Blood on Copperhead Trail

Which meant there might be time left, still, to find the other girls alive.

“Bolen’s going to go talk to the Adderlys.” Massey returned, looking grim. “He was pretty broken up about it when I gave him the news.”

“He’s seen the girls grow up. Everyone here did.” She glanced at the grim faces of the detectives and uniformed cops preserving the crime scene as they waited for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime-scene unit to arrive. “This place isn’t like big cities. Nobody much has the stomach for whistling through the graveyard here. Not when you know all the bodies.”

“I’m not from a big city,” he said quietly. “Terrebonne’s not much more than a dot on the Gulf Coast map.”

“So this is a lateral move for you?” she asked as they started back up the trail, trying to distract herself from what she feared she’d find ahead.

“No, it’s upward. I was just a deputy investigator on the county sheriff’s squad down there. Here, I’m the top guy.” He didn’t sound as if he felt on top of anything. She slanted a look his way and found him frowning as he gazed up the wooded trail. She followed his gaze but saw nothing strange.

“What’s wrong?”

His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. I thought—” He shook his head. “Probably a squirrel.”

She caught his arm when he started to move forward, shaking her head when he started to speak. Behind her, she could still hear the faint murmur of voices around the crime scene, but ahead, there was nothing but the cold breeze rattling the lingering dead leaves in the trees.

“No birdsong.” She let go of his arm.

“Should there be?”

She nodded. “Sparrows, wrens, crows, jays—they should be busy in the trees up here.”

“Something’s spooked them?”

She nodded, her chest aching with dread. All the old tales she’d heard all her life about haints and witches in the hills seemed childish and benign compared to the reality of what might lie ahead of them on the trail. But she couldn’t turn back.

If there was a chance Jannie was still alive, time was the enemy.

“Let’s go,” she said. “We have to chance it.”

“I’m not going to run into a pissed-off bear out there, am I?”

She could tell from the tone of his voice that he was trying to distract her from her worries. “It’s not the bears that scare me.”

“You don’t have to go now. We can wait for a bigger search party.”

She looked him over, head to foot, gauging his mettle. His gaze met hers steadily, a hint of humor glinting in his eyes as if he knew exactly what she was doing. Physically, there was little doubt he could keep up with her pace on the trail, at least for a while. He looked fit, well built and healthy. And she wasn’t in top form, having lived in the lowlands for several years, not hiking regularly.

But did he have the internal fortitude to handle life in the hills? Outsiders weren’t always welcomed with open arms, especially by the criminal class he’d be dealing with. Most of the people were good-hearted folks just trying to make a living and love their families, but there were enclaves where life was brutal and cruel. Places where children were commodities, women could be either monsters or chattel and men wallowed in the basest sort of venality.

She supposed that was true of most places, if you scratched deep enough beneath the surface of civilization, but here in the hills, there were plenty of places nobody cared to go, places where evil could thrive without the disinfectant of sunlight. It took a tough man to uphold the law in these parts.

It remained to be seen if Doyle Massey was tough enough.

“You want to wait?” she asked.

“No.” He gave a nod toward the trail. “You’re the native. Lead the way.”

Copperhead Ridge couldn’t compete with the higher ridges in the Smokies in terms of altitude, but it was far enough above sea level that the higher they climbed, the thinner the air became. Laney was used to it, but she could see that Doyle, who’d probably lived at sea level his whole life, was finding the going harder than he’d expected.

Reaching the first of a handful of public shelters through the trees ahead, she was glad for an excuse to stop. She’d grabbed some bottled waters from the diner when she and Ivy left, an old habit she’d formed years ago when heading into the mountains. She’d stowed them in the backpack she kept in her car and had brought with her up the mountain.

Now she dug the waters from the pack and handed a bottle to Doyle as they reached the shelter. He took the water gratefully, unscrewing the top and taking a long swig as he wandered over to the wooden pedestal supporting the box with the trail log.

She left him to it, walking around the side of the shelter to the open front.

What she saw inside stole her breath.

“Laney?” Doyle’s voice was barely audible through the thunder of her pulse in her ears.

The shelter was still occupied. A woman lay facedown over a rolled-up thermal sleeping bag, blood staining her down jacket and the flannel of the bag, as well as the leaves below. Laney recognized the sleeping bag. She’d given it to her sister for Christmas.

Janelle.

The paralysis in Laney’s limbs released, and she stumbled forward to where her sister lay, her heart hammering a cadence of dread.

Please be breathing please be breathing please be breathing.

She felt a slow but steady pulse when she touched her fingers to her sister’s bloodstained throat.

“Laney?” Doyle’s voice was in her ear, the warmth of his body enveloping her like a hug.

“It’s Janelle,” she said. “She’s still alive.”

“That’s a lot of blood,” Doyle said doubtfully. He reached out and checked her pulse himself, a puzzled look on his face.

“She’s been shot, hasn’t she?” Laney ran her hands lightly over her sister’s still body, looking for other injuries. But all the blood seemed to be coming from a long furrow that snaked a gory path across the back of her sister’s head.

“Not sure,” he answered succinctly, pulling out his cell phone.

“Can you get a signal?” she asked doubtfully, wondering how quickly she could run down the mountain for help.

“It’s low, but let’s give it a try.” He dialed 911. “If I get through, what should I tell the dispatcher?”

“Tell them it’s the first shelter on Copperhead Mountain on the southern end.” Laney’s hands shook a little as she gently pushed the hair away from her sister’s face. Janelle’s expression was peaceful, as if she were only sleeping. But even though she was still alive, there was a hell of a lot of damage a bullet could do to a brain. If even a piece of shrapnel made it through her skull—

“They’re on the way.” Doyle put his hand on her shoulder.

But they couldn’t be fast about it, Laney knew. Mountain rescues were tests of patience, and a victim’s endurance.

“Hang in there, Jannie.” She looked at Doyle. “Do you think it’s safe to move this bedroll out from under her? We need to cover her up. It’s freezing out here, and she could already be going into shock.”

She saw a brief flash of reluctance in Doyle’s expression before he nodded, helping her ease the roll out from beneath Janelle. She unzipped the roll, trying not to spill off any of the collected blood. The outside of the sleeping bag was water-resistant, so she didn’t have much luck.

“Sorry to ruin your crime scene,” she muttered.

“Life comes first.” He sounded distracted.