let’s go.”
“Need some water?”
“No. I’m not up to swallowing anything at this moment.”
In five minutes they crested the hill. The main campground spread across about an acre of relatively high ground. In the center, a log cabin–style administrative building had partially collapsed. Vegetation crept across the once-cleared land. Spaced about fifty feet apart, RV hookups marked individual campsites. On either side of the area sat cinderblock buildings that used to house restroom and shower facilities, one for each gender. At the rear of the area, an old dirt logging road provided access.
Seth stopped. Carly nearly slammed into him.
“Hey, what’s that?” she asked in a soft voice.
A Coleman camper was angled into a space near the middle. A portable generator hummed at its side. Behind the RV he could see the bumper of a silver pickup. Mike had driven a silver pickup. The hairs on the back of Seth’s neck quivered. He tugged Carly back down the hill onto the trail.
“I don’t like it,” he whispered. “Something’s wrong.”
Carly crouched behind an evergreen. “Why would Mike come up here to kill himself?”
Seth shook his head. “No reason he wouldn’t do it in his house.”
“Why is there a camper up there? I thought the campground was closed.”
“It is. The O’Rourkes sold off the property. Doesn’t mean people won’t try and use it anyway.”
“There’s no water or electrical hookups. What’s the attraction?” Carly asked. “It’s not like there’s any shortage of camping areas around here.”
“This is Oregon. People like to live off the grid.” Seth tried the radio again, but he needed to be up on the hill to get reception. He didn’t know why the camper freaked him out. Though people who lived off the grid might want to defend that right with firearms. “I need to get out in the open and on high ground to use the radio. You stay here. I’m going to crawl up there and get a better look around.”
“I’m not staying here by myself. That’s how the young woman always gets picked off in horror movies.”
Seth sighed. Carly wasn’t very good at following orders. On the bright side, she trusted him to protect her.
Crouching, he ran back up the trail and peered over the rise. Carly, who’d spent much of her childhood in these woods, followed him with a quiet step. He held out
a hand, indicating she should keep her head down. From his position he could see the camper and the pickup. Just because it was silver didn’t mean it was Mike’s vehicle. It could belong to the people who owned the Coleman.
An approaching engine rumbled. Seth crouched behind some greenery and squinted through the foliage. An old black Bronco entered the campground via the access road. It rounded the administration building and parked in front of the camper. Two men got out of the vehicle. One wore a neon-green Seahawks cap. Bright red hair topped the second man’s head. They transferred two boxes from the back of the Bronco to the Coleman. Large block lettering on the boxes read NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION. A few minutes later they emerged, got back into the SUV, and drove away.
“What’s going on?” Carly hissed.
Seth slid down and gave her a rundown. “I’m going to see if I can get the radio working. We need to call for help. I need you to stay here, out of sight. Okay?”
“Yes.” She hunkered into the underbrush.
But he knew her promise didn’t mean shit. “I mean it.”
She raised a palm. “We could activate our emergency transponders.”
“Without knowing what those two men are up to, I don’t want search and rescue swarming this place blind. I’d rather make them aware of any potential danger.” Seth crawled over the rise and tried his radio. Bursts of contact alternated with static. He moved away from the trees, into the clearing of the campground.
More crackling. “Solitude base, over.”
Before he could answer, movement in the trees behind the Coleman caught Seth’s attention. Whipping out his gun, he shoved his silenced radio into his pocket. He ran across the clearing and ducked into the woods on the other side. His boots made no sound on the dry ground. The smell of gasoline stung his nostrils. In the shadow of the trees, Seth circled the camper. A slim figure dumped the contents of a red gas can on the dry brush under the Coleman. Carrying a second can, he climbed the steps and tried the door. When it didn’t give, he picked up a large rock and smashed the window. Dropping the rock, he tilted the can and poured the gas in the opening. He turned.
Walking on Her Grave (Rogue River Novella, Book 4) Page 7
