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Vera gripped the phone harder.

They needed to go to Alex’s crime scene. They needed to talk to Maller and Grennan’s widows as well. After she dealt with whatever the Sheriff had in store for them in the morning.

So Sheriff Malis was onto whoever the anonymous source was. She wondered if he already found out which of them it was.

The bubble appeared again. Disappeared.

The crackle of the police scanner made her forget to ask the cost.

Chapter 16

Teddi

“Sheriff, we’ve got another one,” a broken voice pulled Teddi from sleep. Another click of static came across the radio. She rolled over, fumbling for it in the dark.

“What?” A tired voice followed over the line.

“Sheriff, it’s Deputy Gunson.”

“What d’you want, Dan? It’s four a.m.” She flipped on the nightstand lamp, finding Vera already awake with her phone in hand. “Davie found a body while out wandering around piss drunk."

“Fuck. Same place?” Sheriff Malis was moving now, the rustling of clothes behind his voice.

“Yes, Sir. Same place. I’ve sent him home now but you better come see.”

“Alright, I’m coming. Don’t let anyone else in or around the trailhead, goddammit.”

“Yes, Sir.” The line went silent.

Teddi lept out of bed, diving for a pair of pants and a warm top.

“The glade?” Vera asked as she rushed for her clothes.

“Has to be.”

“Alright, we need to go in quiet. Malis already doesn’t want us here, he sure as hell won’t want us at the crime scene either.”

Teddi agreed as she stuck her cold feet into wool socks. Hurrying, they piled on layers of clothing.

“Sam texted me, she claims she saw something else near Alex,” Vera said with contained excitement as she bent to lace up her boots.

“What?”

Vera snatched up the keys off the nightstand as she grabbed her backpack. “A mark on a tree nearby. It could be nothing but we need to check it out as soon as possible.”

Teddi followed, her jacket still unzipped as she slid a cowl over her head. “OK, we’ll go.”

Within two minutes they were loaded up and headed back to the glade they'd been at just hours before. The squeak of the wiper blades was the only sound as Vera drove through a mist. Sunrise was a few hours away, giving them a limited view of their surroundings.

“There are lights up ahead,” she warned as they stopped at the turn-off to the trailhead. Vera had flipped the headlights off half a mile ago but the sheriff vehicles were easy to make out.

“Let’s go back a bit and hike in.” They did just that, parking on an abandoned road further back and grabbing only what they needed. They hurried into the forest, perpendicular to the trailhead where lights cut through the dark.

The moon was an all-seeing eye, blinking above the thick treetops as they crept forward. Avoiding visible twigs and sliding over wide fallen logs. Teddi could make out the glow of three large lights in the glade. The LED beams of the crime scene lights lit the space up like it was mid-afternoon.

They were right in their earlier assessment. No one could pull a vehicle up into the open space with the woods being so dense.

Nestling themselves between a massive pine tree and a chokecherry, they watched two men step into the illuminated circle.