And Then She Was Gone(46)
Jack’s lip curled as he looked at the murky water. Lily pads and weeds choked the surface. The handle of an abandoned shopping cart rose out of the water ten feet from the shore.
“If she did come this way, she must have turned back around,” Jack said.
“I think it had to be a fisherman who made this path,” Chandler said. “It ends right at the bank.”
A swarm of gnats discovered Jack and clustered around his face. Jack waved them away. “Who would fish in this water?”
Somewhere back the way they’d come, a tree branch snapped. Jack spun around and peered into the woods, and Chandler jumped.
“Stacy?” Jack called out.
The brush and trees moved in the slight breeze. A squirrel darted along a branch and disappeared into the leaves. But something felt wrong. The hairs on the back of Jack’s neck rose.
Chandler started to move, but Jack held up his hand, signaling him to stop.
“What?” Chandler asked.
“Apart from that snapping branch, did you hear something else?”
“Are you trying to freak me out? You don’t need to. I didn’t hear anything besides me wetting my pants.”
Jack couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them. He looked around, but saw no one.
“I think it was just the—look!” Chandler pointed.
Jack looked toward the rusted bike frame. Just beyond it, a green trash bag lay open on the ground, with something sticking out. Jack couldn’t see what it was in the fading light. Then the wind blew the plastic, and it fluttered closed.
Jack walked toward it. Chandler followed just behind him, matching each step.
When they reached the bag, Jack grabbed a fallen branch and crouched down. The stick felt wet but not rotted. He stuck the branch in the opening of the bag. Slowly he lifted the plastic to see what lay underneath.
A worn brown boot stuck partway out.
“It’s just a boot.” Jack exhaled and stood back up. “Let’s go check that other path. It’s getting dark.”
They had both started back the way they’d come when Chandler suddenly stopped and held his arm against Jack’s chest.
“Don’t tell me you found the other boot?” Jack said.
Chandler didn’t reply. His fingers grabbed the front of Jack’s shirt and tightened around the fabric.
Jack followed Chandler’s gaze to a short, twisted holly tree. Its leaves were dark green and glossy. As a slight breeze blew down the hill, the strings of a hanging spider web reflected the light.
Except the web wasn’t gray or white. It was golden.
Coils of dread tightened around Jack’s chest. His breath stalled.
It wasn’t a spider’s web. It was a clump of golden blond hair tangled on the branch.
“Is that hair?” Chandler asked.
Jack looked back up the hill. From this angle, it was easy to see the destruction that someone had made creating the path. It followed a straight line from the broken branches, past the holly tree with the hair, and to the pond.
Jack turned back toward the pond. Chandler followed.
The sun poked out from the evening clouds, bringing out the greens in the lily pads. The light danced on the water, but now that Jack was looking for it, he saw that one spot, only a few feet from the muddy bank, sparkled slightly differently from the rest.
Cold sweat ran down Jack’s back, pinning his shirt to his skin. His throat tightened. He forced a labored breath between clenched teeth, then picked up a fallen branch and moved over to the water’s edge.
“What do you see?” Chandler asked.
Jack heard the question, but his focus was on the water. He squatted down and stretched out his arm with the branch. Slowly, he pushed away a couple of lily pads.
Just under the surface lay Stacy Shaw.
“Damn.”
14
My Own Lying Eyes
Jack sat alone at a cold metal table in the police department interrogation room. They had split up Jack and Chandler after driving them to the police station, and now Jack stared at the empty chair across from him blankly.
The stench of the bog had seeped into his clothes. He couldn’t get the odor out of his nostrils no matter how many times he blew his nose. Even his skin felt different—cold. The empty pit in his stomach had continued to grow, and he felt hollow.
The door to the room swung wide, and Detective Clark stuck his head in. “You okay, Jack?”
Jack wanted to lie and say yes. He knew horrible crime scenes were part of the job of being a policeman. But when he looked up at the old detective, he didn’t say anything. He just cocked his head slightly to the left, his right shoulder rising with it.
“Appalling, isn’t it—death?”
“Yeah.”
“How about something from the soda machine?” Clark gestured for Jack to follow him. “Some sugar will help with the shock.”