Those Who Came Before Read online

  He spoke out of kindness, but she wished he hadn’t brought them up. She winced as she recalled Jessica’s expression of horror, Kira’s brain matter splattered all over her tent. Lucky was not the word she’d use to describe them.

  Chapter Six

  Someone tapped on my door. It was the gentlest of knocks, but I jumped from my chair in shock, spilling coffee all over my desk.

  “Shit!” I swiped at the liquid with one of the three blankets wrapped around me, frantically trying to build a barrier between the coffee and my computer.

  “Reese, honey?”

  Continuing to mop up the mess, I ignored her. How many times did I have to tell her I wanted to be left alone?

  “Someone’s here to see you.”

  Unfortunately, Mom was as stubborn as me. Guess it had to come from somewhere.

  “Well, I don’t want to see them. So you can tell whoever it is to fuck off.”

  “I think you should make an exception for me,” said a smooth voice I didn’t recognize. “Unless you’d rather we had this conversation in a prison cell.”

  The door opened, and I whirled around to find a man in a pinstriped suit standing with my mother. He had that impossibly perfect skin that always reminded me of babies, and his tie was pink. I hated him instantly. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Reese!” my mother scolded, her mouth pursed into a frown, as if she didn’t use that word on a regular basis herself. “Language, please.”

  “I think I have a right to know who’s in my room. Especially when I’ve said several times that I don’t want to talk to anybody.” My blanket was soaked now, but it appeared my computer would be safe, so I stopped swabbing at it like an idiot. I was tempted to throw the soiled blanket at my mother, but this guy looked like the type who would make a big deal out of something like that.

  “I’m Gregory Vincent Prosper, Esquire. Your parents have hired me to represent you.” He handed me a white card with the impossibly long name of a law firm embossed on the front. It reminded me of the business card scene in American Psycho, and it took every ounce of self-control not to crumple it.

  “Thank you, but I don’t need a lawyer.” I shot my mother a look of disgust. “I haven’t been charged with anything.”

  “Yet.” Gregory Vincent My-Shit-Don’t-Stink moved a pile of clothing to one side before taking a seat on my bed, crossing his ankles and folding his hands as if he were at a goddamn tea party or a polo match. Smug bastard. “You haven’t been charged with anything yet. But from what your mother tells me, it’s only a matter of time.”

  Mom’s eyes welled with tears, and I glared at her, hoping she got my message loud and clear. “I really don’t care what my mother told you, Greg, but I’m innocent. I didn’t do anything wrong, and the cops know it. Ask that investigator—” Shit, what was her name? “She believes I’m innocent. She’s the one who let me come home.”

  The man laughed, a sound so brimming with condescension I wanted to pop him one. “Who said anything about innocence? Or guilt, for that matter. No one cares if you’re innocent or not, Reese. Can they pin it on you? That’s what they care about.”

  I thought about the detective who’d questioned me. She’d acted tough initially, but by the end, she’d appeared to feel sorry for me. I couldn’t believe she was that good an actress. But then again, Mr. Gregory Vincent Whatever probably had a lot more experience with this stuff than I did. What if she’d only been nice to trick me into saying something incriminating? Everyone knew about that Good Cop, Bad Cop routine.

  “They can’t. So I stand by my original statement. I don’t need a lawyer.”

  If I’d hoped that was enough to send Mr. Pompous Ass on his way, I was disappointed. The man didn’t budge, which sucked, because I was really tired of standing, but there was no way in hell I’d sit next to him and my chair was still wet.

  “Let’s see.” He held up a hand, ticking off the facts of my case on his fingers. “You illegally break into a campsite. Speaks to character. You deface said campsite by cutting down a tree from a protected forest and destroying a sign. Speaks to character again. You were arguing with your girlfriend right before her death. That’s motive. And out of the four, you are the sole survivor. That, my friend, is highly suspicious.”

  “I’m not your friend,” I said automatically, but cold terror had seeped into my gut at his words. Could I actually go to jail for this? I’d rather stick my head in the oven.

