AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Teddi pulled out the camera and got to work as Vera followed a safe distance behind, eyes scanning the ground. “This was harder to reach than the glade. Did they drag him down here, do you think?” Teddi wondered out loud as a series of clicks sounded.
Vera looked up to the left embankment and then the right. “No obvious drag marks or major disturbances in the foliage.” The image of someone shoving his body off the edge and watching it drop onto the ground made her bite her tongue.
“What about from the opening at the other end? The slope is gentler, they could’ve walked or carried him in.” The far end of the ravine was a soft decline that would be easy to enter and exit. The location was just far enough from any road that it would require someone with local knowledge to bring him here. He wasn’t well hidden but he wasn’t on display like the other men either.
“Entirely possible. We need to figure out how they’re incapacitating them. Whether it’s drugs or a weapon, it would help figure out how they're moving them so easily.” Vera could hear the clock ticking down on their remaining time. Her hands prickled, desperate to have a definitive answer.
Teddi made a wide circle around the ground where the scene had once been.
“You see anything yet?” Vera called as she took in the view. The trees reached high above them. The clouds were angrier today, heavy with rain they so far refused to release. The wind had died down making the cold bearable.
“I don’t even see a single piece of trash.” Another series of clicks. “What was it that Sam said about the tree?”
“She said it was some kind of mark.” Vera walked to the nearest tree. Its black bark was rough and its branches didn’t start until they reached over her head. “Nothing here.”
She tried the next. And another six before meeting the end of the area. Rubbing a gloved hand across the smoother surface of another, the latex caught on a jagged stub and ripped.
“Damn.” Kneeling, she pulled her backpack in front of her and found a new glove. She snapped it on over the ripped one when she saw it. On the opposite side of the dip, three thin trees were lined up side by side, each about a foot wide. It was the middle one that stood out. Four lines were cut into the face of it with exact precision.
“Over there,” Vera said as she rushed to it, heart beating wildly.
“She was telling the truth,” Teddi confirmed as she scrambled up the incline.
Vera wagered that Sam was honest from the start. But now she was sure. If she’d seen the symbol then she trusted she’d also seen someone, most likely Deputy Gunson, leaving the crime scene.
“What is it?” She took the camera from Teddi as she stepped aside. “You’re the one that studies religions and stuff for fun. Do you recognize it?”
She huffed a laugh, investigating it. “Religions and stuff. You mean random shit. That said, I don’t. The way they cross together could suggest an elemental symbol but it’s not quite right. It’s almost… ” she tilted her head. “It’s almost a fire symbol but this curve.” She pointed at it as confusion colored her voice. “It reminds me of a crown, maybe. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
A trickle of dread danced its way across her body as she stared at the carved marks. Someone did it intentionally. Maybe with a pocket knife or a similar sharp object.
“It’s brutal and eerie. They picked this tree in between the other two,” Teddi said as she took a photo with her cell.
“It looks fresh,” Vera murmured as she stared it down, racking her brain for any memory of something similar. Taking pictures from top to bottom of the tree, she circled it, searching for additional marks. “We can image search it when we get service back.” Pulling back to see it from a new angle, she froze. “Wait, wait, wait.” Unlocking her phone, she began scrolling through the images she took of the first crime scene.
Her heart kicked against her ribs as she swiped. Faster. Faster.
So many photos of the same black woods.
The glade. The rock. The blood.
She stopped on one focused on the tree line parallel to the rock. The same trees they hid behind when the deputies dragged Scott Reade’s body away.
“Holy hell.” Teddi saw it just as she did.
Zooming in on the ring of trees, each identical to the one on either side, it filled the screen.
“It’s the same.” There, marked on three different trunks were the same marks. Carved at the same height and size, they were mirror images.
“It’s a calling card.”
Three marks for three bodies. One mark for Alex.
Vera’s mouth went dry. “It’s been here this entire time and we missed it.”
“We didn’t just miss it, we never even looked for it.”
“It means he was the first kill. That we know of, at least.” Vera lifted her phone next to the tree to compare them. They were all the same razor-sharp lines. Clean pale slices in the thick skin of inky black.
