Chapter 59: Inseparable

Nash

I had no intentions of stopping at the trail head that led up to the look-out. I had scoped it out before, it was just a simple, easy trail, the kind you could take a small child on without them becoming too tired. But imagine my surprise, as I was about to drive by, I spotted Daphne’s car parked there.

I started to drive past, thinking it couldn’t possibly be Daphne. I had left her at the Bleakley house, safe and sound and already in her pajamas (again) for the night. It had sucked royally to leave her behind and go back out on the trail of some psychopathic bear, but I had a job to do.

“It’s not really her car,” I said, as I accelerated past. It just looked exactly like it. It just had the same state university sticker on the bumper. And a parking pass in the side window.

“Son of a b.itch,” I slammed on the breaks and pulled a U-turn right in the middle of the road. Luckily, it was after midnight, and there were no other cars around. I drove back and pulled my jeep up nose-to-nose with the car that I was now certain belonged to Daphne Redhawk. I wish I could be nose-to-nose with her in person. What the hell was she doing, out in the middle of the night? She knew there was a killer bear on the loose. Or worse. Did she have a death wish?

Or was she meeting a lover?

I hated the jealous thought that popped into my head, but I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t think of any reason why a young woman would be out on a hiking trail alone in the middle of the night. I exited the jeep silently, and pushed the door closed slowly until I heard it click quietly into place. I didn’t want her to hear or see me coming. I started down the trail in the dark, moving slowly and carefully. It was fairly easy to tell the difference between the trail and the woods behind. The trail was smooth and a little slick with spring mud, while the forest floor on either side was thick with fallen leaves, pine needles, and low growing vegetation.

I was maybe a 100 meters down the trail when my spine began to tingle. I quickly grabbed my flashlight from the holster on my waist and switch on the powerful light. The beam cut through the darkness, illuminating the trail, the trunks of trees, the side of the mountain that rose before me. I held my breath, straining my ears to hear, and swung the flashlight in every direction, without even knowing what I was searching for. I just knew for certain that something was out there…something, or someone.

I wasn’t alone.

And that’s when my torchlight fell across a t-shirt on the ground. I picked it up and stretched it out. At first glance, it was a man’s soft, threadbare t-shirt. But I knew better. That was the shirt Daphne had worn as a nightgown to bed, the one she claimed was an off cast from one of her brothers. If I had any doubt, all I had to do was press it against my nose to catch her soft, subtle scent.

My heart beat harder. Questions raced through my head, one after another.

Why was her shirt on the ground? Why wasn’t she wearing it?

Was she safe?

“What the hell are you doing out here, Daphne?” I asked out loud, and then cast the light around me again, hoping that she would somehow just melt out of the woods and come to me with a perfectly reasonable explanation. I could almost feel her near me, feel her answer drifting to me in the wind…

And then my phone rang, it’s obnoxious old-timey ringtone breaking the magical stillness of the woods. I fumbled to pull it out of my pocket and push the screen to accept the call. “What?” I barked irritably. So much for keeping quiet and getting the drop on her.

“Damn it Harskey, this better be good.”

“Nice to hear your voice too, sweetheart,” She drawled back, but her voice was rough and nearly as deep as a man’s.

“I know you didn’t call me in the middle of the night just to flirt with me Francy. Tell me what you got.”

She chuckled on the other end. “Well, maybe something, maybe nothing. A call just came in to the state police dispatcher. Bear sighting, out behind Roxanne’s Snackbar, on the way to the lake.”

“S.hit,” I looked down at the shirt I was still gripping hard in my hand. I didn’t want to go chase a bear, I wanted to chase Daphne. If she was with another man, I wanted to catch her red handed, so that I could get her out of my mind once and for all. All I needed was proof that she was just another typical college girl, chasing any dick that swung her way, and then I could forget about the way she made me feel all warm and tingly, I could forget how making love to her had blown my mind. I just had to see it with my own eyes, and then I would know for sure that Daphne Redhawk was just a passing fascination, and nothing more.

