Wild Angels

by Bethany Brown

  Julian nodded, still white as a sheet. Stomach roiling, Patrick put the appendage on the ground and reached for the radio with his right hand. He gave it to Jack. “Call Roxanne,” he instructed, taking a few steps back and away and then sidling over to Julian. “Soap,” he demanded.

  Patrick washed his hand with still-freezing bottled water until it felt raw and chapped, with Julian supervising. Julian had actually taken the radio and the GPS from Jack, who had walked a few feet back into the trees before throwing up rather noisily, and was giving out their coordinates and keeping an eye on the situation at the same time.

  When Julian snapped the radio off, he whistled to Robot, who stood, wagging a little, and came to his side. He met Jack’s gaze across the clearing. “You want to stay here a minute, or are you coming with?” he asked.

  Jack wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tugged another bottle of water and a short lead from the backpack. “I’m coming with you,” he said firmly.

  There was no chance Patrick was letting them split up now, so it was a good thing they were all agreed. Jack clipped the leash to Robot’s collar and stood, looking a little steadier. Patrick met his gaze squarely and nodded once.

  Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out his nine millimeter.

  “Jesus! Patrick, you brought a gun? You brought a gun on vacation?”

  “You can thank me later when we haven’t been killed by some perverted child molester,” Patrick snapped back and then immediately wished he hadn’t. Jack’s mouth set in a hard line, and Julian flinched. Patrick took a deep breath and tried to get a hold on his nerves. “Come on. Let’s get to work.”

  They were definitely dealing with at least one dead body, maybe more than one. Hell, this could be a dumping ground for a serial killer for all he knew. Patrick thumbed off the safety and motioned to Jack and Robot to lead the way.

  It didn’t take them long. They found the body a few meters away, half-covered in a shallow grave. There was enough flesh left on the body to identify it as female, but it was ripped away in places, bones in the ribcage sticking out at funny angles, and the body was, frankly, gooey from the rainwater.

  The smell was indescribable.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jack said, and Patrick thought he might look a little relieved, because if there was one good thing they could take from this, it was that the body lying there in the mud and leaves was obviously not Hallie Klein’s; it was too tall and too round about the middle and chest.

  Patrick didn’t feel any better. Somehow the finding of one body seemed to cement the possibility they might find two, and he didn’t think they’d be so lucky next time. Ignoring the pain in his arm, Patrick leaned up against a tree, put the safety back on his gun, and took a deep, shaky breath. God, he wanted a cigarette. Better yet, he wanted Brad—just far, far away from here. Preferably somewhere with a nice big bed and nothing to do all day.

  They waited until they heard the evidence retrieval team in the clearing behind them, and then Jack and Robot went back to fetch them, pointing them toward the rest of the scene. By that time, the daylight was fading quickly, and Patrick was sore and tired as well as hungry. The evidence team took measurements, soil samples, photos, and whatever else, and loaded the body onto the back of an ATV.

  What Patrick wouldn’t have given not to have to walk out of this place. He sighed, stretched, and stood up straight again, looking meaningfully up at the sky. “Well? Think we’d better get going?”

  They did. Jack’s path had taken them in a wide circle, so although they had been walking for most of the day, it was only a forty-minute hike or so back to their starting point. Patrick practically fell into the backseat of the truck, leaning his head back against the rest tiredly. Robot climbed in beside him and rested her chin on his knee.

  “Hell of a day,” Jack commented. There was no trace of amusement in his voice.

  They stopped by the rec center just long enough to drop off the borrowed equipment, and then Jack took them back home. Patrick was looking forward to a long, hot shower and a good night’s sleep.

  Then he saw Brad’s car in the driveway and thought of something even better.

  Jack and Julian took the dog inside while Patrick wandered over to Brad, who was leaning against the hood of his car. “Hey, Wilde Thing,” he smiled, knowing he sounded as exhausted as he felt. “Been here long?”

