The Hunted Girls

by Jenna Kernan

Demko leaned in, nudging her. “Think they’ll ask you to sign one of their trowels?”

  She tried and failed to hold a smile.

  “You all right?”

  In answer she shook her head. Demko stepped nearer. The three of them stared down at the human remains spread out on the tarp like some dreadful picnic.

  Juliette leaned in. “You see, that one was buried in the soil. This one might have been wrapped in something like a canvas tarp. It affects the decomposition.” She pointed, her voice animated with excitement. “Oh look! A belt buckle.”

  Nadine stared at the larger skeleton that peered out at her through empty eye sockets.

  “I’m just going to go have a chat with the anthropologists,” said Juliette, sensing Nadine’s mood, and hurried off.

  “How can anyone enjoy this sort of work?” asked Nadine.

  Demko snorted. “One might say the same thing about your job.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Hell of a way to spend a weekend.”

  They stood for a long while watching the anthropologists carefully excavating the grave site.

  “You think it’s him?” Demko asked.

  “Location seems right. Age of the skeleton, too, maybe, though I’m no expert.” The heat and humidity drained Nadine. Sweat soaked her clothing and ran between her breasts. She attributed the nausea flipping her stomach to the heat and not to images of her mother dragging these two bodies into the woods.

  How many times had Nadine and her family visited the River Forest camp area? The real reason for her mother’s fondness for this site sickened her. Her stomach rolled, sloshing the coffee, churning it to acid.

  She stared at the larger skull, noting a missing tooth and several fillings in the lower jaw. She turned her head, twisting for a better look without having to step closer.

  “Is there something wrong with the eye socket?” she asked.

  “You mean besides the crushed skull?” he asked. “Looks like someone hit him with an ax.”

  “Shovel,” she said. “That’s what she told me.”

  He glanced at her.

  “Remind me what your mother told you?”

  “Something about a guy who owed her money. Wouldn’t pay up and they argued. She hit him with a shovel. She claims it was an accident, but who swings a shovel at someone’s head not expecting to kill them?”

  “Just said, ‘a guy’?”

  “Yeah. I told you I had suspicions about the possibility of this being our missing father. She said he abandoned us. Ran off with someone. She was lying. She’s always lying. I should have known that, even then.”

  She tried and failed to control her ragged breathing as she faced the truth. Her father was really gone.

  “Let me check in with Juliette and tell her we’re leaving.”

  While she waited, one of the anthropologists approached, placing a green vinyl sandal on the tarp beside the smaller skeleton. The footwear looked nearly new except for the dirt and sand clinging to the crevices.

  Nadine stared at the object, puzzled at its pristine condition.

  “Man-made materials,” he said, pointing. “Vinyl doesn’t break down with bacteria or rain. The elements never touched it. Take years for it to rot.”

  “Hmm,” said Nadine.

  “You’re Dr. Finch,” he said.

  She nodded.

  “I understand you might be a relation,” he said. “I’m sorry for your loss. I hope this might bring you some closure.”

  She frowned. As if that were even possible.

  He shoved his dirty hands in his pockets and rocked forward and back. Nadine cast him a questioning look.

  “Yes. Right. Well, the thing is I’ve been sent over to ask if you would be willing to provide a—”

  “Don’t tell me. A DNA sample?”

  “Yes. Exactly.”

  Nadine pressed a hand to her forehead and said, “Why not?”

  He drew on a latex glove, offered a swab and she brushed it inside her gum before handing it back.

  When Nadine’s phone rang, she nearly jumped out of her skin. A glance told her that it was Skogen. They must have added a cell phone tower somewhere close by because service here used to be hit and miss.

  “Hello, Jack.”

  “Listen, we now have new data from the three known victims’ phones. We now have a complete list of common apps. I’m sending it to you. We flagged all the ones that had notifications switched on.”

  “I need to see the text messages and direct messages.”

