The Body in the Woods

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  FOR THE TEENS OF THE MULTNOMAH COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE SEARCH AND RESCUE TEAM

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright notice

  Dedication

  1. Tuesday: Blood

  2. Tuesday: A Bunch of Teenagers

  3. Tuesday: Long Yellow Teeth

  4. Tuesday: Unimaginable Feats of Bravery

  5. Tuesday: Something Awful Lurking

  6. Tuesday: You Just Have to Look

  7. Tuesday: The Next to Die

  8. Tuesday: In the End, You’re Just Dead

  9. Tuesday: His Little Remembrance

  10. Tuesday: Asleep Forever

  11. Tuesday: After Dark

  12. Tuesday: Outside the Box

  13. Tuesday: Open into Darkness

  14. Tuesday: Death in the Woods

  15. Wednesday: Anything God Didn’t Put There

  16. Wednesday: Things Go South

  17. Wednesday: Hidden

  18. Wednesday: The Sound of Her Last Breath

  19. Wednesday: You’re One of Them Now

  20. Thursday: When She Was Finally Still

  21. Thursday: All of Them Gone Now

  22. Thursday: In a Darkened Room

  23. Friday: If They Knew the Truth

  24. Saturday: Still Gone

  25. Saturday: All the Choices in the World

  26. Saturday: Step One

  27. Saturday: In Good Spirits

  28. Saturday: No Time to Be Surprised

  29. Sunday: His Next Victim

  30. Sunday: Only Air

  31. Sunday: The Cruel Curve

  32. Sunday: Outsider

  33. Monday: The Death of Tiffany Yee

  34. Monday: Things Change

  35. Tuesday: Had to Have It

  36. Tuesday: Collect the Whole Set

  37. Tuesday: The Silver Tracks of Her Tears

  38. Tuesday: Observations You Missed

  39. Tuesday: Cry for All the Girls

  40. Wednesday: Life List

  41. Wednesday: So-Called Killer

  42. Wednesday: Without Even Saying Good-bye

  43. Wednesday: See for Yourself

  44. Wednesday: The Flesh Against Her Bones

  45. Wednesday: He’s Going to Kill Her

  46. Wednesday: Into the Shadows

  47. Wednesday: Alive to His Fingertips

  48. Wednesday: Only Got Worse

  49. Wednesday: Time to Let Go

  50. Wednesday: Cry Out in Horror

  51. Wednesday: Three Bodies

  52. The Following Wednesday: Like Birds

  53. Wednesday: Symmetrical

  54. Saturday: Foam Heart

  Acknowledgments

  About the author

  Other Mysteries by April Henry

  Praise

  Copyright

  CHAPTER 1

  TUESDAY

  BLOOD

  For Alexis Frost, Nick Walker, and Ruby McClure, it all started with a phone call and two texts. It ended with fear and courage, love and loathing, screaming and blood. Lots of blood.

  * * *

  When the classroom phone rang in American history, Alexis Frost straightened up and blinked, trying to will herself awake as the teacher answered it. She managed to yawn without opening her mouth, the cords stretching tight in her neck. Last night had been another hard one.

  “Alexis?” Mrs. Fairchild turned toward her.

  “Yes?” Her heart sped up. What was it this time? The possibilities were endless. None of them good.

  “Could you come up here, please?”

  Mrs. Fairchild was looking at Alexis as if she was seeing her in a new light. Had it finally happened, then, the thing she both feared and longed for? Had something happened to her mother?

  * * *

  Nick Walker’s thumbs were poised over the virtual keyboard of the phone he held on his lap. He was pretending to listen to Mr. Dill, his English teacher, while he was really texting Sasha Madigan, trying this angle and that to persuade her to study with him tonight. Which he hoped would mean lots of copying (on his part) and lots of kissing (on both their parts).

  The phone vibrated in his hand. Mr. Dill was busy writing on the board, so Nick lifted it a little closer to his face. It wasn’t a reply from Sasha but a message from his Portland Search and Rescue team leader.

