John Saul by Guardian Page B

with is that it’s a grizzly gone bad, and if it is, you’re right. This is just the beginning.”
    Finishing up his notes on the incident, and assuring Roy Bittern that two rangers would be up to look over the vandalism within the hour, Rick Martin had gotten into his Jeep and started back down the rutted dirt track that led to the valley floor.
    If it was a bear that did the damage, he suspected there would be another incident within a night or two. Once a bear went bad, it never stopped.
    But if it was a bear, where were the tracks?
    As he came to the main road, he thought of Joey Wilkenson.
    Joey, who had always been a little odd, and who had now lost both his parents to “accidents” that neither Rick nor his assistant deputy, Tony Moleno, were yet willing to accept at face value.
    Joey, who often took off into the woods on his own, with only the company of his dog.
    Was it possible that Joey might have come up here in the middle of the night and wreaked havoc on the campsite?
    On the spur of the moment, he’d decided to go up to El Monte and have a talk with the boy, and watch his reactions carefully.
    “Lucky those people weren’t there,” he finished now, covertly keeping his eyes on Joey as he spoke. “If they had been, they probably would have been killed.”
    MaryAnne shuddered at the words, but didn’t miss the fact that Rick Martin was watching Joey as he made the statement. Her own eyes shifted to the boy, who had listened silently to Martin’s account.
    Joey, though, said nothing, betraying no reaction at all.
    “What I was wondering,” Martin went on, “was whether any of you heard anything last night, or saw anything.”
    Now Joey stirred in his chair. “I did,” he said. As everyone in the room turned to face him, his brow knit into a deep frown. “Something woke me up,” he said. “I don’t even know what it was. Anyway, I went to my window and looked out, and I thought I saw someone outside.”
    Rick Martin felt his heartbeat quicken. “You thought you saw someone?” he pressed. “Or did you actually
see
someone?”
    Joey’s eyes flicked toward MaryAnne for a moment, almost as if he was seeking her help, but then he turned back. “I’m not sure,” he said. “It was just a sort of shadow outside. At first I thought it was a deer, but then I knew it wasn’t. It was out in the pasture, and I could barely see it. But it looked like a man.”
    “Do you know who it was?” Martin asked.
    Joey shook his head. “I told you—I could hardly see it.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me about it this morning, Joey?” MaryAnne asked.
    Joey shrugged. “I hardly even remembered it when I woke up,” he explained. “I mean, it was almost like it happened in a dream, you know?”
    “What did you do after you saw it, Joey?” Rick asked.
    “I just went back to bed.”
    “You didn’t go outside?” the deputy pressed. “You didn’t go out and take a look?”
    “Why would I do that?” Joey asked, his eyes narrowing.
    Though he could sense MaryAnne Carpenter glaring at him, Rick decided to go on with his questions. “But you do that sometimes, don’t you Joey? Your dad used to tell me you like to go out in the woods by yourself.”
    “Y-Yeah, I do that sometimes,” Joey reluctantly admitted. “But I didn’t go out last night.”
    “Are you sure?” Martin pressed. “You went out a few nights ago, didn’t you? The night your mom—”
    “Do we have to do this?” MaryAnne interrupted. “He told you what he saw last night, and he told you what he did.”
    Rick Martin hesitated, then decided that for now he’d gone far enough. But he’d watched Joey carefully while questioning him, and taken careful note of one thing.
    The boy hadn’t flinched at the deliberate mention of both his mother and his father.
    Indeed, though the funeral was only a couple of hours away, Joey had barely reacted to the mention of his parents at all.
    Didn’t he care that they were dead?
    Or was he still