“The scene is behind the house. Mostly hidden from the street.”
I rounded the corner and stopped in my tracks.
I squeezed my eyes shut. Counted to ten and reopened them.
But the same grisly sight greeted me.
Penny. Naked. Hanging upside down from a tree branch. A meat hook jammed through both her Achilles tendons and chains secured around her ankles.
Just like an animal kill.
Dried blood trailed down the backs of her calves and thighs.
I forced my eyes to travel the length of her naked torso. Her arms hung down like misshapen animal limbs. Her wrists had been slit, and blood pooled in the dirt beneath her in irregular splotches. As if the wind had blown her around as she’d bled to death. Or like she’d been moving, trying to get away, trying to stop her lifeblood from slowly dripping out.
The turbanlike covering she’d worn to hide her bald head was gone, leaving her skull bare, showing where her hair had started to grow in and the patches where it hadn’t.
That turned my stomach. Penny had been so self-conscious about being bald. For her, having her head exposed would’ve been worse than being naked.
And the indignity went on.
I wanted to look away, but I forced my gaze to stay on… this. On what some sick bastard had done. Killed a woman with cancer. Stripped her, humiliated her, and hung her up like a prized kill. Slit her throat and left her to die.
Rage filled me. Then sorrow. Then a combination of both that lodged in my throat like a logjam.
Another hour passed before the members of the Emergency Response Team arrived from Rapid City. They were thorough. Which equaled slow.
A crowd gathered. The tribal cops were doing their best to contain it.
Then I heard that awful noise. One I recognized. A howl of outrage, pain, disbelief, shock, and grief. But I’d never before heard that sound coming from my friend John-John.
I heard it again, this time from Sophie. The word no, followed by a long wail. Over and over.
If I heard that sound in the wild, I’d find the animal and put it out of its misery. But I could do nothing but stand there and bear witness to their sorrow.
After five minutes of mournful keening, I looked at Shay. “How fucking much longer are you gonna leave her up in that goddamn tree?”
“Agent Gunderson-”
“Get her down or build a damn barricade around her. No one should see this. Least of all her family.”
“That’s the first smart thing I’ve heard from the FBI since we got the call,” Chief Looks Twice said.
He and Shay conferred. Then Shay finally motioned for his crew to take her down.
Because Carsten wasn’t on scene yet, I went to deal with the family.
The family. Like they weren’t my family. Like I could keep professional distance in this situation.
Sophie sat on the ground, rocking back and forth and wailing in a low-pitched tremolo, nearly catatonic in her grief.
John-John also sat on the ground. His face was stoic through the tears streaming down.
Devlin wasn’t overtly grieving. Devlin was mad. As soon as he saw me, he stomped over.
“This is your fault,” he spat.
“Devlin, I’m sorry. We’re doing everything-”
“But it’ll be too late for her, won’t it? Penny is dead. Murdered. Fucking slaughtered. Just like was forecast in John-John’s vision. And just like in that vision, here you are in the thick of it. Pretending you care-”
“I do care.”
Devlin screamed obscenities at me.
I let him.
But Shay wasn’t having any of it. He got in Devlin’s face. His eyes were the coldest I’ve ever seen, and his voice cut through the bullshit spewing from Devlin like a scythe. “Stand down. Now.”
Devlin’s mouth snapped shut.
“I understand you’re grieving. But just because you’re personally acquainted with Agent Gunderson-”
“It’s her fault my sister is dead!” He pointed to me. “Look at her! She’s acting guilty because she knows it’s true.”
“One more word, Mr. Pretty Horses, and I will have you forcibly removed from the scene and locked up in the tribal jail. Don’t tempt me on this.” Shay motioned to Officer Ferguson. “If this man speaks, cuff him. If he resists arrest, use whatever level of force you need to ensure he cooperates. Understood?”
“Yes, Agent Turnbull.”
Turnbull herded me toward the street. Then he loomed over me. “Say something, Gunderson.”
I couldn’t.
“How long would you have allowed him to dress you down?”
I looked over at Sophie, rocking and crying. Then my gaze moved to John-John, staring through me, his eyes vacant with shock. I met Shay’s gaze again. “I don’t know. I just… froze.”
“There’s something else going on with them. Tell me.”
Turnbull and I had seemed to be on a sharing kick-at least from my end-since the night of Verline’s wake, so I told him what I knew of John-John’s vision. Penny’s death. My presence as the little black rain cloud of doom.
If I believed Shay wouldn’t discount it, well, I was wrong.
He towed me behind the ambulance. Then he stepped in front of me, blocking me from everyone’s view. His strong fingers circled my wrist, and he lifted my own hand in front of my face. “You see this? Is there blood on it?”
“No.”
“Did you string up your former housekeeper’s daughter like a hunting trophy?”
“No.”
“Then you can’t shoulder the blame.”
I blinked at him.
“A vision is no more relevant than a dream, Mercy. No one can assign real meaning to it. And those who claim they can have usually been smokin’ too much peyote, or hitting the firewater too hard.”
“But you’re the one who told me-”
“About your tie to the spirit world?”
I nodded.
“Not the same thing. I can understand why they didn’t call you when Penny went missing. But your tie doesn’t have a damn thing to do with someone else’s vision.”
Numb, I mumbled, “Thank you.”
“This is gonna be hard. But you can handle it.”
“Because I’m a good agent?”
Shay curled my hand into a fist before he released it. “No, because you’re a good person.”
I watched him walk away. Then I forced myself to seek out Sophie. I sat in the dirt next to her, at a loss about how to help her.
Wasn’t long before she was leaning on me. Just her head on my arm. She stopped rocking. Her tears continued to fall.
So did mine.
Finally, she wiped her nose and her eyes on her sleeve. “I’m tired, Mercy.” Her voice was a breathless rasp of defeat.
“I’m sure you’ve spent the last day without getting much rest. You want me to take you home?”
“No, John-John will need to. It’ll help him if he can fuss over me.”
“What can I do?”
I sat very still as Sophie’s back straightened and she looked me in the eyes. Her lip wobbled. She firmed it and bit off, “Find who did this to my daughter.”
“I will. I promise. And if you need anything…”
“I’ll let you know.” Sophie touched my face, almost absentmindedly, the way she used to when I was an awkward teenage girl. “How is the Sheriff?”
“Well, he hasn’t left me yet.”
She tsk-tsked. “You’re strong, Mercy. But I like that you don’t have to be so tough with him. You’re a good match. Now with Lex living there… you have a family of your own. You need that more than you know.”
This woman I should be giving comfort to… was trying to comfort me. More tears fell down my face. “I miss you.”
“Ah, I miss you, too. You and your grumpy ways.”
I blurted, “Then why did you quit?”
She patted my cheek. “Because I thought it was my job as Penny’s mother to make her last few months bearable. As much as she claimed she was getting better and the herbal medicine eased her pain, I only had to look in her eyes to know she was lying. She was dying. I just can’t believe it came to this…” She briefly closed her eyes, then those sorrow-filled black pools were back on mine. “I never put much stock in the way John-John interpreted that vision. I want you to know that had nothin’ to do with me leavin’, no matter what he says, hey.”