He stroked her hair, murmuring, "Carrie, Carrie, it's all right. It's all right."
Carrie. Could it be Dr. Carrie Onslow? It seemed likely. But what was the head biologist on the troll project doing having hysterics in the woods?
Richard had slid completely down into the leaves. He'd pulled her into his lap like she was a child. It was hard to judge, but she seemed tiny, smaller than I was.
The crying eased. She lay cuddled in his lap, held in his arms. They'd dated. I tried to feel jealous, but I couldn't manage it. Her distress was too extreme.
Richard stroked the side of her face. "What's wrong, Carrie? What's happened?"
She took a deep breath that shuddered as it escaped her lips, then she nodded and blinked up at Shang-Da and me.
"Shang-Da." Her eyes turned to me. She seemed embarrassed that we'd seen her lose control. "I don't know you."
"Anita Blake," I said.
Her cheek rested against Richard's chest, so all she had to do was roll her eyes upward to look at him. "You're his Anita?" She made it a question.
He looked up at me. "When we're not mad at each other, yes."
I watched her rebuild herself, gathering her personality back around her like layering clothes against winter weather. Her eyes filled while I watched until her face burned with intelligence, with a force, commitment, a determination that shone so fiercely it seemed to thrum through her skin. I watched her and knew instantly why Richard had dated her. Staring down at her, I was glad she was human, glad he wouldn't be ha**ng s*x with her. Because just a few moments in her presence, and I knew that this one, this one could be trouble. That was the real danger with not being monogamous. It wasn't really the sex, though that bugged me a lot. It was the fact that it meant the other person wasn't satisfied, that they were still looking. If you're still looking, sometimes you find it, whatever it is.
I didn't like staring down at this woman who was obviously in pain and thinking about my own problems. I didn't like the fact that I was a little afraid of her. I mean, I was human, and he'd had sex with me. I hated that this was what I was thinking before anything. Hated it a lot.
She started to push away from Richard's arms.
I said, "Don't move on my account." It came out dry and sarcastic. Good, better than wounded and confused.
Richard looked up at me. I couldn't read his expression, and I made sure mine was pleasant and gave him nothing.
Dr. Carne Onslow glanced up at Richard, frowned, then finished pushing away. She slid out of his lap to lean against the tree trunk. Small frown lines had formed between her eyes, and she kept glancing from Richard to me, as if she were confused and didn't like it.
"What's happened, Carrie?" Richard asked again.
"We went out today just before dawn, as usual." She stopped talking, staring at her lap, then took a deep, shaking breath. Three breaths and she seemed better. "We found a body."
"Another hiker?" I asked.
Her eyes flicked to me, then back to her lap, as if she didn't want any eye contact for the story. "Maybe, it was impossible to tell. It was a woman, beyond that ... " Her voice failed her. She looked up at us, small eyes shimmering with fresh tears. "I have never seen anything so horrible in my life. The local police are saying that our trolls did it. That this is proof that that hiker was a troll kill."
"Lesser Smokey Mountain trolls don't hunt and kill humans," I said.
She looked at me. "Well, something did. The state police wanted my expert opinion on what could have done it if it wasn't trolls." She buried her face in her hands, then raised her face like someone coming out of deep water. "I looked at the bites. They were made by something with a primate jaw structure."
"Human?" I offered.
She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't think so. I don't think a human mouth could do that kind of damage." She hugged herself, shivering in the heat. "They'll use this to try and call in some bounty hunters and kill our trolls, if they can prove that the trolls did this. I don't see how we can stop them from either killing them all or shipping them to zoos."
"Our trolls did not kill a human being," Richard said. He touched her shoulder when he said it.
"Something did, Richard. Something that wasn't a wolf or a bear or any large predator that I've ever seen."
"Did you say that the state cops are on site?" I asked.
She looked up at me. "Yes."
"Did you call them?"
She shook her head. "They arrived shortly after the local police."
I'd have loved to know who called them, though if the local cops suspected it was either a homicide or a preternatural kill, it was standard op for them to call either the staties or the local vampire hunter, though admittedly only if they thought the kill was some form of undead.
"Was the body found near a cemetery?" I asked.
Dr. Onslow shook her head.
"Why?" Richard asked.
"It could have been ghouls. They're cowards, but if she'd fallen and knocked herself unconscious, ghouls would have fed on her. They are active scavengers."
"What's that mean?" Dr. Onslow asked. "Active scavenger?"
"It means if you're wounded and reduced to crawling, you don't want to be in a ghoul-infested cemetery."
She stared up at me, then finally shook her head. "No graves. Just in the middle of our land. In the middle of the trolls' territory."
I nodded. "I need to go see the body."
"Do you think that's a good idea?" Richard asked. He kept his voice as neutral as he could.
"They're expecting her," Dr. Onslow said.
It surprised us all. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"The state police found out you're in the area. Evidently, your reputation is good enough that they wanted you to see the body. They were trying to reach you at your cabin when I left."
How convenient. How weird. Who had called the staties? Who had put my name in front of them? Who, who, who?
"I'll go look at the body then."
"Take Shang-Da with you," Richard said.
I looked up at the tall man's face. The claw marks were still red and sort of gruesome looking on his face. I shook my head. "I don't think so."
"I don't want you going alone," Richard said.
Funny how he wasn't offering to come with me himself. He was going to stay here and comfort Dr. Onslow. Fine. I was a big girl.
"I'll be okay, Richard. You stay here with the good doctor and Shang-Da."
Richard stood. "You're being childish."
I rolled my eyes and motioned him over away from Dr. Onslow. When I was sure she couldn't overhear us, I said, "Look at Shang-Da's face."
He didn't glance back. He knew what it looked like. "What about it?"
I stared up at him. "Richard, you should know as well as I do that if you have someone eaten to death by a mysterious critter, werewolves are always top of the hit list to blame."
"They try to blame a lot of things on us," he said.
"So far, Wilkes and his men don't know what you are. If we show up with Shang-Da cut up like this and then he turns up healed, they'll figure it out. With a body on the ground, you don't want them to figure it out."
"Shang-Da won't be healed by nightfall," Richard said.
"But he'll be more healed than he is right now. It isn't human to heal that fast. If Wilkes finds out that we haven't really left town, he'll use everything he has. He'll out you or charge you with this crime."
"What could have killed this woman?"
"Won't know until I see the body."
"I don't want you going there alone. I'll go with you."
"The police don't like it when you bring your civvie boyfriends to crime scenes, Richard. Stay here; comfort Dr. Onslow."
He frowned at me.
"I'm not being catty, Richard." I smiled. "All right, not very catty. She's shook. Hold her hand. I'll be okay."
He touched my face gently. "You don't need much hand-holding, do you?"
I sighed. "One night with you and I nearly eat Verne's neck. One night, and I just ran through the woods like ... like a werewolf. Just one lovemaking session, and you say you knew it was a possibility. You should have at least tried to tell me last night, Richard."
He nodded. "You're right, I should have. I don't have any excuse good enough. I'm sorry, Anita."