Aaron nodded, biting his tongue. After all, he was a stranger, and evidently that made him immediately suspect.
Chief Dexter began to walk toward a cruiser parked by the side of the road nearby. Aaron had been so caught up in the bizarre spell of raw emotion that he hadn’t even heard the policeman pull up. He looked back to the wooded area. “Chief Dexter?” he called.
The policeman stopped, his hand on the door handle of his cruiser.
“You didn’t happen to see a raccoon when you pulled up here, did you?” Aaron asked.
Dexter pulled open the door, and the squawk from his radio drifted out to fill the still air of the neighborhood. He smiled that nasty snarling smile again before easing himself into the driver’s seat. “No raccoons around this time of day, Mr. Corbet. They’re nocturnal.”
“Thought so.” Aaron nodded. He stared at the police officer. There was something about him …
“Enjoy your visit, Mr. Corbet,” Chief Dexter said. “Hope you find your friend,” he added, before slamming closed the door of his car, banging a U-turn, and driving away
From a woman who brought her dog in for its annual heartworm check, Katie McGovern learned that her former fiancé had been missing for at least four days. Apparently, the dog—an eight-year-old poodle named Taffy—had had an appointment for Monday morning, but no one had been in the office until Katie arrived that Wednesday afternoon. It’s very unlike Dr. Wessell to miss an appointment. I hope everything is all right, the dog’s middle-aged owner had said, her voice touched with concern.
Katie had made up a story about a family emergency that Kevin would have to deal with when he finally got back—if he does, said a nasty little voice at the back of her mind. She had tried to ignore the voice by cleaning up the office and catching up with Kevin’s appointments. From organization comes order, her mother had always said. And from order comes answers. But the creeping unease she’d been feeling in the pit of her stomach since receiving that first e-mail from her former lover a little over two weeks ago continued to grow.
Think I’ve found something here that might interest you—care for a visit? Katie had thought it nothing more than another attempt by Kevin to get her back into his life, and she’d ignored the message—until she received another a few days later.
Not sure if I can handle this. Really need to see you. Please come.
There was a certain urgency in the communication that had piqued her curiosity. She had called him the next day, but there was no answer at the clinic. And when Kevin had failed to return the multiple messages she’d left on his home phone over several days, she’d decided to take some vacation time and head to Maine. They may have broken up nearly two years earlier, but it didn’t mean they weren’t still friends.
The office had been in complete disarray—Kevin did have a tendency to become easily distracted. In fact it was a distraction with another woman that had brought an end to their relationship. But this was different.
Katie glanced at her watch; it was nearly six, and she felt as though she hadn’t stopped to breathe all afternoon—between appointments, trying to bring order to the place, and figure out where Kevin had gone. She thought of Aaron Corbet. He seemed just the person to help her keep the practice afloat during Kevin’s absence.
She snatched up his dog’s file from the corner of the desk and casually began to review it. The words “raccoon bite” stuck out like a sore thumb. Katie had seen many bites in her years as a vet—and Gabriel’s hadn’t been caused by any raccoon. She wasn’t even sure if the bite had come from anything that walked on four legs. In fact, the wound looked as though it might have been made by a small child. Something else to add to the strangeness of Blithe, she thought.
The veterinarian sighed and closed the folder. She moved to the file cabinet next to the desk and pulled open the drawer. Katie added Gabriel’s file to the others she had organized and tried to slide it closed. But something was blocking it. She reached in and felt behind the drawer. Sometimes a file slipped out of place and became wedged in the sliding track. Her hand closed on what felt like a book. She tugged it free and slammed the drawer shut.
Probably some veterinary journal, she mused, bringing it to the desk to take a look. It was journal, all right, but one of a far more personal nature: Kevin’s journal. She remembered him writing in it each night before bed. It was something he had started in college. Helps me get my thoughts in order, he had told her one night when she’d asked him about the habit.
She flipped through the entries and stopped at the one dated June 1:
Saw another one today on my hike. I’d swear they were watching me. Gives me the creeps. Wonder what Katie would think.
That was right about the time she had received his first e-mail. With a churning sensation in the pit of her stomach, Katie turned to the date closest to the last message he had sent:
June 8 Found another one and put it in the freezer with the rest. Don’t know what the cause is. Don’t want to alarm the locals YET. Never in all my years have I seen anything like it. I wonder if it has anything to do with how strangely the local fauna’s been acting lately. I still swear they’re watching me. I need somebody else to see this—somebody I trust. I’m going to ask Katie to come. I’m feeling a little spooked right now, and it’ll be good to see her.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Katie said to the journal, her frustration on the rise. It was the last entry and, like the others, it told her very little.
Katie tossed the journal onto the desktop and thought about what she had read. “You found something and put it in the freezer,” she said to herself, chewing at the end of her fingernail. Her eyes scanned the reception area, and she bolted to her feet. “All right, let’s take a look, then.” She hadn’t seen a freezer, although most veterinarians kept large units to store deceased animals, tissue samples, and other specimens. There must be one around here somewhere, she thought.
She moved away from the desk and strolled down the hallway past the examination room. At the end of the hall was a door that she had originally thought was to a maintenance closet. Katie grabbed hold of the doorknob, turned it, and found herself looking down a flight of wooden steps that disappeared into the darkness of a cellar.
She felt for a light switch along the wall and, finding none, used the cool stone for a guide as she carefully descended. At the foot of the stairs she could just make out the iridescent shape of a lightbulb that seemed to be suspended in the darkness. She reached out, fumbled for the chain, and gave it a good yank.
The bulb came to life, illuminating the cool storage area dug out from the rock and dirt beneath the building’s foundation. She recognized Kevin’s mountain bike, ski equipment, and even a canoe, but it was the freezer in the far corner that attracted her interest. Plugged into a heavy-duty socket beneath a gray metal electrical box, the white unit sat atop some wooden pallets, humming quietly.
Maneuvering around winter coats hanging from pipes, Katie approached the freezer. She stood in front of the oblong unit, feeling a faint aura of cold radiating from the white box. Her fingers began to tingle in anticipation as she slowly reached for the cover.
“Let’s see what spooked you, Kev,” she said in a whisper, lifting up the lid. A cloud of freezing air billowed up, and she breathed the cold gas into her lungs, coughing. The distinctive aroma of frozen dead things filled the air, and she took note of the red biohazard symbols on the bags lying along the freezer bottom. She leaned into the chest, reaching down to pick up one of the bags. It was covered in a fine frost, masking its contents, and Katie brushed away the icy coating so she could see within the thick biohazard container. The thing inside the bag stared back with eyes frozen wide in death.