A Flicker of Reflected Sunlight

Victoria was driving fast, following the familiar eerie pathway towards that forsaken road ending.

She dropped Asher off before she made her way here, who in return was visibly disappointed by the fact that she left him home and took off again. With one eye on the street and another one on the dim light of the old police phone, her fingers were sliding across the screen where she was looking through the phone's caller history.

The mud gave way underneath her tires when she abruptly stopped at her planned destination. Only two numbers had been called only shortly before the murder, which she wrote down on an empty page of her notebook.

"Well see who these two belonged to later," she said under her breath and got her things together to leave the car.

Her shoes sunk into the soft earth when she got out. The rain from the past days had soaked the soil and did not have a chance to dry.

"Shit," she mumbled while she made her way into the woods, to the spot where the body had been found. How big would the chances of finding valuable clues be, now that nature had already washed away most of the past?

The disappointment sunk in fast. She was right. The once crimson-colored moss and vegetation were now left with only a faint shimmer of brown. She stood in between the trees, staring at the floor with a dark, pensive look on her face. Now that she had more information about the death, she was not able to tune out the images her mind was showing her. How the Sheriff came to a gruesome end, right at this spot.

Her demeanor changed in a matter of a second as she caught herself and got down on one knee to look up to the trees around her.

When he was attacked, he probably did not have enough time to pull his gun, since he would have had the upper hand against a bare-handed individual. Paying close attention to the floor she looked around for casings. The weapon had been laying close to the bush next to her, so any casings would probably be close by.

A flicker of reflected sunlight caught her view. There they were. Two casings close to where the body had been found, one more a little further into the forest. Her eyes then went up into the trees. The chance to find the bullet holes of missed shots was good with all those trees around this area. She found one hole a little higher up. The angle told her that he had already been on the floor while trying to fight his attacker off, drag marks indicating he had crawled backward between the first and last two shots.

The first bullet was dedicated to the attacker, the last two a desperate try to fight off the bear. From the distance he had crawled he probably only had a couple of minutes in between both of the attacks. Did the bear scare off the attempted killer?

Looking to the ground she knew she had no chance of finding valuable shoe prints, the floor had flattened through the rain.

Victoria needed to take a closer look at the pictures of the crime scene that she had taken on the day of the incident. She would also have to talk to a lot of people trying to figure out who had held such a grudge against the man to try and kill him.

Carefully bagging the casings and taking pictures in a now bigger radius of the surrounding area she once again stood there in silence. The sun started to set and the forest was eerily quiet. A shiver run through her body, signalizing her that she had overspent her time in this place, and turned around on her heels to get back to the car.

When she finally stepped out from in between the trees she was surprised by a black pickup truck parked next to her police wagon. Ethan was leaning against his car, looking up from his phone once she came through to the tree line. Everything looked just like the last time she was here and presented her with an uncomfortable deja vu. Her startled face did not go unnoticed.

"I was just about to call you, did you not hear the engine?" he asked when she stepped closer. Victoria looked at him with a guilty expression in her face.

"Sorry, I guess I was kind of... in my zone," she answered, unsure of how long he had waited on her account.

"Don't worry about it. Why did you call me here?" The obvious question had caught her off guard and she subconsciously looked back to the forest she had come out of, before looking back to him.

"I am afraid I called you out here for nothing. This whole thing took an unforeseen turn today and I had hoped you could tell me a thing or two about animal tracks. But the rain washed it all away..." She had paused her explanation, not quite sure how much she could disclose. He made her feel like she could trust him, and she definitely needed someone at her side with more knowledge about this town. Julien was officially cut out of the investigations, but was Ethan the best choice to ask for more insight? He was for sure her only one.

She could feel his eyes on her, a staggering look on his face.

"Victoria. Just tell me how I can help, and I will. Don't worry about the rest. If you are not able to disclose information I won't pry for it."

His hand reached up to her arm and he gave her a soft squeeze.

"I already had a bad feeling about his death," he continued, "and if I am right, then you will need every help you can get." His sentence had hit the nail on the head. She needed him.

"Before I can ask for your help I need to ask another question. You know I do. Where were you when the Sheriff died?" She swallowed. There was not one doubt in her head, that he was not involved- Not after how beat up he was after the death. But she needed to clear it up anyways.

He looked down to her and let go of her arm, but she could see that he understood.

"I was in the woods close to my cabin. I have a tracker in my pickup in case you need proof. I don't think it's possible to hike down the mountains and all the way back up in one night. I hope that is enough. I can't give you anything else than that."

"I'll need the tracking records, but yes, that is more than enough." She looked into his eyes and smiled, relieved that he did have an alibi. "Thank you," she then whispered, slowly rubbing her arm with the other arm's hand. It was getting colder, now that the sun had set and she felt the cold creeping up on her.

"It's chilly. Let's take a seat in the car and I will explain everything as best as I can," she said, looking up to him. He was tall for sure, but now that she was standing close to him she realized the height difference. And there it was, that one-sided smile on his lips that she had seen only a couple of times.

"Mhm, I see," he exclaimed, gracefully tilting his head towards his pickup and opening the door for her just a few seconds later. His arm reached into the car and rummaged around for a short moment until he pulled it back out and handed her a dark green jacket.

"Take this, can't have you freeze to death out here," he said, "who comes out into the woods with only a shirt on anyways?" He shook his head and sighed in disbelief.