  Brad shook his head, reaching for his arms and pulling him into a lazy embrace. “Ten minutes or so. News travels fast in this town. Are you okay?”

  Patrick didn’t know how to answer that. Sure, he’d seen dead bodies before. It wasn’t exactly his favorite part of the job he loved, but he dealt with it because he needed to. He just wasn’t used to seeing them on vacation in tiny little close-knit backwater communities in Alberta. “Not really.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Patrick leaned his head against Brad’s shoulder. What had he ever done to deserve this? “I thought you’d never ask,” he sighed. “Let me go get changed. Then maybe you can take me home?”

  Brad ruffled his fingers through Patrick’s hair. Patrick tried not to lean into the touch, but he needed it too much to resist for long. “You’re sure that’s what you want?”

  Patrick was frighteningly sure. He just needed two minutes to take off his gun. “I’m sure. Are you coming in? I just want a new pair of jeans.” He looked down at himself, noting how far up the mud went. “And maybe a shower.”

  “You can shower at my place,” Brad invited. “Just… hurry, would you?”

  Patrick did.

  Chapter 14

  Jack leaned back against the cold bench, hands between his knees. Beside him, Patrick crunched loudly into an apple. Jack thought about glaring, but if he did, there was a chance his gaze would slip right past Patrick and onto Julian, who was decked out in scrubs and a lab coat, not to mention hovering over the table with the body on it.

  Patrick was eating. In the coroner’s lab. That was beyond “wrong” and well into “disgusting.”

  After spending the night at Brad’s, Patrick had joined them early this morning for breakfast to catch up on the proceedings. He looked like shit. They all did, really; Jack couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually shaved, and his face itched. Patrick seemed to be regretting their long hike of the day before. Julian had been fine, until Roxanne had called halfway through breakfast.

  Julian had not been pleased when Roxanne reminded him that Dr. Dan Matheson, the local coroner, was in fact on vacation in the Bahamas with his wife. (“I hope you get a sunburn, you smug bastard,” Julian had muttered under his breath.) An autopsy was not something that could wait, not when it could lead them to Hallie.

  It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Julian wasn’t happy about being asked to do the autopsy, even though he hadn’t complained.

  “This is the record of an autopsy conducted September thirteenth, 2008.” Julian’s voice echoed in the sterile room. Patrick crunched another bite of apple. “Subject is a Jane Doe, mid-thirties to early forties. Dental records have been submitted to the Doe Network as well as the RCMP, and DNA is being run through local databases.”

  Jack started tuning out the background noise when Julian said, “Making the first incision. The time is nine twenty-three a.m.”

  Jack couldn’t imagine what there could possibly be left to cut open, but he didn’t want to watch.

  Patrick crunched his apple again. Jack chanced it and shot him a glare. Patrick just shrugged. It was odd. Jack would have sworn that he had been uncomfortable or at least unsettled yesterday. Today, in the lab, he was casual, relaxed, like he’d been in this situation a hundred times. Maybe he just wasn’t used to being the first on the scene.

  Finally, after what seemed like years of sitting around and waiting and trying like anything not to watch Julian at work, Jack heard the distinctive snap of the recording device shutting off, followed by the rustle of a sheet. Figuring it was safe to look, Jack raise
d his head just in time to see Julian de-glove and tug off his mask.

  For some reason he felt like he should stand up. Patrick said, “Well?”

  Jack registered the calipers Julian was holding in his left hand as he shrugged. “Give me two minutes.”

  Jack sighed. They’d been waiting what seemed like forever. A few more minutes wouldn’t hurt.

  Not them, anyway.

  Julian left the calipers on a metal shelf and retrieved a textbook from under a counter somewhere. He checked the index and then rifled through the pages, made a note, ran his hand through his already mad-scientist hair (Jack made a mental note to remind him to get a trim), and sagged down into a rolling chair. “Patrick, you’d better get Nathan and Roxanne up here.”

