Her voice bobbled as the road became rougher.
“Last year my assistant did,” he reminded her. “This year it’s me. What did you do last year?”
“Went to visit my mother in the nursing home. I told you she has Alzheimer’s.”
“Yeah. That’s sad.”
“Pointless to visit. She doesn’t even recognize my voice on the phone anymore. Regardless, I don’t think she feels lonely.”
“Why’s that?”
“She spends a lot of time talking to friends and relatives who died back when. Her own little party.”
“I hope it comforts her.”
“Me, too.” Swinging a hard left, she turned onto a narrower leg of road that led directly to a dirt and gravel parking lot of sorts. It was where the campers left their vehicles before hiking in.
“You ever been to this campground?” she asked as she set the brake and switched off the ignition.
“Not on purpose,” he admitted. “I may have. Scrappy and I sometimes wander a bit when we’re out for a day-off ride.”
“Everything has to be lugged in,” she replied, as if that would explain all he needed to know.
It actually did. Rustic was the popular word for it. “They have a phone, though?”
“Yeah, a direct line to me. The state splurged. I would guess lawyers had something to do with that.”
He gave a short laugh. “Wouldn’t surprise me.”
Even though Blaire was clearly experienced at getting the side-by-side off the back of her truck, he helped. It was heavy, it needed to roll down a ramp, and it might decide to just keep going.
Once it was safely parked, he helped reload the ramp and close the tailgate. Then there was loading the first-aid supplies and guns. She knew where everything went, so he took directions.
With a pause as he saw the roll of crime scene tape and box of latex gloves. And shoe covers. God. A couple of flashlights that would turn night into day. He hoped they didn’t need any of it. Not any of it.
At least the state hadn’t stinted on the side-by-side. It had a roof for rainy weather, and a roll bar he could easily grab for stability. There were four-point harnesses as well, no guarantee against every danger but far better than being flung from the vehicle.
These side-by-side UTVs weren’t as stable as three-wheelers, either. It might be necessary for her job, but if he were out for joyriding, he’d vastly prefer a standard ATV.
She drove but tempered urgency with decent caution. The headlights were good enough, but this classified more as a migratory path than a road. Even knowing a ranger might have to get out here in an emergency, no one had wanted to make this campground easily accessible by vehicle. There were lots of places like that in his part of the forest. Places where he needed to drag teams on foot when someone got injured.
Soon, however, he saw the occasional glint of light through the trees. A lot of very-awake campers, he imagined. Frightened by the gunshot. He hoped they weren’t frightened by more.
The forest thinned out almost abruptly as they reached the campground. He could make out scattered tents, well separated in the trees. Impossible in the dark to tell how many there might be.
But a group of people, all of whom looked as if they’d dragged on jeans, shirts and boots in a hurry, huddled together, a couple of the women hugging themselves.
Blaire brought the ATV to a halt, parked it and jumped off. He followed more slowly, not wanting to reduce her authority in any way. She was the boss here. He was just a visitor. And he wasn’t so stupid that he hadn’t noticed how people tended to turn to the man who was present first.
He waited by the vehicle as Blaire covered the twenty or so feet to the huddle. Soon excited voices reached him, all of them talking at the same time about the single gunshot that had torn the silence of the night. From the gestures, he guessed they were pointing to where they thought the shot came from, and, of course, there were at least as many directions as people.
They’d been in tents, though, and that would muffle the sound. Plus there were enough rocks around her to cause confusing echoes.
But then one man silenced them all.
“Mark Jasper didn’t come out of his tent. His kid was crying just a few minutes ago, but then he quieted.”
He saw Blaire grow absolutely still. “His kid?”
“He brought his four-year-old with him. I guess the shot may have scared him. But... Why didn’t Mark come out?”
Good question, thought Gus. Excellent question.
“Maybe he didn’t want to take a chance and expose his boy. They might have gone back to sleep,” said one of the women. Her voice trembled. She didn’t believe that, Gus realized.
Blaire turned slowly toward the tent that the man had pointed out. She didn’t want to look. He didn’t, either. But as she took her first step toward the shelter, he stepped over and joined her. To hell with jurisdiction. His gorge was rising. A kid had been in that tent? No dad joining the others? By now this Jasper guy could have heard enough of the voices to know it was safe.
He glanced at Blaire and saw that her face had set into lines of stone. She knew, too. When they reached the door of the tent, she stopped and pointed. Leaning over, he saw it, too. The tent was unzipped by about six or seven inches.
“Gloves,” he said immediately.
“Yes.”
Protect the evidence. The opening might have been left by this Jasper guy, or it might have been created by someone else. Either way...
He brought her a pair of latex gloves, then snapped his own set on. Their eyes met, and hers reflected the trepidation he was feeling.
Then he heard a sound from behind him and swung around. The guy who had announced that Jasper hadn’t come out had followed them. “Back up, sir.” His tone was one of command, honed by years of military practice.
“Now,” Blaire added, the same steely note in her voice. “You might be trampling evidence.”
The guy’s eyes widened and he started to back up.
Now Blaire turned her head. “Carefully,” she said sharply. “Don’t scuff. You might bury something.”
The view of the guy raising his legs carefully with each step might have been amusing under other circumstances. There was no amusement now.
“Ready?” Blaire asked.
“Yup.”
She leaned toward the tent and called, “Mr. Jasper? I’m the ranger. We’re coming in. We need to check on you.” No sound answered her.
“Like anyone can be ready for this,” she muttered under her breath as she reached up for the zipper tab. The metal teeth seemed loud as the world held its breath.
When she had the zipper halfway down, she parted the canvas and shone her flashlight inside.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed.
Blaire had seen a lot of truly horrible things during her time in Afghanistan. There had even been times when she’d been nearly frozen by a desire not to do what she needed to do. She’d survived, she’d acted and on a couple of occasions, she’d even saved lives.
This was different. In the glare of the flashlight she saw a man in a sleeping bag, his head near the front opening. Or rather what was left of his head. Worse, she saw a small child clinging