Sarah nodded.
“Okay, but I’m coming with you.”
Ivy wasn’t going to let the big woman slow her down, but two sets of eyes were better than one.
“If management asks why you didn’t inform them earlier, tell them I told you not to. Got it?”
“’Kay.”
Ivy switched on the Maglite.
Goddamn, it was bright.
Sarah shielded her eyes, and Ivy swung the beam away from the woman and the building.
“Let’s go.”
Ivy bounded off toward the field. Sarah might have said she searched the area, but Ivy wanted to see for herself.
Everything in the flashlight’s direct path glowed an artificial, ghostly white, while everything else remained black.
Ivy found herself in a sea of flowers.
“Dad?” she said loudly, falling just short of shouting. “Dad? You in here?”
She found the path from yesterday, half-jogged until she reached the end. The area was still depressed from where she’d found the man sitting, twirling the flower between his mangled fingers.
He wasn’t there now.
“Dad?” A little louder this time. “Dad?”
Ivy continued to scan the surrounding area, gradually raising the flashlight beam. Only saw those damn fractal flowers.
“Dad!”
“Ivy?”
Sarah Kachinski, being a much bigger and slower woman, was only arriving now. Her thick chest was heaving.
“What?”
“There’s something...” Sarah sucked in a deep breath, placed her hands on her thighs. “There’s something going on over there.”
Sarah pulled one hand off her leg, pointed.
Ivy saw it immediately: blue and red flashing lights in the distance.
“No,” she moaned and broke into a run.
Sprinting. Flashlight beam bouncing up and down.
The police lights were about a quarter mile away, reflecting off some sort of structure. A small barn, maybe, judging by the peaked roof.
Not one car, but two—two cop cars.
Please... please... please...
She was a quarter of the way there. Half.
