Read Online Blood Will Tell by April Henry - Free Book Online Page B

feet.
    Alexis eyed the canes dubiously. “It still seems like I’m going to get all scratched up.”
    He shook his head. “I know we always say ‘go through,’ but when you’ve got an established clump like this, you don’t want to try to wade through it. If you do, it will take you forever and you probably will get scratched. What you want to do is go over or under. And since we’re looking for a knife, it’s much more likely it is going to be on the ground. So you need to go under, where the evidence will be. You don’t want to just push vegetation down onto your evidence and hide it more.” He flattened the air with his hands. “I once saw a guy literally step on a shotgun and not realize it because of everything he was pushing down on top of it.”
    â€œSo I go under,” Alexis repeated doubtfully. She imagined the thorns raking her back, ripping through her Gore-Tex jacket. Which hadn’t been cheap, even at a thrift store.
    â€œOnce you get under, there’s more space than you might expect. Just think of the helmet as your battle armor. It actually does a pretty good job of getting you in there. Use it to shove yourself in as far as you can physically go. Then you literally just lift the whole mass of vines across your back.” Mitchell lifted his open hands and pushed them over his shoulders. “There’s a reason we’ve been called the ‘forest eradication team.’” He let out a laugh that squeaked at the end.
    â€œSince you already know how to do it, maybe you should be the one.” Alexis liked this idea so much that she started to get to her feet so they could trade places.
    Mitchell tugged her back down. “You’ve got to learn sometime.”
    Before she could think of a way to get out of it, Jackie was yelling “Team forward!” again and Alexis was echoing it.
    Shoulders hunched, using her helmet like a battering ram, she started to push her way into the vines. A thorn scratched her cheek, reminding her to tuck her chin and to hunker even closer to the ground. She wasn’t really on her hands and knees, but in nearly a fetal position on her forearms and shins, the ground just inches from her face. It felt too close, as if she were smothering. Alexis resisted the urge to stand and instead inched her way forward until she could go no farther. Then she reached up the way Mitchell had said to—silently thanking Jon for her gloves—and pushed at the mass of vines, scraping them farther down her back.
    She had created a little hollow space, a kind of tunnel, below the fresh growth. Was this how a rabbit felt when it hid from a dog or a coyote? The sound of her own breath echoed in her ears, and the smell of dirt filled her nostrils. Light leaked in, and to ease her sense of claustrophobia, Alexis risked tilting her face up toward the patchwork of blue.
    And then she saw it. Snagged on the vines about two feet off the ground.
    A woman’s mitten. Hand-knit, purple-and-white-striped. Turned half inside out. As if a bramble had snagged it and yanked it off.
    But why would anyone get so close to a blackberry bush in winter, when there were no berries to make the risk worth it? And why hadn’t the mitten’s owner noticed it had been pulled off and retrieved it?
    Unless it had been night. Night and she had been running through this vacant lot. Trying to get away.
    Trying—and failing.

 
    CHAPTER 20
    NICK
    MONDAY
    NOT SOME RANDOM GUY
    Nick watched the wrinkles in Harriman’s face get even deeper after Alexis pointed at the mitten. Judging by his expression, it had to have been the victim’s. If Nick had just been two feet farther over, it would have been him who found it. Not Alexis.
    In a low voice, Harriman conferred with Mitchell and Jon, then Mitchell clapped his hands. “Okay, everyone, we’re going to break for lunch. You can eat between the two crime scene tapes,