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There is zero advantage to letting Mark know one of our people plans to yank his claim out from under him. I will tell him eventually. He doesn’t deserve to be screwed over. I just need to do it in a way that suggests the would-be thief has nothing to do with Haven’s Rock, and that’ll be a complicated bit of tap dancing.
Right now, I don’t think he’d hear me even if I told him of the danger. He is moving as fast as he can, and when we spot people through the trees, he breaks into a run. He pulls up short seeing Anders, but it’s only a moment of surprise before his gaze goes to the wrapped body on the ground. Anders has wrapped her and brought her—with Gunnar’s help—on a stretcher.
When I look at Gunnar, my brows raised, Anders murmurs, “He already knew about her.”
“I know everything,” Gunnar says. “See everything, know everything.” He turns to Mark. “Hey, man. So you think you can ID our—”
I shake my head to cut Gunnar off. He raises a quizzical brow and then looks at Mark, standing there, staring down, his entire body quivering.
“Fuck,” Gunnar whispers.
Anders discreetly shoulders Gunnar back and steers him out of the clearing. We all stay on the edges while Mark bends beside the body and, with shaking fingers, pulls back the sheet over her face. Then he lets out a horrible gasping groan.
I step away and Dalton follows, Storm staying close. Anders and Gunnar join us.
“He knows her,” Gunnar whispers.
“Yep,” I say.
“There’s a serial killer out there, isn’t there?”
Anders motions for him to lower his voice.
Gunnar continues in a whisper. “It’s one of those guys who runs up here to escape the law, only now we’ve brought victims to his doorstep. Us and this guy.” He pauses. “Who is this guy?”
“A hunter,” I say.
“And if you say one word to him about serial killers…” Anders whispers.
“You’ll kick my ass into the Pacific?”
“No, Casey will. I’ll just watch.”
Dalton murmurs something, and when I look over, he nods toward the clearing. Telling me it’s time to step in.
I do that, while the guys stay where they are. Mark sits on the ground beside the dead woman, brushing hair back from her face.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “She was…”
“My—” He chokes and takes a moment before he says, “My wife. Denise.”
“I’msosorry.”
“What happened to her?”
“We’re trying to figure that out.” I lower myself to the ground beside him. “Eric and I were called in to find a woman who disappeared from the construction crew, and when we found your wife, we presumed it was our missing person and brought her back.”
“Thank you. For… for finding her.”
Earlier, we’d presumed the dead woman couldn’t have been joining the miner. That napkin had three sets of coordinates, with the first two crossed off. That meant she was searching for the camp and had a few leads.
Unless the napkin wasn’t hers.
What if whoever had the napkin had been searching for the camp and found it while Mark was hunting? The napkin could have belonged to Bruno or his partner. They could have been at the camp when Denise showed up and overheard something or demanded to know what they were doing, and they killed her. That would connect our dead woman to our crime.
But it also leaves a huge question. If Mark was expecting his wife, why didn’t he wonder what happened to her?
There’s a simple explanation—when she failed to show up, he presumed she’d been delayed. I just need that answer from him.
