A Twist of Fate:
The Case of the Modern Montrèsor
By
A. Rhea King

His keen observation tripped a sinister catalyst that sent Nick's world into a kamikaze tailspin.

Chapter 1

Lupe Perez had enjoyed plants since his childhood in Chile. He seemed to have a magic touch that made them content and thrive. It was the reason Mister Garcia had hired him without proof of citizenship, had allowed him to move into the small single room trailer at the back of the nursery, and helped him get his green card. Since Lupe had come to Painted Desert Nursery, the tree groves under his care flourished. Even the sickly little saplings at the edge of the property had become lush and green.

One of his secrets was at night and sing ancient songs while he sprayed the trees with a supplement his great-grandfather had passed down. It was made from plants found in the jungle that had once fenced in Lupe's village – the jungle, the village, and his family had long ago disappeared. Garcia never asked why Lupe ordered the ingredients, and was willing to pay the price to have them shipped to America.

With over six acres of trees, it took Lupe a month of nights to cover one end to the other. He was always amused at how much the trees changed in that month. Lupe stopped singing when he noticed a mark on one of the trees. He stopped the sprayer and hung it on the hook from his backpack canister. Lupe pulled off his flashlight and shined it on the tree. Something had brushed against the tree so hard it peeled back some of the soft bark. Lupe reached out, touching the wound. He muttered his sympathies to the tree, patting it.

He heard a strange noise and fell silent to listen. He'd heard this noise before, but the memory was old and buried. He turned, shining his flashlight through the darkness. The light beam flashed across something moving on the ground and he slowly swung it back. At the edge of the grove, where a service road ran by the trees, the ground was moving.

He walked toward the area, watching the ground. It was up heaved and disturbed like someone had dug it up. He noticed two PVC lying discarded on the ground. He hadn't put those there and Garcia would have told him if there had been work on the drip system that watered the trees. Lupe winced when something stun his ankle. He shined the light down and his breath wisped away. The ground was moving with millions of ants. They covered his feet and were moving up his leg. He started panicking, smacking at his legs as he tried to get away. He stumbled over one of the PVC pipes and fell the ants.

The ants quickly covered him, injecting venom with each sting. Lupe struggled to his feet and ran screaming into the desert. He fell and rolled, trying to get the ants off. But the insects that had outlived the dinosaurs were undeterred by the man's attempt to save himself.

#

Nick stood at the edge of a grave, staring down into it with his camera clutched in one hand. The bottom was alive with fire ants. Survival was all they knew, and that meant eating everything that got in their way. Once that had even meant him.

"Nick," Catherine's voice said. It almost sounded like it came from the grave. "Hey, Nicky."

Nick looked at her. She stared at him with open concern.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah. Fine."

"You seem distracted."

"Just working the crime scene. What's up?"

"Did you remember to bring your Epi tonight?"

Nick patted the vest pocket the epinephrine filled Epipens were stored. Anymore, he made sure they were with him on every call.

"Just checking. Don't go near that box until they clear it, okay? I'll be over with the other body if you need me."

"Okay."

She grabbed his arm, digging her fingers into him. "I'm serious, Nick. Don't you dare go macho on me. If you run into problems, get out of here, use your Epi, call me. Got it?"

"No macho, macho man. Got it."

She chuckled as she walked away. Nick watched her go. She hadn't wanted him to take this case because of his allergy. He argued back that a few ants were not going to be the death of him. He knew hazmat would clear the scene before they'd let him in or near the body.

Nick crouched down, looking at the soil sitting to the left of the grave. Hazmat had been careful to dig it up and put it aside for him, but not so careful digging up the rest of the dirt and piling it to the right. He glanced at the three men around the wooden box – presumably a coffin. They were fending off the flow of fire ants coming from the two holes in the box, most likely where the two 4-inch PVC pipes that lay nearby had fitted in. But why had they been fitted into the box? What purpose had they served in this crime?

Nick came to another realization. All these fire ants and no visible mound. That didn't make much sense either. He pulled his Maglight off his belt and began searching for the mound.

"The coffin's clear," a hazmat man called out to him.

Nick turned, walking back to them.

The man told him, "There's a few still squirming, so be careful reaching in. An exterminator is coming with some more powerful stuff to deal with the ones in the grave."

"Thanks," Nick told him.

The three men started up the road to their truck. Nick walked over to the box and snapped off photos. He carefully lifted off the lid and turned it over. Dead fire ants clung to the particle wood, dripping off like blood. Inside were the partial remains of a woman. The ants had eaten away most of the fleshy areas, in some places down to the bone. Only part of her left eye remained; she had been blue eyed. The sight brought on a light wave of quickly passing nausea.

Nick took his heavy work gloves from his back pocket and pulled them on. He snapped off some more photographs, and then grabbed the garden spade and clean paint can sitting next to his kit. He crouched down and started scooping dead fire ants – and a few still struggling between life and death – into the paint can. Grissom was very specific about wanting a can from each body brought back so he could get a better time line.