  Search in Forest Park. Missing man. Meet time 1500.

  His first SAR call-out! He jumped to his feet.

  “Nick?” Mr. Dill turned and looked at him over the top of his glasses. “What is it?” Mr. Dill had a lot of rules. He had already complained about Nick’s habit of drawing—only Mr. Dill called it doodling—in class.

  Nick held up his phone while pointing at it with his other hand as if he had been hired to demonstrate it. “I’m with Portland Search and Rescue, and we’ve been mobilized to find a man missing in Forest Park. I have to leave now.”

  “Um, okay,” Mr. Dill said uncertainly. Someone in Wilson High’s administration had had to sign off on Nick being allowed to join searches during the school day, but maybe the information hadn’t filtered down to his teachers.

  No matter. Nick was already out the door.

  He just hoped someone from class would tell Sasha. A text wouldn’t do it justice.

  Nick Walker, called out on a lifesaving mission.

  * * *

  Ruby McClure felt her phone buzz in her jeans pocket. She waited until the end of chemistry to check it.

  Fifteen hundred made so much more sense than three P.M. Ruby preferred military time. No questions about whether “nine” meant morning or night. No having to rely on context. No one getting hung up on whether 1200 had an A.M. or a P.M. after it, which was a ridiculous idea because A.M. meant “ante meridiem” and P.M. meant “post meridiem” and meridiem was Latin for “midday,” and twelve noon was midday itself.

  It was 1357 now. Which meant she had an hour to get home, change into hiking clothes, pick up her SAR backpack, and meet the rest of the team at the Portland sheriff’s office.

  Piece of cake.

  Ruby pulled out the keys to her car as she walked to the office to sign herself out. On the way, her phone buzzed again. It was Nick, asking for a ride.

  CHAPTER 2

  TUESDAY

  A BUNCH OF TEENAGERS

  The Portland County Sheriff’s Office had called out all teams to search for the missing man. Of the twenty teens on Team Alpha, twelve had responded. Now they climbed out of the fifteen-passenger van driven by Jon Partridge, one of the adult advisers, and into a parking lot next to Forest Park. Team Bravo, along with the sheriff’s deputy assigned to this search, were in a second van and would take the other end of the huge park. With the exception of the deputy, everyone was a volunteer.

  The last one out of the van, Alexis was surreptitiously trying to eat a granola bar from her backpack’s emergency rations. Today was looking like it might qualify as an emergency. Not because of this search, but because of how the apartment had looked when she stopped to grab her gear. By the time Alexis had gotten off the city bus at the sheriff’s office, the van had been idling outside. She had been the last to board.

  Mitchell Wiggins clapped his hands. “Listen up, people!” Mitchell was an Eagle Scout who wanted to be a cop. Even though he had been elected team leader only a few days ago, it was clearly a natural fit. He seemed born to wear some kind of uniform. His yell
ow SAR climbing helmet—the yellow marked him as the leader, while the rest of the team wore red helmets—was already buckled into place. Now his pale, earnest face regarded each of them in turn. “Today we will be conducting a hasty search for a thirty-four-year-old white man named Bobby Balog.”

  This was it, then. The real deal. Alexis took a deep breath. Most of the other teens here were certifieds. They had completed the nine months of training and had been called out on dozens of searches. All Alexis and a few of the others had behind them were seven Wednesday-evening classes and two weekend training exercises. From class, she knew that a hasty search was just like it sounded, a quick search that stuck to the most obvious trails and routes. It was also quite possible that this would turn out to be what was known in SAR circles as “a bastard search,” when you went looking for someone who was never really lost in the first place.

  “Bobby is five foot eight and two hundred pounds,” Mitchell continued. “He’s wearing dark blue Nike shoes. The sole pattern is made up of squares about the size of keyboard keys.” A few of the more experienced kids, who had training in tracking, nodded. “He’s also wearing jeans, a gray sweater, and a navy blue windbreaker.”

