Leave No Trace Read online

  Brian’s tone radiated the horror Meg felt.

  “Yes. Depending on the draw weight, the amount of force behind an arrow, especially one with that kind of arrowhead, is significant,” said Fannin County Sheriff Don Maxwell. “It would also leave a hole several inches wide behind because it’s a mechanical, expandable arrowhead.”

  “Meaning . . .” Brian prompted.

  “When the arrow is shot, the blades of an expanding broadhead are folded back so the arrow is aerodynamic. But when it hits the target, the mechanical blades snap out, slicing through anything in the way. Remember an arrow spins when it flies, so it would be like getting hit by a three-inch high-speed drill. It would simply carve a tunnel through soft tissue.”

  Brian shuddered and exchanged a disgusted look with Meg.

  “He didn’t live long afterward,” Maxwell finished.

  “I guess not,” Meg murmured. She cleared her throat to raise her voice. “So, what you’re telling us is caution is warranted and we’re dealing with a very dangerous suspect.”

  “Without a doubt.”

  “Hawk, come.” Meg strode to the tree and studied the arrow. The narrow black shaft was embedded in the tree at a slight downward angle. Four colored plastic fletches circled the base of the arrow. The arrowhead was barely visible in the tree trunk, but as she leaned in, Meg could just see the expandable blades Maxwell described. She straightened and turned back to the men. “Neither of us are hunters. Can someone tell us what we’re looking at? It may give us some insight into the suspect.”

  Maxwell looked over at a stout man in a powder-blue uniform shirt, gray trousers, captain’s bars on his shoulders, and wearing the flat-brimmed hat of state patrol. “Wilcox, you know more about this than the rest of us.”

  “Yup, been bowhunting for over thirty years.” Captain Wilcox moved to stand on the other side of the arrow from Meg.

  Meg stared pointedly at Brian and gave a head jerk. Get over here.

  He grimaced, but called Lacey over to stand with him beside Meg.

  “This here’s a custom-made carbon fiber arrow,” Wilcox began.

  “You can tell just by looking at it?” Meg asked.

  “Sure. I can tell you, these components are top of the line. And most arrows, certainly all the commercial ones, have only three fletchings. This one has four.”

  “That gives the shooter an advantage?”

  “Makes the arrow quieter. And with four vanes, you can make each one lower profile, which minimizes wind drift. Gives the arrow extra stability.”

  “Like if you’re making an extra-long shot and want to ensure the accuracy?” Brian asked. “And you don’t want your target to hear the arrow coming.”

  Wilcox nodded. “That’s right. Granted, at three hundred feet per second on an average seventy-pound draw, even if you hear it coming, you won’t actually have time to get out of the way.”

  “So we’re looking at someone who’s making their own arrows. How common is that?”

  “Not unusual for serious hunters. But most don’t put this much money into it. As I said, these are top-of-the-line components. Not from around here; none of our shops carry anything this fancy. These were ordered by someone and shipped in.”

  “Could the materials be traced?”

  “Something to look at, but a lot of serious hunters and archers across the country make their own arrows. We’ll most likely find the materials were mass-produced and are nearly impossible to trace.”

  Meg turned and followed the path the arrow must have flown over the hollow behind the house and over the rise as it climbed up the mountain. “Can you estimate where the shot came from?”

  “Based on the direction of the arrow, I’d put the shooter”—Wilcox extended an arm and pointed toward a small, open space inside the forest line—“right about there.” He squinted at the spot, glanced at the arrow, and then returned his gaze to the tree line. “That must be about a hundred yards, maybe a little more.” He swiveled back to face Meg and Brian. “We’re talking about an expert shot. You’re going to need to be extremely careful. If you get close, this is someone who could take you out. Or your dogs. And there’s no way they’d survive a shot like that.”

  Meg dropped her hand down to rest on Hawk’s sun-warmed head and tried to tamp down on the wave of fear that rose at his warning. She’d already lost one canine partner during a suspect chase. She wasn’t sure she’d survive it a second time. She took a deep breath to settle suddenly raw nerves.

