Mac stood in front of that refuge, frowning at the ground and the imprints Cillian had been careful not to disturb—Samantha’s footsteps, but something else as well. Mac knelt, touching the dirt outside the strange imprint that no shoe had made. “Do you have your iron on you?”
Birds chirped nearby, and insects buzzed in the air, all the normal sounds Cillian was used to. The forest wasn’t quiet, not in the way it would be if a threat were nearby. “Yes, but I think my rifle will be of better use if we’re attacked.”
He followed Mac around the cabin, treading carefully around crushed shrubbery and scuffed dirt, both of them studying the gouges in the walls. When they circled back to the front, Mac studied the cabin for a few moments more before turning to stare into the forest. “The report will say it was a bear.”
“This is the third body in less than two days,” Cillian said quietly.
“A rabid bear. It happens at least once a decade.”
Cillian tightened his grip on the rifle, thinking about what Samantha had said and the furious evidence of a terrifying night she’d somehow survived. “We don’t have any proof.”
Mac looked back at him, eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his hat. “You grew up here. It’s always a bear when it comes to outsiders.”
“And what are we supposed to believe? That it was the lights?”
“Don’t,” Mac said sharply, stepping closer. “Don’t name them.”
Cillian frowned, uncertainty crawling beneath his skin. “They’re just stories, aren’t they?”
“What do you think?”
“Sometimes I think I don’t know the forest, and I grew up here.”
Mac’s mouth twisted into a hard little smile. “Good. You might survive it, then.”
Cillian looked back at the cabin, at the marks of something that had tried desperately to get inside but ultimately was denied. The reports would say it was a bear, but Cillian wasn’t so sure now.
Mac clapped him on the shoulder before nodding back the way they’d come. “You’re overdue for lunch. Let’s head back to the road. I’ll help Lee handle the medical examiner when she makes it out here. We’re going to be patrolling in pairs after this.”
“Going to let her drive in the forest?” Cillian asked.
“Emergencies mean paperwork, but it’s paperwork the higher-ups can accept for vehicles near the reservoir.”
They trudged back down the path to the road, and Cillian didn’t let go of his rifle until they met up with everyone else. The medical examiner hadn’t arrived yet, but another patrolman had. Samantha sat in the back of his patrol car now, and Cillian was fine with that.
Cillian racked his rifle and drove away from the scene of the crime, not hungry after such a stressful morning, to say nothing of yesterday. Rather than turn on the radio, he called his mom.
“Hey, Mom,” Cillian said when she picked up. “Are you in Amherst?”
“My vacation isn’t until next week. I had to get through the drunken stupidness of the Fourth of July first, so yes, I’m still home,” his mother replied cheerfully enough.
“Was the emergency room that bad again?”
“I feel like people get stupider about fireworks every year.”
“Packed for your cruise yet?”
“Not yet. Did you want to come for a visit and help me out?”
“Probably not a good idea right now.”
Her tone changed from loving and welcoming to worried in a nanosecond. “Why? What’s wrong?”
What Cillian always called hermom radarseemed to be workingfine. “I don’t know if you’ve heard the news yet, but Juliana and Ray were killed yesterday. It was a bear attack.”
The line was silent for long enough that Cillian thought he’d lost the connection. When his mom finally spoke up, her voice was quiet and flat, a thread of worry running through it. “A bear?”
Cillian glanced out the side window at the trees rushing past and the shadows beneath the branches before wrenching his gaze back to the road he was driving down. “That’s what Mac says.”
