Free The Frailty of Flesh by Sandra Ruttan

bleeding there might not be a trail.”
    Tain nodded. “We don’t have enough information to be certain of anything at this point.”
    “You said you found clothing?” Ashlyn asked Sims.
    He held up the evidence bag. “On the shore. Damp, but the blood wasn’t all washed away.”
    Ashlyn stood up and her gaze met Tain’s. He didn’t need to ask what she was thinking.
    “You cataloged the items when you transferred them to the evidence bag?” Tain asked.
    Sims nodded. “One of those hoodies. Extra large.”
    Tain looked at the other officer, who’d been at the site when they arrived. “I’ll take some markers.” Once he had them he turned to Sims. “Show us where you found the sweater.”
    This time, Sims led the way silently. Tain walked slowly, occasionally tagging a spot on the ground without comment, although he pointed out some of the broken branches to Ashlyn.
    “What is it?” Ashlyn asked when he knelt to study the ground.
    He didn’t answer right away. With other partners there’d always been the inevitable slew of jokes about Injuns tracking in the wilderness.
    “Tain?”
    He glanced up at her and then pointed to a spot on the ground, a few feet to the left of where he was.
    She squatted down beside him. “It’s still damp in here. Mucky. The brush is too thick for one day with no rain to make much of a difference.”
    Tain nodded. “And that’s a deep impression. We’ve hit part of the track, where branches have been broken, but we’re going in a straight line. Our runner was zigzagging. The other spots I tagged were footprints.”
    “This looks more like someone tripped and went down on one knee.”
    “That’s my guess.” Tain put a marker by the spot they’d been scrutinizing and looked up at Sims, who’d walked back to where they’d stopped. “You need to have someone go to all the spots I marked and make casts. We’ve got shoe prints.”
    Tain turned to Ashlyn while Sims pulled out his cell phone and made the call. “This puts an interesting spin on things.”
    She nodded. “But let’s not jump to conclusions. Even if we’re right it could be hard to prove.”
    “One step at a time. I’m with you.”
    They stood up as Sims closed his phone. “They’re on their way. I can’t believe I missed this.”
    “You guys searched the woods and then came back. It wasn’t until officers were returning to the park that they found Christopher Reimer,” Ashlyn reminded him. “Everyone was moving from the park parallel to the trails and back. Nobody was searching from the water to the road.”
    Sims frowned. “We still should have found evidence of his movements.”
    Tain shook his head. “Not if he didn’t run down here until after the officers had already made their way through. Who searched the section near the road, where the bloody spot on the ground was found?”
    “Port Moody police. The officers we assigned to wait with Christopher,” Sims said. “They weren’t the ones who found the blood and the bat, though. After we found Christopher I sent two of ours back out to take another look around, near the road, in case we could find any evidence that Shannon had gone that way.”
    Cocky and sloppy. Tain glanced at Ashlyn. Her eyebrows rose and she looked away.
    “Okay, Sims. From now on, you keep the Port Moody police away from any of this. Double them up with our guys and if they bitch about it you tell them to talk to me.”
    Sims looked at Tain for a moment, then glanced at Ashlyn as though he was waiting for her to back up that order.
    “You heard him,” Ashlyn said. “If the PoMo officers don’t like it, I’ll deal with them myself.”
    “Most of the guys from PoMo have already gone,” Sims said.
    “Then it won’t be a problem.” Ashlyn nodded toward the water, indicating she was ready to continue.
    Sims turned and walked silently. Ashlyn had her arms folded over her chest. Her shoulders sagged, and she still looked pale. When she looked up Tain offered