  Brian was still standing with his hands on his hips, staring at the break in the trees as if he’d missed the warning altogether. “Wouldn’t the shooter be visible over there?” he asked. “I mean, if the shooter can see the victim, then wouldn’t the victim be able to see the shooter?”

  “Probably not,” Wilcox replied. “Most serious hunters go out in camo so they blend in and can’t be spotted. What works for deer and bears also works for people.”

  “And that’s legal?”

  “For bowhunting.”

  “Good to know. So how armed do you think this guy is? He’ll be carrying a quiver with a dozen arrows? Two dozen?” Brian stopped dead when the officers around him chuckled or rolled their eyes. “What?”

  “Definitely a city boy. As I said, this person is an expert shot,” Wilcox said. “An expert shooter can go out with only one arrow and have a successful day hunting. This isn’t like carrying ammunition. You’re not looking for someone who has an unlimited supply of arrows. They won’t need that. They might be carrying three or four at most. When you can aim like that, you don’t need many.”

  “No?” Brian glanced sideways at Meg, and she could read the caution in his eyes.

  “No, a single, well-placed shot is all this guy will need. So be aware—if you get within three hundred feet of him, that will be all he needs to take you out permanently.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Track Rock Gap: Located five miles east of Blairsville in Union County, the Cherokee called it Datsu-nalas-gun-yi, meaning “where there are tracks.”

  Monday, April 8, 11:47 AM

  Rocky Mountain

  Blue Ridge, Georgia

  Meg and Brian stood in the small clearing they’d glimpsed from across the hollow. The term “clearing” was generous—it was really just a gap in the leaf canopy caused by a fallen tree. The majority of the tree was gone, but part of the toppled trunk still remained.

  Before they’d left the driveway, Hawk and Lacey had investigated the arrow, still buried in the tree, in an attempt to catch the shooter’s scent. Now, on command, the dogs cast around for that same odor, circling the stump, noses to the ground, scenting the dirt and the gnarled, twisted mass of exposed roots.

  Meg studied the ground. The area around them was lush with new spring growth, but the earth was firm under a thick layer of last autumn’s leaves, and there was no trace of boot or shoeprints.

  “I don’t see any obvious sign that anyone’s been here. If the shot came from this location, he had to stand right here, but the leaves don’t seem disturbed.” Meg studied the foliage over their heads. “I guess he could have shot from the branches, but that would be even harder. At least from ground level, there’s a clear line of sight to the driveway. Going up into the trees would put the leaves and branches in the way.”

  “Maybe our archer is a ghost. But an impressive ghost. That’s quite a shot.” Brian stood, leash in hand, uphill from the stump as Lacey scented the ground at his feet. But his gaze wasn’t on his dog; it was fixed out across the open space to the driveway a hundred yards away. Through the gap in the trees, they could see the group of law enforcement officers as a cluster of light blue, navy, taupe, and black uniforms as they broke up, some of them heading to their vehicles to continue the investigation. “How high up are we?”

  “Somewhere between two and three thousand feet.”

  “He had to strike at Hubbert from this distance, over that wide-open space, taking into account the winds you get at this alt
itude, and he still precisely hit his target. This archer has serious skills.”

  “That’s what Captain Wilcox said.”

  “But suddenly I can see his point.”

  “This is someone who has trained extensively to be able to make that shot. If the conditions were right, I could have done five times that distance with a sniper rifle during my academy training days.”

  “Impressive. They must have been unhappy when you decided K-9 patrol was what you wanted.”

  “They weren’t thrilled. But my point is, you may be born with an innate talent, with a good eye and absolutely steady hands, but only training and practice gives that elite level of skill. If it’s a young person, it would be someone who’s been bowhunting since he was a child and has been practicing for years.” She paused, considering another angle. “If one more person goes down, we can bring this to Rutherford.” Meg referred to Supervisory Special Agent Rutherford of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. Rutherford had assisted the team on several recent cases, but for an official request, the BAU needed three victims to start building a profile of the killer. “Rutherford would be able to tell us more about this person’s psyche, but from pure practicalities, I suspect this is someone in their late twenties or thirties. Old enough to have developed this kind of skill set, but young enough to manage a mountainous climb to get here and then get away.”

