“Soon.”
And then the lights blinked out.
C H A P T E R
T E N
? he scares me ?
Stumbling out of the mine was like crawling out of a nightmare. Except unlike a nightmare, sunlight didn’t make the bad things fade or get the taste of her own blood out of her mouth.
There were cuts and scratches all over her arms and legs where she had been gouged by the rocks and the bite on her neck wasthrobbing, and when she wet her cracked lips, they felt burned and bruised, and she could—
(You look so helpless lying there)
Panic seized her in its claw-like grip. Nadine dropped to her knees and threw up just as Dottie was heading over to open the kiosk. Her shadow swept over her and Nadine straightened with a frantic swipe of her mouth, eyes wild, as the older woman stared at her in astonishment.
It’s not him.He didn’t come back. It’s not him.
“What thehellhappened to you, girl? Are you drunk?”
“W-what?” Her mind would not understand; drunk on terror, maybe.
He didn’t come back.
Dottie made a noise of impatience.
“You were in that mine, weren’t you? I knew you were going to be trouble just as soon as you asked me about the arsenic. Come on—” her hand closed around Nadine’s wrist “—I’m calling the sheriff.”
Nadine was jerked along behind the other woman like a pull-toy, too stunned to resist. Dottie pulled two crates out from the back and pushed them together, snapping a discarded piece of burlap over them both before ordering Nadine to sit on the makeshift couch.
It didn’t take long before Gideon Crocker walked in, clad in his khaki uniform with his hat pulled low. “Miss Harnois,” he said. “I thought I told you to stay out of the way of the law. What in God’s name were you doing out in that mine? Didn’t you realize how dangerous it is?”
“I told her about the arsenic,” Dottie said helpfully, hovering. “Told her the mine’s been closed for good reason. But I knew she wouldn’t listen.”
Gideon gave her an impatient look. Nadine half-expected him to tell her to leave, but apparently things worked differently in small towns because he seemed to understand that Dottie was going to see what Dottie wanted to see, even if she had to do it from behind a closed door.
Said door cracked open and a young Latino man in black uniform walked in. Another cop, Nadine thought dully, until he turned, revealing a blue crest that said PLATA COUNTY EMERGENCY MEDICAL SERVICES. “All right,” he said, “where’s my patient?”
“Sitting pretty on that crate.”
The man looked at her and did a double-take. “Je-sus. I hope the other guy looks worse.”
His neck.She blinked slowly, looking at her rust-stained fingers.I got his neck.
Gideon flipped open a black book. “You mind running me through what happened?”
Nadine eyed the EMT warily as he opened up a first-aid box. “Someone attacked me.”
“In the mine?”
“Ow! Yes.”
“Any idea why?”
Nadine glanced at the two men and decided she did not want to say why.
(I want to make you soar, Nadine)
