The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(59)

“I’m not sure what you’re talking—”

“Whatever. One of Chelsea’s boyfriends come for you? Somebody get antsy when you told them you found the body?”

“What are you saying?”

“I told you that this place is a festering wound. You’ve had your ass kicked twice just for asking questions. What happens when you get closer?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s the problem, Theo. You only see what you’re paying attention to. You’re likely to trail bear tracks all the way back to the bear. Then what?”

“I’ll just have to be careful.”

“You’ve been piss-poor at that. You want my advice? You go flirt with Jillian. Take her to dinner tomorrow and a movie. You give her a deep kiss if she can bear to look at your swollen mug, remind her that she’s an attractive woman, then you head back to school and go be a professor on Monday morning. Maybe one day you write up how you found Chelsea’s body. End of story.”

“I can’t let it go,” I shoot back. “First Juniper. Now Chelsea. Who else is out there? What kind of man would I be if I just left?”

“A living man.”

“I’ve been passive for too long.”

“If you stay, the professor has to go.”

“What does that even mean?”

Gus points his finger directly at my face. “You’re a fucking victim. A slow-motion accident waiting to happen. To be honest, I don’t doubt that you are capable of finding this killer. That’s what scares me. I’m afraid you’re going to go off hunting down some clue and that’s the last we ever hear of you. If you’re right about what or who did this, then there won’t be a body. There won’t be a crime scene. You’ll just be a statistic.” He nods toward Jillian’s direction. “And every night she and I will be sitting here looking out this window thinking about what happened to you, knowing that you’re dead in some shallow grave in the middle of nowhere.”

“You said if I stay, the professor has to go. What does that mean?”

“This is no place for an academic. If you decide to stick around, you need to think like a hunter. You’re no longer an observer.”

“And how do I do this?”

“I’ll give you my shotgun, for starters. You also need to start carrying a pistol. We’ll do some target practice to make sure you don’t kill yourself. And I’ll wake you up tomorrow morning and spar with you a bit. I’m rusty, but I think I can teach a broken mess like you how to do a better job of blocking a punch than you’ve been doing.”

“I appreciate that.”

Gus shakes his head. “It won’t be enough, though. The only way to stop being a victim is to think like a killer. And I don’t think you have that in you.”





CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN


BAYESIAN CASUALTIES

Five days later the sun is dipping into the valley to the west, carving long shadows out of the fading orange light as I stick my shovel into the ground and start on my fifth hole, telling myself that I’ll call it a day after this.

Two years ago a missing-persons report was filed for a nineteen-year-old girl named Summer Osbourne. She lived in the town of Silver Rock, three miles down the road from Hudson Creek. My program singled this area out as a high probability for the killer.

While Summer didn’t appear to have fallen as far down the social ladder as Chelsea, her disappearance is all the more suspicious because of that.

I went out of my way to see if Chelsea was just a fluke or if MAAT is really on to something. Deep down, I know it’s not a fluke, but the scientist in me tells me to check my own hypothesis.

When MAAT put a big red flag here, I decided to check up and see if there were any missing-persons reports that fit the profile. There were six in the last ten years. Summer was the most recent.

My other reason is that Chelsea’s case isn’t going anywhere. There’s a complete lack of urgency. They’ve issued a preliminary report of a possible mountain lion or bear attack and sent her body to Bozeman for more analysis.

I’m done being the crazy guy showing up in police stations with a wild story about a killer who makes his crimes look like animal attacks.

My goal is just to gather as much evidence as I can. Right now, that means finding another body.

I take a break from the shoveling and look at the woods around me. I’m only two hundred feet from the highway, but it feels like I’m a thousand miles away.

Gus’s shotgun is sitting in my duffel bag within reach, and I have his pistol tucked into my waistband. It didn’t take much convincing to get me to carry them.

For my own sake, I used up a box of ammo making certain I still knew how to handle a gun. While I’m sure I’ll be able to point the pistol away from me, I’m not too sure if I’ll be quick enough or psychologically prepared to use it if I have to. But some protection is better than nothing. My usual can of bear spray probably won’t be enough if I meet the killer out here.

Of course, the odds of me randomly running into him in the woods are astronomical. Randomly . . .

I scrape away another layer of dirt and reveal a dirty piece of purple fabric.

Everything drains from my body. There’s no thrill of being right. It’s just an overwhelming sense of dread.