Chapter 21
Huck opened his door and dropped behind it, pulling his Glock from its thigh holster, his eyes locked on the mangled black truck. Its front end had folded inward, the grill twisted and cracked. Steam hissed from somewhere beneath the wreckage, mingling with the spring chill.
Laurel moved around the back of Huck’s rig, her weapon already drawn, her expression set. “That’s the truck that rammed into us the other day.”
Bullet holes dotted the hood, clean and vicious, a reminder of Laurel’s encounter. Holes had been punched through the metal like angry exclamation points.
Huck levered back and opened his rear door, reaching in to let Aeneas loose from his crate. The dog jumped out, heeling instantly.
Walter came around the front of the truck, his shoulders hunched.
Huck approached the black truck slowly, Aeneas trotting at his side with a low growl rumbling in his throat. The dog’s fur bristled, his ears pinned back.
The driver’s door hung half-open, the metal warped where it had slammed against the tree. Huck moved to it, his gun held firmly. He leaned in, breath steady despite the chill prickling his skin.
Blood.
Smears of it across the seat, bright and wet. Not just a trickle. Someone had lost a lot of blood. It soaked into the cracked leather and streaked across the steering wheel like the driver had tried to haul himself out but couldn’t manage it cleanly.
Huck glanced over the dash to see the keys still in the ignition. The engine had died with the impact. The air smelled of gasoline, blood, and cold metal.
There was no sign of a body. Just the red trail splashed along the console and pooling on the floor mat. Whoever had been driving was alive when they crawled out of the wreck. Alive and running.
“Laurel. Walter. No body.” Huck kept his voice low so it didn’t carry far. “Driver’s injured. Badly.”
Walter stepped closer, his gun trained on the truck’s cab as if expecting something to lunge out of the shadows. “You’re sure?”
“Enough blood here to knock someone out cold.” Huck gave a nod toward the mess. “But the door’s open and it’s smeared. He crawled out. Crawled or fell.”
Aeneas whined, nose to the ground. The dog sniffed furiously, his tail twitching in quick, anxious bursts.
“You’ve got something, boy?” Huck murmured, his tone low and encouraging. Aeneas barked once, short and urgent, then dipped his head back to the ground. “Let’s see where he went.” Huck moved to Aeneas’s side, his eyes following the dog’s trail.
Aeneas padded forward, his nose low, tail flicking as he wound through the wreckage. Blood drops spattered the ground, forming a thin but visible trail that led away from the truck and into the tree line.
“Blood trail,” Huck said over his shoulder. “Fresh. Headed north.”
The forest closed in quickly, the trees thick and dark, their branches heavy with moisture and dripping icy droplets.
Huck followed Aeneas at a careful pace, scanning the ground for prints or signs of passage.
Then he caught himself. They stood in the middle of the yew stand.
Signs of harvested timber lay to the right of him.
The trail went to the left. Had Ena placed cameras around here?
His breath quickened. He’d call her after he found the driver. He might actually have the guy on video.
The blood trail skipped and splattered, sometimes thick and clear, other times barely more than a hint of crimson against the earth. Whoever was running was hurt bad. And bleeding worse.
Aeneas let out a short, clipped bark. His nose pointed left, then right, before he bolted forward.
“Easy, boy.” Huck pushed through low-hanging branches, and sharp needles scratched at his arms and snagged his coat.
His boots dug into the mud, the ground soft from the fairly gentle rain.
He kept his senses tuned to the forest around them and the woman behind him.
A quick glance confirmed that Walter flanked Laurel from behind.
Good.
Huck spotted the occasional streak of red along the bark of a tree or splashed across mossy rocks.
The driver was stumbling, falling, slamming into things as he tried to escape.
“I just see one track. Nobody was chasing this guy.” He must’ve hit his head in the crash.
Why else would he stumble away from safety?
“Doesn’t make sense.” Walter’s voice cut in. “If he’s hurt that bad, he should’ve gone downhill. Away from the mountain.”
“He’s panicking.” Huck scanned the forest, eyes narrowing at a fresh smear of blood along a tree trunk.
“He’s not thinking straight. Or maybe he has a hiding place.
” In the yew stand? Huck let the dog guide him, his own instincts kicking in.
