Chapter 6 #2
“As long as you do the heavy lifting,” she agreed, and that was all the encouragement he needed.
He effortlessly shifted her onto his back and slipped through the water as if he’d been born below the waves.
They sped through screaming kids and splashing teens, but they barely made it a few feet past the swimming families when he froze.
“What’s wrong?” Bel asked.
“Shhh.” He pulled her off his back and swam a few yards deeper into the lake.
“What did you hear?” she asked when he returned seconds later. “Or did you smell something?”
“Heard,” he confirmed as he dragged her toward the shoreline. “Someone is screaming.”
“Everyone here is screaming.” Bel gestured to the hordes of people loudly celebrating the Fourth of July.
“Not that kind of screaming. Someone’s in trouble, but I can’t see them, which means they’re out deep.”
“Pain or fear?” Bel asked as they scrambled out of the water.
“Both.” Eamon scanned the families until his eyes landed on a group of young men backing their jet skis into the lake.
Bel cursed. She didn’t need any further explanation. “Gentlemen, my name is Detective Isobel Emerson with the Bajka Police,” she interrupted the men before they could launch. “I need to borrow one of your skis for an emergency.”
“Yeah, right, lady,” an especially cocky college-aged kid spat. “Nice try, but what emergency could possibly require a cop to—” he froze when he saw Eamon glaring at him over Bel’s head. “Um… sure. Just don’t crash it. It’s my dad’s.”
“It’ll be returned to you in the same condition, and if not, I’ll buy you a new one,” Eamon promised as he took over the launch, not bothering to conceal his strength as he lowered the ski into the water, and he barely waited for Bel to settle behind him before pushing the vehicle to full speed.
“Dear God,” she whispered into his ear, clinging to his soaked chest as the whipping wind tugged at her body. “Please not today. Don’t take a life today.”
“She’s still screaming,” Eamon shouted over the engine’s roar. “She’s alive… but I can’t hear whether she’s alone or not.”
“Where is her voice coming from?”
Eamon gestured to the eastern edge of the lake, and Bel cursed.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“The southeastern sector is restricted. No swimming or boating allowed.”
“Why?”
“The rocks,” Bel explained. “The park has multiple posted signs as well as pamphlets given to visitors with a map of the water. The submerged rocks in that section are unusually tall and sharp. They would rip apart any boat that tried to maneuver them, and swimmers have died out there.”
It was Eamon’s turn to curse. “Her voice is definitely coming from that direction, and she sounds young. I wonder if teenagers took a boat out to hide their drinking and hit the rocks.”
Bel’s body flushed cold despite the July sun beating relentlessly against her back. Two months ago, another teenage girl had ventured close to this lake to hide her drinking from her parents, only to disappear as if she’d never existed. Was it happening again?
“Do you see a boat?”
“No…” Eamon paused. “But that curve in the shoreline is blocking my view.”
“You should slow down.” Bel’s fingers dug into his abdomen, her limbs tired from fighting the speed trying to force her into the water. “I don’t know exactly where the rocks are, but if we hit one…”
“I can see well enough. We’re okay… there.” He pointed to a dot resting ahead of them. “Unless there were two boats, it hasn’t sunk.”
“Oh, thank god. Your screamer probably got hot and jumped in to cool down.”
“You think she hit a rock when she dove in?”
“It’s why there are no swimming signs posted all over.”
“And the no boating warning on those buoys,” Eamon said. “I ignored the pamphlets when we arrived this morning, but these are obvious. Anyone who risks venturing this far out is hiding something.”
“I hope it’s just alcohol.”
“I don’t smell blood.” Eamon inhaled the wind rushing past their faces. “Well, not enough to warrant someone bleeding out, but death by water isn’t often bloody.”
“We can’t have a dead kid, not on a holiday. Teenage deaths are always rough, but they’re worse on days like today. Days that we’re supposed to be happy.”
“Don’t kill anyone before we know what happened.” Eamon squeezed her leg, and as if his touch switched on her hearing, Bel finally noticed the screams.
“There’s distress in her voice. Let’s hope it’s just a boating accident, and that we made it in time.”
Eamon grunted his agreement, the couple falling silent until he guided the jet ski alongside the small boat, but before he could shove Bel on board, a muscular college student lunged over the side to greet them.
