She looked around again. Maybe there was a fallen branch that she could use like a crutch. Or something within reach that she could wrap around the injured ankle.
She looked everywhere—except at the body lying a couple of feet away from her.
? ? ?
Burke pulled onto the left-hand shoulder a few yards in front of the brown car and the police car parked behind it. The officer leaning against the side of the patrol car wore captain’s bars and had a look Burke recognized—tough, experienced, and with enough knowledge of what was, no doubt, watching them from the woods to appreciate the danger they were all in at this moment.
“Mr. Wolfgard . . .” Burke didn’t bother to say more, because Simon was already scrambling to get out of the car, shifting his front paws enough to have fingers that could pull at the door handle and snarling in frustration when the door wouldn’t open.
Burke released the door locks. The moment Simon was outside and no longer interested in them, Burke said quietly to O’Sullivan, “Do what you can to keep Monty up here on the road.” Then he pushed out of the car, glancing back at the Lakeside patrol car.
Kowalski didn’t bother to pull over to the shoulder of the road. With two Wolves going nuts in the backseat, he just stopped the car, jumped out, and opened a door for them.
Nathan and Blair rushed to join Simon, who was busily sniffing around the brown car. While the local police captain watched, not daring to move closer or move back, they got the doors opened and their large bodies stretched across the seats. They sniffed everything, trying to find the scent they were looking for.
Simon clawed at the trunk, leaving scratches in the paint until Kowalski hurried over and opened the trunk. Suddenly all three Wolves were pushing their heads and shoulders into the trunk, sniffing and sniffing before they left the car and spread out across the road.
And not one of them even looked toward what lay in the center of a square made of yellow crime scene tape and tall garden stakes.
Burke raised a hand and strode toward the other captain. As he came past the brown car, he saw another police officer searching the grass between the tape and the trees.
“Captain Miller?”
The officer nodded. “Are you Burke?”
Burke nodded in turn, then looked at the two objects that had been placed on a pile of shredded clothing.
“Jimmy?” Montgomery’s voice.
“Lieutenant!” Kowalski shouted.
Burke didn’t hesitate. He body blocked Monty, pushing him back while Kowalski and O’Sullivan grabbed Monty’s arms.
“Jimmy!”
Hearing the anguish in Monty’s voice, Burke felt pity for the man. Monty must have considered the possibility that they wouldn’t find Cyrus alive, but nothing could have prepared him to see this.
“Monty, I’ll handle this,” Burke said. “Wait by the car. Do you hear me, Lieutenant?”
A blank-eyed moment. Then Monty took a deep breath and said, “Yes, sir.”
Burke glanced at O’Sullivan, who nodded and said, “Come on, Monty.”
He watched Kowalski, who was watching the Wolves and frowning. Then he turned to Captain Miller.
“Your lieutenant knew this man?” Miller asked.
“His brother.”
Miller paled. “Gods above and below. I’m sorry he had to see this.”
“So am I.” He walked into the grass until he stood beside the crime scene tape and could get a good look at what the unseen residents of the wild country had left behind.
He’d seen this a couple of times before when he’d been posted to human villages in the wild country, but in those cases, enough of the bodies had been left behind for the medical examiner to do an autopsy and run some tests. When the results came in, he remembered seeing tough, experienced cops vomit when they learned one particular detail about the Others’ form of justice.
And he remembered what human action had triggered this degree of savagery.
“What’s your procedure when this happens?” he asked Miller.
“We don’t have one,” Miller replied. “Out here, we either find the person alive or we don’t find them at all. Unless the person was killed by another human. We’ve had body dumps along this road over the years. Domestic disputes that turned fatal most of the time. When that happened, we usually found the woman—and the car. We rarely found the man. Not even this much.”
“This wasn’t domestic,” Burke said, confirming whatever Miller had heard about the manhunt. “This was a kidnapping.” As he pointed to one object lying on the shredded clothes, he choked on the rising fear that they might be too late. “The silver folding razor belonged to the young woman.”
“Is she one of those girls?”
He nodded.
Miller looked toward the road and the Wolves who had returned to the brown car, sniffing and searching before they headed down the road in the opposite direction.
“Friend of theirs?” Miller asked.
Burke nodded again.
“We didn’t find anything to indicate there was another person out here.” Too much knowledge in Miller’s eyes. “This is a few miles west of where the truck driver called in the position where he’d seen a young woman and this car. She may have been lucky enough to get away from her kidnapper, but it takes more than luck to get away from them.”
He knew that. Meg Corbyn had a better chance of surviving in the wild country than anyone he’d ever met—if she wasn’t having a psychotic episode because of the cuts Cyrus Montgomery made.
“Did anyone search the area where the truck driver saw her?” Burke asked.
“Don’t know. That’s just beyond my jurisdiction. I called the captain who handles that part of the road. He could have searchers out there now . . .”
“Or he could still be waiting for permission to send men into the wild country.” Not always an easy thing to receive—and never a guarantee of safety for the humans going in. He understood a leader’s caution. He also knew he would have gone in without permission, taking with him whatever help was offered.
He spotted Kowalski slowly walking toward them and turned to Miller. “Can you get me the exact position?”
The truck driver who called it in had included the number on the closest milepost. He would be able to start his own search close enough to Meg’s last known position for the Wolves to pick up her scent.
“Didn’t you . . . ?” Miller noticed Kowalski and nodded understanding. “Will do.” He walked away.
Kowalski came up beside Burke and stared at the second object that had been placed on the shredded clothes: Cyrus Montgomery’s lower jaw.