by Sarah Wynde
Natalya pressed her lips together. She wanted to yell at him for being an idiot. They both knew she was destined to find his dead body. Surely he could have at least tried to stay off the roads he knew she’d be driving on? But there was no point in saying anything—they’d argued about the inevitability of her precognition for months a decade ago, back when he refused to quit his job as a sheriff’s deputy.
“But I saw something,” he continued. “I stopped to take a look. I got out of the car and came around to the side… ”
He stopped again.
Natalya waited, trying to control her impatience.
“It’s like a dream. There was a girl.”
Natalya’s eyes widened. She’d forgotten. How could she have forgotten? She whirled around, her gaze searching the darkness, but the child was nowhere to be seen. “That wasn’t a dream. There was a girl. What could she be doing out here?”
“There was another girl, too. Older. But that was… ” He let the words trail off. “No.”
“What are you talking about?” Natalya glanced back at Colin. She should call an ambulance. He should get a complete medical evaluation as soon as possible. He could have had a heart attack, a blocked artery, a mild stroke, an aneurysm—but he was supposed to be dead anyway. If a child was lost, they needed to find her.
“A dream. A weird dream.” He stepped away from her, toward the forest, eyes scanning their surroundings and called out, “Hello? Are you out there? Can you hear me?”
He paused and listened. Natalya listened with him. She could hear the sound of her own breathing, the stirring of wind overhead, a faint distant cry that might have been coyote. But nothing that sounded like a nearby child.
“What could a child be doing here?” she asked.
Colin shook his head, walking away from her toward the trees. “Let’s find her. She couldn’t have gone far.”
“She must have,” Natalya said, pointing out the obvious. Colin glanced her way, his hands working at his belt. “It’s two miles to the nearest house and we’re on the edge of six hundred miles of forest. She had to have come pretty far to wind up here.”
“There is that,” he agreed. He turned on the flashlight he’d been retrieving from his belt, and let its illumination play over the forest outside the light spilling from his car.
Natalya could see the trees within the glare of the overhead light bar, but nothing beyond them. She’d been in the forest at night before. Without a flashlight or a full moon or a campfire, the darkness was impenetrable. Why would a child choose the blackness over the comfort offered by the warmth of the light? It wasn’t a good sign.
She tried to recall what she’d seen of the girl but the sight had been too quick, too unexpected. Still, the girl had been dressed and not in rags. And she’d been thin, but not emaciated, pale and dirty, but not filthy, not with the kind of ground-in dirt that would have turned her light hair dark and her skin grey. Whoever she was, she hadn’t been in the woods for months.
That probably meant she was hungry.
“Grace gave me some leftovers from dinner,” she called to Colin’s back as he headed toward the edge of the pool of light.
“Grace cooked?” Surprise colored his voice but he stayed focused on the forest.
“She did,” Natalya confirmed, a hint of the amusement she felt leaking into her own voice. Grace was many things but a cook was not one of them.
“How was it?” he asked, the skepticism clear.
“Incredibly good. Roast beef, mashed potatoes with lots of butter,” Natalya said with more enthusiasm than honesty. The beef was on the dry side and the rolls were cold. But Colin wasn’t her target audience. She’d skip the mention of the over-done vegetables—she wasn’t likely to entice a child out of the darkness by raving about carrots, even if they were perfect instead of mushy.
“Dessert was fantastic,” she added truthfully, raising her voice so the sound would carry. “She made this strawberry trifle with sponge cake. I think she thought she was feeding an army, though—we’ll be eating it all week. Unless someone else wants some, that is. I’ve got a bowl full of it in my car.”
She paused by the passenger door of her car and waited, listening. Colin had figured out what she was doing. He turned toward her, watching. “Oh, and Christmas cookies.” She raised her voice again, speaking a bit louder. “You remember the kind my mom used to make?”
“The sugar cookies?” Colin asked. “With the colored sugar?”
