“Do it!” She hissed at herself, and she bladed her hand and lifted her elbow toward her ear. “Do it!” She spat through gritted teeth.
And with that, Rylee squeezed her lids tight and shoved her hand into the water, felt something other than water, and closed her grip on it as she pulled her elbow back up.
What happened next could only be described as a moment of brain warp.
Part of her mind wanted to tell her that she’d pulled the skin from a hand.
The rational part of her brain correctly identified the object as a surgical glove that, full of water, had been floating, hand-shaped and fingers up, eight inches beneath the surface.
Rylee began to laugh hysterically.
It was the culmination of everything that had been going on in her life, and she just let it flow from her chest—crazy and unfiltered.
“Crap, Rylee, what’s happening to you? I mean, we came out to the river for it to be cathartic – are you catharting? Is that a word?”
Rylee waved her hand through the air, then dropped it to her lap and lifted the surgical glove.
“What are you doing? Don’t touch that. You have no idea where it’s been.”
“It’s been in the water,” Rylee said, the bubble of anxiety burst, and she told the story to Neesa’s horror faces.
“That was so brave,” Neesa said. “I mean, you don’t know what you’re pulling up when you reach in the water. The hand could have pulled away from the arm bones like a chicken in the stock pot. Cripes, I shouldn’t have said that. I’m going to remember that image every time I try to make someone chicken soup.”
“I had the exact same chicken thought,” Rylee said.
“That’s why we’re friends. Birds of a feather as well as dead birds in a pot with no feathers. I’m freaking out. I don’t want to be on the river right now.”
Rylee put her paddle in the water. “It was bad.”
“We have to change this mood because I am all kinds of wigged out.” Neesa searched along the surface of the water. “Okay. I propose that we go home, take scalding hot showers, and put on some nice, comfy clothes, get some fast food, andgo to the movies for something loud and violently therapeutic.” Neesa waited for Rylee to thumbs-up the idea. “And we’re going to be grateful for all the things we have to be grateful for. And one of them is that you didn’t fish a corpse from the river with the skin peeling off.”
Rylee slapped her paddle in the water to splash Neesa.
Neesa laughed and yelled out, “Come on, I’ll race you back to shore.”
Chapter Fifteen
Dakota
Thursday
Dressed in running gear, Tank patiently waiting at his side, Dakota looked up the staircase when the echo of footsteps hustled his way. “You ready?” he called up to Jasper.
“What are you thinking, twice around the Tidal Basin?” Jasper asked as they pushed through the back door.
Working at the 14thStreet office had its perks.
Right out the back door was a green space around a wide pool of water that connected to the Potomac. Typically, D.C. had about a week of spring weather that showed up between winter cold and summer heat. Dakota liked to take advantage of it by taking a picnic out on the grass to watch the crews scull up the Potomac. In the summer evenings, it was usually a good place to run.
Today, the weather had rolled the dice, and they were back to the pleasant weather they’d had on Sunday.
Tank was sniffing the air which today held the promise of green shoots and cherry blossoms.
Dakota patted Tank’s side. “Iniquus has been working on Tank’s physical and mental stamina, and I need to keep that up. If you need to peel off after two laps, we may keep going.”
The three took off at a slow trot for the warm-up, then increased their speed to a good clip. The push felt good in Dakota’s body as he fell into a well-practiced rhythm. Running was meditative for him; he could pound stress into the pavement and clear his mind.
As they ran, they could see vendors parked along the street with water bottles, winter hats, and tourist souvenirs.
