He opened his eyes to catch a shooting star streak across the horizon.
His shifting body startled her and she bolted up in the seat.
“Did I fall asleep?” she mumbled.
“I did,” said Brill.
She rubbed her palms across her eyes.
“Long days will catch up with you,” she announced. “The beer didn’t help.”
She cranked the engine, reversed out into the road and began the drive back to camp.
“Been a long time since I slept with somebody,” she tried to joke.
Nervous about their night in the truck now, even though nothing happened.
The alcohol made her brave, he thought. Now she’s second guessing herself. Sleeping beside a strange could do that.
“Maybe won’t be so long next time,” he said.
“Was that flirting?” she teased.
“Did it sound flirty?”
She shook her head and grinned. He couldn’t help but grin back.
They took the turn off toward the campsite. Black sky still hanging over them, but purple horizon promising sunrise. Stars winking out as the world shifted underneath them.
Jo pulled up behind his van and dropped it in park.
“I could make coffee,” he offered.
“I should go,” she said. But it was such a halfhearted protest, he knew she would follow when he stepped out of the truck and closed the door.
It took five minutes to build a small fire, and less than a minute to put grounds into the dented metal coffee pot.
“Is that a percolator?”
“You would be surprised at what you find at a thrift shop,” he told her.
They listened to the water bubble up to a boil, the strong scent of coffee filling the space between them.
Brill glanced over at the other campers, silent and unstirring in the approaching dawn.
“They were up early before,” he observed.
Jo looked over her shoulder.
“Tent pole,” she said and pointed.
He zeroed in on it. One of the tents was half collapsed, a tent pole broken, hard to see in the shadow light. Brill could make it out from the weak firelight.
Her eyes must be better than his.
If it was occupied, someone would have come out to repair it, or at least tie it off until daylight.
Jo stood up and fished a flashlight out of her pickup truck. She clicked on the powerful beam and washed it over the tent.
“Doesn’t look right,” she mused.
He followed her across the lot. The details were easier to see in the bright light. The tent had fallen on one side, the rainfly ripped away.
Scuff marks in the dirt outside the unzipped door.
Jo peeked through the opening, shining the light into the dark interior.
“Damn it,” she sighed.
Brill bent beside her.
"It's escalating," she said.
The body was contorted in the tent, too soon for rigor mortis to set in, but still awkward in the death angles.
Allie.
Her face was pale, mouth open, throat bitten out.
"Five," said Brill.
"More, maybe," said Jo. "We have people missing."
"No bodies, no crime."
"It's an anomaly," she said. "That many missing people in that short
time frame. Last year, we lost two people in three hundred days. Now we've got five bodies, and three missing people in less than a week."
She cocked one eyebrow at him.
"Since you showed up."
"I was with you when she was killed," he nodded toward the tent.
"You're a coroner too?"
Brill looked into the tent again, glad she pulled the flashlight away. All he could see was the dark interior, a cave of blackness that hid the horror inside.
He couldn't tell her that his experience with many bodies taught him some signs to look for that helped determine time of death.
How do you explain that to someone who thinks you're on the dark side of being a good Samaritan, albeit a reluctant one?
"Rigor mortis," he explained. "Saw it in a documentary. Takes a couple of hours up to six for it to set in. Her muscles are still in place from when she died."
"Died in a struggle," Jo continued for him, picking up the thread. "We'll take a cast of the bite marks and see if we pull a match off the national database."
"How long does that take?"
"Couple hours, up to six," she winked.
He felt a tingle in his stomach despite the situation they found themselves in.
It had been a long time since he stayed up all night talking to a woman, just talking.
Mostly letting her talk, which was his nature.
It was weird to think about it with a dead woman splayed out in front of them, panties ripped off, bruises and blood covering her skin.
He shuddered and swallowed down a memory from Africa.
The tingle turned to a slow boil, a stirring in his belly like a hunger. He wanted the man who did this. Just the two of them, so he could visit justice upon him in the form of pain and death.
There was a monster in this wild land, and Brill knew it was his job to find and kill it.
The beast in his belly called out for it.
Jo's grin faltered and she reached a tentative hand out to his shoulder.
"You alright?" she asked and shuddered.
"It's just my face," he tried to smile and turn away.
He had a hunt to prepare for.