Predator (2 page)

“I think something mauled the body,” her dad said, “and then partially devoured it. The marks are really strange. I don’t recognize the wound pattern.”

Bree considered the wounds. “What if this guy was alive when it happened, when whatever it was ripped into him like that? It must have hurt like crazy.”

“It’s possible.”

She averted her eyes and noticed a slight indentation in the neck. “What is that?”

Her dad brushed off the lingering peat and exposed a large puncture mark, right at the jugular.

The hole was large enough to fit Bree’s finger. “Do you think that’s what killed him?”

“If he bled to death, he died quickly.” Conor scratched the side of his nose, leaving behind a trail of peat.

“Or else the injuries occurred post-mortem and something else killed him first,” her dad said.

Bree looked from the neck to the torso and back again. “But if something mauled him, what was it?”

Her dad stood and ran his fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair. “I’ve been wondering that myself. But it’s difficult to know much of anything right now. Sometimes these things just take a while to figure out. Let’s finish excavating the body and get it back to the lab.”

He handed her a brush. “The acid in the peat destroyed most of the bones,” he said, “and there’s not much more than the flesh holding the pieces together. So be careful not to damage the soft tissue when you remove the rest of the peat.”

He grabbed a brush of his own and went to work.

Now that Bree had her dad’s trust, and he was finally letting her work on the body, she wasn’t going to blow it. He didn’t work elbow-to-elbow with just anyone.

She brushed away the peat next to the knee and revealed something small…and pointed. What was that? She looked closely at the object and then at the bog body trying to make sense of it.

“Wait a minute.” Bree’s voice was a mix of excitement and confusion. “I think I might have found what punctured the neck.”

Conor and Liam rushed to Bree’s side.

She pointed to the object protruding from beneath the knee. “Most of it’s under the body.”

Liam drew in closer, but Kelsi wormed her way in and blocked their view.

Bree couldn’t believe it. Of course Kelsi was just doing her job. But still…she could have waited another minute or two to snap her close-ups.

Bree scooted around to the other side of the body. Not that it helped; she couldn’t tell a peat-covered bone from a petrified stick or whatever the thing was. But it was definitely sharp enough to be used as a weapon.

Her dad elbowed Kelsi out of the way and knelt down to examine the object. “It’s definitely not a tooth. It’s too long.”

“What do you think it is?” Liam asked as he joined Bree. He was so close she could almost feel him touching her.

Her dad shook his head. “We won’t learn more until we move the body.”

Bree sighed. Waiting was the hardest part about working with her dad. How did he have the patience to wait days, weeks, or months before learning something significant? It was like someone giving her a present and not letting her open it.

“We’ll figure it out,” Liam said as he placed a gentle hand on her arm.

Her skin tingled from his simple touch. She looked up into his blue eyes, saw comfort there, and nodded.

“I’ll be right back,” Kelsi said. “I have to find a dry spot for the camera gear.” She took the steps two at a time and quickly disappeared from sight.

Conor grabbed a clipboard and pencil from atop his field kit. “I want to get some more soil samples,” he said to Liam. “Can you go get my gear?”

“Sure.” Liam headed off to the field tent.

Bree studied the body, trying to memorize everything she saw, so she could talk to Liam about it later. Meeting him had turned out to be the best part of this trip.

She focused on uncovering the left arm and hand, the only parts of the body still totally encased in peat.

“Dad. You have to see this.” Where there should have been a right hand she found only a few pieces of ripped flesh attached to bone.

Her dad examined the mangled wrist. “Whoever severed this hand certainly wasn’t a surgeon.”

“We have to find it.” Bree whisked away more dirt.

“Work outward from wrist. Maybe it’s nearby.”

Eventually the temperature dropped. Skylarks sang and dragonflies buzzed about in search of food, and still Bree had found nothing of the missing hand. She looked up and gazed across the bog. In the distance, the setting sunlight cast a brilliant array of oranges and yellows and greens across the Twelve Bens Mountains.

“I’ll go grab the tarp and the body bag,” Kelsi said.

“We can’t leave yet,” Bree said to her dad. “Not without the missing hand.”

“It could be anywhere.”

Bree’s voice faltered. “But he’s not whole.”

“Sometimes that’s the way things are.”

