Free Maximum Exposure by Allison Brennan

blood, I suspect the animals would have found him long ago.”
    “Their statements were identical,” Max said, anger rising. “They claimed that they were hanging out at the campsite, drinking beer, and joking around. Scott got mad and stomped off toward where they’d parked, two miles away. At night. But on the map, where they parked was in the opposite direction from this trail. So either they lied about the direction—”
    “Or were too drugged up to notice,” Chuck suggested, and Max agreed that it was a possibility.
    “Or,” she continued, “they lied about him leaving in the first place.”
    “Before you jump to conclusions, Ms. Revere, let’s see what the coroner has to say. She’s a fine doctor. If there was foul play, she’ll figure it out.” He pulled out his radio and contacted Tim and Ann. “Tim? Go back to the truck and retrieve the gurney and body bag. Meet us at the campground. We’ll lead you to the body.”

Chapter Seven
    “What happened?” Adele Sheldon asked Max.
    Max was in her room at the Broadmoor, sitting at her desk. She didn’t know what to say—a first for her.
    “Detective Horn called me,” Adele said, a hitch in her voice. “I knew he was dead, I knew it, but…,” Her voice trailed off on a sob.
    “Would you like me to drive down and see you?” It was almost a two-hour drive. She didn’t want to go tonight, but she would, for Scott’s mother.
    “No, I want you to find out what happened. You were there. You saw him.”
    “We need to wait until the autopsy results.”
    “That’s what the detective said.” Adele took a deep breath, worked to control her emotions. Max let her; she didn’t need to rush this. “I wanted him to be alive, but I knew in my heart that he wasn’t. I’m his mother; I think I’ve always known.”
    “Though we can’t be sure until after the tests, there were no visible injuries.” To preserve evidence, Chuck and Tim had bagged Scott’s body while still in the sleeping bag. They examined him for visible head and chest wounds, but there were none.
    “Did he suffer?” she asked, her voice small.
    “It doesn’t appear so.” Max didn’t know what to say, so she said what she thought was accurate. What might give Adele a modicum of comfort. “If he died of exposure, he most likely fell asleep and then just didn’t wake up.”
    Adele didn’t say anything. She probably knew that dying of exposure wasn’t as peaceful as Max implied. But would it help anyone to know if Scott had been in pain?
    “I’m sorry, Adele.”
    “It’s okay. Why did it take you to find him? They would never have found him if you didn’t light a fire under them.”
    “We don’t know that. I spent the day with Chuck Pence, the head of search and rescue. He looked as long as he could after Scott’s disappearance, but we found your son in a different area than where they initially focused.”
    “I don’t understand what you mean.”
    “They had time against them in the fall. The storm was getting worse, and they concentrated on the area between the camp and where the boys had parked their truck. Scott was found on the opposite side of the mountain, nearly two miles southeast of the campground; they parked two miles north of the camp. I suspect that Chuck and his team would have found Scott in the next couple of days. I met them; they weren’t going to give up. I just—made it go faster.” She didn’t mention at this point that it had been her suggestion to check the other trail, because that really didn’t matter—not to Adele. It would matter when Max talked to the three boys who left Scott alone on that mountain.
    “Are you leaving?” Adele asked.
    Max had thought about it. She didn’t know why seeing Scott Sheldon’s thawing body had disturbed her so much. She’d viewed an autopsy before, seen crime scene photos, once researched a child abuse case that left a little girl in a coma. That small, unconscious body had unnerved Max on multiple