  “Once you wake up and realize how deeply you’re mired in shit, I’ll be the only friend you care about.”

  “None of that stuff means anything.” My mother was wringing her hands like some woman in a Shakespearean play. It was obvious she wanted me to play nice with this overdressed windbag, but why? Did she think I was guilty? Was that what she and Dad had been whispering about? Well, fuck them. “It’s circumstantial.”

  “Do you have any idea how many people get convicted on circumstantial evidence every day? Do you know how many ‘innocent’ people have been executed because of the same? Circumstantial evidence is all they need to send you away for life.”

  At least they couldn’t fry me. Minnesota didn’t have capital punishment. But to say my relief was fleeting would be an understatement. Being stuck in a classroom for hours was enough to make me lose my mind. I couldn’t handle prison.

  “The justice system is not ‘As Seen on TV’. People have been locked away forever on a lot less evidence than you have against you.”

  I would never have admitted it, but Mr. Pompous had my attention. Leaning against my desk for support, I said the only thing I could think of, but then cringed at how whiny it sounded. “But I’m innocent.”

  The lawyer smirked. “Aw, and you think people will care. That’s cute. You’d better grow up in a hurry, kid. And you better stop talking to the cops. From now on, keep your big mouth shut.”

  “Why? I have nothing to hide.” I couldn’t believe my mother had gone along with this. Didn’t she want to catch the person who’d killed Jess? I was the only witness, not that it meant much, but I couldn’t stop talking to Detective Greyeyes. She wanted the same thing I did – justice for Jessica, Kira, and Dan.

  “It’s not as if your friends were smothered with pillows. They were slaughtered. One of them was in a two-man tent with you, inches away from where you were sleeping. And you’re telling me you didn’t hear anything?”

  The room spun, and I gripped my desk chair, feeling nauseated even though I hadn’t eaten. The thought of Dan and how his head had rolled toward me stole my breath. I gasped for air, sinking onto the floor as my knees gave out. Mom came over to help but I wouldn’t let her touch me.

  “H— how do you – know about that?” I said between breaths. Except for my official statement, I hadn’t talked about what had happened or what I’d seen. Forcing it out of my mind was the only way I could cope.

  The lawyer offered his hand. I hated to take it, but it felt sillier to lay curled in a ball at his feet. He was surprisingly strong, hoisting me upright like I was a puppet on a string. “Clear Springs isn’t the Big City. People talk. And that’s why it’s so important we get them saying the right things.”

  I eased myself onto my bed, holding an arm across my stomach as if that would prevent me from throwing up. Closing my eyes, I leaned my head against the wall, hoping they would get the hint. “I’m not feeling well.” I waited for them to leave.

  “Before I go, I want to hear the truth.”

  I squinted at him. “The truth about what?” My mother inched toward the door. Clearly she wasn’t keen to hear this part of the conversation.

  “About what happened that night. If I’m going to represent you, I’ll need to know the truth, no matter what it is.”

  “That’s a big if. I’m still not sure I need a lawyer.” My stomach lurched, and I groaned. “And I don’t know what happened. When I we
nt to bed, everyone was alive and when I woke up, they were dead.”

  Darts of pain shot across my forehead, and I buried my head in the pillow. Why won’t this go away? All I wanted was for the universe to grant me one gigantic do-over. I’d listen to Jessica and drive away from that campsite as fast as I could. Maybe I’d even patch things up with her.

  Mr. Pompous leaned so close to me our noses almost touched. I could smell mint on his breath, but under that, something else – something unpleasant, something stale. My stomach growled a warning.

  “You don’t expect me to believe that bullshit, do you?” he asked so warmly you’d think he’d inquired about my health. “You must have heard something.”

  Didn’t he think I’d tortured myself enough over this? Jess and Kira had taken this ridiculous self-defense course together. They’d shown me their moves, which consisted of a few kicks, punches, and elbow strikes while screaming, “No! No! No!” Neither would have died quietly, and Dan was a farm boy who’d spent his summers working for his dad. I’d seen him toss around one-hundred-pound hay bales like they weighed nothing. Whoever had killed them had to have taken them by surprise. Unless our beer had been drugged.