She knew that only too well. “If he was Troy you’d keep looking for it.”

Her dad looked at her like he’d been slapped. Fine. At least she had his attention. “I’m coming back later to find the hand.”

“No, you’re not. It’s too dangerous.” He took a quick breath. “Dozens of people have drowned over the years after they thought they were stepping onto a somewhat solid surface and fell into a bog and couldn’t find a way out. You got lucky when you discovered the bog body where we could excavate it. And I’m really grateful that you did, but you have to promise me you’ll stay away from the bog.”

Bree hesitated and then lied. “I will. I promise.”

A moment later Kelsi hopped back down the embankment like she owned it. Several inches taller than Bree—five-foot-seven, Bree guessed—Kelsi was all lean muscle and agility.

Bree’s dad set down his brush. Kelsi and Liam held the tarp while her dad and Conor eased the body onto the tarp and then into the body bag. When Conor zipped the bag closed, a wave of nausea surged from Bree’s gut to her mouth. She averted her gaze and swallowed hard.

“You okay?” Liam said quietly.

“I’m fine.” There was no way Bree was going to admit putting the body inside the bag freaked her out. Scientists didn’t get grossed out by this kind of stuff. And if she ever wanted to be a biological anthropologist, she’d better get used to it.

“I still don’t know what this is,” her dad said, holding up a clear container.

Now this—this Bree could wrap her curiosity around. It was the object she had spotted sticking out from under the knee. It was approximately three inches long and an inch and a half wide—blunt on one end and tapered to a sharp point on the other. Thin parallel ridges ran vertically along the entire length; and where the peat hadn’t marred the surface, mainly near the blunt end, it was dark yellow with a bit of black.

Her dad studied the object. “It’s hard like a fingernail, harder really, almost as hard as bone but not quite. Could be due to some sort of calcification.”

“You think it’s part of the missing hand?” Bree asked.

Her dad shrugged. “I don’t think so, but anything’s possible at this point. It could be organic or—”

“It could be a piece of a tool or some other instrument,” Kelsi said.

Bree shot Kelsi a surprised look. They’d been working together for weeks. Other than the remark about the gobs of peat, this was the first time Kelsi had offered any comment. As Bree gathered up equipment, Kelsi looked back at her as if even she was surprised she’d spoken.

With Kelsi and Conor in the lead and Bree and her dad following, keeping the stretcher level while climbing out of the hole required a constant see-saw between them.

Bree conquered the last step and looked out over an uneven blanket of moss and plants covering the peat. The field tent was off to the right on a dry hummock. Past Kelsi’s shoulder, Bree eyed Conor’s blue truck and her dad’s van in the distance. It was a quarter mile away, maybe a little further. Avoiding the really wet areas, they began picking their way back to the truck; it was like walking across jelly.

“I wonder what this guy was like,” Bree said, watching where she set each step.

“That’s the question we all ask,” Conor said. “Was he a farmer? A shoemaker? A blacksmith? Did he live in a cottage or a mansion? Was it the beer or the whiskey he liked? Meat or fish?”

“Did he have a wife and kids?” Liam said. “Or a dog?” He held Conor’s field kit in one hand and a bucket in the other and walked alongside the stretcher next to Conor.

Her dad added, “It’s impossible not to wonder what his life was like. Who he loved—”

“How he died,” Bree said abruptly.

Conor nodded. “Yeah, well that too of course. We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t interested in all of that.”

Bree weighed the importance of the man’s life against what little weight was left of him. “But someone murdered this guy. And what about those marks on the body? How’d they get there? And what happened to his hand?”

“There could be all kinds of explanations.” Now that Kelsi had found where she’d stowed her opinions it seemed she wanted to unpack them all. “They’ve found a lot of bog bodies over the years and many were tortured. Some were even decapitated.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Watch your step,” Conor said. “This gap’s wider than the others.”

They tried to coordinate a hop over the space, but when Bree landed the peat gave way under her heel. She slipped and lost her hold on the stretcher. When she’d found her balance and spun back toward the stretcher it was too late—the body was already hanging off the stretcher’s edge. The others fought to steady the stretcher. She spread her arms wide, grabbed hold of both sides of the stretcher, and pressed herself against the body.

She had to.

