Those Who Came Before Page 3

  “I told you, I don’t know. Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that a hundred times already?” His eyes were wild with pain and fury, but Maria was willing to bet his anger was the rage of an innocent man. “All I know is that when I went to sleep, everyone was fine. And then I woke up and found Dan—”

  “Calm down. No one is accusing you of anything.”

  There was a light tap at the door, and one of the deputies poked his head in. “The parents are here, Detective. They’re demanding to see him.”

  She heard the question in his voice, and took it as her cue. “Send them in. They can take him home.”

  Before leaving the interrogation room, Maria touched Reese’s shoulder. It trembled under her hand.

  “I want to talk to you again once you’ve had some rest. And next time, I want you to be honest with me.”

  Chapter Four

  A hawk screamed, startling her enough that she went for her gun.

  Her partner laughed. “I don’t think we’ll be able to bring him in, Detective. He’s in the wind.”

  Maria did her best to smile, but it was a weak attempt. Even this far away, she could smell the blood. It made her stomach flip.

  Jorge fell quiet as they plodded down the gravel path toward the last campsite. They walked carefully, slowly, absorbing the scene, searching for anything out of place. But as before, there was nothing. Just the eerie feeling they were being watched.

  “You feel that?” Maria asked, keeping her voice low. The hairs rose on the back of her neck. She kept her hand on her gun, unsnapping the holster.

  “Yeah, something’s hinky.” Her partner scanned the trees, but if anything was out of the ordinary, he couldn’t see it. This scene was getting to them both, but Maria was convinced it was more than that. This place was wrong. It was damaged, somehow, in a way that had nothing to do with the horrific crime that had taken place.

  Some places had a darkness about them. She’d experienced it before, when she’d visited Auschwitz with her sister, and she felt it now. Why those kids had decided to spend the night here, instead of running away screaming, she’d never understand. But then again, most people tended to ignore their instincts. She’d spent years learning to listen.

  “You don’t need to do this, Maria,” Jorge said, taking her nerves as a sign of reluctance. “The coroner’s here. Forensics is here. Ball’s in their court now.”

  “Yes, I do.” As the metallic odor of blood grew stronger, it strengthened her resolve. She would not balk from what had happened to them. She would look them in the eyes and she would find their killer. “I need to see.”

  The campsite was bathed in red and blue from the cruisers’ roof lights, giving the trees an otherworldly glow. Maria ducked under the yellow tape cordoning off the area. In this case, it was an unnecessary barrier. It was the world’s most secluded crime scene. The conservation officers they’d met that morning were long gone.

  She couldn’t blame them.

  The coroner walked to meet her. He reached out his hand and Maria took it in her own, briefly squeezing his cold fingers. She’d often thought Roger Layton held the sadness of the universe in his faded blue eyes. That sadness was even more apparent today.

  “Maria,” he said, looking as frail as ever, but she’d worked with him long enough to understand this weakness was an illusion. With his gaunt, caved-in cheekbones and wispy gray hair, he looked like he was in his eighties. But he’d looked the same when she’d met him twenty years ago. He hadn’t aged a day. She suspected the man had been born old.

  “Roger.”

  “We’re ready to take her down now. Whenever you give the word.”

  His normally ramrod-straight spine was stooped, his eyes red behind wire-rimmed glasses. He’d waited for her, she realized. Roger had known she’d want to see the girl again.

  Pulling plastic booties out of her pocket, Maria slipped them over her shoes before approaching the scene. Knowing what to expect hadn’t lessened the impact of seeing her. If anything, it only made it worse.

  The smell of her had gotten stronger. It coated Maria’s nostrils and made her eyes burn. Brushing away the thickening clouds of flies, she tilted her head back. What had been done to Jessica McCaffrey she’d only seen in drawings dating from the Middle Ages.

  A tree had been sharpened into a stake, and it was on this stake the young woman was impaled, the deadly spear thrust deep inside her. It had traveled through her birth canal and onward, likely destroying her internal organs. The surface of the tree was slick with blood and other fluids.

  Jessica’s bare, crimson-streaked feet had turned purple. Her body was naked and there were what appeared to be claw marks on her breasts and abdomen. Her expression was frozen in a rictus of horror, her colorless lips open in a silent scream. Her hair was so soaked with blood it was impossible to tell what color it had been, but Maria knew from the woman’s driver’s license it had been blonde.

  The men surrounding her kept respectfully quiet. No off-color jokes or black humor disturbed McCaffrey’s resting place. Her death had shattered their defenses.

  Seeing her again, Maria was convinced Reese hadn’t killed her. The strength it would have taken to drive the tree so deep into the ground was immense, not to mention the power required to impale a healthy young woman who had no doubt fought for her life. Reese may have been wiry, but he wasn’t strong enough to have done this. At least, not on his own.

  “Do you want to see the other one?” Roger asked when she finally looked away. Maria shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. As terrible as Jessica’s death had been, at least she appeared human. Kira, on the other hand, looked like she’d been put through a meat grinder. Roger would have to use a shovel to get her into a body bag. It wasn’t a scene that inspired gratitude, but Maria was grateful Reese hadn’t checked the girls’ tent. He never would have recovered.

