Chapter15
Will tested the rope again, making sure that it was anchored securely, then he stepped over the edge and pushed off the cliff face. He swung out into the air, his body light and free for the instant between pushing off and when gravity swung the pendulum back toward the wall. In one smooth motion, he bent his knees to absorb the impact, then pushed off again, already a few dozen feet down from the top.
Repelling was one of his favorite activities, with climbing back up the cliff coming in a close second. There was something so primal about it all, and being alone made it all the more enticing. He had only himself to depend on, with no one to catch him if he fell. It was a liberating feeling.
He checked his progress each time he connected with the wall. On the last push, he thrust as hard as he could, getting almost double the distance of the previous drops and putting himself a few feet above the ground. He lowered himself the last two feet, removing his harness and leaving it at the base of the cliff with the end of his rope. He almost left his backpack there, too, but decided against it. If he got lost or needed to make camp a few miles out from base, he didn’t want to have to double back for his supplies. He’d learned that lesson the hard way years ago.
The brush was thick at the base of the ravine, the growth fed by a narrow stream that ran through the entire ravine. The immediate area wasn’t much bigger than a football field, but with waist-high vegetation and the swampy, almost muddy earth sliding beneath his feet, it was going to take him most of the day to search the area thoroughly.
“Good thing I started at dawn,” he said as he scanned the area for any signs that someone had walked through there recently.
There was nothing to indicate anything human had passed through there, so he mentally checked off his grid pattern and began working his way from the wall directly below where George likely fell and fanning out.
The work was strenuous, and with each step he took, he had to yank his stationary boot out of the sticky, clay-like mud. But worse than the mud, was the smell. The water in the ravine didn’t flow very quickly, and the undergrowth coupled with the shade from the high walls on either side didn’t allow the sun to dry things out. It smelled like an old basement, damp from years of being closed up with a bad leak and full of mold. It was stifling and made the work that much worse.
He’d picked up a stick lying on the ground, using it to move the foliage around him so he could see the ground before he took a step. When he pulled back one large leaf and saw a rabbit carcass melting into the surrounding roots and rocks, he gagged and quickly let the leaf fall back into place.
This place is probably littered with carrion, he thought in disgust as he took another step. He didn’t doubt there were many casualties just from prey running for their lives in the night, not noticing that the cliff’s edge was there, or deciding that jumping over the edge was a safer bet than facing whatever predator had them cornered. It was an ending he didn’t envy, and one that he knew George had likely faced. Unless he managed to grab roots as he slid down the nearly vertical wall, there was no way a body could withstand the force of hitting the ground at least two hundred feet down.
“Unless he fell into some of this soft shit just right,” he muttered, checking the ground with his stick and taking another step, then laughed. “It probably is crap.”
It was almost an hour later when he stopped to get his bearings, correcting his trajectory and noting how far he was from the wall. He had only made it about ten feet out, working in a half circle pattern from the wall. The diameter of his half circle was far larger, covering a twenty-yard length against the wall. Since the picture showed him about to pitch Charity off the edge, he couldn’t be sure exactly where George had fallen. They could have scuffled for quite some time before either of them went over the edge.
“And since Mrs. Wittman had spoken to Charity since then, something happened after that picture was taken.”
Unless the girl in the blurry, long-distance shot wasn’t even Charity. That was a possibility as well.
He groaned, stopping to get a drink of water and letting some of it trickle over his face and down his chest. He could be looking for two bodies.
The more he thought about it, the more nervous he became about being involved with the Wittmans at all. They were hiding something, and it wasn’t just that their son probably had a hot temper. Most men didn’t suddenly snap and grab women like that no matter what happened in the seconds before the photo was shot. A picture was worth a thousand words, but this picture was worth decades of backstory. Had George succeeded in murdering the woman in the picture? Were they trying to find evidence before the police investigated? Would he be complicit in covering up evidence after the fact just by being there?
“You haven’t found anything yet,” he grumbled at himself. “Stick to the plan.”
Steeling himself for another hour of nothing, he went back to his grid pattern, pushing the foliage aside before each step so he didn’t step into something he couldn’t wash off.
He shoved his stick into a large creeping vine with wide leaves, swinging the stick to the side to move the leaves out of the way. His stick hit something, and he almost lost the stick when his arm kept swinging outward. He stepped closer, carefully moving the leaves aside and leaning down to get a good look.
He jumped back when he came face to face with a man’s face, eyes milky and opened wide, his mouth frozen open in his final scream. A shocked yell escaped him, and he nearly lost his footing. Windmilling his arms to keep his balance, his foot shot outward to try to stabilize himself, kicking back some loose dirt and foliage, revealing a leg partially buried in the mud inches from where he’d stepped.
