7. Chloe
Chloe
Stone called to tell me that while he’d been hiking back from his favorite fishing spot at Hussey Ridge, he’d spotted a rotting deer carcass in the field. So naturally, I’m on my way to pick it up.
It’s not often you find yourself with a friend who sees a dead animal, and the first thing they think of is you—and in a thoughtful way, and not an I-wish-she-were-the-dead-animal kind of way.
Stone offered to bring it back for me, seeing as how he’s got a truck and probably the ability to lift it on his own, but I like to meet my animals where they’re at.
See the environments they came from. The other animals in the area they shared their lives with.
I just like to be there with them in the space they died in, so I can imagine what they went through and bring them back to life in more than just a beautiful way, but a realistic way as well.
Although, I probably should have at least asked Stone to stick around to help me lift it into the back of my Bug. I’m all about getting my hands dirty, but straddling a dead, rotting deer is just not something I have any interest in doing.
As my mother always used to say, pain is beauty. So I will accept the pain of getting deer guts on my crotch to have the chance at bringing this precious buck to peace.
Of course, taking my Bug to pick up such a large animal is not a logical nor practical option either, and I normally wouldn’t, but Stone warned against taking the Suburban out so close to the last time it was used to transport what’s-his-dick. So here we are.
Hussey Ridge is east of Devil’s Peak, so I take a left out of my neighborhood onto the highway that’ll eventually take me through the middle of town and out the other side.
When I’m stopped at a red light close to the edge of town, I glance down the side streets and see none other than Detective Colin Mills himself headed for his car in the parking lot behind the police department.
Many thoughts run through my head at the same time.
First, I’m in love with this man, so if I see him walking around the streets of Devil’s Peak, I just cannot stop myself from heading in his direction.
Second, while I have temporarily paused my other extracurricular activities to lie low for a bit so I can focus on my mother’s appeal, I’d also like Colin to get to know the real me.
And what better way to do that than inviting him on this trip to collect a rotting animal carcass and transport it back to my basement?
And third, I can imagine I really will need help getting the deer into my car, so it’s like killing two birds with one stone.
Of course, I’d never actually do that. But you know. Theoretically.
I swerve my car in a ninety-degree angle, cutting across the turn lane and narrowly missing a minivan that was headed through their green light.
“Sorry!” I shout through the closed window as he lays on his horn and slams on his brakes to let me pass. The ruckus means Colin is already looking in my direction when I squeal to a stop at the curb outside the gated parking lot of the department.
I roll my window down and lean over the console to get a better look across the lot. “Hey! Are you busy right now?”
His stare is somehow both entirely void of emotion and full of surprise as he stands frozen in the parking lot, looking in my direction. “Am I busy right now?” he shouts back through the metal rungs of the gate.
“Yeah, I sort of need a favor.” He looks tired, and dumbfounded, and like maybe he thinks he’s dreaming as he starts in my direction with renewed determination, straightening his posture.
When he makes it over to my car, he leans his forearm against the window, his gaze glittering with curiosity as it skates across my outfit.
Coveralls are my go-to whether I’m hunting for an animal carcass or luring a loser to his death, and because I don’t want animal blood and guts in my beautiful, blonde hair, it’s tied up in a tight bun at the crown of my head.
“What’s the favor, Stark?” he finally asks.
“I’m going hunting. I’ll need help lifting the body.” I smile wide and wink at him, being intentionally crude with my words because I know he’s got a hard-on for proving I’m a criminal.
Besides, I’m not being dishonest, just a bit vague and misleading. All in the name of love.
He stares at me with a blank look on his face. “You realize I have handcuffs, right?”
“That’s awfully presumptuous of you, detective. Would you get in? We’re losing daylight.” I angle my head toward the setting sun before clicking the unlock button on my door.
He hesitates, trying to find an answer in my eyes to a question he hasn’t asked. Seemingly against his better judgment, and because his curiosity won’t let him walk away, he leans off the car and pulls the door open, landing in my passenger’s seat with a huff.
I peel off the curb and flip a bitch, heading back to the main drag that’ll lead us to the outskirts of town and to Hussey Ridge.
“How long is this going to take?” he asks, his grip loosening on the oh shit handle after we’ve made it to the highway and I’ve eased my foot off the gas pedal.
“You got somewhere to be?”
“Just in the safety of my own home, far away from you.”
I snort a laugh. “Which is why you always happen to end up wherever I am, right?” I glance over at him and note his tense jaw. “It’ll be a few hours if you’re willing to stick around and see the process from start to finish.”
“The process,” he parrots, staring at the side of my face.
“Well, I should probably gut him while he’s still in the field. He’ll be a bit easier to lift then. Back at the house I need to skin him, and then basically just set him in a barrel of warm water for a few days until the rest of his tissue falls off. Ever heard of maceration?”
Colin’s eyes are wide, his mouth fallen open in disbelief. “You’re joking, right?”
I laugh, leaning over to pat his thigh. “It’ll all make sense when we get there, babe.”
He shakes his head, facing forward again as the tree line closes in on us and the road begins to curve out of town limits.
“So, where were you?” I ask.
“On a case.”
“You’re always on a case, detective. I meant for the past year. Where were you?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his head turn in my direction, the pause before his answer stretching between us.
He’s hesitant to trust me, because he doesn’t really know me.
But I want him to know me; the real me, the things that drive my desire to do what I do.
I can only hope that eventually, he will.
“I was with my mother,” he says flatly, his eyes trained out the windshield again.
“Oh. In…”
“Sunset Peak.”
“Why?”
He looks over at me, expressionless. “None of your business, Stark.”
I shrug, letting it go. I’m willing to put in work to win my prize.