  “Yes. I should have it on the file share soon.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. You?”

  “Have you figured out yet how my involvement was leaked to the press?” She suspected that the reporter, who had followed them into the woods, might have figured out who they were.

  “Not yet. Believe me, I’m giving it my full attention. I’m going to find whoever did this.”

  “And do what?”

  He paused. Was he shocked that she wanted to know exactly what he planned to do to the person on his team who leaked her identity to the press? He shouldn’t be. In many ways she was, after all, her mother’s daughter.

  “I said I’d handle it.”

  The sound she made in the back of her throat revealed dissatisfaction with that answer.

  “I’m sending you the data I mentioned. Let us know if you have any questions.”

  “Yup. I’ve got to go. Phone battery,” she said, keeping the lie short before signaling to Demko that she was ready, and walking away on the single-file trail.

  They had missed lunch and she’d sweated so much that her head pounded, and her leg muscles trembled. Around them, the shadows loomed, and lizards scurried, hopping out of their way.

  Her relief at reaching the road was short-lived as the late-afternoon sun had lost none of its potency. Leaving the leafy canopy, she found the air ten degrees warmer and the glare of sun on the sand made her squint.

  Her phone bleeped an alert. She glanced down, seeing the text from Skogen. He’d sent her a link to the data.

  “I need something to drink and a Wi-Fi connection.”

  Demko found both at a grill on the St. Johns. They sat at a table by the window overlooking the moorings for the houseboats. From the ceiling hung pendant lights and colorful Styrofoam floats from crab traps. There was plenty of beer on tap and specialty drinks, including a tempting Bacardi rum bucket, bright blue, with plenty of crushed ice, served in a plastic sand pail, but she ordered water.

  Weekend or not, she was on the job.

  They had landed at the grill squarely between lunch and dinner and only a few patrons still lingered over their meals.

  They ordered as Nadine itched to reach for her laptop.

  Instead she took a moment to look out at the gently flowing wide river.

  Lunch arrived. The aroma of fried clams and hush puppies made her mouth water. After lunch she booted up her laptop as Demko sipped his iced tea and scribbled notes on his pad.

  She studied the inventory of purchased apps shared by all three victims. It was a long list that included games, banking, entertainment and weather programs. They all shared several apps for airlines, hotels and social media. She glanced at the navigation apps, knowing some of the women had used these to plot the route to their own deaths. The list included data from Rita Karnowski’s boyfriend’s phone and vehicle. Nadine noted that Betters used his onboard vehicle navigation system to find that trail’s parking area. But what had drawn them to these locations?

  She skimmed down the list, focusing on the apps set to deliver notifications. Several she didn’t recognize.

  Nadine paused as two drew her notice. One was a sky guide used to identify stars, set to send alerts and shared by all three women, but it was unlikely that they would have used this during the day.

  The second one was for bird-watching. It grabbed her attention for three reasons: it was shared by Darnell, Karnowski and Tolan, notificatio
ns for each was switched on—and she and Juliette both also had this application. Was this the reason these women ventured off into remote locations?

  Bird-watching?

  Linda Tolan was photographing birds for a magazine.

  She needed to find out if any of the victims had received notifications from this or any other app the day of their disappearances.

  Nadine retrieved her phone and checked her settings. She had the notifications on the bird-watching app switched off. But Juliette’s was switched on.

  If Juliette were to review her old notifications, would any match those used by the victims?

  Juliette!

  Nadine pulled up Juliette’s number from her list of recent calls.

  “What’s up?” asked Demko.

  She explained as she placed the call.

  “Might be a coincidence,” he said. But his expression said she was onto something.

  “You think so?”

  “I think I’d proceed as if you figured it out, until I knew otherwise.”

  The phone call flipped to voicemail.

  “Damn it!” She lowered her phone. “No answer. We have to warn Juliette.”