“Those, and also the ones with the chocolate thumbprint on top. And remember the butter frosting kind? The really sweet ones? Grace made those, too. I’ve got a whole tin of them here.”
Natalya waited.
“I’d be happy to share,” she prompted. “With anyone who was maybe a little hungry and wanted a cookie.”
The rustle in the brush came from behind them, closer to Colin’s car. He swung the light that way, still aiming it low, in time to see the girl crawl out from under a bush.
She stood and Colin let the flashlight follow her up. Natalya took several steps toward her, cataloging injuries. A long scratch down one cheek, visible bruises on one arm, but the dark circles under her eyes were exhaustion, not damage.
As Natalya got closer, the girl flinched, taking a single step backward and glancing over her shoulder as if checking for an escape route.
Natalya froze. In a voice as gentle as she’d use with a wild creature, Natalya said, “What’s your name?”
The girl’s chin rose, but she didn’t answer. Her blue eyes, as they looked from Natalya to Colin and back again, were wary.
Natalya crouched, putting herself closer to eye level with the girl. “I’m Natalya.” She tilted her head toward Colin. “That’s Colin. We’d like to help you.”
The girl didn’t answer. A dozen questions burned in Natalya’s brain, but she settled for asking only the most important. “Are you hurt?”
The girl’s throat moved as she swallowed, but she didn’t speak.
“I’m a doctor,” Natalya continued, voice still gentle. Behind her, she could sense Colin shifting to the side. He stayed a comfortable distance away, but he was working his way, as if casually, between the girl and her path back to the trees. “I can see the scratch on your face and some bruises on your arm. Does anywhere else hurt?”
The girl’s hand rose to touch her face before dropping again. With a hint of defiance, she lifted the edge of the ugly brown dress she wore. Her knees were scraped, her legs scratched and dirty. Blood oozed out along the strap of her cheap plastic sandals.
“Your feet?” Natalya made no move to touch the girl.
The girl nodded.
“I can help with that. Let’s get you some food first and then we’ll get you cleaned up. Okay?” Natalya waited, not standing until the girl tilted her head in a barely perceptible nod.
“If you want to grab the cookies, I can take her to the station.” Colin spoke quietly. He’d managed to move around the girl to the side of his car.
“No way.” Without taking her eyes off the child, Natalya gestured with an open hand toward her own car. The girl began to limp toward her.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Colin asked.
“I found you unconscious by the side of the road not ten minutes ago.” Natalya kept her voice soft. “And you think I’m going to let a kid ride in a car you’re driving? Not a chance.”
The girl looked at her sideways as she limped past, her lip curling in what looked like satisfaction. She went straight to the back passenger-side door and tried to open it, then glanced at Natalya. Natalya fumbled in her pocket, then pulled out her keys and pushed the button to unlock the door. The girl opened it and climbed inside.
“Fair point,” Colin said, moving to join Natalya where she stood. “Do you want to take her to the station?”
“We should probably take her to a hospital, get her checked out first,” Natalya said with a frown. The nearest emergency clinic was forty-five minutes away, t
he hospital even farther.
“She seem that badly hurt?” Colin asked, turning off his flashlight and reattaching it to his belt.
Natalya made an equivocal gesture with her hand. “Did you look at her?”
“Yeah. Scratches, some bruises, nasty blisters.”
“Those bruises aren’t fresh. From the dirt, the scratches, the tangled hair, the dried blood—she didn’t wander away from home two hours ago. She’s been lost for a while.”
“Not feral, though,” Colin said. “She’s no stranger to automatic door locks.”
Natalya nodded in agreement. “She’s thin, but not emaciated. But she could be dehydrated. If not, she’s been drinking untreated water, which in Florida means parasites. Giardia lamblia. Cryptosporidium.”
“Brain-eating amoebas?” Colin asked, an edge of humor in his voice.