  You’re not welcome here.

  Whoever spoke was close enough that she could feel their breath against her neck. Maria whirled, expecting Jorge.

  “What did you say?”

  Roger’s eyes widened. He stared at her hand, which had gone to her gun again, and then at her face. “I didn’t say a word. Maria, what’s wrong?”

  “Someone just said something to me. Did you hear it?”

  “No, I didn’t hear a thing. Are you all right?”

  “I’d feel a lot better if I knew who’d said that.” Her voice cut across the campsite. Jorge and the other men gawked at her. Maria saw her partner’s hand move to his own gun. They were too on edge. None of them would have played a prank on her. Behind her, there was only the gravel road. She turned, but it was empty. Still, the feeling that someone was watching her grew stronger than ever.

  Ignoring the powerful urge she felt to get the hell out of there, Maria faced the trees and yelled, “This is the Clear Springs Police. You are trespassing on a crime scene. Come out of there with your hands up.”

  Her colleagues were startled, but everyone studied the trees and waited, hands on pistols. Roger retreated until he was almost hiding behind her.

  They waited for an ungodly minute while the tension in her chest grew. Someone was here with them. Maria knew it. She could feel it. Sweat trickled down her spine.

  “This is your last warning. Show yourself now!”

  Nothing but her own voice echoed back. The day was unusually calm. There was no wind to rattle the branches, nothing to send a draft of cold breath along her neck.

  She nodded at her partner, and they unholstered their weapons, rushing toward the trees in a crouch, guns at the ready. They plunged into the woods, twisting their heads this way and that as they scanned the forest for any movement. Adrenaline surged through her body, chasing away the last of her fear.

  Crashing through the bush, they ignored the branches that slapped and scratched them as they searched for
their unwanted guest. Could the killer still be here? The thought triggered a flood of anticipation and fear. Maria’s fingers tightened on her weapon.

  She could hear twigs behind her snap as her guys fell in behind. She was glad they were there. Whoever had killed those girls was stronger than a meth head and infinitely more insane.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Maria’s partner had reached the clearing before her, and stopped so quickly she almost ran into his back.

  At six feet, she was considered tall, but Jorge was six foot five. She had to step around him to see why he had stopped, but as she did, she was filled with dread. Was it another body? Had another camper been murdered?

  When she saw what Jorge was staring at, Maria froze.

  It was a tree.

  The trunk had been folded back like a banana peel, as if something had erupted inside it.

  “What on earth would do something like that?” her partner asked.

  “I don’t know.” Maria saw something wink at her in the grass and picked her way over to it, careful not to step too close to the tree. She wasn’t taking any chances.

  Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, Maria knelt to check out her find, brushing some of the weeds away.

  It was an axe, its worn blade pockmarked and chipped.

  “You think this was used on the vics?” Jorge asked.

  The axe was too small and dull to be responsible for the level of carnage they’d found at the site. “No. My guess is they used this to cut firewood.”

  One by one, the men crowded into the enclosed space. Johnson, who was still young enough to feel immortal, did what no one else dared. He strode over to the tree and peered inside.

  “It looks like it exploded from the inside out.”

  The officers crowded closer, taking turns staring into the tree. Johnson was right – it was as if a giant had reached in and taken the core, leaving only the shell of a tree behind.

  “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Jorge asked Maria.

  “No, but this isn’t my area of expertise.”

  Johnson turned to her, surprised. “You think this has something to do with the murders?”

  Surrounded by the people she’d trusted with her life for years, she felt no comfort. Something in these woods was malevolent, and it didn’t want them here. The hairs on the back of her neck rose again. Jorge caught her eye, and from his expression, Maria knew he felt it as well.

  She cleared her throat, willing her voice to work. “Yes. I have no idea what, but I think it does.”

  Chapter Five

  Her heart pounding, she retreated until her heel connected with nylon. She spun around, fumbling with the zipper. It was stuck. Mad with terror, she clawed at the tent, but her fingers scrabbled futilely over the slick surface.

  Behind her, the squelching noise grew louder.

  She didn’t want to see it, but somehow hearing it without knowing where it was coming from was worse.

  Reluctantly she turned.

  The bloody mass of tissue had only one appendage that remained recognizable – a single hand. It was flat as an X-ray but still a hand, a hand that gripped the nylon floor of the tent and pulled itself toward her.

  “Hhhhelp me,” it whispered, a writhing, bubbling pool of gore. She saw what she took to be several shiny bits of rock, and then realized in horror they were teeth. The thing that had been Kira slithered closer and closer, until Maria thought her heart would stop. Surely no one could survive this level of fear.

  Kira’s organs gleamed with blood and something else Maria dared not put a name to. The girl’s heart still beat. Her deformed hand reached for Maria’s boot, touching the toe.

  “Ssh, Maria. Maria! Stop screaming.”

  The Kira-thing had hold of her entire foot now, and as she continued to scream, it shook her by the leg with surprising strength.

