Page 13 of Silent Bones

Callie Thorne leaned against a tree, sipping from a travel mug. She gave Noah a tired nod. “Welcome to the circus.”

McKenzie was crouched near the firepit, flipping a twig between his fingers. “Just in time for the matinee.”

Jake Richmond stood near the treeline, jotting notes into a small green notepad, pausing now and then to scan the underbrush. The three of them looked like they’d been there for hours, wrung-out but still alert.

Noah ducked under the tape.

“You’ll see the photos don’t do it justice,” Callie murmured, echoing Savannah. She glanced toward the tent. “You have to see it to believe it.”

He moved slowly through the site, taking it in piece by piece. Two bodies were still visible inside the largest tent, their shapes contorted, sleeping bags shredded, blood spatter everywhere. The nylon walls bore long, jagged slashes.

Another body lay sprawled beside the cold firepit, arms splayed unnaturally, dried blood pooled in the dirt around his ribs.

The fourth floated several feet out in the lake, face-down, caught in the tangles of underwater weeds. A breeze came off the water, stirring the long hair trailing behind her like river grass.

Noah squatted near the edge of the tent, scanning for drag marks or blood trails. The splatter patterns didn’t align with a frenzied attack. If it had been an animal, it would’ve been wild, chaotic. This felt deliberate.

He crossed to the firepit and crouched beside McKenzie.

“Initial thoughts?” Noah asked.

McKenzie scratched his chin with the twig. “Looks like hell,” he said. “But hell usually makes more sense.”

Noah’s eyes shifted toward the trees. “Any tracks?”

“Too many,” Jake said from behind them. “Ground’s already a mess. Hikers, campers, gawkers, half the forest has attempted to come through here since it happened.”

“Armchair detectives,” McKenzie muttered. “We had two with thermal cameras and matching shirts approach from the water. Dumb-ass campers hiking in after seeing police boats on the water, treating it like a roadside attraction.”

Noah stood and approached one of the trees near the tent. Jagged gashes ran up the trunk, wide and deep.

“A bear is what is being asserted,” Jake offered.

Noah ran his fingers over the bark. The spacing was too uniform. Clean. Tool-like? Certainly not random enough for an animal. About seven feet up, just high enough to suggest something massive or someone faking something massive.

He caught a flash of black clinging to the bark and plucked it gently with tweezers from his pocket. A coarse tuft of fur. He bagged it.

“We’ll get that to the lab,” he muttered, more to himself than the others.

Callie stepped up beside him and nodded toward the treeline. “There’s something else. Bent branches, twisted brush. You’ll want to see it.”

He followed her a few yards beyond the taped boundary. The air shifted, cooler in the shade. She pointed to a series of snapped twigs and depressed undergrowth forming a faint path leading deeper into the woods.

“An animal trail?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Maybe. But it’s cleaner than most. Consistent. Like someone walked it multiple times.”

Noah stepped onto the trail, studying the way moss had been kicked up and branches broken at shoulder height. It didn’t look natural, not the way deer trails formed in meandering arcs.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Have you followed it?”

“For a short distance.”

“Let’s keep going.”

Callie nodded. “I’ll be right behind.”

Together, they moved deeper into the underbrush, following the trail as it snaked west away from the camp, the blood, and the lake.