The Body in the Woods (16 page)

Ruby felt like she had when she realized Alexis was trying to keep her distance. If she liked somebody, she knew she tended to latch on like a crab and not let go. But when they both first joined SAR, Alexis had made Ruby feel not so lonely. They had sat together at every class, slept side by side every training weekend. Ruby was convinced she had found someone who would be her friend forever. Someone who could help her mix with normal people. Alexis had encouraged Ruby to tell stories, had merged her gracefully into other people's conversations. Around Alexis, Ruby was no longer the weird girl hiding in the back of the room. Instead, Ruby had begun to turn into the part she was playing: Best Friend.

But then Alexis had begun to pull away, and Ruby had no idea why.

“We could follow him,” Ruby managed to say evenly. “Get his license plate number or his address. Once we know that, we can go online. There's websites you can go to that will give you all kinds of information for twenty-five or thirty bucks. Once we have a name and an address and maybe some criminal history on him, then I think Detective Harriman will listen to us.”

“I don't know…” Alexis's voice trailed off. But at least she didn't rule out the idea altogether.

“We should go there this afternoon and scope it out,” Nick said. “Then we'll know where to hide on Monday night.”

“I can't,” Alexis said. “There's something I have to do.” She didn't elaborate. Ruby wondered if she was lying, then told herself that wasn't what was important here. Not anymore.

“Then Nick and I will go,” Ruby said decisively. “We have to do something. Because if the cops are wrong, then right now this guy is out looking for his next victim.”

CHAPTER 30

SUNDAY

ONLY AIR

The phone woke Alexis. She snatched it up from where she had plugged it in next to her bed.

“Mom?” She had said the same thing yesterday afternoon, only it had turned out to be Mitchell telling her about the callout.

“Alexis?” a guy said. Not Mitchell.

And then it clicked. Bran. Alexis put her free hand on her chest and willed her heart to slow. “Yeah, it's me.”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Don't worry. I had to get up anyway because the phone was ringing.”

Bran groaned. “Pretty lame joke. You sound like my grandfather.”

“It's the best I can do after getting”—Alexis looked at the clock—“four hours of sleep. SAR pulled a lost hiker out of the Gorge last night, and we didn't get back until this morning.”

Alexis hadn't given much thought to what it would actually be like. How it would feel to locate someone who was lost. To save somebody.

But this morning a crying George Hines had hugged her in the parking lot, even though she hadn't even been on the team that found him. As he wetly mumbled thanks into her ear, it had hit her that SAR really saved lives. It wasn't like it had been on the training weekends, endless tramping around, pretending to find someone who was lost. Walking and walking and walking, trudging past one tree that pretty much looked the same as the next. No, this had been the real thing. If Search and Rescue hadn't been there, it was possible George Hines would have died.

Finding Miranda's body had been awful. Looking for evidence that would lead to her killer had been both tedious and a terrible reminder of the reality of her death.

But last night Alexis and the others had been a team, trained and ready to save. When she had felt the wet press of George's cheek against her own, she had realized it was all worth it: the boredom and the cold and all the math you had to use to figure out exactly where you were. They had saved a man's life.

Now Bran said, “Really? Way to go! I love trauma intervention, and what we do is really important, but we're always just going to be picking up the pieces.” He took a breath. “Anyway, I wanted to check in and see how you were doing. To see if you were sleeping any better than you were the other night. Only it turns out that by calling you, I've actually caused the problem I was worried about.”

“It
is
a bit ironic,” Alexis agreed teasingly. She sat up, even though every bit of her longed to stretch out again, pull the covers over her head to block out the daylight, and fall back asleep.

He echoed her thoughts. “I should let you get back to sleep.”

“No. I need to get up.” As she spoke, Alexis heaved herself to her feet. “There's things I've got to do today.” Not her homework, although some buried part of her knew she really did need to tackle it. But the most important thing was finding her mom.

“Then can I buy you a cup of coffee to help you wake up? And to make up for the sleep I made you miss?”