  “Maria, wake up!”

  Wake up?

  Her eyes fluttered open and focused on the concerned face of her husband.

  The adrenaline surged through her as she searched the room. Her hand went to her hip but found only the soft cotton of her sweatpants.

  “Are you okay?”

  Her feet were in his hands, causing her to return to reality. She must have fallen asleep while he was massaging them. The television flickered in the corner, showing an eighties teen comedy, but not the one they’d started watching together at the start of the evening. Ben had changed the movie while she’d slept. The upholstery of the old sofa was familiar underneath her, reassuring. Her pulse throbbed behind her temples, and she was willing to bet her blood pressure was through the roof. It had been so real.

  She could feel the nylon of the tent against her back. She could still hear that terrible squelching sound.

  “Maria?”

  “I must have fallen asleep. I’m sorry.”

  He winked, waggling his fingers. “It’s my magic hands. Works every time.”

  “Still.” She reached for him. “I’m sorry.”

  If there was anything Maria hated about her job, it was how often her husband and daughter suffered for it.

  “I was worried you were going to scare Heidi. I’m glad I was able to wake you up.”

  Their eight-year-old daughter hated bedtime with a passion. Getting her to settle down was a fight every single evening. Thankfully, once she was in bed, she was a sound sleeper. Poor thing was probably chronically exhausted.

  “You must have been having one heck of a nightmare. I’ve never heard you scream like that before.”

  And she’d never dreamed about one of her crime scenes before. Not that she could remember.

  “Hey, Earth to Maria.” Ben jiggled one of her feet. “You all right?”

  She began to tell him things were fine, must have drunk too much coffee at the office, blah blah blah, but stopped herself. A lot of the cops she worked with were divorced, and there were many reasons for that, but there was one she’d witnessed time and time again.

  Officers tended to shut out their spouses. They had good intentions. They didn’t want to hurt or upset them, or drag them down into the dark hell cops sometimes live in. But it was ultimately a mistake, because cops have to talk to someone, and usually that someone is another cop, the only person they believe really understands them. It doesn’t take long before confiding in someone other than your spouse, especially if that someone is regularly sharing adrenaline-charged experiences with you, becomes something intimate. Officers didn’t always have physical affairs, but if the person you turned to whenever you were struggling was someone other than your husband, that could be even more damaging.

  Maria refused to let that happen with Ben. Her husband was a sensitive soul, a high school art and music teacher who intentionally surrounded himself with beauty. When they’d started dating, she’d warned him that he was making a huge mistake. He sought the light when her life was about the dark. He’d shrugged, smiled in that hopeful, whimsical way she’d quickly grown to love, and said, “Opposites attract.”

  Still, she couldn’t tell him how Jessica and Kira had died. That would give him nightmares. Instead, she filled him in on the basics and then told him what was bothering her.

  “I can’t explain it, but something about that place is off. Being at that campsite made my skin crawl.”

  Most people would say there was something wrong with her if she hadn’t found the campsite eerie, considering three people had died there. But not Ben. Her husband was a firm believer in intuition.

  He also knew she didn’t freak out easily.

  Ben resumed the foot massage while he waited her out. They’d been married long enough to understand each other’s patterns. There was no point pressuring her to talk, or asking a lot of questions. She had to tell a story her way, in her own time.

  “I heard someone tell me
to leave, Ben. I swear he was right behind me. I could feel his breath. But when I turned, he was gone.”

  Maria shivered at the memory, pulling her afghan tighter and remembering how Reese had done the same with the fireman’s blanket. Had he encountered the same person? Was it the killer?

  “That’s creepy. What do you think it was?”

  “I’m not sure. I know what I heard, but I have no idea how someone got away that fast without any of us seeing him.”

  “Did the guys see anything?”

  She shook her head. “Not a thing.”

  When her husband tactfully kept his silence, she felt the need to defend herself. “I can guess what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t the wind, and it wasn’t my imagination. Someone said, ‘You’re not welcome here,’ and they said it practically in my ear. And that’s not all – I sensed someone was watching us the entire day.”

  “Hey, if you say you heard something, you heard something. I believe you.”

  Maria hadn’t noticed she’d been holding her breath, waiting for his reaction. The tension in her chest eased a little, and she knew talking to Ben had been the right thing to do. “Jorge felt it too. At one point, I was sure someone was in the bush, but when we gave chase, no one was there. We did find the strangest tree, though.”

  She told Ben about the black tree and how it appeared to have exploded from within. “Have you ever heard of anything like that?” Ben was the one with the green thumb, but she wasn’t surprised when he said no.

  “It sounds like a spooky place. Have there been any murders there before?”

  “Not that I know of.” She settled back into the couch cushions as Ben started on her other foot. Meow Mix, their silver tabby, jumped onto her lap and promptly began arranging the blankets to her liking. “But it’s worth checking out.” Maria smiled as she scratched behind the tabby’s soft ears and was rewarded with a purr. Between hanging in a bar with her colleagues and going home, she’d choose home every time.

  “You’ll figure it out, Maria. Those kids are lucky to have you on their side.”