Taking deep breaths and trying to remain calm, he stared at the man’s pants in an attempt to make sense of what he was seeing. When it finally clicked, his stomach rolled and he nearly vomited right there beside the body. George’s head was twisted facing up, but the rest of his body was facedown. If he hadn’t died on impact, he’d certainly died seconds later. At any rate, no one could’ve survived those injuries.
The man’s back pockets were facing upward, an obvious bulge where the wallet was. Careful not to touch anything else, he slid the wallet out and opened it. The driver’s license confirmed what he already knew. The body in the brush was George, and by the looks of his badly decomposed body, he’d been dead since the day he went missing.
He took a picture of the phone and a few pictures of the body both up close and with the surrounding area. He immediately put the pictures of the body into a private folder on his phone that only unlocked with his fingerprint. Even if the parents wanted to see it, there was no way he was going to allow it. No one should remember a loved one this way, even if it looked like George’s death had been a form of instant karma. It was clear from the picture that George had started out the aggressor. It was going to be next to impossible to pin the man’s death on anyone else.
Will stood for a long time after he set the coordinates in his GPS and marked the body’s location on the map. Then he packed everything back in his bag, but he couldn’t force himself to move.
The body wasn’t visible from even a few feet away, and the ravine was not somewhere traveled by humans. If he said nothing, it was likely that George would never be found, and his parents wouldn’t be able to take this any further than they already had.
He groaned, shaking his head.
They had tried people for murder without a body before, and the body proved that George had died in the fall. And with the body being so close to the base of the cliff, Will knew that there was no way he was pushed. Hiding the evidence could prevent authorities from ruling his death an accident, and even though no one could prove the ex-girlfriend was the woman in the picture, he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that Mr. Wittman was going to try. He couldn’t fault any grieving parent for wanting to lay blame on someone other than their own child, but in this case, Will couldn’t risk just walking away and claiming that he hadn’t found him.
“It’s not my call,” he muttered as he walked away from the body and prepared to make the climb back to the top. “It’s not my call.”
He dropped the wallet into a storage bag and zipped it closed before stuffing it into his backpack. He’d only checked the ID and had no idea if there was any money in it. The only thing he was interested in was the proof it provided to Mr. Wittman that he had indeed found the right body.
At the thought of another body being in the ravine, he shuddered. He almost turned back to investigate more, then thought better of it. If the woman in the picture was in the ravine somewhere, the crime scene techs would find her and draw their own conclusions from what they found. It wasn’t his place to mess with it, and if he did, he risked messing everything up.
Resigned to his forensic uselessness, he began his ascent, running the rope through the safety harness and chalking his hands for a better grip. His tired legs protested with each step, but he pushed through, taking it one move at a time until he was almost to the top. He looked down one last time, and even knowing where George was, he couldn’t pick it out. It was going to take a bit of doing for the investigators to get to where George was, but if they were willing to take a long hike in from below, they would manage it.
“It’s not your problem,” he said, grabbing the rope and swinging his leg over the ledge before he pulled himself up.
He took a picture of the spot from the top of the hill, using the draw feature to put a circle around the area where the body lay hidden beneath the brush, then went to work gathering his things for the long hike back to his car.
The hair stood on the back of his neck and he froze, hand slipping into his backpack to grab the bear spray just in case. A twig snapped about a dozen yards behind him and his mouth went dry. It was only a few weeks until bears went into hibernation, which meant they were calorie loading for the long winter. A hungry bear was a desperate bear, and Will wasn’t looking to get eaten.
He turned quickly, can of spray poised in the air, finger on the trigger. He’d nearly pulled the trigger when the man threw his hands up, backing up in a panic.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” the man said. “Sorry to startle you.”
“Mickey?”
“The one and only. Looks like I won the contest, right?”
“What are you doing here?”
The man shrugged.
“I wanted to check out my guess and see if I had the right coordinates. I thought you’d be long gone by now. I promise I wasn’t stalking you.”
“This time.”
The man rolled his eyes.
“Dude, they used to call that determination. Now, if you want to find a man and beg for a job, it’s stalking.”
“You messaged me your resume, I wasn’t interested, end of story.”
“Whatever, dude. I’ll find my own way. I hope the takeover is still valid. Like I said, totally thought you would be gone by now. It’s been days, man.”
“Yeah, fine, whatever. Inbox me the pictures you want posted with all the hashtags and captions, and I’ll make it happen.”
Mickey smiled, the crooked, bemused expression the perfect addition to the tanned face, surfer blond hair, and laidback attitude that Will was certain was the result of a few too many drugs.