  Alexis exchanged a look with Nick. She knew they were thinking the same thing. Not a single bright color. This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “And he’s autistic,” Mitchell added, putting the icing on the cake. “The PLS”—point last seen—“is his bedroom, which is a mile from here, but he loves Forest Park and has run away and hidden here before.”

  “How autistic?” Ruby asked. “That diagnosis covers a wide range of behaviors.” She was standing right next to Alexis. Too close. As usual.

  Alexis slid a half step sideways. She didn’t want anyone thinking they were really friends. Most especially Ruby.

  Mitchell was opening his mouth to answer when a silver Lexus sped into the lot. Before it was even at a complete stop, heels were clip-clopping toward them. Their owner was a woman with short, curly dark hair who wore a tailored long black wool coat. Smeared mascara rimmed her red, swollen eyes. Following more slowly in her wake was a silver-haired man dressed in dark slacks, a white shirt, and a black sweater vest. He was coatless, even though the temperature was only in the mid-forties.

  “Wait a minute.” The woman stopped short when she saw their faces. “You’re Portland Search and Rescue?”

  Mitchell pulled his skinny frame to its full six-foot-two height. “Yes, ma’am, we are.”

  “A bunch of teenagers?”

  “Marla.” The man laid his hand on her arm, but she shook it off.

  Jon cleared his throat and stepped forward. He might be twenty-six, but Jon had been in SAR since he was fifteen. “Every person you see has volunteered to be here. Most of us have received hundreds of hours of training and conducted dozens of rescues. That’s why the Portland County Sheriff’s Office chooses us to search for people who are lost or injured.” His steel-gray eyes never left the woman’s face. “Now, we could keep talking about their experience level, or we could start searching for your son while there’s still light.”

  Mrs. Balog blinked and closed her mouth.

  Only Ruby was unfazed by this exchange. “Exactly how autistic is Bobby?”

  It was Mr. Balog who answered. “He doesn’t have any physical handicaps or other medical conditions. He’s a fast walker and not much of a talker. He’ll probably hide from you.”

  “He loves the woods,” Mrs. Balog said. “And he doesn’t like strangers.” She ran a knuckle under one eye. “He’s done this twice since we moved to Portland, but the other times it was summer.”

  Alexis wished they still had summer’s long days and warm temperatures. Instead it was November and they were working against time, against the sun that was already sinking, against the night that would drop temperatures even further, against the creeks and fallen snags and rabbit holes that Bobby might blunder into.

  Regaining his professional balance, Mitchell turned his focus back to the team. “Remember, guys, your job is not just to search but to inform the public. Let them be your eyes and ears. If they have anything to report, they can do it at the command post we’ll set up here.”

  “I have a photo of Bobby,” Mr. Balog offered, pulling a cell phone from his back pocket. His face was creased and worn. Alexis wondered how many of the lines were the result of having a kid who wasn’t normal. But you couldn’t change your family.

  Mitchell took the phone and looked at it for a long moment before passing it on. As it went from hand to hand, Alexis was reminded of the few times her mom had taken her to church, the Communion tray passing in silence. Mrs. Balog shivered as the wind began to pick up, and her husband put his arm around her.

  When it was her turn, Alexis cradled the image of Bobby’s round face. His smile was strangely wide and flat, as if someone had instructed him to show all his teeth, top and bottom. She silently promised him that she would find him if she could.

  Jon’s phone rang, and he walked to the other side of the van to answer it. For a second, Alexis strained to hear, wondering if they had found Bobby, but it sounded like he was arguing with his girlfriend. While Jon was busy, Mitchell split them into teams of two or three, assigning the more experienced searchers the higher probability areas. Each team was given a rat pack—a small pack that buckled across the chest and contained a GPS and a radio.

  Finally only Alexis, Ruby, and Nick were left to be dispatched. Obviously Alexis should have taken another step away from Ruby while she still had a chance.

  Jon came back around the corner of the van. “Where’s the rest of the team?”

  “Already out on the trail,” Mitchell answered.