  “Test our beer bottles.” I felt optimistic for the first time since I’d woken up yesterday. It had never occurred to me before, but it made perfect sense. “Maybe they were tampered with.”

  Mr. Pompous didn’t appear impressed with this new theory. “What, you think McGraw slipped you a roofie and then gave himself one for good measure?”

  I remembered Dan joking about Brokeback Mountain with me before he died, and my heart ached. I used to think that heart-hurting thing was a figure of speech, but I knew better now.

  Dan had been a good guy. Maybe we’d met through our girlfriends, but we easily could have been buddies, given time. Now that would never happen. I decided not to dignify Prosper’s insulting question with a response.

  “It’s worth a check, isn’t it?” my mother asked, and I heard the same hope in her voice that I’d felt when I’d thought of it. “It’s a possibility. It would explain why he didn’t hear anything.”

  “I’ll look into it. Where are the bottles now?”

  My cheeks flushed. “We threw them in the fire.”

  Prosper groaned. “Great. Well, I’ll see what I can do. How many did you drink?”

  “Just one each. The girls didn’t have any.” I considered telling him how pissed off they’d been with me, but decided against it.

  For a moment I thought he was leaving, but before I could sigh in relief, he turned to study me. His eyes were the color of a glacier and just as cold.

  “You’re absolutely certain you didn’t hear anything that night? No strange sounds, no scuffling, no one coming into the tent?”

  I was about to say no, when I remembered.

  In spite of the warmth of my room and the several layers of clothing I wore, I began to shake. My teeth chattered.

  “Reese, what is it?” My mom hurried to the bed. “What’s wrong?”

  Unable to speak for a moment, I stared at Prosper and nodded. “There was something. Didn’t think of it before.”

  The lawyer seemed oblivious to my reaction. “Yes? What was it?”

  “It was a voice. He said—” I paused for a second to think. What had he said? Stay away? No, not that. Go away? No, that wasn’t it….

  And then it came rushing back to me like I still stood in that campsite. “He said, ‘You’re not welcome here.’”

  My mother’s face paled, but the lawyer remained expressionless. “And you think it was Dan?”

  I shook my head and immediately regretted it. The room blurred in front of me. “No. No, it definitely wasn’t Dan. I don’t know who said it, because when I turned around, no one was there.”

  Tears spilled from her eyes onto her cheeks, and in that moment, I forgave her everything. She believed me.

  We both startled when Prosper began to laugh. He laughed so hard he had to hold on to my dresser for support. If I’d been stronger, I’d have given him a kick. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said once he’d recovered. “Don’t tell me you think anyone is going to buy the Bushy-haired Stranger defense.”

  “What are you talking about?” Through the pain in my head and my dizziness, I heard my voice from a far distance, as if I were speaking under water. Staggering to my feet, I made my way to the door. “I never said he had bushy hair. I don’t know what he looked like. I never saw him.”

  “It’s an expression. Whenever someone wants to cover up a crime, they claim a stranger did it. Often as not, it’s a bushy-haired stranger.”

  “I don’t want to cover up – oh God, wait a sec, I’m gonna—”

  The meeting with my new lawyer came to an abrupt end when I puked all over his Hugo Boss suit.

  Chapter Seven

  Groggy from lack of sleep, Maria blinked to bring the crime-scene photos back into focus, and then wished she hadn’t. They were every bit as horrific as she’d remembered. Wincing, she spread the photos across her desk until she found the ones of Dan McGraw. It said a lot that the decapitated camper’s pictures were the tamest of the bunch. Which might speak to the killer’s motive. The men obviously weren’t the focus of the attack. McGraw’s death, while brutal, was a walk in the park compared to what the women had suffered. And then there was Reese, who didn’t have a scratch on him.