  Patrick just gave a sharp nod and left the room, his posture singing of the tension he was feeling. Jack went a little cold inside, stomach clenching, and decided he’d had enough of sitting on his ass. He got up to pace because he didn’t know what else to do while he was waiting.

  Julian seemed to. He stripped off the lab coat and tossed it in the biohazard bin and then crossed the room and snuggled his face into Jack’s shoulder. “That was horrible.”

  Jack let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and rested his chin on the top of Julian’s head, stroking his back slowly. His own impending breakdown could wait until Julian was done with his; Julian had done all the dirty work, after all. “Yeah.”

  They were still standing like that when Patrick came in with the two police officers, all looking grim. Jack released his hold, and Julian reluctantly pulled away, straightening.

  “Dr. Piet,” Nathan acknowledged with a nod. “What have you got for us?”

  “Jane Doe, late thirties to early forties. Time of death sometime in the past week—hard to tell with all the rain. And, uh—” Here, he looked a little green. “Animal activity.”

  Roxanne winced. Jack’s stomach rebelled.

  “Do you have a cause of death?” Nathan wanted to know.

  The room went—Jack winced for thinking it—deathly quiet.

  “Yeah.” Julian led them over to the examination table. Jack held his breath and pointedly didn’t look while Julian peeled back the sheet a few inches. “Cause of death was a single blunt-force trauma to the frontal bone.”

  “With what?” Roxanne asked.

  “Well, I’m not an expert.” Julian pulled the sheet back down and scratched at the back of his head self-consciously. “But my best guess?” He indicated a table on the other side of the room containing the evidence collected from the scene. “Second rock from the left. It’s got a blood smear that matches pretty closely.”

  “Homicide?”

  Julian shrugged. “Who knows? Where it hit, she could have tripped and fallen… it wouldn’t have taken much.”

  “You said something about, uh—” Nathan looked like Jack felt. “Animal activity?”

  “Uh, yes.” Julian’s hand reached out almost automatically, and Jack twined their fingers together. “Birds. Rats. Bugs. Coyotes.” He stopped, his fingers squeezing tight around Jack’s.

  “Okay, what aren’t you telling us?”

  “There were some teeth marks on the bones consistent with those of a larger predator.”

  “A larger predator,” Nathan repeated.

  “How big are we talking?” Patrick asked.

  Julian squirmed. “I’m not sure. I told you, I’m not an expert.”

  “Guess,” Jack said hollowly. He was doing his best not to imagine Hallie lost somewhere, being attacked by whatever had torn this woman apart.

  Julian released a long breath. “Like I said, I’m not sure. But the bite patterns are suggestive of larger mammals. A wolf or maybe a bear.”

  “You have bears?!” Patrick exclaimed.

  “I’m kind of distressed that you chose to focus on the bear part instead of the being eaten part,” Jack countered.

  “Officer Keyes?”

  Everyone in the room turned to see the young uniformed man who had just walked in the door with a yellow envelope in his hands. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a message from Dr. Tennant. He said you’d know what it was about.”

  Julian and Roxanne locked eyes. “The dental records?”

  The kid handed it over to Roxanne, who took a deep breath and opened the flap. She reached in and pulled out two sets of dental X-rays and a sheet of paper.

  “Well?” Jack finally asked after a few seconds of silence.

  Roxanne handed the evidence to Nathan. He looked at it carefully and then passed it to Julian. “What do you want me to do?”

  Roxanne looked uncomfortably green. “Put out an APB on Roy Klein,” she said very quietly.

  “What?” Jack said, shocked. “Why? Who is it?”

  Julian was staring down at the dental records, expression blank. “Her name is Patricia Raintree.”

  Oh, shit. “Oh, God.” Jack realized the truth, taking a step back. “That’s Roy’s wife.”

  Patrick kicked the rock that was in his path out of the way. They were searching the woods again, but the weather had not improved. In fact, it had become worse. There were large, dark clouds in the sky, and the temperature had dropped. The sudden chill made the wound in his shoulder ache, and he swore that he could feel the pin in his leg getting cold. If the temperature was affecting him this much, Patrick didn’t want to think about what it was doing to Hallie.

