“Just as that Park Police officer said, there haven’t been any reports of large carnivores in Forest Park for decades,” Hank said, tossing an empty wrapper into the trash as Nick dug into his instant ramen.
“I double-checked the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife logs.
Out of twenty-three common local species, the biggest thing roaming those trails is a fat raccoon.”
Nick took a steaming bite, swallowing quickly.
“So our primary suspect isn’t Bert Raccoon?”
“Unless The Raccoons took a very dark turn since the eighties, probably not,” Hank joked.
“The good news is that AFIS hit the mark.
The victim is a college student over at the Portland Academy of Art.
She went out for a morning run and never made it back to her dorm.
Her roommate filed a missing persons report with the desk three hours ago, and as soon as her file hit the state system, her prints matched the ones lifted off that pink iPod.”
Nick finished his cup in three rapid gulps, barely tasting the broth, and stood up, reaching for his coat.
“What are we waiting for?
Let’s go talk to the roommate.”
The women’s dormitory at the Portland Academy of Art was a three-story, gabled brick building tucked behind a canopy of cherry trees.
It was late summer, so the famous pink blossoms were long gone, leaving only dense green foliage.
Still, the sight of students walking across the lawn in the warm afternoon sun brought a faint grin to Hank’s face.
“You should’ve pushed me harder back in high school, Nick,” Hank said, adjusting his holster under his jacket as they walked up the brick path.
“If I knew college campus life was this lively, I would’ve retaken the SATs even if I couldn’t get into Oregon State.”
Nick offered a slight smirk.
“As an average guy with no family connections, getting into Portland State on my own merit was tough enough.
I couldn’t carry your slacker ass across the finish line too.”
While residential access was loosely regulated, the two detectives elected to wait near the heavy timber front doors after contacting the reporting party to avoid causing an unnecessary stir.
As they stood by the stone pillars, several female students crossed the courtyard, casting curious glances toward Nick.
Within ten minutes, two bold undergrads had approached him directly, asking if he was on AIM, MSN, or Facebook.
It was 2008.
Apple’s original iPhone had launched just a year prior, Android was still in its infancy, and smartphones were nowhere near the ubiquitous extensions of daily life they would eventually become.
Socializing among college students still centered heavily on laptop screens and web portals.
While instant messengers like AIM and MSN functioned as standard communication channels, Facebook had rapidly swept through campuses, establishing itself as the dominant social platform for the younger demographic.
“Unbelievable.
I forget how easy you have it sometimes.”
“It wasn’t like that in college,” Nick said dryly, keeping his eyes on the dormitory entrance.
“I didn’t join a fraternity, so my social circle was pretty small.”
American campus culture could be unforgiving to those who prioritized academics over party life.
If Nick hadn’t maintained his combat training since childhood—and developed an expert touch for dealing with high school bullies without leaving visible bruises—a guy who skipped varsity football and ignored Greek life yet managed to date both the cheer captain and a sorority president would have spent his freshman year being shoved into lockers.
Their conversation was cut short as a petite Latina student stepped out of the heavy glass doors, looking around anxiously.
After Nick displayed his gold shield, the girl wiped a tear from her eye and spoke rapidly.
“She left for her morning run at 7:30 AM.
Sylvia usually runs for forty-five minutes tops.
When she wasn’t back by noon and wasn’t answering her cell, I knew something was wrong.
That’s when I called the campus security desk.”
She looked up at Nick, her eyes wide.
“Have you found her?
Is Sylvia okay?”
Nick held back the brutal reality, instead pulling out his iPhone to display a photo of the recovered music player.
“Do you recognize this?”
“That’s Sylvia’s iPod Mini,” the girl confirmed instantly, nodding.
“She always listens to music on her runs.
She blasts it so loud I used to tell her she’d ruin her hearing, but she never listened…” Her voice trailed off, horror dawning on her face.
“Oh God…
did something happen to her?”
Doing the math in his head, Nick calculated the distance.
The section of the trail where they found the remains was roughly a thirty-minute jog from this dormitory.
Sylvia had been ambushed around 8:00 AM.
By the time a passing hiker reported the scene two hours later, a living nineteen-year-old had been reduced to scattered fragments across a hundred yards of forest.
What kind of beast possessed the strength and ferocity to do that to a human being in broad daylight?
Nick’s mind flashed back to his own bizarre encounter weeks prior.
If he had been an ordinary, unarmed civilian when that creature transformed before his eyes, would he have ended up like Sylvia?
And what about the other one—the creature that shifted into a pale, hollow-eyed hag?
The thought left an unsettling chill in his chest.
A physical monster was dangerous, but something that could hide behind a normal human face was exponentially worse. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
Noticing Nick’s sudden silence, Hank assumed his partner was carefully choosing his words with the grieving student and stepped in to bridge the gap.
“We’re still actively investigating the scene,” Hank said gently, keeping his voice steady.
“Can you tell us what Sylvia was wearing when she left this morning?”
“Black running leggings, a bright red hoodie, and pink Nike running shoes,” the roommate replied, pulling out her own phone.
“Look, I have a picture from last weekend.
She wears that exact red jacket every time she runs.”
Nick snapped back to the present, leaning in to view the screen.
Two young women grinned back at the camera, radiant and full of life under the afternoon sun.
“Sylvia Coleman,” Hank said two hours later back at the precinct, staring at the Oregon Department of Motor Vehicles database profile on his desktop screen.
“Nineteen years old, sophomore fine arts major.
Local girl from Beaverton.”
He let out a long breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose.
“I just hope whatever hit her was fast.
I hope she didn’t suffer.”
Hank glanced at the wall clock—it was pushing 9:00 PM—then turned toward Nick, who remained hunched over his desk, typing rapidly.
“We’ve done all we can for tonight, partner,” Hank said, grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair.
“Jurisdiction isn’t even officially transferred to Homicide yet.
You’re not planning on sleeping at your desk on your first official case, are you?”
“Go ahead,” Nick replied without looking up from the screen.
“I’m going through Sylvia’s digital footprint and recent communications.
Tomorrow morning, swing by the forensics lab and check if they got a clean tread profile off that boot print we cast near the log.
My gut tells me that shoe impression is our best lead.”
On Nick’s monitor, Sylvia’s Facebook page was open, showing a gallery of photos: campus events, art projects, smiling selfies with friends.
Standard investigative textbooks cautioned detectives against forming emotional attachments to victims, warning that personal investment clouded objective judgment.
Nick had heard similar advice from veteran officers during his patrol days.
Yet as he stared at the bright, living smile of the girl whose scattered remains he had cataloged four hours earlier, a quiet resolve took root deep within him.
It wasn’t just about clearance rates or procedural duty anymore.
It was a clear, unmistakable sense of mission—to tear away the camouflage, discover what kind of predator was hunting in the shadows of Forest Park, and bring it down.