She never should have texted him. It was better to keep people at arm's length. Alexis opened her mouth to say no.

“That would be great.”

 

 

When she walked into Perk Up, Bran was already there. Mara leaned over the counter and said in a low voice, “Have you found your mom yet, honey?”

Alexis froze. Had Bran heard? But he had his back to them, seemingly engrossed by the pastry case.

“No. Not yet.” She gave Mara a strained smile and hoped that the other woman got that she didn't want to talk about it.

Mara made them both sixteen-ounce lattes in tall clear glasses. Alexis's was topped with a heart made of foam, Bran's with a leaf. And after some discussion with both Alexis and Mara, Bran also got a cranberry-walnut scone and a croissant filled with chocolate. As soon as they sat down, he split both of them and slid her halves over on a napkin. Alexis noticed he gave her the largest of each.

She took a deep breath. “So did you call me because of TIP? Is this something you're supposed to do?”

He looked down at his coffee. “It's not exactly in the manual, no.” His eyes flicked back up to her. “So why did that lady ask about your mom?”

It was like nearing the bottom of a dark staircase and not knowing if there was one more step. If Alexis put her foot out, would she meet firm ground or only air?

“If I tell you something, do you have to report it to anyone?”

Bran held her gaze with his stormy gray eyes. “If it's about hurting yourself or someone else, then yes. Other than that, no.”

“It's not anything like that,” Alexis said. For a distracted moment, she wondered just how hairy TIP got. “It's my mom. I don't know where she is.”

“What do you mean? Do you think something happened to her?”

“I don't know. But I'm worried it might have.”

“Do you think someone hurt her?” His brows drew together. “Or that she's been in an accident?”

“I don't know enough to know.” Her sigh was so deep and long it felt like it came from the soles of her feet. “I guess anything's possible.”

“Where's the last place you know she was for sure?”

“Our apartment. We were arguing Wednesday night, and she ran out.” In her memory, she heard the sound of the slamming door. “Only she never came back.”

“Have you called her cell phone?”

“She left it behind.” Alexis remembered the horror she had felt when she called it and heard it ringing underneath the coffee table.

“How about her friends or people she works with? Have they heard from her?”

Alexis hesitated and then said in a rush, “To be honest, she doesn't have those either. She hasn't worked in a long time.”

“Do you have any guess as to where she might be?”

“I don't know. Downtown, maybe? See, my mom is, um, sort of”—she forced herself to say it—“mentally ill.” It felt painful but good, like throwing up after suffering for hours from a queasy stomach. “She's on meds, but they don't work that well, and she doesn't like the way they make her feel. So sometimes she stops taking them.”

His expression didn't change. “What kind of mentally ill?”

“I've never really been told, but I think she's bipolar. All I know is that when she's off her meds, she's either nonstop or she's not moving. Like she would always read to me at night when I was little. That's normal, right? You read until the kid gets sleepy and then you're done. Only that's not how it worked with my mom when she wasn't taking her meds. I'd be closing my eyes, and she'd be poking me and telling me I had to look at the pictures, asking me to sound out the words. She'd be pouting because I kept falling asleep. And there can be days when she doesn't seem to sleep at all.”

“That sounds scary.” Bran lightly touched her wrist, then set his hand next to hers on the table.

Alexis nodded. “But my mom can be so fun sometimes. I remember when I was little, sometimes she would spend all day with me making sugar cookies and icing them. She didn't care if we made a mess or if we ate cookies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And she used to take me to the store and let me buy as many stickers and as much Play-Doh as I wanted.” Raising her glass, she rested her cheek against the warmth.

“That part doesn't sound so bad.”

“Right before she took off, she was convinced the people on TV were talking about her. And she thought I was one of them or something.” Alexis's voice broke. “That's why she left.”

But her mom didn't have anyplace to go except the streets. What if Ruby was right and a serial killer was targeting homeless women? Because right now, that might be just what her mother was.