I ease my foot off the gas pedal and onto the brake as our turn comes into view, and I don’t miss the way Colin glances at the mile marker as we turn off the highway.
Stone’s favorite fishing spots are mostly unmarked roads not maintained by any public entity, and as we make our way down the nameless street, the pavement ends.
Colin and I rock back and forth in the Bug on the dirt road littered with potholes, and he grabs the handle above his window again, his body stiff as the sun continues setting at our backs.
“I also have a gun,” he says abruptly.
I can’t help but roll my eyes. “Jesus, Colin. I’m not going to kill you.”
“You’re driving us to bum-fuck-nowhere to apparently transport a body, Stark.” His words come out shaky as we traverse the uneven road.
I glance at him and the way his knuckles are squeezed so tight around the handle that they’re turning white, and decide to cut him a break. “It’s a fucking deer body, you lunatic.”
The crease between his brows deepens, and he continues arguing. “We’re transporting a dead deer back to your house for you to skin and stuff in a barrel of water for weeks? And I’m the lunatic?”
“It’s art.”
I slow the Bug to a stop at the dead-end dirt road, climbing out of my car and circling the back to grab my tools.
“Let’s go, detective. This deer ain’t gonna gut itself.” I swing my backpack over my shoulder, stomping in the direction of the field.
“I’m not exactly dressed for this, Stark,” Colin complains behind me, swatting at mosquitos.
“You’re the one who agreed to come.” I stop to look back at him, waiting for him to quit bitching and catch up to me. “That’s not your favorite outfit, is it?”
“And if it is?” He falls into step beside me and I shrug, eyeing his standard white button up rolled to his elbows and his black slacks.
“I’ll buy you a new one.”
After a few minutes of walking quietly through the knee-high grass, the soft babble of a small creek running nearby, Colin clears his throat, wrapping his hand around my bicep and stopping our movement. “Do you want to know where I was today?”
I tilt my head as I stare at him. He obviously wants to tell me, so I appease him, even though I already know because Maeve told me. “Where?”
“Pulling Richard Soffett out of Devil’s Landing.”
I keep my face carefully blank, which I’m not entirely sure is the right thing to do.
Maybe I should wince or tear up, or something, but I just can’t bring myself to for the local leader of the small trafficking ring Stella discovered.
“Sounds rough.” I turn and continue through the field as Colin skips to keep up.
“He had four kids. Six grandkids. He was a teacher at the high school.” Which is why his participation in such horrific crimes was all that more horrendous, and why I felt no remorse watching him tumble off that cliff.
He’d only stopped to help me because he thought I was injured, and probably thought that as far away from civilization as we were, I’d be easy prey.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?”
“What do you want me to say, Colin?” I huff, continuing forward.
“A normal person would be horrified that someone’s dad—someone’s grandpa—washed up on a family’s camping site while they were having lunch. A normal person would say ‘that’s disgusting’ or ‘oh my God, what a tragedy.’”
“What a tragedy,” I deadpan, glancing in either direction in search of some antlers poking up out of the grass. Colin grabs my arm again, forcing my attention back to him.
“You don’t think it’s a tragedy.” His eyes search mine, wondering how I could be so cold in the face of what he’s telling me.
I feel for the family that had to see that, I really do. I never want anybody to be negatively impacted by the things I do. They’ll be traumatized for life, and that’s my fault. I need to be more careful next time.
I so badly want to tell him what I think is the real tragedy.
That Richard Soffett stood in front of a class full of kids every day, and he was a murderer.
He spent his summers scouring the streets of big cities in search of women who’d lost themselves to drugs and sex, simply as a means of survival.
He stole children who came from broken homes and he knew wouldn’t be missed.
He forced them into every form of slavery you can imagine, where they either died, or…
actually, eventually all of them died according to our research.
I so badly want to tell him that those women and children never knew safety. That they never knew the feeling of going to sleep in a warm, comfy bed without a threat in sight. That’s the tragedy.
But he hasn’t figured that out for himself yet, and it wouldn’t make any sense if I were to know all of that before him. So instead, I say, “Do you know what I always wonder when people die, Colin?”
He tilts his head in question, eyes fuming at my apparent lack of heart, but also aflame with curiosity.
“I wonder why.”
“Wh—”
“There it is.” I take off in the direction of the buck surrounded by a misshapen circle of grass. I crouch next to his bloated body as the flies buzz around his open wounds.
I’ve never collected a deer before, but I’ve seen plenty of other dead, rotting animals. This one has to have been dead for a week or more, at least.
Colin arrives beside me, using the inside of his elbow to cover his nose and mouth as he stares down at us. “There is no way in hell I’m touching that or riding in the car with it back to town.”
I ignore him, rising to stand next to him and survey the area.
It’s especially beautiful under the dusky sun, the whole field painted in a faint yellow color, the sky reminiscent of a watercolor painting of orange and purple.
Birds nesting in nearby bushes are chirping up a storm, telling each other about all the places they visited today.
There’s a woodpecker near the top of a tall pine nearby, doing what he does best. I close my eyes to hear it all better, and the creek comes back into focus, along with the soft pounding of another critter’s feet off in the distance.
I open my eyes to the jackrabbit across the field, staring back at me in alert.
I wondered briefly if Colin would ruin the moment by bending over and heaving his lunch onto the ground, but when I glance over at him, he’s studying the area with me, taking in the colors and sounds that make up this buck’s final resting place.
“Isn’t it beautiful?”
He turns to me, looking surprised that I’m here. Like he’d been just as lost as I was taking everything in. His focus remains on my face for an extended second.
“Yeah.”
I smile at him before returning to my crouch near the deer.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just take his head?” Colin asks above me.
I nod at the deer, thinking that’s probably the smartest thing to do.
And then I whip my machete out and make a bloody mess.