Survival Clause, стр. 72
Or at least that’s what I assumed we’d be doing.
“I’ll call from the car,” Grimaldi said and strode out, leaving me to scurry along behind.
Rafe was there, with a crew of crime scene techs, by the time we made it back to Daffodil Hill Farm. Grimaldi had phoned Bob again to tell him her concerns, and he had agreed that she could go hunt down Art Mullinax just as soon as she’d met him and his retrieval crew, and told them where to go. So we sat on the side of the road and waited for Bob to show up.
Or more accurately, I sat on the side of the road and waited. Grimaldi had walked back to where she thought Yung might have come out of the woods, and had examined the ground for any signs of accident, struggle, or anything else.
“I’m pretty sure I found where she came across the ditch,” she told me when she’d made her way back to me. “Something pushed through the branches recently, and slid into the ditch and climbed back out. I saw what looked like a heel mark in the bottom of the ditch, where it’s just wet enough for the ground to hold an impression. I couldn’t testify to it being her, not without a plaster cast of her shoe for comparison, but I’m pretty sure it’s the imprint of a high heel.”
“Well, then I’m sure it was Yung,” I said. “Who else would have been out here in the last day or two in high heels?”
“I imagine not a lot of people.” Grimaldi shaded her eyes with her hand as she gazed down the road in the direction of town. “At least we don’t have to worry about searching the woods for her. She’s not hurt and helpless in there somewhere.”
No. But she might be hurt and helpless somewhere else. And I’m sure it was that same thought that caused Grimaldi’s next outburst. “What’s taking them so long? I could have jogged to Sweetwater by now!”
“Not really. And I’m sure they’re coming as quickly as they can. But it’s not like he—” I nodded in the direction of the woods and the skeleton they contained, “needs help in a hurry.”
Grimaldi nodded reluctantly, and started to pace back and forth in front of the car instead.
I put up with it for about two minutes, and was just about to tell her to knock it off when I heard the sound of a car engine coming closer. “That must be them.”
I scooted off the hood of the SUV and peered down the road. “Yes. There they are. Blue lights and everything.”
But no sirens. It wasn’t that kind of hurry.
Bob pulled his sheriff’s SUV up on the shoulder across the road from us, and got out. The crime scene van made a U-turn and parked behind Grimaldi’s car. Bob came toward us. “This the place?”
Grimaldi nodded. “That’s the cairn of stones. That’s my T-shirt. The body is a five or ten minute hike straight back.”
“One of Carrie’s blankets is draped over a branch up above,” I added. “It’s bright yellow. You can’t miss it.”
“I don’t imagine we will.” Bob scratched behind his ear. “I heard from Cletus Johnson. Agent Yung hasn’t turned up at the hotel so far.”
“We think we found the place where she came out of the woods,” Grimaldi said, including me in the discovery even though I’d been sitting here with the car while she’d done all the work, “so I don’t think it’s a case of her still being in there.”
“We’ll keep an eye out,” Bob told her, “and holler as we go. But if she made it out, and she isn’t with you, or with me, and she hasn’t gone back to the hotel, I’d say we probably have cause for concern at this point.”
I’d say so, too.
“You girls run along.” He waved us off down the road, metaphorically. “We’ll gather up the bones and anything else we might find in the drop zone. You go look for Agent Yung.”
Grimaldi nodded, “Come on, Savannah. Let’s go.”
She hustled to the car door while I hurried to keep up. Behind us, two sheriff’s deputies in stout boots and with big bags of paraphernalia prepared to follow Bob across the ditch and into the woods.
“I feel kind of bad for leaving them to get there and deal with it on their own,” I said, as they faded away in the rearview mirror.
Grimaldi glanced over. “It isn’t your job. If anybody should feel bad, it’s me.”
“Don’t you?”
“Not about Jurgensson. Assuming it’s him in there, and I guess we have to assume it is.”
I nodded. It was probably safe to assume that, under the circumstances. “I can’t think of anyone else it’s likely to be.”
“But I do feel bad about Yung. If she got picked up by Mullinax, it’s my fault.”
“Of course it isn’t,” I said, in spite of feeling a little like that myself. Logically we had no reason to. “She’s a federal agent. She’s trained. She’s probably armed. She’s supposed to be able to take care of herself. And we have to assume she isn’t stupid. She wouldn’t be in this job if she were.”
“So what happened?”
I shrugged. “I have no idea. But I know it wasn’t your fault. Or mine. All she had to do was walk for fifteen minutes and then wait for us. If something happened to her, it’s tragic, but it isn’t our fault. If you’d walked back to the road and been grabbed by Mullinax, would it have been her fault? Or my fault?”
“Of course not,” Grimaldi said. “But she’d never even seen Mullinax. She wouldn’t know him from Adam if he rolled up next to her and offered her a ride. He looks like such a harmless old man…”
I shook my head. “She didn’t need a ride.