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"The boy from the other day?"
Jeremy shook his head as he held open the back door for me. "This time they're looking for one of the men who came on the property Friday. The middle-aged one. The leader."
"He's missing?"
"Not just missing, but missing after having left a message for a friend saying he was coming here last night to check things again. Something about this place was bothering him. He wanted another look around."
"Oh, shit."
"In a nutshell--exactly."
CHAPTER 14
MISTRUST
There were six people in the search party, three local cops and three civilians. Jeremy, Peter, Nick, and I went out to help them look while Antonio returned to the house to keep an eye on Clay, in case his commitment to non-interference didn't last. The four of us played the role of good and concerned citizens, scouring the bushes while keeping our noses on alert for anything we didn't want the searchers to find. One thing I would have rather they hadn't found turned up early in the quest.
"Got something!" one of the men yelled.
"Is it Mike?" another called, rushing from our sides.
As everyone converged on the scene, Nick's voice rang out, choked with barely contained laughter. "Forget it. It's--uh--nothing important."
"What the hell do you mean?" the first man said. "Maybe this is all a joke to you, son, but ..."
The rest of the sentence trailed off as we burst into the clearing to find one of the searchers bending over a ripped shirt. Torn clothing littered the ground, more hung from bushes. Nick held up half a pair of white panties and grinned at me.
"Wild dogs? Or just Clayton?"
"Oh God," I muttered under my breath.
I walked over to snatch the underwear from him, but he held it over his head, grinning like a schoolboy.
"I see Paris, I see France, I see Elena's underpants," he chanted.
"Everyone's already seen much more than that," Jeremy said. "I think we can safely resume the search."
Peter plucked Clay's shirt from a low-hanging branch and held it up, peering through a hole in the middle. "You guys can really do some damage. Where's the hidden video when you need it?"
"So this--uh--wasn't done by wild dogs?" one of the searchers said.
Peter grinned and tossed the shirt to the ground. "Nope. Just wild hormones."
The other men, who'd finally stopped casting sidelong glances at me after the "naked in the yard" incident, now looked me over with renewed interest. I smiled, trying hard not to bare my teeth, then hurried back into the woods.
Jeremy, two of the searchers, and I were beating the bushes in the northeast quadrant of the woods when we heard another shout, this time infused with enough urgency to make us run. When we got there, Nick and two searchers were standing over a body. Nick looked up, caught my eye, and gave me a look that said he'd tried unsuccessfully to distract the men's attention. Jeremy and I walked to the body and looked down. It was the missing man. His shirt collar was torn and drenched with blood. Above the collar his throat was shredded, flaps of flesh hanging from the wound. Empty eye sockets stared up at us. Crows or turkey vultures had found him first, lying exposed in the clearing. Besides taking his eyes, they'd pecked at his face, leaving bloody holes where white bone peeked through. Bits of scattered flesh covered his shirtfront and surrounded his head, as if the searchers had scared the scavengers mid-meal.
"Like the others," one man said, then turned away from the sight.
"One difference," another said. "He wasn't eaten. Not by the dogs at least. Birds got to him though. Buggers don't waste any time."
A younger man bolted for the woods. Seconds later, the sound of retching filled the air. Two of the men shook their heads in sympathy, both looking a little green themselves. My stomach wasn't feeling so great either, though it had nothing to do with seeing a dead body. When the younger man stopped throwing up, he was quiet a moment, then ran from the thicket.
"Come here! You guys have to see this!"
I knew what he'd found. I knew it and I dreaded stepping into that thicket to confirm my suspicions, but Jeremy prodded me on. When I stepped into the woods, the sickly sweet smell of vomit made my gorge rise. Then I looked down at the ground, following the path of the young man's finger. There, in the damp earth, were paw prints.
"Can you believe the size of those things?" the young man said. "Christ, they're as big as saucers. Just like those kids said. These dogs are huge!"
