Page 47 of Cold Case Discovery

It was just a small little circle, but Chloe had been a cop too long not to know what blood dropped onto dirt looked like.

Her hand shook for a second, but only a second. The light trembling was enough for her to ground herself. To remind herself she was strong, capable. Acop, not a big sister who’d failed.

She moved the beam up the trail. Not much farther up, there was another spot, about the same size as the first.

She took a few steps forward, and Jack never released her hand, but he didn’t stop her. He moved with her.

The third circle was bigger. Noticeably so. She inhaled, knowing it was shaky. Knowing she couldn’t quite make herself immune to this.

Someone was bleeding, and the chances itwasn’tRy felt really, really low.

“What do you want to do?” Jack asked her quietly. “Wait or follow?”

They should wait. That would be the safe thing to do. But as much as she was ready for her brother to face the consequences of his actions, she wasn’t ready for him to be hurt. Or worse, dead.

“Follow.”

Chapter Fifteen

Jack walked in front of Chloe, following the lead of the flashlight she held. Every few steps, there was a splotch of blood. Sometimes they got smaller, but then they’d get bigger again.

Jack gripped his gun. He occasionally looked out into the dark around them but never caught sight of anything, never heard anything that seemed out of place. Even though he was on edge, there wasn’t that feeling of impending danger to him and Chloe.

But there had been danger here, that was for sure. The blood splotches along the trail no longer got smaller, only bigger, until they became almost a continuous trickle of blood.

Every so often, Jack glanced back at Chloe holding the flashlight. He could feel the tension pouring off her. She was worried it was Ry doing the bleeding, and so was Jack. The other option wasn’t much better—that Ry had been the person to cause the bleeding in someone else. Both were going to be hard pills to swallow for Chloe. But there was no pill to swallow until they figured out what was going on here.

Jack wondered how long they could walk before they found something, before Bent County arrived at the parking lot and wondered where they were. He wondered a lot of things on this slow, nerve-racking walk that never seemed to end.

The trail narrowed, and the trickle of blood seemed to disappear. Though, more likely, whatever had been bleeding was now bleeding in the grass rather than the dirt.

Jack paused, not sure whether to press on or study the grassy sides of the trail for the blood. No doubt it didn’t just miraculously stop bleeding.

“Jack.” Her voice trembled on just the single syllable of his name.

He heard it then. The rustle and clicking sounds. Not a human threat, but animal. Still, he wasn’t sure why that would scare Chloe, who’d grown up around wildlife and the potential threat and danger of them just as much as he had.

Until he turned to where the beam was pointed. Two pairs of eyes glowed back at them. But it wasn’t the animals—coyotes—that had caused that reaction in Chloe. It was what they were standing next to.

A human body.

Jack moved without fully thinking. Just placed himself between her and the body. Just made sure his body stopped the beam of light from reaching that far. He hadn’t seen the details, just the body—the very still body—being studied and perhaps other things by the coyotes.

“It’s Ry, isn’t it? It’s... He... Someone...”

Jack moved forward and pulled her into him. “We don’t know that, Chloe.”

Her breathing hitched on a little sob. “It’ssomeone.”

He wanted to give her his gun and tell her to follow the trail back to the parking lot. Wait for the cops. He wanted her to let him handle whatever this was. But it would leave him with only his phone for a light and with no other form of protection. He didn’t think the coyotes would be much of a problem if he didn’t approach, but he’d have to approach to identify the body.

Chloe needed to know. For sure. So he couldn’t send her back yet. He had to...

“Stay here. Put your phone flashlight on, and give me this one.” He pried the flashlight from her fingers. He didn’t think she was holding it so tight because she didn’t want to relinquish control, but because she was in shock.

“Chloe,” he said sharply. She jerked her gaze to him. “Pull out your phone. I’m going to get closer and see if I can get an ID.”

She shook her head. “Jack, they’ll... You can’t approach wild animals feeding.”

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