The tip of the spade brushed the corpse's left hand, turning her wedding ring. His eyes moved to her curled fingers, something expected as rigor mortis had set in. But what he didn't expect to see was the tips of her fingers. Nick picked up her hand, turning it as far as he could. His keen observation tripped a sinister catalyst that was about to send Nick's world into a kamikaze tailspin.

"Hey, Nick, I'm going to head back with my body," Catherine said as she walked up to him.

Nick didn't hear her again but it wasn't meandering thoughts or a mental mapping of the crime scene that made him stonewall her. This time it was memories from his past sabotaged his mental stability.

Her next question was distorted and unintelligible to him, "What did you find?"

The skin on the corpse's fingers was torn and shredded, worn to the bone by her scraping them against something. Several fingernails had been ripped out of the nail beds. Nick slowly stood, moving the shaking light of his Maglite to the coffin's lid. The fingernails were embedded in the wood. Trails of blood and long scratches had chewed up the inside of the lid, and the sight caused broken, razor-edged shards of memories to rip through Nick.

"Nicky, what's wrong? Why are you shaking?" Catherine asked, but it sounded more like the sound of Plexiglas slowly cracking.

Nick stepped back from the coffin, his eyes going to the woman's face. What he saw in the box stole his control over his emotions and caused his body to react on instincts. That wasn't an unidentified woman in the coffin. That was him. He was the one that died in the coffin, eaten alive by fire ants. He was the one that had screamed and tried to claw his way out of a hellish grave.

"Nick, what's wrong?" Catherine's questions may as well be the wind of the little fan in his ear that was slowly dying as the battery power faded. "Help you how? What's wrong?"

He retreated from the box. He wanted to turn and run, to back away faster, but his mind and body had separated. He was a helpless passenger doomed to travel where his body took him.

"Nick, stop!" Catherine yelled. "STOP!"

Her hands grabbing for his arm was the grim reaper come to wait for Nick's last breath. He fought back, retreating faster. He stumbled and then he was falling. Nick landed hard at the bottom of a grave full of fire ants dug.

Nick screamed. He didn't feel the millions of biting insects; he could only panic as his mind played a malicious but fake memory of watching Walter Gordon bury him.

One scoop…

Two scoop…

Three scoops…

"PANCHO, GRAB MY HAND!"

The name was a life preserver dragging him out of consternation. He was able to see Catherine and a hazmat man kneeling at the edge holding their hands out to help him from the grave. He wasn't buried, but he wasn't able to breathe either and each breath was harder to take than the last. Nick lunged forward, grabbing each of their hands in his. They pulled him up and clear of the hole. Someone came at him with a fire extinguisher. Catherine wrapped her body around his head to prevent the CO2 from suffocating him. Only being able to draw shallow breaths made Nick writhe and try to break free from her hold.

"Just a few seconds, Nicky. Hold on for just a few seconds," Catherine promised him.

"CLEAR!" someone yelled.

Catherine ripped the pull across the zipper on Nick's vest, spilling the three Epipens inside onto the ground. She looked up when someone grabbed one, staring at Doctor Robbins.

"Hold on, Nick. Just one more second. Just one more second, Nick," Robbins told him as he ripped the injector from the tube and prepped it.

He fell to one knee, grimacing in pain when he did, and then jammed the injector hard against Nick's thigh.

#

Nick held his breath, and then slowly let it out. It was an almost involuntary habit he'd developed during childhood. Every time he was stung and it had come down to the last few seconds before death, after the epinephrine opened his lungs again, he would sit and breathe in long, deep, full breaths. It was like his brain had forgotten how and his body was retraining it. Tonight, however, he did it for entirely different reasons.

"The crime scene is covered," Catherine said, her voice coming closer with the sound of her shoes crunching gravel.

Nick slowly opened his eyes, looking down the road at his crime scene.

"Let's get you to the hospital."

"I'm not going."

Catherine had already disappeared around the side, probably even opened the driver's side door.

"What?" she asked from behind him.

"I am not going. I have a crime scene to process." Nick leaned over, grabbed the handle of his kit, and started down the road toward his crime scene.

Catherine jogged around in front of him, holding out her hands. He simply walked around her.

"Nick, no. You need to go to the hospital."

He didn't argue or agree. His mind was made up and no one was changing it. She grabbed his arm and his anger flared. He spun, flinging his arm to rip it free from her grip and almost hitting her. She fell back, wincing as if she were expecting him to hit her.

He saw Robbins, the hazmat men and uniformed officers turn to watch them. Nick turned away, continuing down the road. Catherine followed him.

Catherine battered him with questions as she trailed behind him. "What happened? Why did you panic? Why were you begging for help?"

Nick didn't answer her.

"Nick, you almost died. You need to go to the hospital!"

He didn't stop.

"NICK!" Catherine snapped.

He ignored her.

"Nicholas Stokes, stop!"

He didn't, and she didn't call after him again.