If the body fell it would be destroyed.

And it would be her fault.

“We’ve got this end,” Conor said to Liam. “Go help Bree.”

With only the body bag separating Bree from the body, she knew she had ruined some of the delicate tissue, tissue her dad had warned her—and trusted her—not to damage when they were uncovering the body. Bree swallowed the lump in her throat and focused on keeping her hands steady and the body on the stretcher.

Liam scooted around the corner and lifted the stretcher. “We’re good.”

“Give us a nod when you’re ready,” Kelsi said.

Bree moved back to her dad’s side. Once she had a grip on the handle again, she sighed. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—”

“It could have happened to anyone,” Liam said. “It’s tricky walking in the bog, especially when you can’t see your feet.”

Bree was glad for Liam’s support. But it had happened to her. And everyone had witnessed her incompetence.

“Let’s get moving,” her dad said. “We still have a lot to do.”

Bree took measured steps as she crossed the bog; her hand gripped the stretcher so tightly her fingers hurt. Each time she planted her foot she shuddered inside. What if the peat gave way again? What if she lost hold of the stretcher? And what if she damaged the body so badly she completely ruined it?

After what seemed like forever, Bree reached the end of the bog, the uneven dirt road a welcome relief beneath her feet. They loaded the body into the back of the van and her dad, Conor, and Kelsi stayed behind while she went with Liam to retrieve the rest of the equipment and the soil samples. Once they returned, Bree handed Kelsi her cameras and placed Conor’s field kit into his truck.

“Why don’t you join us for dinner at the hotel?” her dad said to the team. “My treat. Say around seven-thirty. It should give us plenty of time to secure everything in the lab and get cleaned up.”

“Wish we could,” Conor said, “but I promised my wife we’d grab a pizza and watch a movie with Liam and Finn. Can we catch you again?”

Bree’s dad nodded. “You’re welcome any time. How about you Kelsi? Bree and I would love the company.”

Kelsi hesitated but then said, “Sure.”

Great. Dinner with her dad and Kelsi. She’d much prefer the pizza, movie, and promise of some time with Liam.

She turned begging eyes toward her dad. But he was looking at Kelsi and smiling—perhaps a little too much.

Malshey Hotel, Largheal, Ireland

The hotel was busy despite the late hour. Across the lobby, Bree spied a couple waiting to check in. The woman, in a short black dress, gazed into the eyes of a man who looked young enough to be her son. Three gum-chomping kids slumped in plush chairs with their feet up on ottomans, their attention glued on their cell phone screens. A blast of air hit her from the right as a man squeezed past the doorman and into the hotel with a bag in hand. He lumbered past Bree, leaving behind the aroma of coffee. She caught a hint of something sweet—caramel or maybe vanilla.

“I’m glad you were able to join us for dinner,” her dad was saying to Kelsi. “You’re welcome any time.”

Kelsi smiled. “Thanks, but I’d gain twenty stone if I ate like this every night.”

He looked her up and down and smiled. “I seriously doubt that.”

Kelsi blushed and crossed her arms. Bree turned her head away just enough so she didn’t have to look at them head on, but not enough to make it obvious.

Her dad’s cell rang. He slid it out of his pocket, checked the display, and said, “Sorry, I have to take this.” He held the phone to his ear. “Hang on a second,” he said to the caller. He held up a hand to Bree and then moved across the lobby in search of a quiet place to talk.

Bree sighed. His five minutes meant ten, twenty, sometimes thirty. Once he got caught up in something he forgot about everything else, sometimes even her. She sent a text to Liam and then plopped into an empty chair. Kelsi joined her.

“You’ve been quiet,” Kelsi said. “I hope you’re not angry that I laughed at you back at the bog.”

A smile pushed onto Bree’s face. “It’s okay. I had to shampoo my hair three times before I got all the peat out.”

Kelsi crossed her legs and leaned toward Bree. “You know you can talk to me if you want to, right?”

What did Kelsi expect her to say? Bree shrugged and glanced across the lobby at her dad, but she said nothing. Her cell buzzed and, thankful for the interruption, she pulled it from her pocket and checked the message. It was a text about a concert at the Pulse in a few days. Guess she’d have to miss that one. Flying home for a concert wasn’t an option.