  “Makes sense to me. We’re definitely looking at someone in excellent physical sh—” He cut off as Lacey let out a small whine, her posture snapping from relaxed ease to attention. “She has the scent. Good girl, Lacey. Find.”

  “Hawk, you too.” Meg brought Hawk over to where Lacey caught the scent, and his head came up immediately, his tail held high and waving. “They both have it. Here we go. Hawk, find.”

  Together, the dogs pushed into the bushes, heading straight uphill. Meg and Brian followed close behind, but both used long leashes, giving the dogs freedom to settle into their search patterns. There was no physical trail for them to follow; they simply pushed through the underbrush and trotted around and through stands of oak, hickory, and white pine.

  “They have the scent,” Meg called to Brian, “but I still don’t see a physical track they’re following. How does someone move through the forest without leaving a footprint or breaking a tree branch?”

  “Maybe that’s just a different kind of training,” he called back. “Or he really is a ghost.”

  Meg rolled her eyes and turned her attention once more to her dog.

  The path led them behind and around a half-dozen houses, spread out over the side of the mountain and across a single winding driveway. Occasionally the sound of a car told them they were near a road, but their path stayed in the thick forest up the steeply angled slope.

  “Would have been easier if he’d taken the road,” Brian said between heavy breaths.

  Meg was beginning to feel the burn of exertion in her legs from climbing the mountain slope and in her lungs from both the exercise and the slightly lower oxygen level. “Would have been easier physically,” she agreed, “but would have greatly increased his risk factor. He had to come into civilization to make the shot. He needs to get back out without being seen. Once word gets out, people in the area will be thinking about who they saw this morning on the way to work. The shooter would be an idiot to take that kind of chance.”

  “Agreed. Also, this is a bowhunter. Patience has to be a huge part of the sport. Taking a little extra time to escape doesn’t sound like it would be an issue for that kind of personality. And if Wilcox is right and he’s in camouflage, he’d be instantly noticed as out of place walking along the road.”

  They continued up the hill. The forest was thicker here and sunlight only barely pierced the heavy canopy, instead filtering through the bright-green spring leaves as a soft glow. The undergrowth was sparser, and the dogs easily picked their way across ground strewn with soggy brown leaves, branches, and twigs, and over and around moss-and lichen-covered rocks.

  Meg studied the dogs. They were about ten feet apart climbing in parallel up the hill. Instead of climbing in a straight line, both dogs employed a zigzag pattern, weaving from side to side. This was the dogs’ way of following the scent cone left by a suspect as he walked along a trail, shedding skin cells. As air currents picked up the cells, they spread them out in an ever-widening cone of scent that narrowed the closer the dogs got to their target.

  Lacey and Hawk were used to working together and easily fell into a mirror image pattern with both dogs slanting out to the outer edge of the scent cone, before angling in. If they were working solo, they’d have continued on that track until they lost the scent on the other side of the cone before curving back in again. But when they worked in tandem, they each took an outer edge of the cone and worked into common territory before expanding the search outward again. The significant width of the pattern supported the fact the trail was several hours old.

  Meg suspected the shooter was simply too far ahead and would have gone to ground long before they lost the trail.

  They left the inhabited area, moving higher up Rocky Mountain. More pines dotted the increasingly rocky landscape as deciduous trees thinned out, and the wind swirled through the forest with more ferocity and a bite of cold.

  A sound reached Meg’s ears and her steps slowed as she concentrated on it, her heart sinking. “I hear water,” she called.

  “Yeah, me too. Maybe the track will run alongside it.”

  “We are never that lucky.”

  “Nope. All part of living our best lives.”

