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When I left the cabin early this morning to launch this investigation, I skipped running it by Chief Lynch, thinking it would be better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Not with Mayor Berdherst as one of the budget executors.
As a member of Clearhelm’s founding family, he owns part of this forest, and I suspect there are secrets buried out here he wouldn’t want us stumbling over.
So I crossed the line, knowing that a mass grave would have been a huge deal, and Chief Lynch would only give me a slap on the wrist for breaking protocol if I brought this to his attention.
But without the mass grave? I’ll be lucky not to be fired. Tearing up a protected forest won’t look good without an irrefutable reason.
A reason that has vanished right out from under us.
Mayn joins me, her black eyes unblinking as she gazes down into the pit, her expression thoughtful.
“I can still smell bones down there,” she says, her voice low and melodic. “They’re just hidden now.”
I scrape a hand through my hair. “Hidden doesn’t do us much good. We need evidence. Concrete proof of a mass grave.”
O’Hara, one of my best hunters, steps forward. “If Mayn says the bones are there, then I’ll go down to get them, sir.”
I appreciate his fearless dedication, but the slithering roots that surround the opening make the task too dangerous. I saw last night how quickly the roots can react, and the last thing we need is for one of our people to get stuck underground.
“No,” I say with regret. “I’m not risking you.”
“There was something else in the pit besides the bones,” Darius adds. “We didn’t have eyes on it, but it was big. It could still be down there.”
“We have the bones we found last night, if you need the proof,” Pen reminds me.
I shake my head. “Chain of custody was broken. And two bones don’t equal a mass grave.” I grimace before adding, “And I need human bones if I’m going to get the city council motivated enough to be involved.”
Flint steps forward, Anny at his side. “I can send some furry helpers down there. Creatures that can navigate through the dirt and search for the bones.”
“Good idea.” It’s less risky and might be our best chance to uncover the evidence we came here for. “What do you need from us?”
He rubs the top of Anny’s head. “Just a quiet place for us to sit.”
I call my people back from the hole, and Flint clears a place on the ground, outside the ring of flags that mark how far it moved the night before.
Seemingly unconcerned that he’s about to ruin his nice dress pants, Flint lowers himself to the wet ground, and Anny sits beside him, still as a statue.
Johannsson jumps when the first rodent scurries out of the forest, earning a punch on the arm from O’Hara for flinching.
Dozens more of varying sizes follow, and they swarm into the pit.
“I’m never going to get used to that,” Johannsson mutters under his breath with a full-body shudder.
“Better them than you, right?” Troy whispers back.
I pace restlessly, time ticking by. I got this started early enough in the morning that I’d hoped to be taking pictures and hauling up bones before Chief Lynch arrived at the office and got wind of what I was up to.
But the more time that passes, the less likely the outcome is. I took a huge risk, and I’m not sure my department can bear the weight of my failure if we can’t find these bones.
As we wait, the silence of the surrounding forest gets to me.
Shouldn’t there be birds singing right now? Or leaves rustling in the breeze? It feels unnatural, like the forest holds its breath, waiting to see what we discover.
Pen approaches me, stepping into my path. “Darius thinks we should take the skull to Nickodemus now. If we can bargain for use of part of the Bone Yard, it might help.”
I hesitate. If we give the skull to Nickodemus, we really won’t have any evidence besides the hand. But no one on the city council will care about a dead boogeyman.
“Go ahead,” I say at last. “If we can get him to cooperate on the tourist idea, then it should make the city council happy.”
