Seventeenth Dawn

5) Golden Mourning

Casey

Agent Baxter and Detective Hussler stand in a v-shape facing each other, heads bent to peer down at something by their feet. Caution tape lines the scene and other agents and forensic scientists kneel around the small area with their own equipment. Baxter hears me approach and turns. His expression is gray and dreary; the look of a man who has witnessed something terrible.

"You're sure you want to be a part of this?" he asks.

Ice runs through my veins, but I step forward. "Yes. You asked me that twenty minutes ago over the phone. I haven't changed my mind. I need to know everything that happens."

He nods understandingly. "I'm sorry to do this to you."

Before I follow their line of sight, I look at Hussler. His eyes are just as red and bloodshot as ever, sunken deep with dark bruises beneath them. The green of his irises is dull and gray like the surrounding forest. He looks defeated; hopeless.

Hussler holds out a hand to stop me. "Don't look. You need to brace yourself. It's one thing to see a dead body, it's something else entirely to see someone who was your friend without light in their eyes."

I take a shaky breath and nod, turning away. I limp a few steps into the surrounding woods, sneakers digging into the wet ground, leaving footprints.

It gives me an idea. "Before I have to face reality, I just want to say that I think you should check for footprints by where Daniel was taken."

Hussler shakes his head. "We did. The rain washed them away. You won't want to hear this, but it was the perfect opportunity to kidnap someone."

I take another breath. This is impossible. I pivot sluggishly around. "Is it actually him?"

"Yes. But you have to understand how different someone looks when they're dead. And he did not die pretty," Hussler replies.

Inhale. Exhale. Breath by breath. I can do this. Someone has to bear witness who knew him as a person before he became a corpse.

"Okay. I think I'm ready." Goosebumps tense along my skin, sending the hair fully erect.

"You'll never be ready," Hussler murmurs. "You don't have to look now, you know. You can wait until the funeral."

I shake my head. "No. I need to see now. I need to see how he suffered so I can make his murderer suffer ten times worse."

They glance at each other knowingly. Either they think it's an empty threat or they agree one hundred percent.

"You're sure?"

Despite everything, annoyance builds, and I snap, "Yes, I'm ready!"

They don't take offense or get riled by my harsh tone. They simply take two steps back each, leaving an open view to the body on the ground.

His feet are bare and covered in brown socks of dried blood. There are several gaps where toes should be. The bone and exposed flesh torment me the longer my eyes remain attached to them, too shocked to move further. I force myself to move on. His jeans are matted with blood, ripped in long strips in many areas where a knife cut through. His torso has similar wounds, but deep stab marks instead of long, shallow cuts meant to sting. I feel sick before I even make it higher than his chest, but my eyes keep scanning the entire length of his body. I make it to his throat and find a long, red slash. A waterfall of dried blood creates a scarf around his neck, falling over his shirt where it absorbed and turned the whole thing deep crimson.

I stop at his throat. At the lethal slash. I don't want to see his face. A body is a body, but a face is for certain.

This is important, I remind myself.