The Naturalist (The Naturalist #1)(74)

The forest forms a peninsula as the trail switchbacks in an oxbow.

If whatever or whoever is stalking us is in the cluster of trees ahead of me, there’s only a narrow band of woods for them to go through to leave.

I weigh trying to be stealthy against the direct approach and decide to just run full speed into the trees and pray I’m not about to smack into a mountain lion.

A quarter of the way into the woods, a branch breaks somewhere in the distance. Birds squawk and several thrushes take to the air, flapping wildly.

Ten yards ahead of me, a branch swings upward. I’m not sure if I’ve just seen a shadow pass by or if it’s the sway of a tree.

Suddenly fearful of having left Jillian, I run to the edge of the peninsula and see her making her way around the turn.

She stares up at me and raises her eyebrows, silently questioning me. I shrug.

As I start to turn back, I notice a patch of dry ground just under a low overhang of branches.

There’s a clear footprint of a boot. I touch it to measure the moisture. It’s recent. Not even an hour old.

I take my phone out to grab a photo. When I place a dollar bill next to it for size comparison, I realize how large the shoe that left it is. It’s at least a size fourteen or fifteen. The depression indicates that whoever filled it is quite heavy.

“Well?” asks Jillian after I skid down the hill to join her.

“I saw a big boot print. Probably a hunter.”

“Hunter? There’s no hunting here.”

“Right. Maybe a hiker. I know I sometimes try to avoid people.”

“Yeah . . . I’ve noticed. Sure it wasn’t our stalker?”

“This person was tall and heavy. Not exactly ninja material.”

She seems satisfied with my answer and continues on.

As I think about it, I realize something: a few minutes ago I was analyzing how quickly she ignored her own instincts, and here I am telling her that there’s nothing to worry about because the print I found doesn’t match my expectation.

I survey the ridge ahead of us and feel my stomach tighten back up.





CHAPTER SIXTY


SCENERY

The sun is setting against a blood-red sky by the time we make it back to my Explorer. Jillian and I climb inside and exchange glances, expressing our relief at making it down before it got dark.

“So what happens now?” she asks as we pull onto the highway.

“You mean about the body? I send an anonymous e-mail to the police with the photo and the location.”

“Do you think that’s going to fool anyone?”

“No. I’ve just had too many frustrating experiences with the law enforcement around here.” My side still hurts from the beating Gunther gave me.

“So what are you going to do next?”

“Find more bodies, I guess. There’s not a lot I can do. They have a lot of forensic tools they can use. Maybe if they get the FBI involved. At some point they’re going to have to give up on their stupid wild animal theory.”

“More bodies,” she says, looking out the window at the darkening sky. There’s only one other car on the road, and it’s a quarter mile behind us.

“Actually, I want to see if I can find older victims.”

“Like the ones here?”

“Yes. And maybe other places. The problem is he’s too clever now. He knows how to avoid the police. His kills are free of his DNA, as far as I can tell. The metal fragment in the rib cage? I doubt he’d let that happen now. He’s evolved his methods with modern forensics.”

“But his older murders . . .”

“He might not have been so clever. The hot spring probably wiped away any trace of him, so it was smart in that regard, but it didn’t hide the fact that there was a killer out there. Now he’s invisible. Maybe there are more clues to be found looking into his past.”

“So you’re going to look up old murders?”

“Missing-persons reports. Odd knife attacks. Anything else that might fit over the last few decades.”

I realize I missed my exit and do a U-turn.

“I wonder what he’s like? Would we recognize him if we met him?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. I don’t think so. He’s intelligent and probably not socially awkward.”

Jillian watches the clouds in the fading light. “Where does somebody like that come from?”

“Two percent of the population is sociopathic. They just don’t feel the way you or I do about others. If you come in contact with fifty people in a day, one of them is a sociopath.”

“But not a murderer.”

“No. Yet if they had a magic button they could press that would kill someone and they’d gain from it, risk-free, they wouldn’t hesitate.”

“Would you know if you’re a sociopath?”

“I read a lot about it when I was a teenager.”

“Self-diagnosing?”

“Perhaps a little. From what I can tell, if you’re intelligent, you’d probably suspect it. If you weren’t, you’d just assume that’s how everybody else felt.”

“And what did young Dr. Cray deduce about himself?”

“Socially inept. Terminally.”

There’s a flash of light in my rearview mirror. I don’t think much of it at first, then realize that we’ve been on a straight road with no other turnoffs for miles.