  She tossed him a smile. He was right. She wouldn’t trade this life for a million dollars.

  The sound of running water grew closer and the dogs’ patterns became wider.

  “I have a bad feeling about this.” Meg stepped onto a craggy, moss-covered rock to give herself extra height as she peered through the trees. “I can’t see anything so far, but their pattern is opening up. Like there’s an open space ahead of us allowing the incoming wind to disturb the scent trail.”

  “And there’s definitely at least a small creek in front of us,” Brian yelled back. “Unless we get really lucky, we’re going to get wet.”

  Meg glanced down at her laced hiking boots. Expensive and custom fitted for comfort in what could sometimes be hours-long hikes through challenging landscapes, they were waterproof, but no boot could keep the wet out when the water level was higher than the top of the laces. And at this altitude, mountain runoffs could be brutally cold. Which meant freezing feet through the rest of the search, chafing, and cold and miserable dogs. Hawk and Lacey would be game to ford whatever water hazards they came across, but they would need to be dried off and kept from becoming chilled. Luckily, Rocky Mountain wasn’t too high—just over 3,000 feet at the peak—so any creek or river running downhill at this altitude was unlikely to be too wide or deep. Still, only a few feet would do the damage.

  The sound of running water grew louder as they broke from the trees to find a creek, easily fifteen feet across, with swiftly moving water so deep the rocky creek bed was completely submerged. Hawk and Lacey trotted over to the bank and stopped dead.

  “It looks like he went through here,” Brian said. Leaning out, he scanned up and down the creek. “I don’t see a better crossing. The water level looks pretty high all along this section.”

  “This whole area has had a very rainy spring. The runoff is essentially drainage from all those storm systems passing through, practically one on top of the other. Before we get soaked, let’s make sure he didn’t follow the stream bed. Hawk, come.” She directed him along the creek, following the slope downhill, but knew instantly this was the wrong direction simply from Hawk’s lack of physical alertness. She went another ten feet, then stopped and turned around.

  Brian had gone the other way, taking Lacey upstream, but Lacey was similarly not signaling a scent trail. Brian turned around, shrugged, and came downhill to meet Meg at the stream where both dogs sat, their
signal that the scent ended in that location.

  “Did you see a better place to ford the stream uphill?” Meg asked. “Downhill, it’s even worse than here.”

  “It looks about the same uphill.” Brian bent and submerged his fingertips in the fast-flowing water, quickly yanking them out and giving them a hard flick. “Yikes. Okay, we’re going to want to go through this fast. It’s maybe fifty-five degrees.”

  “Air temp is about sixty, so that’s not a surprise. It’s been a cool spring up and down the eastern seaboard.” Meg eyed the water. “No exposed rocks to use to stay out of the water, so we’re going to have to trudge through.” Bending, she unclipped Hawk’s leash, coiled it, and stuffed it into the side pocket of her FBI jacket. Then she unbuckled his FBI vest and slipped it off, rolling it up and tucking it into a side pocket of her backpack. “They’re going to be cold enough, better to keep their vests dry.”

  Brian squatted down and unbuckled Lacey’s vest. “Might also help them warm up faster to get it back on at the far bank.”

  Meg stepped around Hawk so he was on her upstream side. If, God forbid, he lost his footing, she needed to be able to block him from being carried downstream. “Ready?”

  Brian was similarly standing downstream of Lacey as he tucked away her vest. “As I’ll ever be. Come on, Lacey girl. This will be . . . refreshing.”

  “That’s one way to put it. Hawk, come.”

  Together, they stepped into the freezing water. The cold immediately shot through the material of her boot and Meg gritted her teeth, bracing herself for the oncoming soaking. But Hawk and Lacey gamely picked their way through the icy depths of the stream, carefully placing their feet before proceeding. They instinctively knew a full dunking would be dangerous.

  Brian muttered a curse under his breath, but plowed forward, one hand splayed toward Lacey in case she ran into trouble. “Careful,” he wheezed, as if holding his breath, “some of these rocks are slippery.”