“Wrong time of year,” Nat replied. “Those need warm temperatures.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
“Not much to do about any of it unless she gets sick, though,” Natalya said. “It might be better to try to find her parents first. You should get to the hospital, though.”
“I’m fine,” Colin answered.
“You don’t know that.”
Colin thumped himself in the chest. “Heart’s beating like a champ. No pain.”
“You were rubbing your chest before. It hurt then, didn’t it?”
“It was indigestion,” he told her. “Hurt like a mo—hurt a lot. But it was just gas.”
“That’s not how it works. Time equals muscle when it comes to heart attacks.” Colin didn’t look convinced, so Natalya continued, her worry lending persuasion to her tone. “A heart attack happens when the blood supply to part of your heart is blocked, damaging heart muscle. If the rest of the heart works, the pain can stop. People have heart attacks and walk around afterward as if nothing happened, but that doesn’t mean the damage isn’t there. And if an artery is blocked, you could have another heart attack any time.”
Colin frowned. “I need to start an investigation. I’ve got to call around, see if anyone’s reported a missing child. Check missing person reports, get some dogs out here to retrace her trail, get in touch with DCF—I’ve got a lot to do.”
“One of your deputies could do all that,” Natalya suggested.
“What about—” He paused and tugged his earlobe thoughtfully.
“What are you thinking?” Natalya recognized that look. He was going to try to talk her into something.
“Your lab is what, five minutes away?”
“Yeah,” Natalya answered warily.
“You could check us both out there. You’ve got some fancy-pants scanner, right?”
Natalya stopped herself from rolling her eyes with an effort. Fancy-pants was not the word she’d use to describe the multi-million dollar imaging system she used for her research. “I have a high-end imaging system, yes.”
“Could you use that to see if anything’s wrong?”
“I’m not a cardiologist or trauma specialist,” Natalya started, before pausing. Her imaging system was probably the best system in the state of Florida, certainly better than anything at a local 24-hour clinic. And although General Directions wasn’t a medical facility, it was well-stocked with medical supplies. She could run the same tests a hospital would run.
She should send Colin to a hospital.
She shouldn’t get involved.
But it would save a lot of time.
“I can’t treat you at GD. I don’t have the right drugs and I’m not about to do an angioplasty. But if you do have a blocked artery, we could get Dave to fly you to Orlando or Jacksonville. You’d get better cardiac care there, anyway.”
“That’s the ticket.” He grinned at her. “And I can get a missing person investigation started.”
“Found person, surely,” Natalya murmured, wondering if she was making a mistake.
“Same difference, happier ending.” He looked away, back toward her car and the hidden child. She could see his frown, but the word was barely audible as he added, “Maybe.”
Chapter Two
Colin slid into the passenger seat of Natalya’s car with a wince. He hated being a passenger. Nat’s pointed question about whether it was safe to drive when he didn’t know why he’d passed out was valid, though.
Why had he passed out?
And what had happened while he’d been unconscious?
He reached up and flipped open the mirror on the sun visor, angling it so he’d be able to see the girl in the backseat. In the darkness, her face was shadowed, so he pushed on the overhead light. While he’d been radioing in and parking properly, Nat had given the girl food. She sat now with the open tin of cookies by her side, a Santa Claus sugar cookie clutched in her hand, but her eyes were glazing over, the lids fluttering down. Her head tipped to one side and she jerked it back upright, eyes flying open. She saw him looking at her and scowled, eyes narrowing and lips setting stubbornly, before her scowl disappeared in a yawn.
Colin smiled as he turned off the overhead light and settled back into his seat. He didn’t mind her glare. It was a good sign, he thought, that her fear didn’t have her cowering in the corners.
“Is she asleep?” Nat asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Getting that way. Did she say anything?”
“Not a word.” Nat shot a quick glance at him. “So tell me what happened.”
He rubbed his chin. “It’s going to sound crazy.”
She raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I have very high standards for crazy.”