  Jon dropped his voice so the Balogs couldn’t overhear. “What were you thinking? These three are brand-new! You should have split them up.”

  They all looked down the trail, but the others were already out of sight.

  Mitchell’s face reddened. “Sorry!”

  Jon sighed, rubbing a spot just above his left eyebrow. “It is what it is.” The Balogs were leaning in, trying to listen, so he lowered his voice slightly. “I don’t want you three out of sight of the trail or each other. Nick, you’ll be in charge of the rat pack. Ruby, I want you to take the topo map.”

  Leaving nothing for Alexis. She had tried her best to fit in, but maybe Jon could see right through her.

  SAR was her ticket to college. She wasn’t going to be like the other girls in her neighborhood, getting pregnant or dropping out or settling for a minimum-wage job. But even a state school would be expensive, and her guidance counselor had told Alexis that her B average was not enough to win her any scholarships. To make herself stand out, the counselor had said, she needed to add an eye-catching extracurricular. But Alexis was too uncoordinated for sports, she couldn’t read music, and yearbook had been too competitive.

  It had been either this or the Mathletes.

  Mitchell handed the topo map to Ruby, and the four of them leaned in close. His long finger traced the way they were supposed to go. “Follow this section of the trail.”

  “But that’s nowhere near where you said he was found the last two times,” Nick protested.

  Mitchell’s jaw clenched. “We need to cover ground, and figuring out where he isn’t is almost as important as figuring out where he is. So you guys had better get going.”

  Suddenly Mrs. Balog grabbed the arm of the blue Gore-Tex jacket Alexis had scored a few weeks ago at Goodwill. “Do you think you’ll find him?” Her breath was hot and stale. Alexis couldn’t look away from her brown eyes, the whites threaded with red.

  What should she say?

  “We’re going to try.”

  CHAPTER 3

  TUESDAY

  LONG YELLOW TEETH

  “We need to get going before it gets too dark,” Ruby called back to Alexis. Ruby was already twenty feet down the trail, buckling the dark red climbing helmet over her crimson hair. Nick wasn’t far behind. Alexis gen
tly pulled her arm away from Bobby’s mom and followed. For the first few hundred yards, the trail was paved and ran parallel to a stream.

  As soon as they were out of sight of the adults, Nick clambered up on a huge fallen log half covered with pale green, velvety moss. He was still carrying his helmet by its strap.

  “You’re supposed to stay on the trail,” Ruby said.

  Only when he came to the end of the log did he jump down, landing in a puddle with a splash. Alexis rolled her eyes. Nick was like a big kid sometimes. All he wanted was attention, any kind of attention.

  Tweet! Tweet! She jumped at the sound of his whistle. The blast jolted her back to the reality of their search.

  “Bobby!” Nick called out. “Bobby!”

  “It’s not logical to be calling his name,” Ruby said. “His mother said he would hide.”

  “What difference does it make?” Nick shrugged. “You saw where he went before. We’re not going to be the ones to find him.”

  Even though he was probably right, Alexis was still careful not to hurry as she called his name and blew her whistle. Remembering their training, she looked up, down, and sideways to be certain they didn’t miss either Bobby or a piece of clothing he might have discarded. She even turned around to look back. In her head, she heard Jon’s voice. Lots of evidence gets missed because it’s on the back side of a tree or a rock, and people forget to look behind them. Knowing they were looking for a real person made Alexis’s breath come a little faster. It was like walking into a haunted house and waiting for a bloody man to jump out brandishing a rubber ax.

  In this part of the park, the trees grew straight as pencils and the branches didn’t begin until many feet over their heads. Beams of light slid between the trunks, looking as if they should be illuminating a miracle instead of a patch of undergrowth. The shadowed ground was carpeted with yellow-green grasses and bright emerald ferns. They were surrounded by a million shades of green: khaki and jade, olive and lime and avocado.

  Tiny waterfalls silvered the stream, and birds trilled in the trees. It was all like a fairy tale. And bad things happened in fairy-tale forests. Witches and wolves lay in wait. Alexis shivered.