  We have a woman hater on our hands. Great. So what else was new?

  “Detective?”

  James Archer loomed in the doorway. He was the last person she wanted to see. Cops tended to be smart-asses in general, but Archer unleashed his inappropriate humor at the most inopportune times. However, it was his cruel streak that really bothered her. She smiled weakly, hoping it looked more genuine than it felt. “What can I do for you?”

  “DCB’s here to see you.”

  She bristled. “I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”

  Crazyhorse was an Elder of the Strong Lake Band, and as such, he was entitled to respect. Unfortunately, he also had a drinking problem, which had earned him his nickname at the department. DCB, short for Drunk Crazy Bastard.

  Archer shrugged. “He’s insistent on seeing you. Says he can help you with your latest case. He’s made a bit of a scene. I’m surprised you haven’t heard the commotion.”

  She’d been so fixated on the case materials she hadn’t noticed a thing, but now that he mentioned it, she could hear the familiar voice.

  “Get your hands off me, you Nazis! I need to see Maria.” The last few words slurred so they were strung together. Maria wanted nothing more than to lock her door and pretend she wasn’t there, but Crazyhorse never stayed long. He just needed to talk to someone who’d listen. For whatever reason, she was usually that person.

  She sighed. “Okay, send him in.”

  Like a vulture spotting carrion, Archer detected her reluctance. “Do you want me to kick him out, Detective? Because it would be my pleasure.”

  I’m sure it would. The guys were careful to avoid using racial slurs around her, but their disgust was harder to hide. “We’re here to serve and protect every member of society, Archer. Not just the rich white folks.”

  “As you wish,” Archer said in an obsequious tone, but she didn’t miss the sneer that twisted his upper lip, turning him ugly. Sighing again, she wished she were a drinking woman. She settled for chewing gum, packing three pieces of Bubblemint into her mouth before Crazyhorse stumbled into her domain.

  “Good morning, Detective.”

  “Good morning, Crazyhorse.” Maria held his regular chair for him so it wouldn’t slide away as he more or less fell into it. “What can I do for you?”

  Wow. His breath was enough to stop a truck, and from the smell of it, he’d pissed himself as well. Instead of revulsion, she felt only sadness, sadness that a man who’d once
been a well-respected Elder had fallen so far.

  Still, it was best to breathe through her mouth while Crazyhorse was there.

  “It’s not about what you can do for me. I’ve come to do something for you. I’ve heard about the killings at Strong Lake, and I know who did it.”

  Used to his grand proclamations, she concentrated instead on the part of his statement that shocked her. “How did you hear?” The media hadn’t gotten wind of it yet, which was helped by the fact that the only ‘media’ of record in Clear Springs was a small, community newspaper. Once Minneapolis got their hands on the story, it would spread like oil. She’d steeled herself to deal with the reporters, but to say she wasn’t looking forward to it would be the understatement of the decade.

  The man leaned toward her, his long, black hair streaked with gray and wild around his face. “Maria Greyeyes, I’m surprised at you. You know it’s part of the Strong Lake community.”

  Of course. The campsite butted up against Crazyhorse’s reservation. In spite of her heritage, her knowledge of Native American territories was sorely lacking.

  “They are treaty lands, but you won’t find anyone from my community anywhere near there. It’s a bad place.”

  “Bad place? Why is that?” Her mind was already wandering. Once Crazyhorse got into the superstitions of their people, she tuned out. There was enough tangible evil in her world without chasing boogeymen.

  “Land’s tainted,” he said in his thick accent. Sometimes she suspected her colleagues were uncomfortable around him simply because they couldn’t understand him. They didn’t want to look foolish in front of someone they considered beneath them. “Always has been. Lots of sad things happened there, going back to the beginning.”

  “Really?” History was more tangible than the boogeyman. History was something she could use. If there had been more murders at the camp, maybe it was the work of a serial. Maybe someone from the Strong Lake Band resented the near-constant presence of drunken teens and twentysomethings. “I’ve never heard of anything.”