The naked edge

39

Where? Jamie mentally yelled, not daring to speak and make herself a target. Where are they?

Rutherford moved next to her, aiming to the right while she aimed to the left. They continued slowly, warily, into the fog. As much as she could estimate in the darkness, the screams had come from straight ahead. With her attention focused there, the ground beneath her suddenly collapsed. She fell, sliding downward, tumbling into water. Rutherford splashed next to her, sprawling, the creek flowing over them.

They scrambled upright, but any element of surprise was now lost, and Jamie's stomach seemed filled with sharp heavy stones as she peered over the top of the opposite bank. More darkness and fog awaited them. She aimed to the left, listening intensely for any indication of where Cavanaugh might be. But what caught her attention wasn't a sound.

It was a glow so faint that it might have been marsh light. Climbing from the creek, aiming, she crept toward the pale illumination, Rutherford moving next to her.

They reached trees. The glow was stronger. On the ground. Among bushes. A flashlight. When Jamie picked it up, she did what Cavanaugh had taught her to do, keeping it away from her center of mass so that a bullet aimed toward the light wouldn't hit her chest.

She scanned the trees and bushes. Rutherford pointed, crimson attracting her attention: blood on a stake tied to a branch. Her mouth sour, she aimed the flashlight toward the ground, seeing more blood. Following it, they left the trees. The blood went in two directions. Some of it formed a trail on the left, where the flashlight revealed a dead Labrador retriever, a knife sticking into it.

"What the hell happened here?" Jamie murmured.

"Hell," Rutherford said. "Exactly."

The blood trail on the right led to a picnic table, and here Jamie found an astonishing amount of blood, a spray of it everywhere. The sharp stones in her stomach now felt like cold barbed wire twisting inside her. Rutherford pointed again. The blood led toward the creek. They peered down at the water, where the blood was no longer in sight.