"Yes," I say. "I get that. But--"
"Did you get any of this growing up? Camping? Hiking? Cottage?"
"Some."
"To me 'wilderness' was that stuff between cities. The stuff I saw out a car window. Well, except for this summer camp when I was eleven and my dad was still trying to pretend things were normal. The girls in my cabin complained nonstop. The heat. The bugs. The dirt. Ick, ick, and more ick. I didn't even bother forming my own opinion. Just latched onto theirs, as I always did."
"Understandable, under the circumstances."
"Which doesn't stop me from looking back and thinking, God, I was a twit. And in this case, I missed out on what could have been an amazing experience. But I got a second chance when I came here. The forest became my place to escape. My wild paradise. But when we were coming back here from the mountain, all I could think was get me out of here. Out of the forest. Whatever peace I found there, he took it from me. I want it back."
"I completely get that, and I agree, but it's only been a few days."
"Take it slower?" She shakes her head. "The longer I wait, the harder it'll be to go in there again."
"Okay, but ... as much as I agree with the impulse in theory? He's still out there."
"Which means if you take me, you might be able to catch him."
"By using you as bait? No, I wouldn't--"
"Yes, suggesting that it might lure in my captor is an excuse. It's not like he's lurking beyond the town line. If he is, and you're there to shoot him? Great. Otherwise, I'd just like to tag along while you walk that puppy of yours. Let me face the forest, and then I'll get back in here and shut up." She smiles. "At least for a while."
TWENTY-NINE
I'm in the clinic helping Anders put Robyn Salas back on the examining table. We're storing the bodies in the crypt, which is not unlike the iceboxes in our homes--a cold-storage area under the floor, dug down to permafrost.
Body disposal is one of the more complicated problems facing Rockton. We can't send those who've allegedly disappeared home. We can't cremate them without the power needed to run an incinerator. Nor can we practice a more natural method--like placing the body on a platform--when we can't risk anyone discovering it. And the permafrost rules out a mass burial. Instead, not unlike serial killers, we must scatter our dead in shallow graves, spaced out and well hidden. That can't happen until the ground thaws, though. Until then, we have full access for posthumous examinations.
We've already checked Victoria Locke and confirmed that she has a C-section scar. Combine that with the story about a son left with his father, and it seems almost certain Nicole's captor was talking about Victoria.
We unwrap Robyn. She's the one I postulate was stored elsewhere before being put in that cave, which means her body started decomposing and then dried.
"I keep thinking she looks like something out of a horror movie," Anders says. "Which feels disrespectful. I'm kind of glad I never knew her."
"That's the advantage to being a city cop," I say. "When I watched autopsies of strangers, I had to remind myself they weren't movie props. At that point, though, it's easier not to connect the body to a person."
"But it isn't a person," he says, as we unwind Robyn's wrappings. "That's how I got through it, in the war. I'd remind myself that whatever makes up a human being--spirit, consciousness, mind--was gone, and I was just dealing with the parts they left behind. Which, oddly, doesn't really help when that 'part' is a half your buddy's head landing on you after an IED goes off."
His lips twist wryly, but it's not gallows humor. He's never talked about the war before, beyond what he did at the end, the shooting that brought him here.
"I don't know how you'd deal with that," I say honestly.
"Neither did I, which was the problem. A complete and total lack of ability to deal with pointless death. You're out there, and you're told it's for the greater good, and all the guys around you seem to believe it. So when you don't share their faith, you feel as if you're missing something. Being myopic. Unable to see the bigger picture."
He rubs his face on his shoulder as he keeps unwrapping. "Shit, don't know where that came from."
"Maybe having been to war and then seeing bodies that remind you of it?"
A quick smile. "You think so? Yeah. Okay, refocusing in five seconds."
"I'd tell you to take all the time you need, but you don't want that. I'd also tell you I'd like to hear more, anytime, but you already know that. So I'll rescue you from this awkward moment by instead saying I don't see a tattoo."
"Agreed. On all counts. Including the apparent lack of a tattoo. However, that doesn't rule one out. It just means she doesn't have a garish, multicolored one, which really doesn't work on certain skin tones."
He flexes his arm, where he has a US Army tattoo on one bulging biceps. It's black ink against his dark skin. I take a closer look at Robyn's lower back. Her skin tone is between mine and Anders's. A dark tattoo would also explain why Nicole's captor missed it for so long, given the dim light.
Decomp and desiccation have left this part of her body wrinkled and warped. Before I can even glance over my shoulder, Anders hands me the penlight from the tray.