Mean Streak

“Inconvenienced? Try insulted.”

“Right.” Knight sighed. “And Grange and me have both told you we’re sorry. We say so again. Our apologies.” When Jeff didn’t respond, Knight went on. “Reason I called y’all this morning, reason I asked about your wife’s rest, I thought maybe something had been jostled loose during the night.”

“You make it sound like teeth

,” Jeff said.

Knight grinned with good humor. “I was thinking more along the lines of a memory that had slipped her mind yesterday. Thought something might’ve worked itself free overnight.”

Under the circumstances, the detective’s perception was extraordinary. She glanced nervously at Jeff before coming back to Knight. “The deputies who were going to retrace my route, have they discovered something?”

“Not yet. That map of yours ever turn up?”

“You have maps of the park,” she countered. “Probably much more detailed than mine, which I printed off the Internet. How could it possibly help?”

“Well, so we’ll be sure you didn’t take a detour or make a wrong turn. Because—here’s what’s so darn bedevilin’—nobody can pinpoint the spot of your mishap, whatever it was. Any idea how far you’d gone before it occurred?”

“I estimate that I’d been running for about an hour. I never reached my turnaround.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Yes.”

They looked doubtful, but she couldn’t tell if it was over her not reaching her turnaround or her inability to remember if she had. She shifted in the chair, which had probably been designed for discomfort. “Believe me, I want to know what happened up there as much as you do.”

Knight exchanged a look with Grange before coming back to her. “You’re sure you don’t have anything to add to what you told us yesterday?”

She would rather not bring up her sunglasses until after she learned what they had to share, the matter too sensitive to discuss over the phone.

“Nothing? Aw-right then.” Turning to his partner, Knight asked, “Is it ready?”

Grange pushed himself away from the wall. “All set.” A laptop sitting on the table had been turned away from her. Grange pivoted it until the monitor was facing her.

Jeff, who also had a vantage point to see the screen, said, “What the hell is this? Home movies?”

Knight said, “Kinda like that.”

“This was brought to our attention this morning.” Grange tapped the play icon in the center of the screen, and the video began.

The picture quality wasn’t good, it was dark and grainy, but Emory recognized the room instantly. Her stomach dropped. Behind her eardrums, her blood surged like water from a breaking dam.

She watched as she walked into the frame, her back to the camera. When she turned, a beam of light shone directly into her face. She raised a hand to shade her eyes. “Lower that, please. It’s blinding me.”

She remembered him moving the flashlight a few degrees to the right, but she was still visible to the camera as she took in her surroundings. “This is his office. There won’t be anything in here. We need to find an examination room, a storage closet where he keeps supplies and meds.”

“Lead the way, Doc.”

She walked out of frame. The room went black, and so did the computer screen. Then a menu materialized, giving the viewer the options to replay, pause, or exit.

Grange paused it and returned to his place against the wall.

Emory sat as though petrified. She could feel Jeff’s incredulous gaze. After a few ponderous seconds, he stood up and moved to stand behind her chair, gently placing his hands on her shoulders.

“Emory, who was that? What was that?”

Through her sweater, his hands felt damp. Or, more likely, it was her body that had broken a sweat from sheer mortification.

Knight placed his hands on the table. She noticed that a rubber band was wrapped tightly around two of his fingers. He was plucking at it, making light snapping noises.