“Oh, thank God. Laura needs help.”
“Pull me up.” Bel reached for the teen’s hands, and he helped Eamon hoist her onto the deck.
“My name is Detective Isobel Emerson,” she introduced herself, hoping the presence of a police officer would offer these manic students a sense of security, but the boat’s occupants recoiled as if she carried the plague with her.
“I don’t care about the beer,” she assured them as they tried yet failed to position themselves in front of the overflowing drinks coolers.
“I’m not on duty, but it doesn’t change the fact that this section of the lake is restricted.
Did you really risk sinking your boat for cans of cheap beer? ”
“We didn’t want to get caught,” the muscular student protested.
“It doesn’t matter now.” Bel dismissed him with a wave. She wanted to scream at him, to warn him what happened to underage kids when they snuck away from their families for a few hours of reckless fun, but she bit her tongue. “You said someone needed help?”
“Yeah, Laura.” The kid shoved his friends aside and ushered Bel and Eamon to a college student reclining in a puddle of blood.
“Oh my god.” Bel dove for the girl. “What happened?”
“The boat got stuck,” the muscular teen said. “We’d been partying out here for a while, but when we tried to leave, we realized we were trapped. We jumped in to see if we could shove free, but then Laura started screaming. All that blood. We can’t help—”
“Eamon,” Bel cut the boy off, her shock at what lay wrapped around the victim’s ankle almost knocking her to her tailbone.
“Get it off,” Laura begged, tearing at the wire choking her calf until a fresh ooze of blood spilled onto the deck. “Get it off me!”
“Laura, stop.” Bel seized the girl’s hands, forcing them away from the horror digging into her flesh. “You’re going to cause serious damage.”
“Get it off me!” Laura shoved Bel, their fingers slipping in blood.
“Stop.” Eamon caught the teen, his strength immobilizing her as his free hand pulled Bel to safety. “Did she cut you?”
“No, I’m fine,” she answered. “It’s her blood, not mine.”
“Get it off me!” Laura struggled to escape Eamon’s control, but the giant man tugged her closer so he could peel the wire from her leg.
“Hold still,” he demanded, ripping the metal apart as if it were seaweed, and when the last of the tangled cables broke free from the girl’s calf, he tossed the wire to the boat deck along with the very human skeletal arm trapped inside it.
“Grab me that towel,” Bel ordered the muscular teen, doing her best to avoid the human remains mocking her from the boat’s deck. “Now!” she shouted when the traumatized student just stood there with a gaping mouth.
“Yeah… um…” the kid scrambled for the folded towel. “Here.” He launched it at Bel’s head, but she caught it before it slapped her in the face.
“Chicken wire,” Bel whispered to Eamon as she wrapped the fluffy fabric around the girl’s leg to slow the bleeding.
“Is that significant?” he asked.
“Combined with human remains? Yes…. Laura, sweetie, do me a favor and hold this towel around your calf.” Bel waited for the kid to follow her instructions before she gripped Eamon with bloody fingers and dragged him to the far corner of the boat.
“It’s a trick used to dispose of bodies,” she spoke impossibly low so that only his enhanced hearing could understand her.
“When disposing of a body in water, chicken wire is used to keep it from floating to the surface when the decay causes it to bloat. The wire weighs it down, but it also cuts into the flesh as it rots, releasing the gases and keeping it submerged. It also keeps limbs from breaking off and washing ashore to be discovered, while leaving it open enough for fish and other animals to consume the flesh. The body stays submerged until there’s nothing left but bones.
A useful way to make sure no one ever finds the victim. ”
“Those bones?” Eamon’s black eyes shifted to all that remained of a human arm stretching from elbow to fingertips. “Are we looking at murder?”
“Not necessarily, but it does suggest foul play,” she whispered. “A body doesn’t end up wrapped in chicken wire and sunk in the only part of the lake where no one’s allowed to boat or swim by accident.”
“So even if this wasn’t murder, someone didn’t want this found,” Eamon said.
“If not for these dumb kids getting stuck, these bones would’ve stayed down…” Bel’s voice froze in her throat.
“What?”
“The woods.” She pointed directly across the expansive water to the endless stretch of familiar green trees. “Recognize them? That’s the last place Ariella Triton was seen alive.”