The two men gathered the torn clothing then ran up the trail to the parking area and jumped into their Expedition. The older man started it up and pulled out, making it to the main road and turning left. The young man tore the sleeve from Treasure’s shirt and use it to bandage his bleeding forearm. In his rear-view mirror, the driver saw a bunch of cop cars approaching rapidly and then turn left towards the lot. “FUCK! That was close!” He looked down at his speedometer, making sure he wasn’t speeding. “Alpha, there’s a whole bunch of cop cars heading for the park. Don’t go back there.”
“Drive west, go to the creek crossing. She’s heading downstream, and you need to get ahead of her,” he replied. He was kind of busy; the young wolf was stronger than he thought she would be, and much faster. His large body worked against him as the smaller wolf weaved her way through the trees and over the rolling hills. They had covered miles already, and he was starting to tire as she pulled farther and farther ahead. He could hear cars; the wooded area was thinning down and she was running out of room.
He kept pushing, but she couldn’t get away. They’d have her trapped, then he could finish what he started and force her submission.
In the ambulance, the EMT’s were fighting to stabilize Jenny’s condition as they speeded towards the hospital. “We have a sixteen-year old female strangulation victim. Pulsox is ninety and dropping on one hundred percent oxygen, pulse is 110, blood pressure one hundred forty-Ione over sixty-four. Victim has visible bruising to neck and trachea, respirations shallow and thready,” he said over the radio.
The vitals were repeated back, then the Emergency Room physician gave his directions. “Maintain oxygen and prep for field intubation, but do not proceed unless the airway becomes blocked,” the ER physician replied.
They kept a close eye on her, but luck was with them. She was able to breathe, and when her eyes opened they were relieved. The ambulance came to a halt and they handed her over to the Emergency Room staff.
Gary turned onto Cripple Creek Parkway, thankful that there was only a few more miles until they reached the retirement housing complex. His wife and her friends had been talking the whole way home, reliving their casino trip and their good fortune at the slot machines. They were driving along an area where the right side, other than a sidewalk, was cut into the hillside with a twenty-foot retaining wall. He looked over at his wife of forty-eight years and smiled. “What are you going to do with your winnings?”
“GARY!” He saw something out of the corner of his eye, a flash of rust color and a shape dropping onto the road right in front of them. He hit the brakes and swerved left, then overcorrected and the car skidded into the retaining wall. The airbags deployed with a loud bang. When he was able to move, he turned the car off.
“Are you all right?” The women nodded, and he put on the hazard lights. “Honey, call 911.”
He grabbed his flashlight and got out of the car, going around to look at the front. The front right side of the car had taken the impact but it wasn’t too bad. He could see his wife on the phone as he walked back to see what was in the road, and he froze when the flashlight didn’t show the expected deer. He hurried back to the car, pulling open the back door. “Honey, tell them to send an ambulance, it’s a woman.” He reached into the back window and grabbed the blanket they kept there. “Tell them to hurry, she’s naked and bleeding.”
Dawn was standing by the cruiser, waiting for more information on her daughter, when the radios crackled to life again. “All units, we have a pedestrian with injuries on Cripple Creek Parkway, crossroad McKnight.”
The Chief pointed to two of is officers. “Go,” he said.
“Caller reports victim is teenage female and was nude,” the radio continued.
“OH GOD, TREASURE,” Dawn yelled. The last severe break she had, she had been found naked in the freezing weather.
“Wait, take Mrs. Olson with you,” the Chief told one of the officers. She got in the back seat and the two cruisers took off into the night with sirens and lights.
“Boss, you need to see this,” one of the men said.
“What’s going on, Detective Briggs?”
“The crime scene isn’t adding up with our first thoughts,” he said. “Come on, I’ll show you.” They started walking down into the woods. “First off, her injuries aren’t consistent with Treasure being the assailant.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know Jenny is almost five foot ten, but Treasure is maybe five foot five. The bruising I saw on her neck was up at the top of the throat, just below the jaw. There were no hand prints, so I’m betting the person used a forearm instead of hands. The injuries are what I’ve seen in cases where a taller person is choking a shorter one. If both were standing, Treasure’s arm would be pulling down, leaving the bruising near the shoulders.”
He thought about it for a minute. “Jenny could have been kneeling.”
“I looked, there were no dirt or snow marks on her knees. The struggle would have ground the frozen dirt and snow in.”
He thought about it while his flashlight illuminated the path. “What else?”
“Treasure hit the panic button. Why would you try to kill someone then call for help?”
“I talked a few years ago with her father. When she has these episodes, it’s like a switch in her brain and she’s someone different. When it’s over, she has no memory of what happened. Isn’t it possible she had an episode, attacked her friend, then used the panic button to summon help while running away? And she ditched the tracker so she could get away?”
“I suppose so.” They had arrived at the crime scene tape, two officers were monitoring it while waiting for the crime scene people.
They stayed outside as Briggs used his flashlight to point out some other problems. “There were men here, at least two,” he said. “By that tree is where we found Jenny. The area is pretty trashed from the search and initial care, but those tracks heading back into the woods aren’t us. I followed them, they take a different route back to the parking lot than the one we took. And one of them was bleeding.” He pointed his flashlight at a spot in the crime scene area, this one about ten feet away from where Jenny was found. “There were dog tracks, too. BIG dog tracks.”
The radio came to life. “Chief, the accident victim is the person of interest in the current investigation,” the man said. “Ambulance is on scene, victim is being transported with next of kin to Mayo.”