The Chimera Secret by Dean Crawford

repeatedly to local law enforcement and the Bureau that he knew nothing of Randy’s death. But he also
insisted that his other brother, Cletus, whose body has not yet been found, was killed by a monster in the forests.’
    The room remained silent for a moment.
    ‘A monster,’ Lopez echoed flatly.
    ‘His exact words,’ Jarvis confirmed.
    Ethan thought for a moment. ‘There’s got to be more to it than that.’
    ‘Not for the Bureau,’ Jarvis said. ‘But when I got the case I took a better look at it. There are several things that don’t add up. Randy’s estimated time of death
is stated as being the same time that Jesse was supposedly out in the forests. Of course he could have lied about where he was, killing both brothers in the same time frame, except that when he was
found his clothes were torn to shreds and he was on the verge of cardiac arrest. The doctors who treated him diagnosed extreme dehydration and exhaustion, which backed up his story.’
    ‘Which was?’
    ‘That Cletus was killed somewhere near a place called Fox Creek in the mountains to the east of Riggins. It’s almost twenty miles away from the town through severe terrain, and Jesse
swears his brother was killed the previous evening.’
    Ethan got it immediately.
    ‘He ran twenty miles, at night, through the mountains?’
    ‘Non-stop,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘Whatever he saw, it scared him enough to flee so far and so fast that it almost killed him.’

8
    In his time with the United States Marines, Ethan had been put through some severe physical challenges that had tested the limits of his endurance. That was just part of a
soldier’s life, accepted by all who served. But for a civilian with no prior history of extreme physical endurance to run for twelve hours across wild ground was an almost superhuman
feat.
    ‘So Jesse gets back to civilization,’ Ethan said, ‘finds somebody and tells them a monster killed his brother.’
    Jarvis nodded.
    ‘He’s taken to hospital, but after a few hours the Sheriff’s Office arrests him in connection with his brother’s death. No motive had been found but Jesse won’t
shift from his story, which has been digging him further into trouble.’
    ‘You want us to go in and figure it out,’ Lopez guessed. ‘You really sure this guy’s worth all the trouble? What’s that scientific rule – Occam’s Razor?
You don’t introduce one mystery to explain another. It’s more likely that Jesse killed his brothers and concocted a crazy story to throw the police off the scent.’
    Ethan’s gaze drifted up to the writhing skeletal coils above his head.
    ‘True,’ he agreed, ‘but Idaho is big bear country. Why invent a story about a monster when he could just have said a bear got his brother? And if Jesse did murder them both
then why come back at all? Why not stay out in the woods a while, then come back as if nothing’s happened?’
    ‘That’s what I thought,’ Professor Middleton said. ‘There is no good reason for Jesse MacCarthy to falsely claim a monster killed his brother. Nor could he possibly have
faked the damage done to his body in his flight from those mountains. The simplest explanation, Miss Lopez, is that he saw something that terrified him almost to death.’
    ‘Couldn’t he have seen a bear though?’ Lopez suggested. ‘Been mistaken?’
    Jarvis shook his head.
    ‘Two of the three MacCarthy brothers were experienced woodsmen and hunters, taught by their father. Jesse was the youngest but he knew the region like the back of his hand: well enough, if
we assume he’s told the truth, to find his way home in the dead of night while in a state of blind panic. These guys knew what bears looked like. But that’s not what intrigues us the
most.’
    Middleton pushed his spectacles further up onto his nose as he took his cue. ‘This has happened before.’
    ‘To whom?’ Lopez asked.
    ‘A celebrity, believe it or not,’ Middleton explained. ‘Spirit Lake, near Mount