He spotted a half boot print pressed into the mud, the edges blurred by rain but still clear enough to make out. “Blood’s thinning out,” Huck murmured.
Aeneas darted left, then right, his paws making quick work of the uneven terrain. The dog’s tail lashed back and forth, his focus absolute.
Huck pressed on, gaze sweeping the forest as he moved. Pine needles crunched beneath his boots, and his breath fogged in the chill air.
Aeneas let out another bark, this one deeper, more urgent.
Huck’s pulse quickened. “We’re getting close,” he whispered.
“Remember, this guy is probably armed.” The dog surged forward, his paws tearing through the underbrush like he’d caught a stronger scent.
Huck kept pace, his legs working hard to keep from tangling in the twisted roots and low-hanging branches that clawed at him like skeletal hands.
Blood. The trail was getting thicker now. Darker.
“Easy, boy,” Huck murmured, though his own voice carried an edge of urgency he couldn’t quite suppress. His eyes swept the forest floor, catching the telltale spatter of red against the frost-laced ground.
Aeneas barked, his voice sharp and triumphant. Then he stopped so suddenly Huck almost tripped over him.
“What is it?” Huck moved around the dog, his own instincts prickling. He’d tracked too many bodies over the years not to recognize the weight of death in the air.
The man lay face down, his body half-splayed across the uneven ground, one arm twisted beneath him at a brutal angle.
Laurel stepped up to his side.
Walter swept the area with his gun.
Laurel took in the entire scene, her head moving while her body remained still. “This area has been recently logged.”
Huck nodded. “This is a yew stand. Nobody has the right to harvest here.” Was it just a coincidence this guy ended up in the yew stand?
Laurel crouched, head angled, looking at the body. “There’s an injury on his forehead, probably from hitting the tree.” She turned her head, looking up at Huck. “Why would he run away from the road and into the woods while injured?”
He reached for her arm and gently tugged her to stand. “Bad head injury?” He glanced to the side and stiffened at seeing a mound of dirt between two still-standing yew trees. “What the hell?”
Laurel followed his gaze. “That appears recent.”
“Agreed.” Huck strode over to the freshly covered mound with steady, deliberate steps, his eyes narrowing as he assessed the scene. The earth had been disturbed recently, the soil dark and loose, clinging to patches of grass like wet clumps of ash.
The edges of the mound were uneven, like the ground had been shoved and scraped rather than properly smoothed.
The pine needles scattered across the surface were too few and too deliberately placed to have fallen naturally.
They clung to the moist soil like someone had attempted to camouflage the disturbance but hadn’t cared enough to make it convincing.
“Looks like it was done in the last few days,” Huck muttered.
Laurel stayed several feet behind him, her eyes locked on the disturbed ground with a precision Huck recognized.
She was already processing, her mind making connections while his instincts continued to bellow that something was wrong.
“The truck is the same one that smashed into us the other day, and I know I hit the passenger.” She swallowed twice in an uncharacteristic show of emotion.
“You returned fire and protected your partner,” Huck said quietly.
“Agreed,” Walter said, holstering his weapon.
Had the driver buried his buddy right here? In the middle of the yew field? “I’m betting this isn’t very deep,” Huck murmured.
Aeneas whined, his gaze locked on the mound.
“It’s okay, boy.” Huck backed away from the mound. “We don’t have service this far up. Let’s head back to the truck and call this in. We need to secure the scene and have the crime techs head out here.”
“Tell ’em to bring shovels,” Walter said grimly.
The skies opened up to pummel them with rain.
A more fanciful woman would’ve thought the gods were angry at them.
Laurel, on the other hand, figured it was just springtime.
She had donned one of Huck’s Fish and Wildlife baseball caps to protect her face and had ditched the bulletproof vest to better tuck her jacket around herself.
She kept her arms folded against the creeping chill, her back straight as she watched the techs work.
The yew trees around her smelled like damp earth and not nearly as strong as pine.
The several techs tromping about had smashed the yew’s red berries all over the trail, and they gave off a slightly sweet smell.
Never before in her life had she even thought about the yew tree.
The body of the driver had already been secured in the back of a forensic response van after the techs had collected evidence around it.