“Oh, hold on,” Francy grumbled. I could hear beeping, static and some tinny voices in the background of the call. “Another call just came in, reports of hearing a woman crying and screaming behind the same snackbar.”

“For f.ucks sake.” I turned and started running back down the trail toward the Jeep. I ripped open the door and leaped behind the wheel, tossing the t-shirt into the passenger seat as I cranked the engine to life and then threw it in gear, reversing first, to make some space between my vehicle and Daphne’s, and then pushing the pedal to the floor, spitting gravel as I fishtailed out on to the main road and headed west toward the lakes. Even driving like a maniac, it would take me at least fifteen minutes to cross town.

When I arrived at the popular little snack shack, there were already two police vehicles in the driveway, and a little gaggle of curious onlookers standing a safe distance from the scene. I parked across the street from the eatery and jogged across, carefully pulling out my shirt to conceal the handgun I had tucked into my waistband at the small of my back.

I jogged straight up to the three cops that were standing around at the corner of the food trailer. “Hi fellas,” I said easily, acting for all the world as if I had a right to be there, as if I was a legitimate part of their investigation. “Find anything?”

One of the officers, a young guy with more freckles than facial hair, shrugged. “Not much, got some bear prints out near the dumpster. Probably smelled the day’s trash and was looking for a little after-hours take out.”

“I heard witnesses say there was a woman?”

Another officer, a tall man with thinning blond hair and a considerable belly that dunlapped his belt shrugged. “We didn’t find any woman,” he gruffed, “Probably someone’s imagination.”

“Or,” The third officer adjusted his utility belt, “There was a woman, and she screamed because she saw the bear, but they are both long-gone now.”

“Huh, makes sense. I’ll just go have a look around the dumpsters, if you don’t mind.”

“Nah, knock yourself out,” the fat cop said.

Rutberg finest, didn’t even bother to ask who I was, or to wonder why I was interested in a bear sighting in the middle of the night. I had a story prepared and everything, but I never had to use it. I cut across the gravel parking lot to the big, industrial sized dumpster. I had to lap around it twice before I saw the prints, two of them, in a little dip where a mud puddle had evaporated. Sure enough, they were fresh tracks, and they belonged to what looked to be a medium sized black bear. Five distinct toe pads, and sharp clap marks around them. I leaned down and spread out my fingers, comparing the width of the track to my knuckles.

I then squatted down, and surveyed the landscape from what I guessed must be bear-height, if the animal was still on all-fours. The parking lot backed up into a steap hillside with a lot of sharp, jagged slate rock erupting from a thin cover of last year’s brown, rotting grass and bushy overgrowth. It didn’t look like a comfortable retreat.

In the other direction, the parking lot spread out like a half moon around the snack bar. There wasn’t much cover in that direction either, except for the two dumpsters, and a small shed that was situated behind the grill. There were another dozen picnic tables spread out on the horse-shoe, their colorful umbrellas closed for the night. A single light mounted on the back of the snack bar was the only illumination, and that barely washed out a fifteen-foot circle of the gravel drive.

Still, it was close to the road, very close to civilization, nothing like the other locations where the bear had attacked. And there was no blood, no sign of a struggle, no evidence that there had been anyone nearby at all when the bear seemed to have circled the dumpster.

The wind blew a bit of rubbish against my boot. I bent down to pick it off, and found a brown M&M candy wrapper. I sighed with frustration and wadded up the bit of trash in my hand and lifted the lid just enough to toss it inside. The stink of grease, stale fastfood, and spoiled milk hit my nose before I dropped the lid again.

Sure, that probably smelled like a three-michilin star restaurant to a hungry bear. This was nothing but wildlife encrouching on man’s territory, because men encrouched on thiers. A wild animal, not a crazed killer.

I strode back across the parking lot. The two police cruisers had already pulled away, and the handful of curious neighbors had dispersed back to their own homes. I jumped back in my jeep and glanced down at the t-shirt on the passenger’s side seat.

I had another mystery to solve.