His answering chuckle was wry. Living in Tassamara was like that. On the surface, Tassamara was a sleepy rural town, supported by the occasional tourists passing through and business from the local farms, orchards, and ranches. Underneath that façade, though, lay a vibrant community composed of open-minded scientists, psychics, and people who didn’t quite fit in the outside world.
Long-time residents claimed the town was built on a convergence of ley lines or a vortex point. They said it had been a place of dimensional energy that nourished spiritual gifts for thousands of years, always attracting people with unusual abilities. Maybe it was true. As sheriff, he’d certainly had to deal with his share of strange events and odd occurrences. Still, this night was one of the weirdest of his life.
“It was like a dream,” he said.
Nat shook her head. “Don’t start there. Start at the beginning. You were in your car and—?”
He’d been driving aimlessly, after a long day capped a long week. Earlier in the month, an apparent double murder turned into a massive drug case involving Feds from all sorts of three-letter agencies. Two days ago, it culminated in a debacle of a raid, leaving three people dead, one in the hospital. The agencies would be pointing fingers and fighting about responsibility for weeks. Despite the holiday, he’d spent hours working on his share of the paperwork.
He didn’t blame himself. It might be his town, but neither the drug trafficking nor the botched federal raid were under his control. But the combination of death brushing its wingtips too close and the holiday had him pensive. And nothing could soothe him like the stillness of a dark night and the feel of an automobile engine humming. He loved the solitude of the quiet roads, the control and power of having his hands on a steering wheel.
He’d been waiting to die for a decade. He could still remember the exact moment Nat had told him what she’d seen, as vividly as if it were happening in real time. When she’d started talking, most of his attention had been on the overflowing recycling bin, wondering if they’d missed the right day to take it out, until her words dragged his gaze to her luminous blue eyes.
As the years passed, he tried not to dwell on it. Nothing he could do, no way to change it. Nat’s foresight was inevitable, immutable, destined to happen as forecast. Still, knowing death was impending changed a man’s perspective.
“I saw a lump by the side of the road,” he said. “I thought trash at
first. Figured someone dumped something. And then it moved, so I thought animal—maybe a raccoon? But it didn’t fit. Wrong size, wrong shape. Too small for a bear and dog didn’t make much sense. I was already past it, so I stopped and started to back up, just to check on it.”
He fell silent. He’d already been feeling bad, but not bad-bad, just kind of off. Indigestion, he’d thought. Too much of his gramma’s turkey and stuffing, although they’d eaten dinner at noon, hours earlier. But as he’d turned to look over his shoulder, raising his right arm to rest it on the back of his seat, a sharp stab of pain had broken into his concentration. Gasping, he’d dropped his arm, turning his hand to push on his chest as if pressure would relieve the tension, hunching his shoulders into the hurt.
He’d known then.
It was time.
It was over.
He’d tried to take a deep breath, but could only suck in shallow gasps of air.
“I felt this—pain.” The word seemed entirely inadequate. Pain was a sprained ankle, a broken toe, a bad bruise from a game of touch football that got rough. This was something more like agony. “But then it eased off. It hurt but not so much.”
He’d figured he’d made a weird move. Pulled a muscle, maybe. Or pinched a nerve. The sweat on the back of his neck had cooled rapidly and while he still hadn’t felt well, sort of fuzzy and shaky, the stabbing misery had disappeared as if it had never happened, leaving only the dull grinding pain of his previous indigestion.
“I stopped, got out of the car and then…” He fell silent again. The lump he’d seen had moved, had raised a head. He’d seen the blonde hair, the eyes, and realized he was looking at a child. It made no sense. What was a child doing by the side of the road, this road, after dark on Christmas Day?
But he couldn’t think it through, because the pain had returned, intense and churning. He’d put a hand on the car, bracing himself, hoping the cold metal would break through the fog of agony clouding his vision.
It didn’t.
He could barely feel it. His hands had felt far away, disconnected, almost like they weren’t part of his body any more.