The King's War

15. The Body

NATHANIEL

I stood at the cliff where it happened, cursing at the irony. Avery vanished in the very spot where we first met. I'd almost lost her then, when she was attempting to jump to her death. Now it was possible I'd end up losing her a second time.

I'd spoken to the police when I arrived. They found no trace of Avery except her abandoned bike. Travis and his rented car were nowhere to be found.

Could it really have been him? Could I have misjudged the guard's character so completely? Did my oversight cost Avery her life?

Was he a simple maniac, or worse, a rebel spy? Did he capture her for use in their schemes? Or to punish her for daring to love me? If I could still feel ill, I imagined I would right then.

I walked over to the railing and peered down. Water splashed violently against the jagged rocks. This was what Avery had been looking at all those months ago. She'd wanted to be swept away by that crashing tide, all because I'd invited her to the competition. Was my request really so awful?

I'd staged the competition partly for my own amusement, having taken inspiration from those pre-war reality shows of a similar subject. I felt that if nothing else, such a venture would be a welcome diversion from my work. And on the off chance I did fall in love, well... It was just my luck that I'd fallen for the one girl who wanted nothing to do with me.

I stared soberly down at the crashing sea. Avery had wanted nothing to do with me for a very good reason. I shouldn't have played those games with her in the competition. I should have sensed her discomfort and sent her home. There were so many times where she'd practically begged me to so do and I'd selfishly refused. I should have listened. I shouldn't have come back to her. I should have left her alone. Because of me, she was gone; stolen away to god-knows-where, frightened and alone. If she was even still alive.

My fists clenched against the wooden railing. A breeze rolled past, ruffling my hair and carrying with it a scent that jarred me from my turbulent thoughts. I turned and sniffed the air, wanting to parse out the source. The scent seemed to waft from a patch of sandy gravel near the road. I knelt down to run my hands through it. The gravel came up coated with dried blood.

It wasn't Avery's, that much I could tell. I knew her scent. But this blood had been here for less than twelve hours. It had to be related to Avery's disappearance. But whose was it?

A black car silently pulled up next to me. Andrew, my guard, stepped out of the passenger seat. "Your Majesty, we've located the rental car."

Another promising lead. "Good," I said, the looked back down at the blood-mixed gravel. "Someone bled here. Collect it and take it to Dr. Swenson for testing. I want to find out who it belongs to."

The drive to the abandoned rental car took me halfway across the state. According to the rental company, the vehicles last known location was a nearby landfill. The GPS signal went dead after that.

I stepped out of my car, grimacing at the stench of rotting garbage. A dump was hardly the most dignified location for a man of my station to be, but I didn't care. Avery needed me to find her.

"Sir, perhaps you should say in the car," Gavin, my other guard, said.

"Or what, I'll get my suit dirty?" I scoffed. A suit was a small price to pay for answers that could lead me to Avery. I covered my nose with my sleeve and walked through the landfill's open gate. Andrew was already out, conversing with the foreman. When I approached, the foreman led us to the far edge of the property, where I saw it.

At first, I wondered if it was a mistake. The car we were looking at was completely unrecognizable. Whoever brought it here must have doused it in kerosene and set it ablaze. Only a burnt out metal husk remained, all of the plastic melted away and the upholstery turned to ash. Then I caught the faint whiff of burnt flesh, barely distinguishable among all of the other putrid stenches in the landfill. My hackles rose.

I rushed to pry open the trunk. It was nearly welded shut and still warm to the touch. I had to use every ounce of strength I had to force it open.

A gnarled, blackened corpse lay there, everything that made it resemble a person burned away. Trembling, I leaned in for a closer look, hoping to find anything that might give clues to the body's identity. But there was nothing. Nothing to prove or disprove that it was Avery.

One of the guards cursed under his breath behind me. The other whistled in amazement. I wanted to wring his neck for it. Instead, I reached out to touch the poor, gnarled thing. Before I could, someone yanked my arm back sharply.

"Sir, we don't want to contaminate the scene," Gavin said.

The scene. A crime scene. This was a murder. The police would have to be notified. Suddenly, I felt very tired.

Gavin eased his grip on my arm. "Don't worry, Sir. The Medical Examiner will find out who it is. Let's hope it's not Miss Crawford."

The only other person I could think of it being was Travis. It would explain the blood on the cliff. Perhaps whoever had done this killed him there, placed his body in the trunk, and driven the car here, setting it ablaze to hide the evidence.

The more I thought about it, the likelier it sounded. But was it the truth, or just wishful thinking on my part? Did I simply want it to be true because it meant someone else had died in Avery's place? Travis had served me well for many years, and here I was, praying he was dead.

Better dead than a traitor.

I was too numb to protest Gavin taking my arm and leading me away from the gruesome scene and back to the car, where I slumped on the hood and buried my face in my hands. I didn't want to leave. Didn't want to move from that spot until I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the charred corpse was not all that remained of Avery. But dawn would come soon, and if I didn't leave, I'd be little more than a burnt out husk myself.

I got inside the car and allowed myself to be driven to a hotel, where I climbed into bed and allowed the oblivion of sleep to claim me. Night would come again soon, and with it, answers.

Semi-related, but I'd love to write more murder mystery type stuff. One of my WIPs has a supernatural serial killer subplot, and I really want to work on it but I still need to finish this book. *sigh* Someday...