Burial Ground Read Online Free

son.
    Two black- and gray-streaked rocks.
    A native headdress of indeterminate origin,
cast in pure gold.
    Although it was subtle, he heard his son's
posthumous message loud and clear. It was almost as if Hunter had
known there was a good chance he might not return to Pomacochas
alive, and had brought items only his father would understand.
Clues that would stymie a layman, but purvey important information
at the same time. The headdress was simultaneously a location
marker and a red herring meant to distract whoever found the
backpack like a starling with a bit of foil. The real message was
in the rocks, the seemingly mundane black and gray chunks of earth.
They were stratified layers of volcanic magnetite and quartz, placers , streaks that pointed like arrows to their ultimate
quarry.
    Hunter had found it.
    For a heartbreaking moment, Leo's pride
eclipsed his sorrow and guilt.

IV

    Harris County Medical Examiner's Office
    Houston, Texas
    October 18 th
    4:32 p.m. CDT

    Despite their indignation that the body had
not arrived embalmed, the CDC had cleared Hunter's remains of
potentially contagious viral and bacterial agents, infestation, and
acute pathological processes in record time, thanks in large
measure to Leo's government connections. After taking possession of
his son's cleaned and sterilized belongings, he had followed the
Medical Examiner's van from the airport, cell phone glued to his
ear, calling in every favor he possibly could. By the time he
arrived at the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office near the
Astrodome, the Chief Medical Examiner had already been informed
that he would be observing his son's autopsy. It had cost him a
fortune---how quickly the mayor and the good Senator had forgotten
how much he'd contributed to their last campaigns---but he had gotten
exactly what he wanted, as he had known he would. Now, he stood
back toward the rear of the room, staring at his son's lifeless
carcass on the cold autopsy table.
    He couldn't take his eyes off the body.
Whatever had once been his Hunter had long since abandoned that
broken vessel, which now only vaguely resembled the child he had
known for the past thirty-two years. He couldn't bear the sight of
where Hunter's flesh had been chewed away by animals that had had
no right to violate its integrity. He wanted to throw himself onto
the body, to wrap his arms around the boy he had loved
unconditionally and breathe his own life into the young man who
still had so much living left to do. A surge of rage rippled
through him. Heat suffused his face and his fists curled so tightly
that his fingernails bit into his palms.
    "Christ. They could have at least rinsed it
off for us," the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. James Prentice, said.
His glasses perched almost miraculously on the tip of his bulbous
nose, framing brown eyes that didn't appear to blink. The overhead
recorder started and stopped with his voice, providing a whirring
undertone to his words. "All right. Let's get this show on the
road, shall we?"
    He took a pair of scissors from the sterile
tray beside him and cut twin lines up each pant leg and through
Hunter's underwear. His shirt hadn't made the return trip to the
States with him. Prentice dropped the tattered fabric in the
biohazard waste container for incineration and pulled the
retractable hose nozzle out from under the table. With a squeeze of
the handle, he sprayed Hunter's face and chest with scalding water.
Smears of mud broke apart and dissolved. The runoff traced the
contours of his musculature in streams that rolled down the lines
of his ribs and into the side gutters of the table. Swirls of brown
water turned around the drains. The flesh beneath the grime was a
sickly gray and marbled with blue veins and black bruises. There
were dozens of insect bite marks.
    "Bird mites," Prentice said.
    Superficial lacerations bisected Hunter's
clavicles and pectorals. Leo could see exposed sections of the
lumbar spine through the gaping hole in the