The thing Gant liked about the Cellar was the sense of personal responsibility. When he was sent to do a Sanction, it was his complete responsibility. No passing of the buck, no blaming someone else if it went wrong.
Gant did feel bad for the boy’s luck.
Checking with a local, Gant found out that the boy’s name was Jackson Lerner, and he was 16 years old. Early this morning he had set off with his dad for a nice hunting trip. Why they were hunting out of season no one had brought up given the circumstances. Seeing the state of their truck, Gant had a feeling it wasn’t simply for the thrill. They needed the meat.
Jackson was sitting on the ground with a man Gant presumed was his father. They both appeared a little shaky, but the boy looked like he was in pain. Gant gently eased his body to the ground, kneeling in front of the kid. The boy paid no attention.
“I’m Agent Gant.” He said it to no one in particular, but Jackson raised his head.
“And I’m Doctor Golden.”
The father stepped forward. “Hey. I’m Buddy Lerner and this is my son Jackson. This has been pretty rough on him. We’d been up all day and it was late, so Jackson had a hard time waking me up. He got it in his head that I was dead, too. He got pretty scared.”
Gant could smell Buddy a few feet away. He guessed the boy had had a hell of a hard time waking him up. “Jackson would it be Ok if I asked you a few questions?”
Jackson continued to stare at him without really seeing anything.
Golden knelt next to Gant, a move that surprised him. “Mr. Lerner,” she said, “could you help us here? We need to know what happened and he probably needs to talk about it.”
“Hey Jackson, come on, you talk to this guy and the Doctor and then we can get our butts on home. You’re moms about crazy with worry.”
“Yeah, I want to go home.” The boy’s voice was a flat monotone.
Gant decided to let Golden earn her place and remained silent.
“Can you tell me how you first discovered the body?” Golden asked.
“You mean the girl?”
This was a nice boy, Gant thought and he noted that Golden flushed at his response. “Yes, the girl. How did you first find her?”
“Just after dark I climbed up in that tree.” He pointed to a clump of dark trees east of them. One, a gnarled and weather- beaten, oak stood above the others. Gant noted it had a good field of fire across the field. “I got me a good spot in a blind someone must have built and waited for the moon.”
Gant looked up. The moon wasn’t quite full but it gave enough light to see things, but not really know what they were.
Jackson continued. “I had my binoculars and I was looking around. I spotted something shiny. I saw it a couple of times. The moonlight was hitting on something in the dark. After — you know— I climbed down and went to check. It seemed Ok, so I got closer. Then I guess I just freaked out. I tried to get my dad, and everything just gets screwed up after that.”
“It must have been terrible,” Golden said. “It’s a shame you had to go through that. After you woke your dad what did you do?”
Gant realized that Golden hadn’t quite grasped what they had seen at the body, but he remained silent.
“We hiked back to the truck and called my mom. She called the police. We’ve been waiting here ever since.” He started to cry. At that moment, he seemed a lot younger than 16. “I’m real sorry. I didn’t know. I mean, at first I thought it was my fault. You know, until I saw her leg. I mean, I knew that wasn’t me. Why would someone do that to a person?”
“Hey, Jackson.” Gant reached out and patted the kid on the back. “No one here blames you. Don’t you worry about that. Anyone could have made that mistake in the dark. She’s been gone a while.”
Comprehension flooded over Golden’s face, but Gant ignored her. “You see anyone else in this area?”
“Today?”
“Any time,” Gant said.
The boy shook his head. “It’s a pretty dead—“ he stuttered, then started over—“pretty isolated.”
No shit, thought Gant shooting a glance at the father who was remaining quiet. That’s why the old man had chosen it to hunt in. It had occurred to Gant on the way here that the spot might be a trap, the cache report designed to lure them in to an ambush. A four-wheel drive pulled up and he noticed that the Cellar’s forensic expert was getting out. Gant reluctantly stood, towering over Buddy and Jackson.
“We know how to find you,” Gant said, “so you go on home with the deputies. I heard your truck broke down.”
Jackson almost smiled. “Yeah, we got to tow it home. My mom’s mad about that.”
“Remember, try to get over this.” Gant hated himself for the patronizing statement. Maybe he was just running out of things to say. He was not impressed with Golden’s professional expertise, but of course, he imagined she’d never worked in the middle of a forest with a body nearby. He made his goodbyes and walked over to join the doctor and Bailey.
“Another victim,” Golden said.
“What?” Gant wasn’t sure what she was talking about.
“The boy. That will be with him the rest of his life.”
Gant glanced back at the boy sitting with his father. He didn’t want to tell Golden that there was most likely going to be several more victims before they caught up with whoever was doing this. As Gant walked he pulled a cravat out of his pocket and wrapped it around his nose and mouth.
“What do you think?” Bailey asked the expert as soon as they were there. Bailey had a surgical mask on, as did the expert. A set of halogen lights had been rigged up and they highlighted the area.
The man who had seen everything in his 23- year career looked a little shocked. His name was Padgett and he was an MD with extra degrees in forensics and crime scene investigation and many years of practical experience seeing the gruesome situations the Cellar waded into. “She tried to smash her own foot with the stone. Tried to break the bones so she could get it through the shackle. She was too far gone from dehydration and starvation to realize it would just swell. She probably died soon after.”
Bailey looked in the folder. “She was reported missing five weeks ago. Disappeared on the way home from work.”
“She’s been dead about three days,” Padgett reported. “I’ll have to do an autopsy but I’d say cause of the death was dehydration.”
Gant looked around. Over four weeks chained to this tree. It had to have rained several times. He knew a person could do around four weeks without food — he’d gone three weeks one time. But water was essential. One couldn’t last more than five days or so without fresh water.
Whether it was the smell of the corpse now that they were right next to it or the sudden understanding of how long the girl had been here, Golden turned and rapidly walked away to the edge of the clearing, where she knelt. The sound of her retching carried clearly. Gant could see some of the FBI men looking over, a few of them snickering evilly and making comments. Golden’s reaction didn’t bother Gant — in fact, it relieved him that she obviously wasn’t a sociopath who could stare at death without emotion.
Padgett opened his kit and began to do some work on the body.
Golden came walking back, her gait a bit unsteady. “We’ve got to find Emily.”
“We’ve got to find who did this,” Gant said. He knelt down next to Padgett and felt the heavy links. “The kid probably saw the chain, probably even moving a bit as the body swelled up. Thought it was a deer — the eyes. Thought he had a big one.” He looked at the arrow sticking out of the body. “They were hunting out of season.”