  They still hadn’t found her. It was the second day of searching, and Patrick was starting to worry. The body they had found had turned out to be the missing girl’s mother. How fucked-up was that? Roy, who was still distraught over his daughter’s disappearance, was being questioned about the death of his wife—a wife he allegedly hadn’t seen in years—and the disappearance of Hallie. Patrick could hardly believe it. It was like he had gone on vacation and ended up in a mystery novel. These things never happened to other people. It was obviously a fucked-up situation when Julian didn’t bat an eyelash as Jack dragged a rifle and a box of shells out of the back shed.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Julian asked. Patrick turned to see his friend standing on his left side. There was a concerned look on Julian’s expressive face.

  “Not really, no.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Patrick sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He smothered a grimace as his shoulder protested. “It’s just—she’s a little girl, Ace. She’s just a little girl.”

  “I know.” Julian put a gentle hand on his arm. “We’re going to find her, Patrick.”

  “And then what? Tell her that her mother is dead and her father is the main suspect? After whatever she’s been through, how is that going to help her?” Patrick let out another aggravated growl. “She doesn’t deserve this shit, Ace. She’s a good kid.”

  “You’re only saying that because she agrees with you that The Princess Bride is the best movie ever made.”

  “It is the best movie ever made. And that just proves my point. She’s a smart kid.”

  “Yes, she is.” Julian squeezed his arm. “We’ll find her.”

  Patrick grunted as Julian gave him another small squeeze. He kept his eyes on the trees as the doctor made his way over to his lover. Jack was standing farther away from them, glaring at a map. Patrick figured that was a bad sign. As the day had progressed, Jack’s anger seemed to rise. It seemed as though he would just stay in an increasingly bad mood until they found Hallie. Patrick couldn’t blame him, but Robot was steering clear of her owner. She was once again sticking close to Patrick.

  They continued to search for several more hours. When Patrick could see that Jack was getting ready to take a break, he glanced down at his watch. It was after one. No wonder he was hungry; they had started searching at nine. He was turning to reach into his pocket for an energy bar when something caught his eye. It was a flash of color. Pink, if he wasn’t mistaken. Patrick turned back toward the flash and felt his eyes widen.

  “Julian!”
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br />   “What?” Julian came over to look where Patrick was pointing.

  “Is that…?”

  “Oh, my God!” The relief in his voice was almost palpable. “It’s Hallie!”

  Patrick was still pointing, because Julian had missed the larger picture. “And that?”

  “Shit! That’s a bear!”

  Hallie’s pink jacket was visible from beneath the rock overhang she was sitting under. She seemed to have rolled herself into a small ball and was rocking back and forth. Even from the distance that they were standing, Patrick could see tears in her terrified eyes. Eyes that were focused on the bear.

  “Jack!”

  “I see it!”

  The bear—Patrick really hoped it was the same one that had been chewing on the body, as opposed to there being two people chomping animals—was making its way toward the petrified young girl. Patrick followed Jack as the other man started to run toward the bear. He pulled his gun as he ran but was fairly certain that his handgun would do next to nothing against a grizzly except make it angry. He really should have brought a larger gun with him.

  When he felt Julian run up next to him, Patrick stopped moving and put a hand on his arm. “Stay here, Ace.”

  “What? Are you crazy? I’m not going to stay here while you and Jack go and face an angry bear!”

  “You’re unarmed, Julian!”

  “And that puny gun of yours is going to be just as effective as throwing rocks at it!” Julian was so close that he was shouting in Patrick’s face.

  Patrick put his free hand on Julian’s chest and actually attempted to shove the other man back. Julian didn’t move. He was a lot stronger than he used to be. “Damn it, Ace, just stay here!”

  “No!”

  “Don’t make me shoot you!”

  “Like you’d really do that.”

  “Don’t tempt me!”