a while to catch up with her senses, her subconscious registering alerts before her conscious did—hearing or seeing or smelling something out of place a few seconds before it became obvious.
Yes, there—a rusty smear on a brushy branch at chest height. Blood. More than you’d expect from the usual forest cuts and scratches. She walked faster. More blood. Now she knew what to look for, it was everywhere—on leaves, branches, the ground. She bit the side of her cheek as she returned to the body. Nothing visible on his back.
She crouched, taking a closer look. Chunks of flesh had been ripped from his thighs and calves. The dog? A hawk? Pressing her lips together, she grabbed the guy’s shoulder and gently rolled him. A swarm of trapped flies flew up, their fat, furry bodies pelting her mouth. She swiped at them, her stomach lurching. Hold it together, for his sake.
Yep, a big, dark bloodstain on the chest of his torn jacket. Through the tear, a gaping wound. On the leaf litter and grass underneath him a bloodstain had spread into an oval, the liquid long since seeped away. Dogs and hawks didn’t puncture a man’s chest. They might have come by after death. Was he knocked down and gored by a boar? Attacked by a stag? She lowered him and stroked his shoulder. Death would have come quickly, if not quietly.
Forget the body bag. This was beyond her job description. She’d radio it in, leave Cody with the body and go for the cops. It was probably an accident or animal attack but that wasn’t her call.
She dragged her feet to the chopper. No sign of Cody but at least he was near. Suddenly the isolation wasn’t so friendly. She reached the pilot’s door and froze, her instinct pricking again. Oh God, what now? A pair of fantails flashed and dived beside the hut. The tea towel snapped in the breeze, making her flinch. Nothing amiss, so why did she have the urge to run? Maybe she was just strung out. A dead body could do that.
Her ab muscles tightened. Fuck it. Better to be paranoid than dead. She sucked in a breath and took off for the hut, her sneakers flicking up stones.
Crack. An echoing gunshot, from behind her. Shit. She upped her speed. A hunter, thinking she was wildlife?
“Stop shooting!” she yelled. “Identify your target!”
Another pop, the clank of a bullet hitting metal, the shot reverberating. The chopper. Potshots from a rifle. A hollow smack, a thump, and something flicked her hair.
Jesus. She clutched her head, the hut bouncing around in her vision. Her hair was hot but no wound. A third crack, another thump, and the hut’s front window shattered. The shooter couldn’t have her confused with wildlife—he’d have stopped by now. He was hunting her. She veered off course and plunged thigh-high into tussock beside the hut as a bullet punctured its front wall, a meter away. She rounded the back of the building and pushed her spine against the cold wall, chest heaving. A half-second gap between the sonic boom and the thump, so he was maybe four hundred meters away, elevated—any closer, she’d be dead. Holy shit. What now?
A burst of fire this time, spraying the other side of the hut, shattering glass, pinging into tin. Automatic fire. Not your standard hunting rifle. Hosing the place because he’d lost line of sight?
She couldn’t stay here. Too obvious. And a matter of time before a bullet went right through the hut.
Cody. Where was Cody?
Wait—a military loner with a death wish? Had she got him all wrong? Exactly what had he stashed in that kayak?
No. The tourist—the hole in his chest. That was no goring. What about his girlfriend and the other couple? The search had concentrated on the river but maybe the river wasn’t the culprit.
Whatever the situation, she had to retreat, one good, quick decision at a time. Get Cody; get out of here. Maybe lure the shooter away from the chopper and double back to it. Raise the alarm over the radio, alert the police Armed Offenders Squad. Alert the fucking army. Fly over the glacier, find the climbers.
The shooter had stopped. Gone stealth to stalk her? The forest had silenced, the birds flown off. She couldn’t even hear the river with her eardrums blown by the gunshots, just her own fast breath. She leaped across the tussock, to leave less of a trail than striding through, and ducked into the trees. Her jacket was black, at least—unlike Cody’s bright blue one.
She inched into the scrub, watching over her shoulder. Even tiptoeing, her sneakers crunched. When she could no longer see the hut, she exhaled. First task: find Cody.
Movement, to her right. Her breath caught. A weka charged from the undergrowth, its panicked little legs whirring like a squat brown Road Runner.
A noise, ahead. She swiveled and her nose smacked into a big navy-clad shoulder. She lifted a knee to the guy’s nuts but he spun her and caught her tight around the waist, pinning her arms. She stomped but missed his foot.
“Tia! Jesus!” he hissed.
He released her and she wheeled around. Oh God, it was Cody, his eyes wide, checking their surroundings. He’d taken off the blue jacket, leaving a skintight long-sleeved thermal. Damn, how much noise had they made?
“What the fuck is going on?” he whispered.
“Some nutter with a rifle—I didn’t get a look.”
He nodded sharply. “Let’s find cover.”
She followed him toward the river and down a rock bank, ignoring the hand he held out. Ahead, through the trees, the water rushed over stones, lit bright by the sun. A dog barked. The shooting started up again. More automatic fire. She pressed her back against the clammy stone. Next to her, Cody did the same. Ricocheting shots, smashing glass, clanging metal. Another dog joined in. “They must be in the clearing,” she whispered.
Cody’s eyes met hers, his jaw squared. “He ain’t conserving ammo.”
“Did you see him?”
“No.”
“How do you know it’s not a woman?”
His mouth twitched. “I’m kinda more concerned about the firepower. Gotta be an assault rifle—pretty much the same weapon we use to hunt humans.”
“Did you just make a joke about hunting humans?”
“Wasn’t meant to be a joke. Sometimes when you’re looking through the scope, it feels like that... You okay? You’ve gone a little gray. I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s not that.” She told him about the body. His expression grew grimmer by the word. Jolted out of holiday mode and into work mode. Lucky for her he wasn’t a lawyer or a...pianist. “He really is hunting humans.”
“Okay,” Cody said, as if that wasn’t at all problematic. “I’ll lure him away while you get to the chopper.”
“Yes. Then you can double back and join me.”
“No. You go without me.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“It makes sense. I’ll have to lead him far enough away that he’s out of range as you’re lifting. Going by that firepower, I’m thinking maybe a mile. No point in me then giving him time to return.”
“You
