Page 111 of The Boy Who Cried Bear
“Guy’s panicked,” Dalton says. “Moose leave less conspicuous trails than this.”
“Take the pup,” I say. “I’ll wait for news from the search of Jay’s quarters.”
Dalton fixes a level stare on me. Not a word. Just that stare, one that says he is not leaving me behind.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Let’s go.”
“Sir!” a voice calls from the forest.
The guard sent to search Jay’s room runs out, panting. He’s holding a bundle of bloody gauze and bandages. “I found this under the floorboards. His roommates say he’d been limping even before he was stabbed. One asked what was wrong, and he said he pulled a glute muscle doing squats.” The young man thrusts out the bloody mess at me, and I try not to wince, seeing he isn’t even wearing gloves.
“There was something else, too, ma’am,” he says. “Some, uh, pictures. I don’t think it was the boy who got captured. This kid was younger. But he was … not dressed.”
“What?” Rogers says, wheeling on the guard.
“There was, uh, photos of a, uh, boy, who, uh, wasn’t wearing any—”
“I understand that,” Rogers snaps. “So it was Jay who grabbed the boy?” Before I can speak, he answers his own question: “No, the tattoo means it was Sandy, who was strong enough to carry the boy.”
“They were both pedos,” the guard says, his lip curling. “Guys like that always find each other. When I was a cop—” He stops short, giving a furtive glance toward his boss, who doesn’t even seem to have heard the slip.
“Sandy and Jay were in it together,” Rogers murmurs. “And something went wrong.”
“We can work out specifics later,” I say. “We have a trail, and I just want to find him. Go back to camp—”
“One of my men will accompany you.”
“The hell they will,” Dalton says.
“What he means,” I say, “is that the more people we have out there, the more noise we make. We will find your man and bring him back alive.”
“That isn’t necessary,” Rogers says.
I could ask him to clarify, but I don’t need to. He wants Jay back. He just doesn’t care whether he’s alive or not. A dead body saves them a lot of trouble.
“Leave someone at the message spot,” I say. “When we have Jay, we’ll bring him there.”
* * *
“You don’t like this story,” Dalton says once we’re deep into the forest.
“I hate it.”
He says nothing. Just keeps tracking, the path obvious enough that poor Storm looks over at me as if she’s profoundly disappointed in this task I’ve set her on. It’s like that time my eighth-grade class did Secret Santa, and mine found out I was into puzzles and gave me a book of beginner word searches. There’s no challenge here.
“Sorry, girl,” I say. “But you got a real one yesterday.”
Yesterday had been a triumph for her, and I worry that in the chaos of finding Max, she hadn’t been properly rewarded. Anders and I might have gotten to Max first, but that was only because her nose told us where to go. I must admit, though, that if I worry she didn’t receive enough credit, that says more about me than her. She only cares that she eventually found him.
Yesterday she solved the New York Times crossword, and now I’m giving her a children’s version. She can just phone it in. We all can.
“Walk me through the case,” Dalton says, startling me from my thoughts. “I’m still figuring it all out, and I don’t think we have the luxury of time here. Jay’s wounded. He’s not getting far before we need to confront him.”
I explain my theory that Jay stabbed himself to piggyback on our search and then do an end run around us to get to Max.
“I think he’s the guy who tried to grab Max right before we rescued him,” I say. “His wounded leg gave out and he fell, and Max kicked him for good measure. The rest works, too. Hell, I even buy that he’s a fellow pedophile. Sandy and Jay discovered a shared interest, and then one of them spots Max, and they hatch a plan. Sandy’s plan actually does work better if there’s another person involved. Sandy plays bear-man and takes Max because he’s bigger and better able to handle him. Jay’s job is providing Sandy with an alibi in camp so he can come and go as he pleases. But something goes wrong. Maybe Sandy doesn’t want to share after all. Jay kills him and then goes after Max, who has already escaped. It works perfectly.”
“Too perfectly?”
