forget the missing babysitter. The Bluesong woman.”
“Seems to me like we’re doing the exact opposite of our jobs. Losing people instead of finding them. I’m not sure I’ve ever gone this far in the wrong direction.”
DJ decided against reminding his partner of all the time they’d wasted that morning chasing puffs of smoke that dissipated faster than the filth coming out of his lungs. “We’re here. We might as well take a look around.”
Barker stood quietly, smoking his cigarette, staring at the house.
“Well?” DJ said.
“Hold your horses. I’m pondering.”
“Pondering what, Barker? We have to do—” DJ stopped mid-sentence as the front door swung open.
The young woman that stumbled out of the doorway and lurched toward them was naked from the waist down, with one strap of white cloth around her left wrist and one on her right ankle. Ripped purple t-shirt. What looked to be a ball gag dangled like a sadistic necklace. Her legs were covered in cuts and bruises that were so prominent, DJ could see them and her black eye from fifteen yards away.
Barker choked on his cigarette smoke, coughed hard.
DJ said, “Holy shit.” He sprinted toward her, shouting back, “Call 9-1-1, Barker. Now!”
“Help me,” she said, and then collapsed on the walkway.
CHAPTER 12
SARA
Sara opened the small box again as the driver headed east in the direction of Gresham and Powell Valley. She had to be sure that what she saw wasn’t a trick of her imagination. Could it be the exhaustion? Was she hallucinating? It was possible. She was empty. Physically to the point of collapsing. Mentally to the point of seeing things that just couldn’t be.
The object inside was a relic of history come to life. It was a memory that had manifested itself into a tangible form. It was the dead rising.
Sara peered inside and immediately regretted looking. It sat motionless, right where it was thirty seconds earlier, daring her to pick it up and feel what was really there.
Brian’s wedding ring. It’s not possible.
She reached into the box and pinched the ring, pulled it out and examined it in the light. The thick band of hammered tungsten felt cool on her fingertips. The tinted windows made it harder to see, but it looked like Brian’s. She held it by the outside, tilting it this way and that until she was able to get a better glimpse of the interior. She didn’t want it to be true, but it was.
The inscription read:
Forever Yours – SLW
A storm surge of emotions—anger and frustration and hope—rushed over her body, plowing their way through like a ten-foot-high wall of water over shoreline streets. It tore what remained of her stability to splinters, ripping it from the foundation, grinding it into shards of unrecognizable flotsam before it retreated and dragged her sanity with it.
She inhaled as deep as her constricted lungs would allow and let loose a banshee scream toward the front of the car. The driver ducked and swerved. She pounded the metal grating between them with her fists, rattling the cage. She wrapped her fingers through the holes and shook and shook and shook, pulling and pulling, trying to rip it free so she could claw at the driver’s eyes, wrap her fingers around his neck until he couldn’t breathe, or reach inside his chest and rip out his beating heart.
When he didn’t turn around, when he didn’t acknowledge her, when he did nothing more than click on his blinker to make a left turn, it unleashed a level of fury so deep that Sara began to feel cramps forming in the arches of her feet. She screamed. She raged. She pounded the metal grating until her knuckles bled. She shouted, “Who are you? Why are you doing this? Where did you get my husband’s ring?”
On and on she went, screaming every question she could think of, every question that had plagued her since early that morning. She knew her
“Seems to me like we’re doing the exact opposite of our jobs. Losing people instead of finding them. I’m not sure I’ve ever gone this far in the wrong direction.”
DJ decided against reminding his partner of all the time they’d wasted that morning chasing puffs of smoke that dissipated faster than the filth coming out of his lungs. “We’re here. We might as well take a look around.”
Barker stood quietly, smoking his cigarette, staring at the house.
“Well?” DJ said.
“Hold your horses. I’m pondering.”
“Pondering what, Barker? We have to do—” DJ stopped mid-sentence as the front door swung open.
The young woman that stumbled out of the doorway and lurched toward them was naked from the waist down, with one strap of white cloth around her left wrist and one on her right ankle. Ripped purple t-shirt. What looked to be a ball gag dangled like a sadistic necklace. Her legs were covered in cuts and bruises that were so prominent, DJ could see them and her black eye from fifteen yards away.
Barker choked on his cigarette smoke, coughed hard.
DJ said, “Holy shit.” He sprinted toward her, shouting back, “Call 9-1-1, Barker. Now!”
“Help me,” she said, and then collapsed on the walkway.
CHAPTER 12
SARA
Sara opened the small box again as the driver headed east in the direction of Gresham and Powell Valley. She had to be sure that what she saw wasn’t a trick of her imagination. Could it be the exhaustion? Was she hallucinating? It was possible. She was empty. Physically to the point of collapsing. Mentally to the point of seeing things that just couldn’t be.
The object inside was a relic of history come to life. It was a memory that had manifested itself into a tangible form. It was the dead rising.
Sara peered inside and immediately regretted looking. It sat motionless, right where it was thirty seconds earlier, daring her to pick it up and feel what was really there.
Brian’s wedding ring. It’s not possible.
She reached into the box and pinched the ring, pulled it out and examined it in the light. The thick band of hammered tungsten felt cool on her fingertips. The tinted windows made it harder to see, but it looked like Brian’s. She held it by the outside, tilting it this way and that until she was able to get a better glimpse of the interior. She didn’t want it to be true, but it was.
The inscription read:
Forever Yours – SLW
A storm surge of emotions—anger and frustration and hope—rushed over her body, plowing their way through like a ten-foot-high wall of water over shoreline streets. It tore what remained of her stability to splinters, ripping it from the foundation, grinding it into shards of unrecognizable flotsam before it retreated and dragged her sanity with it.
She inhaled as deep as her constricted lungs would allow and let loose a banshee scream toward the front of the car. The driver ducked and swerved. She pounded the metal grating between them with her fists, rattling the cage. She wrapped her fingers through the holes and shook and shook and shook, pulling and pulling, trying to rip it free so she could claw at the driver’s eyes, wrap her fingers around his neck until he couldn’t breathe, or reach inside his chest and rip out his beating heart.
When he didn’t turn around, when he didn’t acknowledge her, when he did nothing more than click on his blinker to make a left turn, it unleashed a level of fury so deep that Sara began to feel cramps forming in the arches of her feet. She screamed. She raged. She pounded the metal grating until her knuckles bled. She shouted, “Who are you? Why are you doing this? Where did you get my husband’s ring?”
On and on she went, screaming every question she could think of, every question that had plagued her since early that morning. She knew her
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