“Great man. Hey, since you’re here, what about a selfie?”
“There’s no signal here?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll post it now and it will auto post later. Everyone knows that.”
Something tugged at the back of his mind, but as quickly as it appeared, it was gone again. He smiled for Mickey’s photo, then watched as the man made his post. Once that was done, he gathered the last of his things and started out on the trail that led home.
“So, why are you out here?” Mickey asked as they walked.
“I’m doing some research,” he lied. “I can’t really talk about it. I signed a non-disclosure, you know how it is.”
“I don’t, but I wish I did.”
“How did you know this was out here? Have you been out here before?”
“Two years ago,” he said. “I proposed to my girl.”
“Oh. Well, that would explain why you knew right away.”
“Yeah. I had the coordinates engraved in the ring I gave to her so our children would be able to find the exact spot one day, you know?”
“That’s actually really romantic.”
“I thought so, but it turns out you’re not the only one that thinks I’m a little extra. She said no and left. Something about me just being too much. I couldn’t return the ring so I put it in a drawer. When you posted, I knew that exact location, and it only took a few seconds to find the ring.”
“That was lucky.”
“Very lucky. At least one good thing came out of it.”
“And you haven’t been here since?”
“I didn’t even want to come here today, but I thought it was time, you know?”
“I do.”
“I promise that I’m not a crazy stalker. I just admire what you do, and how you do it on your own like a boss. All these other guys have million-dollar sponsors from the start, or they’re spoiled little rich kids flaunting their wealth. But you’ve got grit, man. You can’t buy that.”
Will stopped, regarding the man with fresh eyes. From what he could tell, the man sounded sincere.
“I think I was wrong about you,” he said, offering his hand. “My apologies.”
Mickey took his hand and shook it vigorously.
“Accepted. Now that we have come to an understanding, what about this takeover? Maybe we can run an adventure together and post it, like partners or something, then I can branch out and do my own thing and—”
Will laughed.
“Too soon, Mickey. Too soon.”
Mickey turned red and smiled apologetically.
“My bad. I guess I’m just a little too excited. What are the chances that you would come to this place for your project? It’s like fate, man.”
Will nodded, then the two of them fell into silence as they hurried down the trail. Will could hardly contain his excitement. He was already counting the money he would make, plus the bonus he’d been promised. It was a huge week for him, and it had ended much sooner than expected. All thanks to Mickey.
Will almost opened his mouth to offer Mickey a small reward for the information, thought better of it, and decided to wait. Until he had the money in his account, he didn’t want to spend it. He was sure the contract was ironclad, but men like Wittman were powerful and played by their own rules. Will didn’t want to end up giving Mickey ten thousand dollars only to find out that Mr. Wittman was going to stiff him on the rest. It was better to wait, and then, he would surprise Mickey with a little something to get him going—when he was a millionaire, and not a moment before.
When they were within sight of the parking lot, Mickey’s phone chimed and the younger man stopped, pulling the phone out of his pocket and smiling.
“See, it just loaded it.”
“I didn’t know it would sit in queue for that long,” Will said. “What was that, two hours ago?”
“Just about,” Mickey said. “I guess this is where we say goodbye. I’ll message you my pictures and hashtags. Let me know if you change your mind about a dual adventure. I think it would be fun.”
“I’ll think about it,” Will lied, waiting for Mickey to get into his own car before he went to his Jeep.
Not that it mattered—the parking lot was almost empty, and Mickey wouldn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out which of the three cars in the lot were Will’s.
Will checked to see if his phone had service, then got into his car and dialed Wittman’s number.
“I found him,” he said when Wittman picked up the phone.
Wittman excused himself from whatever meeting he was in, and after a long silence punctuated only by Wittman’s ragged breath as he rushed to his office, he finally came back on the line.
“It doesn’t sound good. Are you sure it’s him?”
“He still had his wallet in his pocket,” Will said solemnly. “I didn’t know if I should leave the wallet there so I brought it with me in a plastic bag. I picked it up with gloves on.”
“Good idea. Did you call the authorities yet?”
“I didn’t. I thought that I would come to your office and give you the wallet and the GPS coordinates to do with as you please, and I would collect my payment and go.”
“Right, right,” the man said. “Thank you for letting me be the one to initiate all that. I’ll have your check cut for the full amount plus bonus by the time you get here.”
“Thank you. I’ll be there in about thirty minutes.”
“I look forward to seeing you,” the man said, then hung up.
A chill passed through Will. He couldn’t wait to be done with Mr. Wittman. The man was terrifying, and Will had a feeling that trusting him completely could be a death wish.