of sightseers who were talking among themselves, passing on every bit of information they’d picked up from other conversations they’d overheard.
By the time Hildie had made it down the stairs to the beach and worked her way through to the knot of men clustered around Amy Carlson’s body, she’d already heard three or four versions of what had happened.
“She was kidnapped out of a mall in Santa Cruz,” someone said.
“That’s not what I heard,” someone else replied. “She’s one of the kids from town, and she got caught by a riptide.”
“I heard she was already dead before she even got into the water,” a third person ventured. “Someone said she’d been stabbed fifty-seven times. Can you imagine? How could anyone do something like that to a child? I don’t know what the world is coming to.”
Hildie ignored it all, even when someone called out her name, and asked if the child was one of the kids from the Academy. Instead of answering, she simply pressed in farther, until finally she was standing over the knot of policemen and medics who surrounded the badly maimed corpse. Hildie’s expression tightened as she gazed down on what was left of Amy, but even as her gorge rose at the mutilation of the little girl, she still felt a sense of relief.
It had worked, just as she had known it would.
Now, as she silently wondered if they’d found Steve Conners, too, she summoned up the proper tears of grief and sympathy for Amy Carlson. What the pounding of the sea might have failed to accomplish, something else had.
“Dear Lord,” she breathed, “What happened to her?”
One of the medics glanced up. “Sharks,” he said. “I don’t know what she was doing in the water at all, but she was sure in the wrong place at the wrong time. Once the first one hit her, she didn’t have a chance.”
What was left of Amy’s body was almost totally unrecognizable. Her right arm was completely gone, as was most of her left leg. Her stomach had been torn open, and there was nothing left but an empty cavity where her internal organs had once been.
Everywhere, flesh had been ripped away from bones, and the bones themselves seemed to be held together by no more than fragments of cartilage. Even her head had not been spared from the attack.
The back of her skull was completely gone, and the jagged edges of the empty cavity where her brain had been were broken and irregular.
Exactly as George Engersol had left them, Hildie told herself, obliterating the work he’d done with the saw with a small hammer and a pair of pliers.
“Her brain,” Hildie breathed. “What happened to it?”
The medic shook his head. “Something got it. Shark maybe, or even a sea otter. An otter could have scooped it out like an abalone out of its shell.”
Moaning, Hildie turned away, only to find Josh MacCallum standing beside her, listening to every word that had been said. “Josh? What are you doing here?”
“I was the one who found Amy.” Josh’s voice was barely audible as his eyes fixed once more on the remains of his friend. “I was with Jeff. We were looking for Steve.”
Before Hildie could respond, there was a crackling sound as one of the police radios came alive. Both Josh and Hildie turned to listen. One of the officers spoke into his unit, listened a moment, then promised to send two men right away. Putting the radio back into its holster on his belt, he glanced at Hildie, recognizing her immediately from the investigation of Adam Aldrich’s death. “One of my men just found a sweater,” he said. “Up on the promontory, you know? Where the viewpoint is?”
Hildie put on a puzzled expression. “A sweater?” she asked. “What—”
Before she could finish her question, the officer spoke again. “It has her name in it. It was on the ground, like someone had dropped it.”
Hildie’s frown deepened. “At the viewpoint?” she echoed. “Why would it be up there?”
The officer’s eyes clouded as he realized Hildie hadn’t yet heard what else had happened. “There’s a car in the water, Mrs. Kramer. We haven’t gotten to it yet, but we were able to spot the license number. It belongs to one of your teachers, Steve Conners.”
“Dear Lord,” Hildie breathed. “You don’t suppose—”
“We’re not supposing anything yet, Mrs. Kramer. But we’ll be wanting to know everything you have about his background.”
Hildie shook her head. “He just started this term. He seemed to be so