“Are you afraid of what might have happened to her?” Bran asked.

Alexis nodded. And then she burst into tears.

CHAPTER 31

SUNDAY

THE CRUEL CURVE

Ruby watched Nick turn in a circle in the small clearing in Forest Park. “It was right here that we saw the runner,” he insisted, pointing at an open spot between the trees. “I'm sure of it.” The park was a patchwork of western hemlock, western red cedar, grand fir, Doug fir, maples, and alders. The biggest firs were fire-scarred, perhaps a couple of hundred years old.

Ruby didn't put much energy into arguing with Nick. She knew he was wrong. “No it wasn't. Where we met him was farther back. There were two Doug firs growing right next to each other, with an alder in front of them.” She had also noted the time they had met the runner: 5:16
P.M.
While she didn't expect that they would see him at three thirty on a Sunday afternoon, right now they were laying the groundwork so that, with a little luck, they could spot him Tuesday, exactly one week after Miranda had been murdered.

Their plan was to come here the day after tomorrow after school, hide themselves away in the brush, and wait for him to appear. Once he did, the chase would be on. When he left the park, they might be able to follow the runner in her car, or if they were lucky and he lived nearby, straight to his house.

They walked farther up the trail. The mud sucked at the soles of their boots, but Ruby's ears were tuned to the trills and calls of the birds. She picked out the song of a black-headed grosbeak. From the top of a hemlock, a chickadee let out a three-note song.

They were almost on top of the older man before they saw him. Ruby put her hand out to stop Nick from blundering forward. He was standing absolutely still, an expensive-looking camera pointing at the top of the tallest tree. As Ruby watched, the camera lens silently lengthened. She followed the angle with her eyes until she spotted his target. A magnificent Cooper's hawk with slate-grey wings and a pale breast and belly. The shutter clicked rapidly, then the bird lifted its wings and flapped off. The man let the camera thump against his chest, next to a pair of binoculars.

He caught sight of them and smiled. “We meet again,” he said. “Hopefully under happier circumstances.”

“I remember you,” Ruby said. “We talked about bird-watching.”

“That's right. I'm Caleb Becker.” They all shook hands.

“I'm Ruby McClure, and this is Nick Walker. We were both part of the search and rescue group looking for that missing man.”

Becker pressed his lips together and shook his head. “The police told me your group found someone, but it wasn't the person you were looking for. Some poor dead girl.”

“We're actually the ones who found her,” Nick said.

“I'm so sorry.” He shook his head. “That must have been awful.”

Ruby barely heard him. All her attention was on his camera. “You had that camera with you that day, didn't you?”

His forehead wrinkled. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact, I did.”

Excitement bubbled in her chest. “Did you take pictures that showed any of the people who were here?” Detective Harriman had said the police hadn't been able to locate the runner with the dogs or the homeless man from that day on the trail. Photos of them might make a difference.

“Sorry. The police already asked me that, but I'm afraid the answer was no. I don't take snapshots. I'm only interested in these beautiful creatures.” He waved one hand at the treetops.

“Oh.” Ruby's excitement deflated as quickly as it had expanded.

He cocked his head. “Besides, I read that the police have already arrested someone for the murder.”

“We talked to him,” Nick said. “I was as close to him as I am to you. He was super nervous. Now we know why.”

“I'm glad I didn't run into him. The only things I want to see in these woods are the birds.” He smiled at Ruby. “You've probably noticed how alive the woods are today.”

“I've spotted a raven and a chickadee,” she said. “What have you seen?”

“It's been a good day.” He ticked the answers off on his fingers. “Chickadees, woodpeckers, scrub jay, Steller's jay, the dark-eyed junco, the spotted towhee, and one of my favorites, the golden-crowned kinglet.”

“Golden-crowned kinglet?” Nick repeated with a laugh.

“Fat little fellows with a yellow streak on the tops of their heads.” Becker ran his fingers along the top of his own thick white hair. “Beautiful plumage. Very striking.”