  Eighteen

  MONDAY

  The knock on her door woke Nadine to daylight. She stared at an unfamiliar ceiling fan, trying to orient herself. Morning, the town house, Monday and she was back in goddamned Central Florida.

  Yesterday they’d delivered the message to Juliette not to follow any bird notifications and the Bureau was collecting alerts now.

  There was another series of taps on her door. She groaned and rolled, grasping her phone as the tapping came again.

  “Nadine?” It was Demko’s voice.

  “Yes. I’m up.” She wasn’t because she’d tried to use her phone to stop his knocking.

  “Can I come in?” he asked.

  She threw back the covers and swung her bare feet to the vinyl flooring, forcing herself vertical. She raked a hand through her hair and tugged down her cotton nightshirt so that it covered her.

  “Yes, come in.”

  The door creaked open and he peered inside. They’d agreed to keep separate rooms, mainly not to irritate Tina and Juliette. Neither she nor Demko was a quiet lover. She flushed at the view of him, shirtless, in a pair of low-slung gym shorts. Demko half-dressed was a better wake-up than any alarm. He seemed momentarily stunned at finding her wearing nothing but a thin veil of cotton that barely reached her thighs.

  Molly pushed past Demko and greeted her, tail wagging as she pranced. Nadine patted her shoulder and she retreated out the door.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “After eight.”

  “What?” She reached for her phone and found it dead. She stared at the black screen in confusion.

  “Power outage. Did you hear the storm last night?”

  She shook her head and retrieved her battery charger, plugging in her device and seeing the charging icon appear.

  “I got a call from Skogen, trying to reach you. He’s with the District 5 ME. They have another body.”

  Her heart jackhammered in her chest. “Is it Tolan?”

  “Unknown. I’ve got to find Juliette, she’s out on a run.”

  “Not alone?”

  “Tina and security. The female special agent. What’s her name?”

  “Coleman.”

  “Right.” He left her.

  Nadine finished in the bathroom and dressed. Her phone rang and she scooped it up. The display showed only a 5 percent charge and that Skogen was calling.

  “Where are you?” Skogen asked, loud enough that she had to hold the phone away from her ear.

  “Sorry.” She offered no explanation. “What’s up?”

  “Boater found a body.”

  “Tolan?”

  “Possibly. Body is female, found in Silver Glen Springs State Park.”

  She knew the natural springs. The limestone opening poured millions of gallons of freshwater a day from the aquifer, creating a lagoon as clear as the Caribbean Sea. She and Arlo had swum there often, trying to breach the submerged opening, only to be pushed back out by the force of water. The sandbar just beyond created a destination and natural docking spot for the many houseboats on the river. The spring created a quarter-mile pool that flowed into Lake George.

  Now she pictured the idyllic destination with a body pushed by that same constant current.

  “We’re on the way.”

  The state park was as Nadine remembered it as a kid, except for all the sheriff’s boats, where Skogen and Juliette, who’d gone on ahead, waited. Skogen scowled at Demko’s arrival but did not prevent him from boarding the vessel, held steady by one of the rangers.

  Allie Lowe, a Marion County sheriff, ferried them to the crime scene. She was a striking middle-aged woman, with a uniform so pristine she looked like an advertisement to join the force.

  The body lay on the far side of the lagoon, pushed up a channel as far as the current could convey it to tangle in the tall reeds. The corpse looked more like a movie prop than the remains of a human being.

  Sheriff Lowe idled the engine, angling them toward shore.

  “We believe someone dropped it from the camping area and the spring’s flow pushed it there,” she said, indicating the developing crime scene.

  They beached and stepped from the vessel to stand together on the shore, where they had a clear view of the remains.

  “How long has it been in the water?” asked Demko.

  “Unknown,” said Lowe, at the same time as Juliette said, “Not long.”

  Dr. Kline and Juliette waded into knee-deep water for the extraction.

  “I want you and Juliette to be present at the autopsy. I’ve asked the district ME to push it.”

