Page 80 of The Forest of Lost Souls

“We don’t do anything.”

“Seems we should.”

“No time for it.”

“But this isn’t the deep wilderness.”

“So?”

“Later today, maybe tomorrow, hikers could come along.”

“These four won’t be here then.”

“What—they’ve got an appointment?”

“With a hole in the ground.”

“Who puts them in it?”

“I figure one of them is carrying a traditional GPS locator. Boschvark will have insisted on that. His people are monitoring the signal. The search party stops moving, and goons come to see why. They’ll disappear the bodies.”

Sam understands. “Big money at stake. Can’t let anyone wonder what they were doing here. Can the crossbow be linked to you?”

“No. Even if they had enough evidence to convict me ten times over, they don’t want me in a courtroom with what I know.”

“You can take them down?”

“I’m going to try.”

“Boschvark?”

“Yes.”

“His project.”

“I hope.”

As Vida and Sam strip unneeded items out of the backpacks, the dogs relax. Trained to be discreet once the subject of the search is found, they shy from the dead and settle on the ground.Sherlock and Whimsey each lies with his chin on a paw, while Marple rests her chin on Sherlock’s back.

After a silence, Vida says, “Once you get me where I need to go, take your dogs home.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“If these people had killed you, then they would’ve killed me. And my dogs.”

“Maybe. I guess that would have been up to you.”

“They wouldn’t ever trust me to stay silent. And I wouldn’t have.”

“Just taking me to see Two Moon and Sun Spirit, you’ve done enough. Maybe already too much, from Boschvark’s point of view.”

“Then I have nothing to lose by hanging with you.”

“There’s always something to lose. In the future we’re hurtling toward, there will be no bottom, no down-as-far-as-I-can-go. There will always be some place lower, darker, more terrible.”

Sam gets to his feet, slips his arms through the pack straps, shrugs the weight onto his back. “Even if I wanted to chicken out—”

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