Page 28 of The Butcher

Whoever was here before us used this same ravine to dump their own dirty laundry, and they didn’t even bother hiding it, ormaking it easy for nature to reclaim. And they clearly didn’t pay attention to their surroundings because if they had looked close enough, they would have seen the pile of decaying parts already sitting there from our last drop.

Obviously whoever this was is an idiot.

Must have been the fuckers in that Ford.

I bet that’s what they were doing, dumping some bullshit down our ravine because they were too lazy to find something closer to wherever the hell they came from.

This is just another reason Clayton is gonna be pissed. He’ll chew me out for doing this in the first place, then he’ll lose his shit because he’ll feel the need to find a new dump site and…

My brow furrows as I crab walk along the hill, my back against the steepest part of the wall while I slide past the cooler toward the tarp.

Hair.

There’s hair sticking out the opposite end of it, dark and matted, big chunks stuck together with what I’d put money on to be blood.

Son of a bitch.

That’s exactly what I thought.

Outsiders coming out here to dump a fucking body on our turf.

Not on my watch.

Pissed off and ready to pop, I reach for the rope around what must be the ankles judging by the cramped position and where it is in relation to the hair, and give it a hard tug. It’s frozen, the thick twined material stiff and without any give, so I reach into the holster on my belt for my hunting knife.

Hooking it under one side, I saw through the rope with a few rough jerks then toss it aside. I do the same to the piece around the midsection then shove my cooler out of the way the best I can to get to the one closest to the hair.

Sheathing my blade, I rub my hands together then blow on my fingers, the cold making it harder to move them, then look over the tarp again, head to toe.

Whoever’s rolled up in this shit isn’t very big, no more than five and a half feet tall at most, and I’d say it’s female between the overall size and the hair, but I won’t know for sure until I finish opening the tarp. Makes me wonder what kind of asshole was heartless enough to not only kill someone so small but dump them like trash after the fact.

I really don’t need to get involved in this.

It was someone else’s mistake to leave a body wrapped like this, and it’s not up to me to make sure it’s opened up for the animals.

Problem is, that blue is hard to miss and if someone does decide to take a look over the side of the road, they’ll see it, especially in broad daylight. If that happens, someone’s bound to come down here, poking around, and they’ll find whatever we’ve dropped off that hasn’t been eaten or taken away yet.

I’ve spent too many years perfecting how we do things, too many years working my ass off to make sure no one is found, and nothing can be traced back to us. They come digging after finding a body, there’s too much risk of all that falling apart.

With an annoyed grunt, I crouch down by the head, take the flap in hand, and peel back the crunchy plastic.

I suck in a sharp breath as the battered face of a female appears, both eyes black and blue, one of them swollen shut, her lower lip split and caked in blood.

Jesus fuck.

She was put through the fucking wringer.

Shaking my head, I continue opening the tarp, revealing a naked body covered in more bruises and multiple cuts, her chest and arms covered in both. There are stab wounds in her stomach and sides, more slashes to her hips and thighs, and when I haveall of her exposed, I realize that she’s not only covered in blood, this woman has hay or straw stuck to her all over, ligature marks around her wrists, and her feet are dirty.

Anger flares as I strike a match from the book in my pocket, looking her over again, each pass of my eyes picking up on something new that has my blood boiling.

A branded mark on her shoulder, a number tattooed on her hip. There are also older bruises on her body, around her hips and thighs, and what looks like healing marks from fingernails. She isn’t underweight and looks relatively healthy aside from the fucking injuries, but her skin has the hue of someone who scarcely went outside. Prison pallor.

This woman was some kind of goddamn prisoner.

Held captive, murdered in cold blood, then left to the elements to be forgotten.

“Bullshit,” I mumble. This is fucking bullshit, and no one deserves a life, or death, like she had.

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