  The extraction took much of the morning. Skogen remained with Nadine as she waited anxiously to hear if this was Linda Tolan.

  At last the District 5 ME returned, wet from the waist down, with bits of debris on her pants.

  “Okay, body is gone, so we can head back to District 5. You can meet us there.”

  “Is it Tolan?”

  “This one has implant dentures. Tolan didn’t. So, no. Not her.”

  Nadine’s shoulders sagged. It wasn’t Linda.

  But then, who was it?

  Nadine and Juliette headed to the morgue, while Demko remained at the scene. Dr. Kline sat at her computer monitor, glanced to the door and removed her glasses.

  “There you are.” She rose and led them out. “Busy day.”

  They paused to don their PPE and then entered the autopsy room. At first glance the room might have appeared to be an operating theater except for a few key differences. The surgical tools were the same. The industrial sink and coiled hose and hanging stainless-steel scale were not.

  Here, none of the machinery was associated with monitoring vital signs and, though the tables were stainless steel, each had a lip and trough to catch fluids. Nadine had the darkly bizarre thought that this made them resemble huge turkey platters.

  Beyond double doors sat the refrigerator in which the grim queue likely formed.

  Kline seemed not to notice Nadine’s disquiet as her gaze flicked around and settled on a bone saw.

  They paused at one of three tables between two bodies. On the right was the bloated female recovered this morning from the natural springs. On the left was a blackened, grotesque, nightmarish partial remains.

  “Is that the recent unidentified female?” Nadine could tell nothing, not even the sex of this badly decomposed body.

  “Yes. From Grass Lake up in Fort McCoy. Possible drowning. With Dr. Hartfield’s help, we might get them both done today.”

  Juliette nodded.

  “But we’ll tackle this one first.” Kline pointed to the remains recovered from Silver Glen Springs.

  Nadine stayed well back, but still the smell of rot overwhelmed, and her eyes watered. Juliette offered Vicks VapoRub and Nadine applied a dab of the greasy gel
beneath her nose. It helped.

  The body stretched in perfect stillness before them. Nadine stared down at the naked body of a woman that seemed to have been approaching her senior years, judging from the hair color. Despite herself, she looked for some movement.

  She shivered in the icy room and wished she had a sweater.

  Kline and Juliette spoke as they conducted a superficial exam of the body. The face was bloated, unrecognizable to Nadine.

  “These wounds are unusual,” said Juliette.

  Nadine noted the deep gashes at the ankles.

  “Seeing the incision on her neck in the water, I thought it might be a suicide, but it’s clear she didn’t do this,” said Kline.

  “How long has she been dead?” asked Nadine.

  “Oh, less than twenty-four hours.”

  This wasn’t Linda, so who was it?

  Juliette looked to Nadine.

  “Do we have any missing persons for older females?”

  Nadine shook her head. “We don’t.”

  Kline directed their attention to the ankles of the corpse.

  “I believe that she might have been hanging at some point, possibly from a snare. The wire cut deep.” Kline lifted a leg with a gloved hand. “Right through the tendons. See?”

  Nadine wished she hadn’t. The stench in here made her cover her mouth, muffling her words.

  “Did you say, a snare?”

  Nadine’s experience with snares was that they were used on small animals, like rabbits and squirrels.

  “Yes. Have a look at the soles of her feet.” Kline moved to the end of the table. “The lacerations tell me she was running barefoot. That accounts for these as well.” She motioned to the many thin slices on the body’s lower legs.

  “You think she was running naked through the woods?”

  “Looks that way. This is a first for me and that is saying something.” She lifted one of the arms and rotated it. “Have a look at this.”

  Nadine did and icy tendrils slithered about her heart. The wound was a puncture. The body’s hands were still bagged, to preserve possible physical evidence, but they did not obscure the thin slice on the upper arm.

  “More of them here,” said Juliette, pointing a finger at three small wounds on the upper thigh.